Lev Gumilev: The Ideologist of the Soviet Empire

Summary

Russian intellectuals like to appeal to examples of foreign history. Lev Gumilev's views on history are a good example. Gumilev was one of the most well-known representatives of Eurasianism, which was in turn one of the most interesting intellectual constructs in Russian historiography. Gumilev believed that Russia was born not from Kievan Rus—the view of the majority of Russian historians of his time—but from the empire of the Mongols. While Gumilev saw Europe as a hostile entity to Russia/Eurasia, this was not the case with the neo-Eurasianists of the Yeltsin era. This article examines Gumilev's Eurasianism and its influence on modern Russian national identity.     

ON A BIOLOGICAL-GEOGRAPHIC CONCEPTION OF ETHNIC HISTORY

A critique of L. N. Gumilev's model of ethnic development, treating mankind largely as a biological species and attributing the origins and disappearance of ethnic communities to biological factors, including a psychic innate drive that is presented as the key element in the generation of new ethnic entities. The author insists that ethnic communities are social, rather than biological categories, and that, in accordance with historical materialism, social, rather than biological, aspects are decisive in all forms of social life. Gumilev's view that interethnic mixing tends to undermine the viability of ethnic communities is also disputed. The author asserts that interethnic marriage is a positive trend, noting that interethnic families in the Soviet Union rose from 10 percent in 1959 to 13.5 in 1970.     

Festschrift

By working largely unaware of the huge literature in anthropology and certain other social sciences on ethnogenesis, Western cultural/historical and ethnic geographers remain aside from the mainstream in this inquiry and in fact do not address the topic as often as one might expect. Anthropologists have dominated ethnogenetic research for decades in North America. We further marginalize our work on ethnogenesis by ignoring completely the work of the Russian Leo Gumilev, a fellow geographer who devoted his career to the study of this subject. I le remains virtually unknown in the West in spite of English translations of a number of his works. This neglect of the works of anthropologists and Gumilev leads Western geographers to deal with ethnogenesis infrequently and somewhat naively. Hie authors suggest that by becoming familiar with these valuable sources and by applying existing, well-developed cultural geographical themes and concepts, such as homeland, diffusion, landscape, preadaptation, and incremental change, Western cultural geographers can more abundantly and significantly join the debate on ethnogenesis, building upon Gumilev's foundation and offering a humanistic, particularistic, and holistic alternative perspective largely absent in anthropological and other nongeographical studies.     

On the Anthropogenic Factor in Landscape Formation (Landscape and Ethnos VII)

In attempting to classify anthropogenic factors of landscape formation, Gumilev rejects Arnold Toynbee's concept of challenge and response as the factors underlying the genesis of civilizations on the ground that it ignores the factor of ethnic differentiation. Gumilev finds that the principal changes introduced by man into the landscape are associated with certain short-term periods of superhuman effort that coincide with intensive processes of ethnogenesis. This intensive activity is followed by a damping inertia that leads ultimately to a new equilibrium between the ethnos and the environment until the next upsurge of activity.     

ABDULLAH BIN ABDUL KADIR MUNSYI: A MAN OF BANANAS AND THORNS

Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi is best known for his memoirs, labelled by some his autobiography, the Hikayat Abdullah. The missionary, Alfred North, encouraged him to write his life story, a first in Malay, and it has been assumed that Abdullah, working in a new genre, was relatively faithful to the conventions of the genre; that at the very least, he was attempting to produce a tolerably straightforward account of his life and times. Both his admirers and detractors, though seemingly at odds, saw Abdullah's work as a mouthpiece for British values. It did not occur to scholars that Abdullah might possess his own agenda, and that his working in a foreign genre did not necessarily produce what those scholars assumed it did. This has produced a blinkered understanding of what Abdullah was about. His supreme aim was to enhance his own image and stature. Production of ‘historical’ facts was sometimes a secondary concern. ‘Fiction’ and ‘nonfiction’ were not yet established conventions in his literary milieu. He worked under major constraints, for his livelihood depended on not alienating patrons and future patrons, yet he devised ways to air views critical of the powerful. Here he was much more concerned with Islamic issues than ethnic ones.     

