Lev Gumilev Research Articles

Lev Gumilev’s Naturalistic Conservatism. (Essays on the Conservative Thought in the USSR)

The paper examines the views of the ethnologist, historian and philosopher Lev Nikolayevich Gumilev (1912–1992), the creator of the theory of ethnogenesis and the theory of passionarity. The scientist’s dramatic life journey, his political opinions and scientific concepts are discussed here. The paper also reconstructs Lev Gumilev’s political views based on biographers’ studies, memoirs about Lev Gumilev and his poems that were unpublished during his life. This entire process shows that from his very youth to the last days the scientist was a secret anti-Soviet, anti-communist, monarchist and Orthodox Christian, anti-Westerner and antidemocrat. The paper reveals how these views of his are connected with the theories of ethnogenesis and passionarity. The perception of the history of mankind as the development of ethnic groups excludes progressism and liberalism, since under this concept the history of mankind would cease to be perceived as a universal process involving traditional and modernist stages. At the same time, the doctrine of “fostering landscapes” created by Lev Gumilev suggests that every nation has its own system of values and standards of behavior, and their mechanical borrowing is impossible. It was from this point that Lev Gumilev drew his conclusions of anti-Western and Slavophile/Eurasian nature: Russia should not imitate Europe. It should follow its own way. However, the doctrine of the Slavic-Turkic symbiosis as the foundation of Russian civilization turned out to be a distinction between him and the Slavophiles. In addition, the liberal democracy of the Western type was seen by Lev Gumilev not as a universal value, but as a set of behavioral patterns and stereotypes in views typical only of the peoples of Western civilization. Finally, the scientist repeatedly emphasized the most important role of Orthodoxy in forming the Russian ethnicity. So, Lev Gumilev was a conservative thinker. His conservatism, however, was a kind of naturalistic, cosmic conservatism, akin to the teachings of Plato, Konstantin Leontiev and Oswald Spengler.

S.G. Chavain's novel "Elnet": the unity of the Mari language, folklore and traditions

The article contains an analysis of the genre content and poetics of the novel "Elnet" by the classic of Mari literature Sergey Grigoryevich Chavain in the unity of the Mari language, folklore and cultural traditions of the Mari people. The work is considered as a "linguistic metaphor", in the context of ideological issues of the epoch, as an intellectual novel in the Mari national literature. The author's concept associated with the archetypal image of the Elnet River, symbolically placed in the title of the work, is revealed, its connection with the writer's ideological plan, as well as with the Mari national and world cultural tradition, its literary and artistic context is revealed. Considerable attention is paid in the article to the consideration of this image as an expression of the traditional ancestral faith, the core of which is the worship of nature and the cultivation of the human in man in the bosom of the "accommodating and nurturing landscape" (the term of Lev Gumilev). The article is devoted to a comprehensive and interdisciplinary study of the classic novel of Mari literature. The content of the actual literary text of the novel is considered in a broad socio-cultural context, through the prism of the mythological, philosophical, and aesthetic views of the Mari people. 3. The article proves that the name of Sergei Grigoryevich Chavain is one of the most fateful for the Mari nation; the author of the novel "Elnet" was concerned about the state of the intellectual and cultural status of the nation, its world–building horizon; the writer remains today a "singer of the people", a vivid symbol of national life. For the first time in regional science, the question is raised about the main levels of the Mari world created in the novel "Elnet" by Sergei Grigoryevich Chavain, vividly traced in the title image – the image of Elnet; they are defined in the article as follows: 1) Elnet as a tributary of the Volga, one of the most beautiful rivers in the territory of the Mari territory; 2) Elnet as the motherland, the Ecumene; 3) Elnet as the "golden" world of wonderful Mari songs; 4) Elnet as the prophetic Path of the Mari people. The story of Mari, understood by S. Chavain, is a Road leading into the distance behind an open door, at the same time it is a spiritual process fueled by a rich cultural heritage, currents of the present, and a dream of accomplishment.

