DOCSLIB.ORG

THE RUSSIAN COSMISTS the Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

THE RUSSIAN COSMISTS The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers GEORGE M. YOUNG OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxfurd University's objective of <xcdlence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Mdboume Mexico City Nairobi New Ddhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Ponugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Viemam Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press. Inc. Published by Oxford University Press. Inc. 198 Madison Avenue. New York. NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means. electronic. mechanical. photocopying. recording. or otherwise. without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Young. George M. The Russian cosmists : the esoteric futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and his followers / George M. Young. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-989>94-5 (hardcover: alkaline paper) - ISBN 978-0-19-989295-2 (ebook) I. Philosophy. Russian-History. 2. Cosmology-Philosophy.~. Fedorov. Nikolai Fedorovich. 1828-190~. 4. Philosophers-Russia. 5. Philosophers-Soviet Union. I. Tide. B4>~5.C6Y 68 >012 2011041924 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Preface ix 1. The Spiritual Geography of Russian Cosmism 3 General Characteristics 4 Recent Definitions of Cosmism 7 2.. Forerunners of Russian Cosmism 12. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842.) 12. Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802.) 14 Two Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711-I76S) and Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) 14 Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) 16 Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) 17 3. The Russian Philosophical Context 2.1 Philosophy as Passion 2.1 The Destiny of Russia 2.2. Thought as a Call for Action 2.4 The Totalitarian Cast of Mind 2.S 4. The Religious and Spiritual Context 2.7 The Kingdom of God on Earth 2.7 Hesychasm; Two Great Russian Saints 2.8 The Third Rome 32. Pre-Christian Antecedents 33 s. The Russian Esoteric Context 36 Early Searches for "Deep Wisdom" 36 Popular Magic 38 vi Contents Higher Magic in the Time of Peter the Great 39 Esotericism after Peter the Great 43 Theosophy and Anthroposophy 44 6. Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the Philosopher of the Common Task 4 6 The One Idea 4 6 The Unacknowledged Prince 51 The Village Teacher 55 First Disciple; Dostoevsky and Tolstoy 60 The Moscow Librarian 68 Last Years: Askhabad; The Only Portrait 7 1 7. The "Common Task" The Esoteric Dimension of the "Common Task" Fedorov's Legacy 8. The Religious Cosmists 92 Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) 92 Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) 108 Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) 119 Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) 134 9. The Scientific Cosmists Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) 171 10. Promethean Theurgy Life Creation Cultural Immortalism God Building Reaiming the Arrows of Eros Technological Utopianism Occultism II. Fedorov's Twentieth-Century Followers 193 Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) 193 Contents vii Svyatogor and the Biocosmists 197 New Wine and the Universal Task 200 Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) 201 Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932.) 2.08 Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-192.2.) 2.14 12.. Cosmism and Its Offshoots Today 2.19 The N. F. Fedorov Museum-Library 2.19 The Tsiolkovsky Museum and Chizhevsky Center 2.2.3 ISRICA-Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology 2.2.4 Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912.-1992.) and Neo-Eurasianism 2.2.6 The Hyperboreans 2.2.9 Scientific Irnmortalism 2.31 Conclusions about the Russian Cosmists 2.35 Notes 2.43 Bibliography 2.61 Index 2.75 Preface THIS STUDY BEGAN some years ago, in 1964, in a Yale graduate school seminar on Dostoevsky taught by Robert Louis Jackson. As I recall, ten or twelve of us were in the seminar, and early in the term Professor Jackson gave us a list ofsome ten or twelve topics for weekly reports. We chose by our order in the class roll, and I watched in dismay as one after another all the best "Dostoevsky-and" topics were chosen: Bakhtin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, the Elder Amvrosy, Dickens, Pushkin, Images of Childhood, the Ideal of Beauty. When the choice reached me, as last in the alphabet, two topics were left, neither of which I had ever heard o£ So, having