Philosophy,Sociability and Modern Patriotism: Young Herder between Rousseau and Abbt

Summary

In his early years Herder is known to have been a follower of Rousseau (via Kant). This article argues that there was indeed a substantial overlap between Herder's and Rousseau's ideas in Herder's early writings, particularly in terms of their joint critique of abstract philosophy and their understanding of the sentimental foundations of morality, as well as their commitment to the ideals of human moral independence and political freedom. Yet Herder's admiration for Rousseau's moral philosophy did not lead him to adopt Rousseau's critique of sociability even in this early period, and there was in fact a deep divergence between their political views. Herder attempted to combine a Rousseauian cultural critique, ‘human’ moral philosophy and philosophy of education with ideas inspired by Thomas Abbt's theory of monarchical patriotism. In contrast to Rousseau, and following Abbt, Herder posited the existence of natural patriotic feelings and underlined their importance in guaranteeing good government and political freedom. Thus, Herder could have a relatively optimistic view of the role of ‘human philosophy’ in regenerating patriotism in a modern setting. Herder embraced Abbt's emphasis on the positive aspects of modern monarchies and ‘modern liberty’ when compared to ancient republics, highlighting the compatibility of Christianity, international commerce and religious tolerance, and the general possibility of developing one's natural inclinations in modern monarchies.     

2. IN DEFENSE OF PROVINCIALIZING EUROPE: A RESPONSE TO CAROLA DIETZE

This response to Carola Dietze's critique of Provincializing Europe takes up for examination three key expressions or ideas on which the original argument of the book was founded: hyperreal Europe, historicism, and political modernity. I appreciate the spirit of Dietze's engagement with the book, but I show that her critique is based on a degree of misapprehension of these three central ideas. While clarifying the details and the degree of my disagreement with Dietze, I provide my own critique of Dietze's proposal of “equal histories” by arguing that Dietze has not named or explained the unit with respect to which different histories could be considered equal. I also argue that Dietze's proposals about judging societies only by their “own” standards, and basing human dignity on the idea of a “human nature” that could be seen as a “constant,” do not solve the problems she sees with my book and are themselves open to some serious historical and logical criticism.     

Rousseau’s reception as an Epicurean: from atheism to aesthetics

ABSTRACT

What did Rousseau's readers mean when they called him an ‘Epicurean’? A seemingly simple question with complex implications. This article attempts to answer it by reconstructing Rousseau's contemporary reception as an Epicurean thinker. First, it surveys the earliest and most widely read critics of the second Discourse: Prussian Astronomer Royal Jean de Castillon, Jesuit priest Louis Bertrand Castel, and Hanoverian biblical scholar Hermann Samuel Reimarus. These readers branded Rousseau an Epicurean primarily to highlight his atheism, his anti-providential and materialist natural philosophy. Then, it discusses Genevan pastor Jacob Vernet's positive assessment of Rousseau as a critic of ‘fashionable’ Epicureanism, before reconstructing Rousseau's critique of the reception of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man as an Epicurean text. These sources elucidate Rousseau's engagement with a range of ideas and argumentative positions that would inform his later self-identification as a ‘refined’ Epicurean. In particular, they highlight his interest in how a sentimental awareness of beauty might mitigate the potentially vicious effects of hedonism. The article concludes with novelist Mme. de Genlis’ critique of Rousseau's Wise Materialism, using his thoughts on the imagination to suggest some of the ways the neglected aesthetic dimensions of Rousseau's reception of Epicureanism might be developed.     

‘A Wagner for the Jews’: Moses Pergament,Richard Wagner and anti-Semitism in Swedish cultural life in the interwar period

This article deals with the Finnish-Swedish, Jewish composer and author Moses Pergament and his relationship with Wagner's theories, anti-Semitism in particular, and their influence on the development of modern Swedish classical music during the interwar period. The author emphasizes the importance of recognizing that Pergament's reaction to Wagner's cultural theories was part and parcel of his struggle for assimilation. The basis of Pergament's interpretation of Wagner was the notion that it is possible to separate life and belief: the anti-Semitism and enthusiastic lechery were part of Wagner's life, to which it was not necessary to attach much importance. The beliefs, on the other hand, were there to be analysed. Furthermore, an explicit and public critique of Wagner's anti-Semitism was inconsistent with an attempt to gain a foothold in Swedish cultural life. As Wagner's anti-Semitism was well known but was deemed either acceptable or irrelevant, paying attention to it was by definition proof of a Jewish identification. To be accepted as a Swedish music critic, Pergament had to follow the unwritten rules of the game, amongst them the requirement not to exhibit his ‘Jewishness’ openly. The actions of certain members of Föreningen Svenska Tonsättare (FST, the Association of Swedish Composers) indicate that Pergament's work was not thought to indicate a Swedish identification. On the contrary, his reviews were seen as a threat to ‘Swedish music’, and with implicit references to Wagner this was attributed to Pergament's supposed lack of feeling for the ‘spirit of the Swedish people’.     