«Помогите мне в моем великом горе». О хлопотах Ахматовой по освобождению сына (новые детали) Статья вторая

This paper consists of two parts (articles) and focuses on Anna Akhmatova’s efforts to free her son after his arrest in 1949. A series of unpublished material from 1954–1956 from Gershtein’s archive at the Russian State Library (fond 641) is published. Emma Gerstein, a literary scholar and long-time friend of Akhmatova, was selflessly involved in Akhmatova’s concern for her son. The first article in the previous issue included two letters from Akhmatova to the writer and influential literary and party functionary Mikhail Sholokhov, as well as petitions from major scholars about Lev Gumilev asking for an expedited review of the prominent historian. The second article includes a letter from Akhmatova to the poet and “Soviet grandee” Aleksei Surkov – not from the Gerstein archive, but thematically related to the rest of them. A typewritten copy of this letter is held in the Manuscripts Department of the Russian National Library at the Akhmatova Archive (fond 1073). Over the decades Surkov tried, wherever possible, to help Akhmatova and contributed to the publication of her books. As the first secretary of the Union of Writers, he was actively involved in the efforts to free Lev Gumilev. The article also publishes an unknown letter from Akhmatova to Aleksandr Fadeev, a writer, party official and major literary official of the Stalinist era. In connection with the 1946 decree, he was involved ex officio in harassing Akhmatova, while unofficially trying to help her, and subsequently did much to bring her back into Soviet literature. Fadeev also made efforts to help Akhmatova free her son. The letter to Fadeev is reproduced from a typewritten draft with corrections in Gerstein’s hand. The publication of the documents is accompanied by Gerstein’s “Explanations” in the fond 641, together with Akhmatova’s letters, and an extensive commentary, which includes an account of Akhmatova’s relationship to Surkov and Fadeev and her situation during the Khrushchev Thaw.

«Помогите мне в моем великом горе». О хлопотах Ахматовой по освобождению сына (новые детали) Статья первая

This paper is about Anna Akhmatova’s attempts to free her son after his arrest in 1949. There has been a lot of literature on the subject, especially by the literary scholar, Emma Gerstein, who took a dedicated part in Akhmatova’s efforts. This paper makes a number of unpublished material from 1954–1956 from Gerstein’s archive at the Russian State Library (fond 641). First of all, these are letters of petition from Akhmatova to writers, prominent literary and party functionaries Mikhail Sholokhov (two: an authorized typewritten draft and Akhmatova’s autograph) and Aleksandr Fadeev (one: a typewritten draft with amendments by Gerstein). There is also a handwritten letter of acknowledgement from Akhmatova to Gerstein and a text called by Emma Grigorievna “Explanations by E.G. Gerstein to A.A. Akhmatova’s letters addressed to M.A. Sholokhov and A.A. Fadeev and to some other documents on the case of her son”. “Some other documents” are the petitions for Gumilev mentioned by Gerstein in the press but not published by her, written by major scholars: two by the orientalist, Vasily Struve, one each by archaeologists Aleksei Okladnikov and Mikhail Artamonov. Three petitions have been published, one has not yet been published and will be published here for the first time, together with other unknown materials. Among the new materials there is also a letter from Akhmatova to the poet and venerable literary functionary figure Aleksei Surkov, not from the Gerstein archive, although thematically related to the rest of them. The paper consists of two parts (articles). The first part includes Akhmatova’s letters to Sholokhov and petitions from scholars, typewritten copies of which are appended to the second letter. The petitions are descriptions of Lev Gumilev, “a very valuable specialist” and “an honest Soviet man” (Struve), and contain requests for an expedited review of his case and to return “the outstanding researcher of Central and Middle Asian peoples’ history” “to a real life in science” (Okladnikov). The second article, which will appear in the next issue, includes Akhmatova’s letters to Fadeev and Surkov. The publication of the letters is accompanied by Gerstein’s “Explanations” and an extensive commentary.

