Politische Ideen im Russland des 18. Jahrhunderts. Ihre Geschichte im Zusammenhang mit der allgemeinen Entwicklung der russischen Kultur und Politik by Aleksandr S. Lappo-Danilevskii Istoriia politicheskikh idei v Rossii v XVIII veke v sviazi s obshchim khodom razvitiia ee kul'tury i politiki by A. S. Lappo-Danilevskii (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 725 and successful female professionals', while the second set 'depict[s] desperate, angry, and confused men, violent young Russian males occupying a transi tory niche in the new symbolic order, and victimized young women' (P- 197) While Hashamova identifies a change in the recent depiction of gender roles, Luc Beaudoin asserts thatRussian gay identity looks to thepast ? and specifically the Silver Age and itsadmixture of 'malemasochism, gay identity, and Russian identity' ? for a model (p. 229). Beaudoin asserts a fundamental incompatibility between the gay community in contemporary Russia and the 'current consumerist, gendered, nationalistic structure of the Russian Federation' (p. 235). In conclusion, thisvolume convincingly linksgender and national identity via engaging and provocative essays. The disciplinary diversity,while poten tiallypresenting a special challenge of unity to the editors, allows a dialogue among the essays that is reinforced by the valuable cross-references in the text of the articles and the thorough, content-rich introduction. Sewanee:The Universityof theSouth Elizabeth Skomp Lappo-Danilevskii, Aleksandr S. PolitischeIdem imRussland des 18.Jahrhunderts. Ihre Geschichteim^jusammenhangmit der allgemeinen Entwicklungder russischen Kultur und Politik. Aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben von Marina Ju. Sorokina unter Mitwirkung von Konstantin Ju. Lappo-Danilevskii. Mit einer Einftihrung von Marina Ju. Sorokina. // Lappo-Danilevskii, A. S. Istoriiapoliticheskikh idei vRossii vXVIII vekev sviazi s obshchim khodom razvitiia ee kuVturyi politiki. Predislovie M. Iu. Sorokinoi. Podgotovka teksta M. Iu. Sorokinoi pri uchastii K. Iu. Lappo-Danilevskogo. Bausteine zur Slavischen Philologie und Kulturgeschichte, N.F., Reihe A, Bd. 51. Bohlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2005. xxxii + 462 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Name index. 54.90. The double tide page of this volume may blur the fact that it is a Russian language text; and despite the title its coverage of the eighteenth century is very slight.This is the firstof two volumes: this one covers the seventeenth century and Ivan Pososhkov, the second when published will deal with the eighteenth century proper. 'The History of Political Ideas inRussia' was a principal research project of the major pre-revolutionary Russian historian A. S. Lappo-Danilevskii. Largely completed in draft by 1907, itspublication was held up by the author's perfectionism, then by his early death in 1919. Repeated subsequent publication attempts by his admirers, including Frank Golder in theUSA, were thwarted by the difficult circumstances of the time and, finally, by his posthumous excommunication in the Soviet Union as a bourgeois idealist. Members of the archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been planning publication since the 1980s. The firstchapters appeared under a slightlydifferent titlefromNauka publishers in 1990;when finished, the current edition will complete fullpublication. Lappo-Danilevskii has been the subject of increasing scholarly interest in recent years, most 726 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 notably in the work of E. Rostovtsev, A. S. Lappo-Danilevskii i peterburgskaia istoricheskaiashkola (Riazan', 2004). M. Sorokina's good introduction here provides a biographical sketch and characterization ofLappo-Danilevskii; she explains thework's origins, rationale and structure, and highlights his use of extensive, often self-contained footnotes. Lappo-Danilevskii's project arose from a conviction that eighteenth-century Russian development held the keys to understanding urgent contemporary problems: 'in the eighteenth century were tied those knotswhich the present time has had to unravel or tangle up stillfurther.On our understanding of that time depends a great deal, in both the present and the future; but it remains almost unknown' (quoted p. xvii). Unlike P. N. Miliukov in his Ocherkipo istoriirusskoi kul'tury, written just before (1896- ),which followed the 'state' school of history-writing in attempting a survey of all public Russian institutions, Lappo-Danilevskii focused on the 'development of popular self-consciousness', on the growth of individual identityand the 'personal principle' (p. xix), and on the struggle of competing ideas. Closer examination of the origins of new ideas in the eighteenth century led him back into the sixteenth and seventeenth and the conflicting influence of Catholic and Protestant thought entering Muscovy from its Western neighbours, particularly Poland and Ukraine: itwas ideas influenced by religious perspectives which most 'facilitated the implanting inRussia of new principles of social and political life' (p. 5). The book seeks to examine the impact of such ideas inRussia, investigating their presence...