Fundamental Myths Research Articles

“Excluded from Memory”: The Question of Passing Down National History

This article considers the (partial) “exclusion” or “self-exclusion” of the “complex heritage” descendants from the “inheritance” of the official narratives of national history. As a rule, such discourses rely on antagonistic logic. In the article, the idea of “complex heritage” descendants denotes people whose family history includes both representatives of mutually exclusive groups (from the point of view of different public discourses of memory). When any single discourse is dominant in the public space or in a competition between antagonistic discourses of national history, descendants of “complex heritage” must independently cope with the emerging internal tension and discomfort (if they arise). In this article, in the context of common European trends, the author shows and analyses different options for such reactions with reference to competing discourses of national history in Russia, i. e., “Triumph” (Victory in the Great Patriotic War) and “Tragedy” (the era of political repression), as well as the most massive public practice of memory dedicated to the Great Patriotic War heroes: the civil event known as the “Immortal Regiment”. The analysis refers to forty indepth interviews conducted by the author in 2021–2023 with descendants of the repressed from the third, fourth, and further generations (as well as those who fought and showed themselves differently in the past). The author relies on the concept of antagonistic memory, supplemented by the ideas of Ts. Todorov on the principles of working with the “difficult past”, the theory of post-memory by M. Hirsch and others. As a result of the research, the author draws the following conclusions: first, the experience of “exclusion” from national history due to the lack of blood ancestors that give the right for “inclusion” into the “fundamental myth of the nation” really exists; second, in the conditions of (even unequal) competition of antagonistic discourses, the descendants of the “complex heritage” find themselves constrained between the narrow limits of each of them. At the same time, the need to meet externally set criteria and the impossibility of doing this lead to resistance to the imposed public antagonistic models of understanding the past; finally, those “excluded” from national history in one or different interpretations thereof, the descendants collect, preserve, and transmit their family histories as “heritage” in the full diversity and inconsistency, as life itself, and the circumstances in which their ancestors were placed.

13. Transfigurations and Interferences of the Ballad Master Builder Manole with the Opera Genre. Choral Polychromies

Abstract One of the fundamental myths of the Romanian literature, Master Builder Manole had various approaches in the opera genre. On individual stylistic paths as musical language and show formula, Alfred Mendelssohn, Gheorghe Dumitrescu, and Sigismund Toduță reinterpreted the myth of the human sacrifice, in an extremely nuanced approach of the transfiguration of the ancient folklore. The choral inserts are polychromatic, having different forms and formulas: men choir, female choir, mixed choir, choral conglomerations. The three composers wrote a romantic music, in terms of content, and a classic one, in terms of the formal elements themselves.

Alberto Savinio and the Myth of Babel: Homecoming, Genealogies, and Translation in Hermaphrodito

ABSTRACT This article approaches Alberto Savinio’s multifaceted oeuvre by interpreting his avant-garde novel Hermaphrodito (1918) through its epistemological, linguistic, and political implications. Hermaphrodito challenges the identification between languages and peoples by radicalising Nietzsche’s etymological research begun in The Genealogy of Morals (1887). Through the autobiographical yet fantastic narrative of his ‘homecoming’ to his native Greece during World War I, Savinio reveals the neglected ontological multiplicity at the core of Western civilisation, questioning one of its fundamental myths – the original unity of languages represented by the world before the Tower of Babel, a world in which translation was not needed. While realising at the end of the novel that ‘home is the real enigma’, Savinio ventures into a linguistic territory where untranslatability defies what Derrida has named ‘the identificatory modality’ between the autobiographical ‘I’ and a singular mother tongue. Savinio’s own reappraisal of Hermaphrodito during World War II parallels his conversion to democratic ideas after a long self-imposed repression of his own diversity. His unorthodox prose illuminates the void of meaning behind the assumed stability of national narratives and gender divides.

Post-Marxist Political Ontology and the Foreclosure of Radical Newness

Much of leftist political philosophy has uncritically accepted the logic of capitalism, which is a logic of conservation that presents itself as a logic of “production.” Many leftist political philosophers subscribe to capitalism’s fundamental myth—that capitalism produces the new. This appearance of proliferation, however, masks an underlying stasis. This article interrogates this trend in the apparently disparate projects of contemporary accelerationism and Jacques Rancière. The accelerationist project of immanence allows for newness only in quantity and not in quality, while Rancière, coming closer to thinking radical newness in his account of politics, forecloses the possibility of a radically emancipatory society. I suggest an open ontology, which Marx offers, provides a better framework for thinking revolutionary newness.

Revolutionary myth of “proletarian dictatorship” in the Soviet constitutional doctrine of 1918 and visual communication

This article is dedicated to representation of the myth of “proletarian dictatorship” in the Soviet constitutionalism. Having emerged in the XIX century, this mythologem experienced certain transformations as a result of targeted work of the party leaders, legal experts and scholars on creating the first Soviet constitution. Later, its ideological content received normative consolidation in legislation. A symbolic reflection of revolutionary myth became the national holidays, demonstrations, cinematography and theatre, banners and other cultural phenomena that contributed to formation of the new civil consciousness. The authors trace the origin of the concept of “proletarian dictatorship”, as well as its further evolution in Lenin’s doctrine on the state. The description of symbolic practices of representation of ideological framework of the Soviet revolutionary regime allows demonstrating the practical implementation of the new type of constitutionalism – the Soviet. The article substantiates the gradual arrangement of the idea of “proletarian dictatorship” as a fundamental myth of the early Soviet State, as well as examines its visual and communicative aspects. The novelty of this historical-legal research is defined by the use of interdisciplinary approach and comprehensive analysis of the Soviet national ideology. The conclusion is made that the legal ideas contained in the Soviet constitutional doctrine proliferate and reproduce through large-scale cultural manifestations that create revolutionary institutions and examples of civil behavior. At the same time, the myth of “proletarian dictatorship” serves as distinct cultural foundation for the new political legal regime that expresses the essence of the Soviet constitutionalism.

“Not Your Grandmother’s Bible”—A Comparative Study of the Biblical Deluge Myth in Film

The biblical story of the Flood, which portrays a humanity worthy of annihilation, is the fundamental myth used by generations of interpreters as they radically criticized the society and culture in which they lived. Accordingly, the Deluge myth’s various versions and interpretations over the years mirror ever-changing cultural dilemmas and values. Our comparative–historic study observes this mirror and how changes in modern Western culture are reflected in it through the analysis of selected films. It exemplifies the representation and evolution of the Deluge myth in cinema from its inception to the present day and demonstrates that the myth’s cinematic adaptation and its infusion with current interpretations turn it into an imminent apocalyptic threat. Apparently, the Flood becomes a relevant concern involving a wide scope of cultural, theological, and ethical issues, e.g., the problem of evil, ecology, the treatment of animals, family values, feminism, the Other, and deification of science and technology.

An unfinished project or the dispute over the reform of higher education continued

This text is a contribution to the discussion on the reform of higher education in Poland. By referring to selected examples, it shows that the planned changes are based on several fundamental myths resulting from the inefficiency of earlier attempts to heal the university system. At the same time, it aims to show why it is necessary to abandon the belief that higher education can be reformed quickly, with little financial outlays, and that the results of the implemented changes can be instant. The text offers also a criticism of the view assuming that the expected changes can be arrived at only through a reform of the law, and that it is possible to transplant solutions functioning in other countries directly to Poland. The presented considerations oppose the position according to which there exist some ideal models of education and research, whose implementation can make it possible to “breed” an ideal scholar. Arguing that education and academic success will always be an outcome of many variables, a critical analysis of selected solutions included in the law on science and higher education has been offered as well.

Mwen sé Charlie: 1 le JT, les Antilles et la représentation d’une réaction “française”

AbstractThis article examines the ways in which the French evening news (the so-called “20 heures”) represented the French reaction to the Charlie Hebdo attacks on 11 January 2015. It highlights the exclusion of the French Caribbean départements from the reporting of the display of national solidarity on channels TF1 and France 2. Through a semiological approach inspired by Roland Barthes’ Mythologies, this article deconstructs the discourse of the 20 heures in order to show that two fundamental myths are disseminated by the French Caribbean’s absence: France’s inability and unwillingness to look beyond the geographic limits of the hexagon (its “hexagonality”), and the Caribbean’s exoticism. This non-representation expands the gap between the Metropole and its American overseas departments, negates those départements’ relevance in French historiography, and delegitimizes the Antilleans’ belonging to the national community.RésuméCet article examine la manière dont a été représentée en janvier 2015 la réaction française aux attentats de Charlie Hebdo. Il relève, dans l’image du moment de solidarité nationale proposée par TF1 et France 2, l’exclusion des départements d’Outremer antillais (Guadeloupe et Martinique). Une approche sémiologique inspirée des Mythologies de Roland Barthes permet de déconstruire ce discours des “20heures” afin de montrer comment cette absence des Antilles est à la fois soutenue et disséminée à travers deux mythes fondamentaux de l’imaginaire collectif français: l’Hexagonalité de la France et l’exotisme des Antilles. Cette non-représentation a pour effet de creuser l’écart existant entre la Métropole et ses départements américains, en niant leur pertinence dans l’historiographie française. Au final elle délégitimise l’appartenance historique des Antillais à la communauté nationale.

“A deed without a name”: Macbeth, the Gunpowder Plot, and terrorism

Terrorism, paradoxically, both speaks and is unspeakable. To the perpetrators, terrorism has a precise and clear message. To its victims, the terrorist act is so horrible it defies language. In this article, I suggest that we can find the origin of this paradigm in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. In his speech to Parliament a few days after the plot was discovered, King James begins by admitting the paradox: “What can I speak of this, I know not; Nay rather, what can I not speak of it? And therefore I must for horror say with the Poet, Vox faucibus haeret” (My voice sticks in my throat). The Folio Macbeth intervenes in the post-Gunpowder Plot era by incorporating the paradox of speakability/unspeakability into the rhetoric of the play. Like the Gunpowder Plot itself, the Captain “cannot tell” whether Macbeth and Banquo “meant to bathe in reeking wounds/Or memorize another Golgotha” (1.2.39-41), and the Weird Sisters engage in “A deed without a name” (4.1.49). This version of the play does not mirror the rhetoric surrounding the Plot in order to participate in the orgy of self-congratulation and anti-Catholicism following its discovery. Rather, in the Folio Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the Gunpowder Plot as a ground for interrogating the fundamental myths of the Stuart dynasty, and his play emphasizes the overlaps between king and traitor, legitimate and illegitimate violence, terrorist, and victim of terrorism. However, the only evidence available for a contemporary performance suggests that the King’s Men used a very different script when they performed the play in 1611, a version that endorses rather than questions Stuart absolutism.

Why Myths in Neoclassical Economics Threaten the World Economy: A Post-Keynesian Manifesto

There is a myth underlying neoclassical economic analysis of a 'Western' economy, which is that in anything but the relatively short run, defined as the length of a business cycle, the economy reaches an equilibrium position determined entirely by supply side factors and unaffected by measures taken to increase aggregate demand during a slump. This myth is not based on any factual analysis, it is simply assumed. It threatens the wellbeing of the world economy because it allows those who hold it to deny there is any need to change the deregulated state of the international financial sector, that caused the global crisis which started in 2007 and the effects of which have persisted ever since. The fundamental myth has a number of corollaries, which are worth calling associated myths. One of the most important is that the composition of spending to increase aggregate demand during a slump is irrelevant, so that it does not matter if the spending is directed towards consumer goods or to increasing physical and human capital. Another is that monetary policy has a more desirable impact on the economy than does fiscal policy. The paper focuses on neo-classical growth theory; comparative static implications are not considered. Finally, the policy implications are discussed.

Argentinian Myths: Semiotics and Cultural Identity

This paper offers a semiotic reading of certain aspects of Argentinian culture and identity. We will analize some of the fundamental myths that are held by tourist when they visit the city of Buenos Aires. Tourists assume the existence of an Argentinian identity and believe it can be found by doing certain things. However cultural identities are nowadays defined by a tension between the local and the global consumption.

Uma boa mãe de família chicana: a práxis cotidiana na série "Brown Angel Mysteries", de Lucha Corpi

As práticas cotidianas marcam presença na série policial Brown Angel Mysteries, da escritora chi­cana Lucha Corpi. Com base na teoria de Michel de Certeau sobre a práxis cotidiana, desenvolvida em A invenção do cotidiano, este artigo propõe­-se a discutir de que modo os usos e fazeres do dia-a-dia, como o trabalho doméstico e os mitos e crenças herdados da tradição mexicana, repre­sentam um meio de opor resistência às práticas socioculturais dominantes, assim como seu papel político como uma tática por meio da qual as co­munidades marginalizadas representadas buscam se (re)apropriar de um espaço cultural, político e socioeconômico, adquirindo novos significados no espaço de confronto entre o centro de poder e a periferia. Por meio da caracterização da protago­nista da série, Gloria Damasco, Lucha Corpi abre o gênero policial à diversidade cultural, oferecendo uma percepção não-eurocêntrica da realidade, que aceita como real o conhecimento que vem de fontes intangíveis como os sonhos, as visões, a intuição e a percepção extra-sensorial. Essas experiências não-racionais se entrelaçam à presença de mitos fundamentais para a cultura e memória chicanas – como La Llorona e La Malinche – para apresentar um enredo policial que subverte a lógica cartesiana da ficção detetivesca tradicional.