Eurasianism Today and What Lev Gumilev Was Right About

Lev Gumilev, the son of the famous Russian poets Nikolai Gumilev and Anna Akhmatova, according to all the canons of history, had to remain in the shadow of his great parents. However, Lev Gumilev went down in history as a very outstanding personality, the author of the original idea of the birth and development of ethnicities, which was called the “passion” theory of ethnogenesis. This theory causes great controversy about its scientific nature to this day. Lev Gumilev developed his theory within the framework of the concept of Eurasianism. Among the wide variety of Eurasian peoples, Gumilev saw a common ethnic origin, common stereotypes of behavior that could lead to the geopolitical unity of the territory inhabited by them. At the end of the last century, primordialism in ethnology was rejected by the majority of the scientific community, and Gumilev’s ideas were criticized. However, last years the Eurasianist ideas of Lev Gumilev are experiencing a new wave of importance in connection with the strategic path of development that the Russian Federation has chosen for itself, which is progressively building the United Eurasian Community.

Eurasianism: From Ideology to Political and Economic Integration

Euarasianism is the consequence of an intellectual thought that goes back to the 18th century. Eurasianism, which is used in a variety of meanings both geographically and conceptually, is generally examined in two periods. As a continuation of the Slavophile movement, the first period seen at the beginning of the 20th century under the leadership of N. S. Trubetskoy, Petr Savitski and George Vernadski, is called the Classical Eurasianism period. The second period, defined as Neo-Eurasianism, started at the end of the 20th century under the guidance of Alexander Dugin in the light of bridging thoughts of Lev Gumilev who is also considered among the Classical Eurasianists. Eurasianism, which emerged as an anti-Westernization movement on an intellectual basis, was set as a new power center with its political and economic dimensions, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In this connection, one of the most important integration project initiated by Moscow after the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is undoubtedly the Eurasian Economic Union. In this study, the impact of Eurasianism on today’s regional integration efforts will be discussed in the context of its ideological, political and economic dimensions. Key words: Eurasia, Eurasianism, Eurasian Economic Union, Integration, Russia,

Eurasianism and Post-Soviet Political Geography

Books review: Bassin M. The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, Eurasianism, and the Construction of Community in Modern Russia. Cornell University Press, 2016. 400 p.; Bassin M., Pozo G. (eds). The Politics of Eurasianism: Identity, Popular Culture and Russia's Foreign Policy. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. 384 p.; Clover Ch. Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism.Yale University Press, 2017. 360 p. The review considers three works on Eurasianism, the theoretical geography of Lev Gumilev and contemporary Russian ethnonationalism. It places the reviewed works in the context of the historical ideological evolution of Eurasianism. The principal argument in all three reviewed texts is that there are three forms of Eurasian ideology: classical Eurasianism, Gumilevian Eurasianism and neo-Eurasianism. This essay argues that instead of a rank appropriation of Eurasian ideology into contemporary Russian ethnonationalist discourses, there remains a great intellectual and theoretical power in Gumilevian Eurasianism that could yet be applied to contemporary Eurasian and Russophere geographies in a more positive and empowering manner than the current misappropriated form of Russian ethnonationalist Eurasianism. While neo-Eurasianism is a misappropriation of Gumilevian Eurasianism, a revival of a new fork of neo-Gumilevian Eurasianism could diffuse the contemporary Russian misappropriation and return to a more objective and inclusive Eurasian ideology.

“Scythians”: Old and New (to the Publication of the Reprint of the Literary and Political Almanac “Scythians”, 1917—1918)

In 2018, for the first time in 101 years in Russia, two issues of the literary and political almanac “Scythians” were reissued under the same cover (1917 — 1st issue; 1918 — 2nd issue). The ideological inspirer of “Scythians” was I. V. Ivanov-Razumnik (1878—1946). Combining on its pages the ideas of outstanding representatives of the Silver age (L. Shestov, V. Bryusov, N. Klyuyev, A. Bely, E. Zamyatin, etc.), the almanac became the quintessence of the “scythianism” ideology. This ideology regarded the Russian revolution as a national anti-bourgeois movement with messianic significance for the whole world. The new reissue of the book was initiated by the writer, Director of the “Lev Gumilev Center” and the leader of the “New Scythians” movement — Pavel Zarifullin. This article is a review of the new reissue of “Scythians”, which includes two literary and political manifestos of generations — the past (old “Scythians”) and the present (“New Scythians”).