no idea what I was in for, I chose Nikolai Fedorov. The first information I found about him came from a footnote to Dolinin's edition of Dostoevsky's letters, and reading that footnote again and again I began to think to myself: this is a big idea! When the week for my report came, I gave it and have been thinking and writing about Fedorov and topics related to him since. This study presents several corrections and a great many updates, and is an adventurous outgrowth of my 1979 book, Nikolai Fedorov: An Introduction. When I wrote that work, I was not a proponent of Fedorov's teachings but admired the strength and boldness of his philosophical imagination. Over the years, my attitude to Fedorov's ideas has not changed significantly, and in writing the present book I find that I view the thoughts of most of the other Cosmists much in the same way I view Fedorov's: hugely fascinating, in­ spiring, stimulating, but not ideas I would insist that friends and readers drop everything to live by. Mental health warning: fascinating as they are, at least to me, all the Cosmists were and are highly controversial-some would say even kooky-thinkers, recommended for mature audiences only. In mechanical matters, the translations are mine unless otherwise noted. In the notes and bibliography I have used a standard system of transliteration, but in the body of the text I have used familiar English spellings rather than x Preface consistent transliterations for certain Russian words and names. In quoting other commentary in English, I have used that author's spelling of Russian names instead of changing them to be consistent with my spellings. Over the years, many people, some no longer alive, have supported and helped my writing in general and my work on Fedorov and the Cosmists in particular. I would like to express my gratitude to all of them, but will men­ tion only a few teachers, colleagues, friends, and editors: Gale Carrithers, William Blackburn, Reynolds Price, Fred Chappell, Wallace Kaufman, Robert Louis Jackson, Victor Er~ich, Richard Gustafson, Rene Wellek, Michael Holquist, John Dunlop, Gordon Livermore, George Zimmar, George L. Kline, William F. Buckley, Jeffrey Hart, Peter Jarotski, Walter Arndt, Robert Siegel, James Tatum, Charles Stinson, Anouar Majid, Mat­ thew Anderson, Susan McHugh, Lee Irwin, Maria Carlson, Kristi Groberg, Bernice Rosenthal, Betty Bland, Richard Smoley, John Algeo, David London, Svetlana Semenova, Anastasia Gacheva, Valery Borisov, Julie Scott, Steven Armstrong, Cynthia Read, and Ben Sadock. I am grateful to the University of New England librarians for help in research, and to the Center for Global Humanities of the University of New England for generous financial assis­ tance to complete research and writing. Most important of all to me over these many years has been the love and support of my wife Patricia, son Roy, daughter Susannah, and son-in-law Patrick. Always in my mind, I wish to dedicate this book to the memory of my parents, George and Mary Ella Young, and my sister Patricia Pryor. The Russian Cosmists I The Spiritual Geography of Russian Cosmism There is that in the Russian soul which corresponds to the immensity, the vagueness, the infinitude of the Russian land, spiritual geography corre­ sponds with physical. ... Two contradictory principles lay at the founda­ tion of the structure of the Russian sou~ the one a natura~ Dionysian, elemental paganism and the other ascetic monastic Orthodoxy. The mutu­ ally contradictory properties ofthe Russian people may be set out thus: des­ potism, the hypertrophy ofthe State, and on the other hand anarchism and licence: cruelty, a disposition to violence, and again kindliness, humanity and gentleness: a beliefin rites and ceremonies, but also a quest for truth: individualism, a heightened consciousness ofpersonality, together with an impersonal collectivism: nationalism, laudation ofself, and universalism, the ideal ofthe universal man: an eschatological messianic spirit ofreli­ gion, and a devotion which finds its expression in externals: a search for God, and a militant godlessness: humility and arrogance: slavery and revolt. But never has Russia been bourgeois. -NIKOLAI BERDYAEV, Ihe Russian Idea SINCE THE COLLAPSE of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian intellectuals have directed much of what Berdyaev describes as their traditional prodigious, contradictory, but creative mental energy toward bringing back into focus­ and finding new signs ofvitality in-writers, artists, thinkers, and intellectual currents suppressed, degraded,
Recommended publications
  • Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga by Alexander Afanasyev Book

    Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga by Alexander Afanasyev Book

    Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga by Alexander Afanasyev book Ebook Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga currently available for review only, if you need complete ebook Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga please fill out registration form to access in our databases Download here >> Hardcover:::: 28 pages+++Publisher:::: The Planet (July 15, 2017)+++Language:::: English+++ISBN-10:::: 1910880353+++ISBN-13:::: 978- 1910880357+++Product Dimensions::::8 x 0.2 x 10 inches+++ ISBN10 ISBN13 Download here >> Description: The famous Russian fairy tale about a brave girl sent by her jealous stepsisters to fetch fire from frightful witch Baba Yaga was recorded by the renowned folklorist Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (1826–1871), who collected and published more than 600 Russian folk tales in the middle 19th century.The illustrations included in this edition were created in the early 20th century by Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, a famous Russian illustrator and stage designer, who was inspired by Slavic folklore throughout his career. He was a prominent figure in the artistic movement Mir Iskusstva and contributed to the Ballets Russes. “Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga” is a traditional Russian fairytale retold by Alexander Afanasyev and translated into English by Post Wheeler in the 2017 edition published by Planet Books. In the story, Vasilisa is given a magic doll by her mother as she is dying. She tells Vasilisa to give the little doll some food and drink and then it will help her solve whatever problem she’s facing.Indeed, the doll saves her over and over, even when faced with the ogre Baba Yaga, who threatens to eat Vasilisa if she doesn’t do everything she’s told.
  • CV, Full Format

    CV, Full Format

    BENJAMIN PALOFF (1/15/2013) Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures 507 Bruce Street University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 48103 3040 MLB, 812 E. Washington (617) 953-2650 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 [email protected] EDUCATION Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, June 2007. M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, November 2002. Dissertation: Intermediacy: A Poetics of Unfreedom in Interwar Russian, Polish, and Czech Literatures, a comparative treatment of metaphysics in Eastern European Modernism, 1918-1945. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry, April 2001. Thesis: Typeface, a manuscript of poems. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts B.A., magna cum laude with highest honors in field, Slavic Languages and Literatures, June 1999. Honors thesis: Divergent Narratives: Affinity and Difference in the Poetry of Zbigniew Herbert and Miroslav Holub, a comparative study. TEACHING Assistant Professor, Departments of Slavic Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2007-Present). Courses in Polish and comparative Slavic literatures, critical theory, and translation. Doctoral Dissertation Committees in Slavic Languages and Literatures: Jessica Zychowicz (Present), Jodi Grieg (Present), Jamie Parsons (Present). Doctoral Dissertation Committees in Comparative Literature: Sylwia Ejmont (2008), Corine Tachtiris (2011), Spencer Hawkins (Present), Olga Greco (Present). Doctoral Dissertation Committees in other units: Ksenya Gurshtein (History of Art, 2011). MFA Thesis Committee in English/Creative Writing: Francine Harris (2011). Faculty Associate, Frankel Center for Jewish Studies (2009-Present); Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2007-Present). Service: Steering Committee, Copernicus Endowment for Polish Studies (2007-Present).
  • MAN in NATURE Pre-Christian Eastern Slavic Reflections on Nature

    MAN in NATURE Pre-Christian Eastern Slavic Reflections on Nature

    MAN IN NATURE Pre-Christian Eastern Slavic Reflections on Nature Molly Kaushal What follows is a simple account of how, in earlier times, the Eastern Slavs, particularly the pre-Christian Russians, interacted with nature. Pre-Christian slavic religion was mainly based on nature worship. Fire, Earth and Water figured prominently in its beliefs and ritual practices. The forces of nature were personified, feared, and revered, and the Slavs developed a whole pantheon of gods and goddesses. However, the three main gods of their pantheon were linked together not in a hierarchical way, but in a mutually complementary way, where each was incomplete without the other. A whole cycle of rituals revolved around various forces of nature and their personified images. The arrival of Christianity as the official religion and the establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church culminated in the banning of many folk ritual practices which were pre-Christian in origin, and in the persecution of those who practised them. Yet, a complete annihilation of earlier beliefs and practices could never be accomplished. Pre- Christian beliefs and gods exerted such a strong influence upon the Russian mind that the only way to come to terms with them was through incorporating them in the mainstream of the Christian order. Water, Fire, and the Mother Earth Goddess were, and have remained, the most powerful images of Russian religious beliefs and practices, and folk memory has remained loyal to the personified and non- personified images of these elements. According to some scholars, Rusi, or Russians as we call them, have their origins in the word Roce.
  • Art Without Death: Conversations on Russian Cosmism Contents

    Art Without Death: Conversations on Russian Cosmism Contents

    e-flux journal Art without Death: Conversations on Russian Cosmism Contents 5 Introduction 9 Hito Steyerl and Anton Vidokle Cosmic Catwalk and the Production of Time 41 Elena Shaposhnikova and Arseny Zhilyaev Art without Death 57 Anton Vidokle and Arseny Zhilyaev Factories of Resurrection 73 Franco “Bifo” