Die russisch-nationale Rechte von 1968 bis zum Ende der Sowjetunion: eine Diskursanalyse by Hildegard s> Kochanek (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 375 the writingsofJan Myrdal, himselfin protestagainstthe patronizingpower of his elders. The Maoists spoke for a Third Worldism, regarding which they mistakenly thought Mao's China had the answer. Within their own Finnish society, this made of the Maoists, marginalized as they were, a bit of a Third Force. But only a bit. Mauno Koivisto, that solid piece of Finnicism, called this sortof thing anarchism,but an anarchismwithout the grace of its original doctrines. He describedit as 'thewind troubleof the overfedclasses'. Kastari's work contains a fine set of illustrations. There is an excellent Englishsummary,unfortunatelyunattributed. Universityof Turku,Finland GEORGE MAUDE Kochanek, Hildegard. Die russisch-nationale Rechtevon1968 bis zumEndeder Sowjetunion. eineDiskursanalyse. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des 6stlichen Europa, 54. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart, I999. 3I4 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. DMI 24.0o (paperback). HILDEGARD KOCHANEK'S study of both official and unofficial Russian nationalismbetween I968 and I99I is a milestone, particularlyfor a German readership. Geared strongly to the history of ideas, the study attempts to retrace the development of the nationalistdiscourseover the last two decades of the Soviet Union and to uncover the intellectual foundations of these writings and debates, most of which reach back to the nineteenth century. The argumentsof the official,semi-officialand dissidentnationalistdiscourse, which in the author'sview are often farfrom comprehensible, are thusplaced in their context in the historyof ideas and made more accessible to debate in the West. In keeping with this dual approach the chapters on significant developmentsin the nationalistdiscourseareeach accompaniedor introduced by excursionsin the historyof ideas. The four main chapters of the book expound the connections between (i) village prose and the 'native soil' movement (pochvennichestvo); (ii) the neoSlavophiles and the early Slavophiles;(iii) the special anti-capitalistpath and the social philosophy of Vladimir Solov'ev and Sergei N. Bulgakov;and (iv) Russia's New Right and Eurasianism and the late nineteenth-century Slavophiles Danilevskii and Leont'ev. Detailed accounts of this ideology's reception and the ensuing debates, some of which were very controversial,are given in separate sub-sections, and it is particularlypraiseworthythat ample space has been devoted to this. The most impressiveof these interestingand detailed descriptions is that of the 'native soil' debate, whose ideological controversies culminated in the 'Molodaia Gvardiia affair', a bitter quarrel between conservativenationalistand liberalliterarycritics. In the introductionKochaneck dealsin particularwithJohn Dunlop's book 7TheFaces of Contemporary RussianNationalism(Princeton, NJ, I983) and AlexanderYanov's 7heRussian NewRight. RightWing Ideologies intheContemporary USSR(Berkeley,CA, I978), both of which make a fundamentalcontribution to understandingthe period under consideration. Forunderstandablereasons Kochanek criticizesboth Dunlop's problematic positive evaluation of culturally dissident Russian nationalism and the classification of the nationalist 376 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 spectrum which this assessment is based on and which is conceptually often vague. For example, Dunlop and others are often indiscriminate in their application of the label 'national Bolshevik' to any form of pro-state nationalism the lack of historicalqualificationand conceptual clarityrobs the term of any precision. Kochanek stands closer to Yanov's thesis that dissident and official nationalism tended to converge and pursue rapprochement , which is historicallydemonstrable, but in line with her own theory she does not attempt to elaborate distinguishablenotions to use for a typology of nationalisms.Rather, she devotes herselfentirelyto the historyof ideas and to uncovering the connections of the nationalist discourse within it. The study reveals crucial weaknesses here because the author's discourse fixation hampersthe recognition of differencesbetween individualgroups,or between dissident and official nationalism. This is particularlyproblematical because there is no real clarityas to what source materialwas consulted or neglected, and forwhat reasons.In a sweeping statementthe authorclaimsthatthe study includes 'both Samizdat materialand materialpublishedlegallyin the media' (p. I9), but upon closer inspection the selection proves to be questionable important representativesof both areas are not included. This is particularly conspicuous with the official 'anti-Zionist' literature an exceedingly productive genre which reached its climax precisely in the period the study deals with which the author does not present at all. It would have been interesting and rewarding to compare this very real anti-Semitism of the authorities with that of the dissidents and village writers and thus pose the general question as to the status of anti-Semitism within the nationalist discourse;unfortunatelythe authoronly dealswith...