“YEST” GORODA, V KOTORYYE NET VOZVRATA…” (VARIATIONS ON THE THEME OF EXILE)

“YEST” GORODA, V KOTORYYE NET VOZVRATA…” (VARIATIONS ON THE THEME OF EXILE)

“Persian Miniature” from the Lev Gumilev’s Museum-apartment: the riddle of textual decor

Abstract: the “Persian miniature” was the gift by A. A. Akhmatova to her son after his return from the concentration camp. The sheet includes the painting and the textual decor placed around it. There is no documentary evidence of the history of the present, a donator or the symbolical meaning of the donation. This article discusses the problem of the textual decor and its connection with the content of the picture. The textual decor is presented by extended cartouches with oriental inscriptions. The most frequent are the quotations from Jami’s “Yusuf and Zuleikha”. This helps to correlate the textual decor with the meaning of the scene presented in the picture. Since professor A. Boldyrev was invited to interpret the textual decor of the picture on Akhmatova’s request, there might be a hypothetical connection between Akhmatova’s awareness of the meaning of the text and her donation of the miniature to her son.

О проблеме межцивилизационных отношений России и зарубежной Европы в начале XXI века

The challenges of building relations between two different civilizations, which Samuel Huntington and Lev Gumilev wrote about, are currently becoming more obvious due to the cardinal geopolitical and geoeconomic changes that have taken place since the demise the USSR and the world socialist system. Today, in the West, as if in contrast to the famous project by Charles de Gaulle —“Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals”, an extremely negative image of Russia is being formed. Western ideologists stick to the axiom according to which despotism and slavery, allegedly being the basis of Russia's internal order, inevitably give rise to aggression in relations with the outside world. Of course, these ideas do not take into account the ongoing socio-economic changes in the country and have little to do with modern realities. They are a mere reproduction of the old Western xenophobic moods going back to the time when Russophobia was widely spread in a number of leading European countries. The article explores historical roots of Russophobia and their manifestations at the beginning of the XXI century in Poland and the Baltic countries.

Jihad as Passionarity: Said Buriatskii and Lev Gumilev

ABSTRACTThis article analyses Russian elements in the texts of Said Buriatskii (1982–2010), who in the late 2000s was one of the main ideologists and symbols of the internationalist Islamist resistance in the North Caucasus. Trying to explain the importance and validity of jihad, Buriatskii referred to the concepts of the famous Soviet historian and anthropologist Lev Gumilev and brought Islamic radicalism closer to a Russian-speaking audience by using Gumilev’s terminology. Indeed, he found some appreciation among Russian radical journalists, and even among oppositionists from a background close to the Russian Orthodox Church. This article therefore argues that, in spite of his Islamic rhetoric, Buriatskii can also be understood as aspiring to achieve the status of a Russian public intellectual, particularly as a representative of a broader movement that emphasizes values such as sincerity and passion.

Resurgent Tides of Nationalism

In recent months, the rise of nationalism has been associated with the return of xenophobia, anti-immigration sentiments, populism and far-right, neo-fascist conservatism. In consequence, nationalism has been much maligned and made the scapegoat for Brexit, the rise of Donald Trump, ‘Putinism’ and China’s intransigence on issues like Taiwan. Putin’s expansion towards the East, for example, has been construed in certain media circles as a revival of Eurasianism, a policy advocated by Russian thinkers from Prince Nikolay Trubetskoy and Lev Gumilev to Alexander Dugin. Certainly, Putin’s 2012 allusion to Gumilev’s passionarnost (the Russian equivalent of Ibn Khaldun’s ’asabiyya) was taken to hint at a revival of Eurasianism.