The Father's Success and the Son's Failure: Explaining the Growth of Lebanon's Resistance to Syria's Invisible Occupation

In the 15‐year period since the Syrian military entry into Lebanon on June 1, 1976, allegedly to put an end to the civil war that broke out there a year earlier, Syria firmly solidified its control of the country, as evidenced by the signing of the “Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination between Syria and Lebanon,” on May 22, 1991, which granted Syria a special status. Yet, 14 years later, on April 24, 2005, the Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon. This article seeks to explain this relatively rapid decline in Syria's standing in Lebanon by examining the strategies of the two Syrian rulers who indirectly controlled this country during those years. It examines what was right in Hafiz al‐Asad's strategy in Lebanon, and what did not work in Bashar's policy. In 2000, the year of Hafiz al‐Asad's death, Syria's status in Lebanon seemed unshakable: 1) Lebanon's president (Emile Lahoud) acted as Damascus's puppet; 2) Hezbollah, the Shi‘a militia Hezbollah largely accepted Syria's authority while it simultaneously tightened its control over southern Lebanon and also began gaining popularity in the rest of the country; and 3) finally the politics of the noble families, which had characterized Lebanon since its establishment, began to gradually give way to a politics where a political figure is measured by the level of his connections to the country's power base in Damascus. Yet, merely five years later, Syria was under immense pressure to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. This suggests that we must look at the difference between the strategies of Hafiz al‐Asad and his son Bashar for controlling Lebanon to better understand the rapid deterioration in Syria's standing in the country. We argue that the difference in the degree of anti‐Syrian pressures from Lebanon's society and political elements between the two tenures is largely rooted in the different strategies that the two Syrian presidents adopted for informally ruling Lebanon. We identify three main areas where Bashar al‐Asad made mistakes due to his failure to continue his father's methods. First, Bashar put all his cards on Hezbollah, thus antagonizing all the other groups which resented that Shi‘a dominance. Second, in stark contrast to his father, Bashar distanced himself from the regular management of Lebanon's ethnic politics. Hafiz al‐Asad made sure that all the leaders of the different ethnic groups would visit Damascus and update him on their inter‐ethnic conflicts, and then he would be the one who would either arbitrate between them or, for expediency reasons, exacerbate these feuds. Once the ethnic leaders had to manage without Damascus, they learned to get along, making him far less indispensable for the running of the country. Finally, Bashar, unlike his father, did not make a real effort to gain international and regional legitimacy (or at least de‐facto acceptance) for Syria's continued control over Lebanon. Most conspicuously, while Hafiz participated in the First Gulf War against Iraq, his son supported Sunni rebels who fought against the United States‐led coalition forces there. This foreign acquiescence was significant since the Lebanese felt they had a backing when they demanded Syria's withdrawal in 2005. These different strategic approaches of the two rulers meant that the father's policies wisely laid the ground for some of the most controversial measures which were needed as part of any attempt to monopolize control over another country, such as Lebanon (assassinating popular but too independent‐minded Lebanese presidents/prime ministers or extending tenures of loyalist ones), whereas the son's policies myopically failed to do so properly. Indeed, the article will show that while both the father and the son took these same controversial measures, the responses of the Lebanese were completely different. Admittedly, some historical developments increased the Lebanese propensity to rise up against Syria, and these meant that Bashar did in fact face a harder task than his father in maintaining Syria's informal occupation. The Israeli withdrawal from its so‐called “security zone” in south Lebanon meant that one justification for the Syrian presence was gone. More importantly, the risk of renewed eruption of the civil war (which in turn had meant for many years a greater willingness by the locals to tolerate the Syrian presence which prevented the war's resumption) declined significantly due to a variety of processes that could not have been halted even with better “management” of the interethnic strife from Damascus (i.e., making sure that the ethnic groups remained in deep conflict with each other). Nevertheless, as we will show, Bashar's mistakes played a crucial role in bringing the rival ethnic groups together by making Damascus their joint enemy.     