Éther 2.0 : Révolutions sans fil

This article draws on a theoretical distinction between the concepts of “promise” and “myth” to explore the discourses on wireless technology bearing on each. Out of the wireless cult, we have retained two fundamental myths that are constantly and complexly intertwined in the promises of the wireless: the Greek myth of Theseus and the cosmogonic myth of Ether. Through the exploration of two historical chapters during which the wireless was celebrated (1870-1905 and 1973-2008), this article argues that the act of promising, understood as a potential mythical actualization, transforms the paradoxical nature of myths into a bet on the future.

On the Role of Capital in “Capitalist” and in Labor-Managed Firms

This article outlines the “fundamental myth” about the structure of property rights in a capitalist economy, namely the idea that being the residual claimant in a productive opportunity is part of a bundle of property rights known as the “ownership of the firm.” Residual claimancy is contractually determined so there is no such “ownership.” The fundamental myth exposes a basic fallacy in capital theory that has hitherto escaped attention in the capital theory debates.

Vala and Iwato: The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan and beyond

In this paper two fundamental myths and the related rituals from archaic India and old Japan are compared. Exploring their close mutual relationship offers the chance of taking another look at comparative mythology in a wholly new way. This is not done in the old Frazerian way, certainly not in the manner of the diffusionists such as Frobenius and Baumann, nor with the Indo-European-centered method of Dumezil, not to mention the various psychological approaches of Jung, Campbell, and others, or the structuralism of Levy-Strauss and his followers. Instead, the approach proposed here reminds of the 19th century historical and comparative approach. The present proposal and methodology has recently, but unwittingly, been called essentially romantic as it looks for, and points toward, a common source, that certainly may no longer exist, as W. Jones put it with regard to the Indo-European parent language. However, as I have discussed earlier, by careful historical comparison we can isolate certain motifs, individual myths, and even whole myth complexes both in time and space, compare them, and try to trace their common origin.

The Role of Capital in 'Capitalist' and in Labor-Managed Firms

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part outlines the fundamental myth about the structure of property rights in a capitalist economy, namely the idea that being the residual claimant in a productive opportunity is part of a bundle of property rights known variously as ownership of the firm, ownership of the means of production, or, to economists, ownership of the production set (or function). Residual claimancy is contractually determined and there is no ownership that legally determines how future contracts are made. The fundamental myth leads to a basic fallacy in capital theory and in corporate finance theory. Understanding the myth also allows us to clarify the role of capital in the system misnamed capitalism. The underlying theme is that the key institutional feature of capitalism is not the role of capital or the private ownership of the means of production but the employment contract for the renting of human beings. In the second part, slightly more formal models are first used to analyze the fallacies in capital theory and corporate finance theory. Then attention is turned to a right-by-right comparison between the structure of rights in a conventional corporation and in a democratic firm (a labor-managed firm). Of key importance is the role of the internal capital accounts in a democratic firm.

La propagande visuelle du Sinn Féin : comment dessiner la nation

This article argues that the Sinn Féin Printing and Publishing Company Limited, founded in 1906, was the linchpin of the early Sinn Féin movement. Its managing director, Arthur Griffith, used his propaganda newspapers, Sinn Féin and, from 1910, The Sinn Féin Daily, to try to create the future citizens of an independent Ireland. Independence, he argued, was a state of mind rather than a matter of state and as soon as the people of Ireland were psychologically united, an independent Ireland would simply come into being. To achieve this objective, he attempted to rally his readers around two fundamental myths : the homogeineity of the inhabitants of the island of Ireland and the abundance of natural resources that it possessed. Hibernia, in other words, could do very well without Britannia's help. Because of political and financial difficulties in 1910, Griffith felt it necessary to give his propaganda a more dynamic visual aspect and from the beginning of that year we find political illustrations in Sinn Fein. This article considers how these illustrations combined with the typography of the front page to reflect the editor's political agenda.