Geopolitics and the Roots of Putin’s Foreign Policy

The four books reviewed here explore the intellectual roots of Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Ukraine. Agnia Grigas sees it as the result of a logic of imperial expansion inherent to the Russian state, while Charles Clover argues it was shaped by the revival of ideas of Russia as a Eurasian civilization. Mark Bassin provides a deep analysis of the evolution of the thought of Lev Gumilev, the most influential Eurasianist thinker. Gerard Toal brings the perspective of a critical geographer, and views Russian behavior through the prism of its rhetorical stand-off with the United States.

Bassin, Mark; Glebov, Sergey and Laruelle, Marlene (eds) Between Europe and Asia: The Origins, Theories, and Legacies of Russian Eurasianism (review)

REVIEWS 551 Bassin, Mark; Glebov, Sergey and Laruelle, Marlene (eds). Between Europe and Asia: The Origins, Theories, and Legacies of Russian Eurasianism. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2015. 267 pp. Notes. Index. $27.95 (paperback). However postmodern Moscow’s ideological narrative might be, Eurasianism and its contemporary offshoot, Neo-Eurasianism, remain a staple in the Kremlin’sarsenal,withEurasiathecentrepieceofRussia’sgeopoliticalambitions. For this reason, continuing to investigate the genesis and repercussions of early twentieth-century Eurasianism is essential in understanding the geopolitical frictions that dog Russia’s Near Abroad. This is exactly what Mark Bassin, Sergey Glebov and Marlene Laruelle, the editors of Between Europe and Asia: The Origins, Theories, and Legacies of Russian Eurasianism attempt — to ‘go beyond the narratives produced by the Eurasianists themselves and to reconstruct multiple context within which the movement and the ideas functioned, to which they responded, and which they generated’ (p. 2). The volume’s Introduction sets the stage with an overview of the history of the Eurasianist movement, its main proponents and tenets, and some of the doctrinal tensions that have characterized it from the outset. The first two chapters probe the movement’s origins. Olga Maiorova argues that the first attacks on the Western paradigm dominating Russian intellectual life in the middle of the nineteenth century came from the political essayist, Alexander Herzen, who claimed that the Mongols tore Russia away from Europe, triggering a period of convergence of the local population with other Asian ethnicities that infused it with a type of barbaric energy that, in contrast to sclerotic Europe, had the capacity to reshape the world. Maiorova sees Herzen as one of the first to recognize Asian traits in Russia’s identity, and its likely influence on the subsequent emergence of Eurasianism. Vera Tolz, by contrast, traces Eurasianism’s origins to the scholarly assault sweeping through Western Europe and Russia around 1880, which posited that non-European models of development were superior to the established European discourse. This led to the emergence of the Kondakov and Rozin schools which championed Russia’s distinctiveness from Europe, whilst still seeing it as a unique fusion of the Western and Eastern traditions. Chapters three to five consider some of the theories of Eurasianists themselves. Sergey Glebov revisits Trubetskoi’s assault on Russia’s Europeanization and argues that his theories emerged as a critical response to the views of the liberal thinkers of the day, most notably the leading late nineteenth-century Russian sociologist, Maksim Kovalevskii. Marlene Laruelle examines the innovative stance taken by Petr Savitskii and Georgii Vernadskii, who mapped the correspondence between cultural space and geographical territory in their attempts to find a metaphysical totality that SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 552 they believed Eurasia represented. This is why, she argues, their approach should be seen as a form of geographical ideology. Finally, Stefan Wiederkehr looks at how Karl Popper’s activist concept of historicism helps us understand the core of Eurasianism’s philosophy. Chapters six to eight explore the beliefs of three leading Eurasianists. Whilst Martin Beissenger investigates the religious and economic underpinnings of Savitskii’s concept of Eurasianism, Igor Torbakov attributes Vernadskii’s historical revisions, beginning with 1917 to his search for national identity, to his Ukrainian roots and state of exile. Harsha Ram poses a possible nexus between Velimir Khlebnikov’s futurist vision of a common linguistic space centred in Russia and Roman Jakobson’s concept of the ‘Eurasian linguistic alliance’ and the extent to which this distanced him from the original intention of the Russian symbolist movement (p. 147). In the last two chapters Hama Yukiko investigates Eurasianism’s influence on Japan’s pan-Asianism, whilst Mark Bassin focuses on the contemporary legacy of the Eurasianists, which is torn between Eurasian revisionists such as Lev Gumilev on one hand and increasingly radical positions taken by Russian nationalists on the other, and has resulted in the polemic and contradictory stance taken by Neo-Eurasianists such as Aleksandr Dugin. As Laruelle concludes in the Postface, the legacy of Eurasianism has been mired by neo-Eurasianists’ Russia-centric and highly opportunistic take on the philosophy of the 100-year-old movement. However, this...