R.I.P. Paul the Octopus http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

During the 2010 football World Cup, Paul the Octopus became a global celebrity. From his aquarium tank in Oberhausen, Germany, he predicted with 100% accuracy the outcome of eight World Cup matches in a row. In acknowledgement of his striking achievement, German aquarium authorities built Paul the first‐ever octopus memorial after his death. Curiously, Paul's popularity crossed over into countries that are not known footballing nations. One possible explanation for this is that his uncanny knowledge of the outcome of future events resonated with an audience sensitive to the uncertainties and risks of high modernity. Another explanation draws on Michael Jackson's work among diviners in Sierra Leone. I argue that Paul's prophecies created ‘fields of relationship’ that transcended national as well as ethnic divides, both within Germany and globally.     

Jacob Talmon between Zionism and Cold War Liberalism

The paper focuses on the problematic relationship between Talmon's liberalism and Zionism. My argument is that Talmon's nationalism (Zionism included)—historicist, romantic, visionary—lived in permanent tension with his liberalism—empiricist, pluralist, pragmatic. His critique of totalitarian democracy, reflecting his British experience, emerged independently from his Zionism, grounded in Central European nationalism. The two represented different worlds. Talmon lived in both, serving as an ambassador in-between them, without ever bringing them together.

The essay's first section describes the political education of the young Jacob Talmon (née Flajszer) and the making of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. It demonstrates the independence of Talmon's Cold War liberal project from his Zionism. The second section places Talmon in the context of Cold War liberal discourse, showing how integral his critique of revolutionary politics was to contemporary liberalism. The third illustrates the tensions between Talmon's view of Jewish history and his liberalism, between his Zionism and his critique of revolutionary politics. Focusing on Talmon's analyses of nationalism, it highlights the ambiguity of his Zionism.     

The modernity of nations. A tribute to Walker Connor

To fully appreciate Walker Connor's contribution to the foundation of the contemporary study of nationalism, two main factors must be taken into account. First, the context of positivist behavioural political science within which in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, he articulated his critique of the concept of nation‐building. In this context, Connor emerged as a critic of the limitations and the naivité of positivist modernization theory. His dissenting voice called for critical rethinking and revision of the central concepts of the theory of political development, some of which enjoyed almost doctrinal status. Second, despite his criticism of modernization theory, Connor retained a strong conviction that nations and national sentiment were the products of modernity; indeed, in his judgement, they formed the primary content of modernity. This too was a critical stance within the rising tide of nationalism studies since 1989–1990, when ideology and wishful thinking influenced to a considerable extent the interpretation of nationalism. Walker Connor's intellectual legacy should thus be understood as a heritage of critical thought that is informed by a noteworthy awareness of the moral responsibilities of scholarly analysis.     

The Role of Faith in Historical Research

The implied strategy and the history projected in the new book of Jens Bruun Kofoed, Text and History, fails to measure up to the critical principles of both theology and science established by Thomas Acquinas' centuries' old distinction between faith and reason. An apologetic intention in Kofoed's book attempts to demonstrate that the biblical history of his evangelical faith is not unreasonable. Thomas Thompson, on the other hand, thinks it is necessary to hold the line between faith and science, which St. Thomas drew some seven centuries ago. What Kofoed argues in an effort to project a history of Israel, which would be an alternative to that of the “Copenhagen school” is not science. Nor are his rules of evidence those that the world of secular history requires. Led by an apologetic rhetoric and understanding of historical argument, Kofoed's revised Århus dissertation is dominated by a critique of the “Copenhagen school,” which attempts to show that an alternative answer is not impossible. Although emphasizing the historical methods of Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche in his critique, Kofoed neglects to include in his discussion their discussions of method or, in Lemche's case, anything he has written before 1991. His understanding of their dependency on the Annales school is clearly mistaken as is his understanding of the debates about the relationship between historicity, genre and composition. Finally, his discussion of the comparative method is misleading and ill informed.     