Le retour des Ilche Chanjae/Nittei zanshi (relief de l'impérialisme japonais) en Corée du sud : de l'historiographie nationaliste à l'histoire citoyenne

Japan plays a difficult role in the contemporary historiography of South Korea commensurate with its historical responsibilities towards this nation. Accordingly, Korean nationalism has for a long time taught a writing of history that imposed a range of radical readings which pitted a guilty Japan against a victim, Korea. In this article, we examine a recent theme in South Korea historiography : reliefs of Japanese imperialism and the question of their elimination. Far from being a rehashing of old ideas, this theme instead demonstrates a noteworthy and unexpected revival. From the problem of collaboration to the material and institutional legacy, via social and cultural continuities, it assigns historiography the job of citizens, which is geared toward reunification. Displaying the reliefs of Japanese imperialism is to therefore dismantle the fundamental myths of South Korea and to ask South Koreans themselves to reflect upon their society — even its darker aspects — for its betterment. The fact that history is even written about outside the community of historians illustrates the democratic zeal of the debates. While progress is still unclear, we might wonder if Japanese and American societies, both deeply involved in these questions, are as equally active in this field.

Change in Engineering Education: One Myth, Two Scenarios, and Three Foci

AbstractChange is coming to engineering education, but many reform efforts have proceeded without explicitly examining the prime movers of change, the forces that resist change, or the facets or foci of the system that are most in need of change. This essay frames the current debate by seeing change as motivated by external competitive and technological forces. Resistance to change is viewed as being reinforced by the fundamental myth of engineering education that asserts the supremacy of basic research over all other engineering academic activities. After providing evidence that the myth resulted largely from an overestimation of the role of science and an underestimation of the role of engineering in World War II, the essay considers needed organizational, integrative, and programmatic changes. Among these are the creation of student‐faculty teams responsible for delivering a quality education, bottom‐up alliances with industrial clients, and a number of proposals aimed at helping the profession explore its human, philosophical, and historical underpinnings. The essay concludes by warning that times of great change risk making matters worse through the unintended consequences of reform. A principled methodology of reform is suggested that advocates distributed and competitive implementation together with a special appreciation for knowledge that is difficult to articulate.

"Bless My Homeland Forever": Teaching Austria and the Holocaust

The image most Americans have of Austria, to the extent they have one at all, is an American one. The Sound of Music undoubtedly did more for the postwar tourist industry than any ad campaign or government subsidy. 1 This film, as millions of viewers the world over know, begins as a predictable love story between a young nun on sabbatical (Julie Andrews) and a widowed navy captain (Christopher Plummer); but it culminates in the AnschluR of 1938. In this respect the film offers a mass audience a decidedly political and historical narrative of a key point in (and world) history. Though of course the film does not explicitly tell us that most Austrians were like the anti-fascist Captain von Trapp, it does focus our attention and sympathy on him and his family. All of the characters we come to care about are either on his side, or belong to that group of people who mean well, but naively assume that politics do not matter much. On the eve of the AnschluR, and precisely at that point in the film where the public and private story lines first intersect (i.e., the ball given in honor of the baroness), the captain becomes unmistakably identified with the good (antifascist) Austria: He has deliberately and prominently hung the flag of Austria in the magnificent entrance hall of his palace and then makes a point of defending this action over the objections of some Nazi guests. Certainly by the time we get to the emotional finale of the Salzburg song festival, there can be no doubt that the words bless my homeland forever are meant as a benediction on the good, pre-Nazi Austria the von Trapp family is forced to flee. I begin with this apparent digression because it is essential to know one's audience, particularly when it comes to teaching the Holocaust. As teachers of twentieth century German and culture to an American audience we are rarely confronted with a tabula rasa. On the contra y, we are virtually always faced with a student body which has already absorbed narratives of all ki ds-historical, fictitious, and often enough ome tangled mix of the two-concerning the Holocaust. In thinking about how best to present Austrian Holocaust Materials, we therefore need to know how the most significant forces of popular culture have already set the parameters for the story we may be trying to tell. In the case of modern Landeskunde, the still popular film The Sound of Music is an emblematic in tance of a pop-cultural inscription that predates any college course. How, then, has this film, which to this day plays in hotel lounges, and lends its name to a whole array of Salzburg Stadtrundfahrten, already formatted the cultural diskette, so to speak, before we even enter the classroom? There can be little doubt that, while Austria is associated with alpine landscapes and a grand musical tradition, Germany alone has become primarily associated in the American popular imagination with Nazism and the Holocaust.2 In a nutshell, The Sound of Music corroborates (in an admittedly indirect, yet nevertheless powerful, manner) the fundamental myth of postwar identity, i.e., that it was das erste Opfer (the firs victim) of Nazi aggression. The beleaguered Captain von Trapp undoubtedly is a victim of nefarious political forces; and the avaricious yet avu cular Max is cast in a sympathetic though so ewhat different light-the conformist with a heart of gold. Obviously, any serious treatment of the Holocaust with reference to Austria must first set aside this untenable claim, for it obscures the central fact that the principal victims of Nazi Ger-