Robinson, Paul Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian Army (review)

SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 552 they believed Eurasia represented. This is why, she argues, their approach should be seen as a form of geographical ideology. Finally, Stefan Wiederkehr looks at how Karl Popper’s activist concept of historicism helps us understand the core of Eurasianism’s philosophy. Chapters six to eight explore the beliefs of three leading Eurasianists. Whilst Martin Beissenger investigates the religious and economic underpinnings of Savitskii’s concept of Eurasianism, Igor Torbakov attributes Vernadskii’s historical revisions, beginning with 1917 to his search for national identity, to his Ukrainian roots and state of exile. Harsha Ram poses a possible nexus between Velimir Khlebnikov’s futurist vision of a common linguistic space centred in Russia and Roman Jakobson’s concept of the ‘Eurasian linguistic alliance’ and the extent to which this distanced him from the original intention of the Russian symbolist movement (p. 147). In the last two chapters Hama Yukiko investigates Eurasianism’s influence on Japan’s pan-Asianism, whilst Mark Bassin focuses on the contemporary legacy of the Eurasianists, which is torn between Eurasian revisionists such as Lev Gumilev on one hand and increasingly radical positions taken by Russian nationalists on the other, and has resulted in the polemic and contradictory stance taken by Neo-Eurasianists such as Aleksandr Dugin. As Laruelle concludes in the Postface, the legacy of Eurasianism has been mired by neo-Eurasianists’ Russia-centric and highly opportunistic take on the philosophy of the 100-year-old movement. However, this ‘incredible incubator of ideas’ (p. 190) will likely remain a helpful framework for those trying to build a radically distinct and self-contained identity for the post-Soviet space. It will also likely resurface, however distorted and aleatory, whenever it suits the Russian elite to deploy the type of nationalistic discourse that supports their ambitions abroad, whilst assuaging the harsh economic reality at home. UCL SSEES V. Ceban Robinson, Paul. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian Army. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL, 2014. ix + 435 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $44.95. The Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich was a — literally — towering figure in the history of late Imperial Russia and of the First World War. As ‘Uncle Nikolasha’ he occupied a central place in the extended imperial family; he had an extremely close relationship with Emperor Nikolai II, although his interaction with all members of the family was not so consistently friendly. He also played an important, but more passive, role in the politics of the Russian REVIEWS 553 emigration, especially in the last years before his death in 1929. Readers owe a debt of gratitude to Paul Robinson for having produced such a thorough and readable biography of the man. While this book is academically rigorous and valuable to the historical specialist, the subject matter (the Russian court) and clarity of style make it attractive to a wider audience. The disparate stages of the Grand Duke’s life are traced here, and in a measured and balanced way; at each stage the author displays a high degree of expertise. There is the Grand Duke’s background and early military career; his involvement in the 1905–06 revolution, and then his service as a military reformer in the short-lived Council of State Defence. Above all there is his role as Supreme C-in-C of the Russian Army in the first months of the World War, before defeat in Poland and his ill-fated replacement by the Emperor himself. The Grand Duke’s time as Viceroy of the Transcaucasus in 1915–17 has echoes in more recent events. Perhaps surprisingly he played virtually no part in the 1917 Revolution, the Civil War or the first years of the emigration. Although generally providing a straightforward account of an unfolding life, Robinson is prepared to take issue with memoirists and other historians at key points in the Grand Duke’s career. For example, he defends his role as a military reformer at the turn of the century. He also clarifies his key decision, in October 1905, not to serve as a military dictator who would have supported by force the Emperor and the counter-revolution; instead he accepted...