The model of ethnic democracy: Response to Danel

This is a response to Adam Danel's critique of my model of ethnic democracy. Danel argues that the model fails as an ideal type and as a comparative tool because ethnic democracy does not exist anywhere. I show, however, that there are indeed quite a few cases of ethnic democracy, although some are partial and some historical, including Estonia, Latvia, Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1972, Macedonia from 1991 to 2001, interwar Poland, Slovakia, and Malaysia. Danel does not address the real functions of the model as a theory of the emergence and stability of ethnic democracy and as a conceptual scheme for the comparative study of ethnic democracies. The theory accounts for the developments of ethnic democracy in these states and for the conditions for its success and failure. Danel also tries to show that Israel is a Western liberal democracy by overstressing its liberal traits and the non-liberal characteristics of Western democracies. I argue that Israel's ideology, design, policies, and practices as the homeland of the Jewish people, most of whom are not its citizens, and as the “property” of the Israeli-Jewish majority, means that it has a second-rate ethnic democracy and as a state and society does not qualify as Western.     

The Concept of Corruption in J.G.A. Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment

SUMMARY

In the scholarship on the concept of political corruption, one frequently encounters the lamentation that the manner in which the concept is deployed in liberal modernity is insufficiently attuned to the richer sense in which the term was employed in the ‘civic humanist’ tradition. In these lamentations, the usual point of reference is J.G.A. Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment, a work that made corruption the central term of art in a political language stretching from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century and beyond. Certainly there is something quite attractive today about the ‘Machiavellian’ inflection of the term—our era is replete with the very things the protagonists of Pocock's story decried: debt, dependency, oligarchy, standing armies and the diminution of civic duties. But to what extent is Pocock's classic text a reliable guide for those studying the concept of corruption? This article suggests that Pocock uses the term in an excessively capacious manner, which both weakens his book's utility for understanding eighteenth-century political thought and undermines its power as a foundation for political critique by civic-minded anti-corruption reformers.     

Narratives and Their Contexts: A Critique of Greger Andersson with Respect to Narrative Autonomy

Greger Andersson's 2001 monograph represents a significant contribution to current thinking regarding the book of Judges because it contains what may be the first systematic critique of the synchronic approach that has dominated Judges studies in recent years. Unfortunately, the two main theses upon which Andersson based his critique, namely, that narratives are autonomous and that they are resistant to reworking, may not in themselves be sustainable. For not only are there counter-examples to dispute the claim that narratives are resistant to reworking, it also appears that Andersson has overreached in his attempt to impose an overly restrictive view of non-referentiality and narrative autonomy on all narratives.     

Ideology and the ‘Liberation of Theology’: The Role of Critique in Juan Luis Segundo and Slavoj Žižek

The turn to religion within critical theory has brought the critique of ideology back into theological view. This essay examines the relation of theology to ideology in the liberation theology of Juan Luis Segundo. Segundo's key contribution is his use of the concept of ideology as an efficacious force in theological work in service to poor communities. I argue that the critical and political force of Segundo's theology is dulled by this neutral use of ideology critique. This may be ameliorated by consulting Slavoj ?i?ek's negative use of Christianity as ideology critique. Without endorsing ?i?ek over Segundo, I propose that ?i?ek's critical use of political theology can help liberation theology reengage the role of negativity and critique in the immanent relation of theory and praxis.     

4. NEOLIBERALISM THROUGH FOUCAULT'S EYES

Michael Foucault's 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on the birth of biopolitics are increasingly read as the most lucid introduction to neoliberal policies. This article invites us to be cautious about such claims by exploring one rather obvious point: these lectures also—and perhaps most important—reflect Foucault's very distinctive and contemporary preoccupations. In 1978, Foucault wrote and thought about three topics that were, in his view, crucial: the idea of “critique” and the influence of Kant; Foucault's project for an “analytical philosophy of politics”; and the crisis of disciplinary society, notably as it related to sexuality. This paper shows that these preoccupations had a profound impact on Foucault's interest in neoliberalism. As a result, the interpretation of the neoliberal revolution proposed in these brilliant lectures is, if not idiosyncratic, at the very least highly partial.