Alma Fohström: kansainvälinen primadonna (Finnish) [Alma Fohström: An International Prima Donna] by Svetlana Toivakka

Reviewed by: Alma Fohström: kansainvälinen primadonna (Finnish) [Alma Fohström: An International Prima Donna] by Svetlana Toivakka Matti Huttunen Translated by Dr. John Nelson Alma Fohström: kansainvälinen primadonna (Finnish) [Alma Fohström: An International Prima Donna]. By Svetlana Toivakka. Helsinki: [Helsingsfors Universitet], 2015. [311p. ISBN 978-951-51-0827-2. https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/153609] The subject of Svetlana Toivakka’s doctoral thesis is one of Finland’s most successful international singers, the coloratura soprano Alma Fohström (1856–1936). Alma Fohström studied singing, among other subjects, in St. Petersburg, and while young first appeared in Helsinki on the stage of the Finnish Theatre, where in the 1870s they performed the opera classics. Her international career started in the Kroll Theatre in Berlin and continued after that on stages in Italy, London, Bucharest, Russia, South America, and the Baltic States. In the mid-1880s, Alma Fohström took part in a tour of the U.S. organised by the impresario Colonel Mapleson. The tour was not an unequivocal success but it is to be noted that Alma Fohström stood in as Adelina Patti’s replacement on the tour. Adelina Patti was undoubtedly the international singer that Alma Fohström was compared to, as were so many other sopranos at the turn of the nineteenth century. Later Alma Fohström took up teaching and was, for instance, a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire from 1909 to 1918; after leaving Russia as a result of the Revolution she continued as a professor at the Berlin Stern Conservatoire between 1920 and 1928. After this she continued to teach singing in Helsinki until her death. The use of a diverse range of source material covering many languages is one of the most notable aspects of Toivakka’s thesis. Her work is significant and even groundbreaking in bringing Russian sources into the study of Finnish music, which has traditionally focused on Nordic and Central European roots. Hopefully in the future, the results of this research will be made available to an international audience. An important material source has been the Alma Fohström album, housed in the National Library in Helsinki, which contains, among other items, concert programmes, drawings, and poems dedicated to Alma Fohström. This can be compared to many other similar albums of female singers of the period. Alma Fohström’s life and art is reconstructed in the thesis through letters and other archival material, photographs, newspaper and periodical reports, scores, textbooks—especially Alma Fohström’s teacher Henriette Nissen-Saloman’s Singing School of 1881—and some preserved recordings of Alma Fohström. Toivakka’s research adheres to the three current trends in Finnish musicology: microhistory, performance studies, and academic biography. Microhistory’s key and accepted premises (amongst others “exceptionally typical”) are supplemented by Lev Gumilev’s methodological ideas, which emphasise the cohesion between micro- and macrohistory. It has long been the case in Finland that biography is a feature of popular literature. In the last few years, however, [End Page 243] many biographical studies have been published which are, without doubt, academic in nature. Performance studies has been on the rise in Finland in the last twenty years and Toivakka’s research, in this respect, is firmly anchored in current musicological questions. Toivakka is supported by a number of new international studies that have focused on individual prima donnas or more broadly on the prima donna phenomenon. The prima donna concept and controversies are well covered in the text and the author has a solid understanding of singing history and opera literature. Adelina Patti was perhaps the most celebrated singer of her time and, as a prima donna, unique. Sometimes it seems that in Toivakka’s study Patti is too dominant and in some ways portrayed as the ideal prima donna type: Patti’s stature was dominant but, perhaps, because of her fame she was not a typical prima donna. The chosen emphases and chronological solutions in the thesis are in part bold and I missed a little more historical self-reflection, which would have clarified the direction of the study. It is recommended that the readers acquaint themselves with...

Lev Gumilev and the European New Right

The striking affinities that have developed between radical-conservative movements in Western Europe and Russia since the end of the Cold War have been widely noted. This essay considers these affinities through the example of the Soviet historian and geographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912–1992). It argues that Gumilev and the European New Right developed perspectives that were highly comparable, founded on similar principles, and articulated through similar images and allusions. Yet despite the powerful resonances in terms of basic concepts and theoretical orientation, there were nonetheless deep differences in terms of the conclusions regarding the practical implications for their respective societies that Gumilev and the Europeans deduced from these principles.

The Squid and the Whale à la russe: Navigating the “Uncanny” in Dmitry Bykov's ZhD

In ZhD, Bykov tests what happens when a nation defines itself in terms of the ethnic community. In doing so he borrows from the demographic theories of Lev Gumilev, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and Nicolas Marr, which pose modern Russians as a relatively recent and, therefore, non‐native population while placing them in a long historical battle for primacy with the Jews. If Western literature of colonialism, such as Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, often conceives of the native populations as symbolically necessary to the ruling minority's self‐image, Bykov creates a silent majority whose deliberate disengagement from politics is the lynchpin of their survival. This attitude mocks contemporary Russians' aversion to self‐governance. The novel also parodies the “Nordic” spirit of the Russian army, whose main goal is to destroy itself (a dead soldier is a perfect soldier), and the Khazars (Jews) who deal in moral usury by making everyone feel indebted to them. The natives' values, in the typical fashion of the “noble savage,” consist in cyclical time, shamanism, transparent language, personification of the land, and animal‐like closeness to nature. What does this collection of clichés strive to accomplish? Perhaps to demonstrate that the “founding lies” of our “imagined communities” are so interwoven that any attempt at reification leads to absurdity. This article will examine the ways in which Bykov negotiates the different cultural narratives that comprise Russian identity by following Slavoj Zizek's advice that the best way to subvert the racist attitude is by means of overidentification.

Was Lev Gumilev a "Eurasianist?": A New Look at His Postwar Contacts with Petr Savitskii

This article reexamines the personal and intellectual contacts between P. N. Savitskii and L. N. Gumilev during the 1950s and 1960s in order to assess the validity of Gumilev's claims to be "the last Eurasianist." These contacts are placed within the context of Savitskii's dynamic intellectual biography. It is argued that after World War II, when his contacts with Gumilev took place, Savitskii himself had already abandoned the central ideas of "classical" Eurasianism and, thus, strictly speaking ceased to be a Eurasianist. At least since the late 1930s Savitskii's "classical" Eurasianist historiosophical and political ideas developed into a new, explicitly anti-Western and pro-Soviet, yet still anticommunist conceptual framework that can be called "trans-Eurasianism." It was Savitskii's "trans-Eurasianism" that brought him intellectually close to Gumilev. By adding this transitional stage to Savitskii's intellectual odyssey we can better explain both continuities and discontinuities between "classical" and neo-Eurasianism. Мартин Бейсвенгер по-новому анализирует личные и интеллекту­альные контакты между П. Н. Савицким и Л. Н. Гумилевым в 1950-е и 1960-е гг., пытаясь оценить обоснованность утверждений Гумилева о себе как о "последнем евразийце". Эти контакты рассмотрены в кон­тексте динамично изменяющейся интеллектуальной биографии Савиц­кого. В статье утверждается, что после Второй мировой войны, когда завязались контакты между Савицким и Гумилевым, сам Савицкий уже отошел от основных идейных положений "классического" евразийства и, в точном понимании этого слова, уже перестал быть евразийцем. По крайней мере, с конца 1930-х гг. историософские и политические идеи Савицкого периода "классического" евразийства постепенно сменились новыми концептуальными представлениями, которые можно обозна­чить термином "трансевразийство". Эти представления были открыто антизападническими и просоветскими, но в то же время по-прежнему оставались антикоммунистическими. Именно "трансевразийство" Савицкого интеллектуально сблизило его с Гумилевым. Выделив эту новую, переходную стадию в интеллектуальной одиссее Савицкого, можно лучше объяснить преемственность и различия между "класси­ческим" евразийством и неоевразийством.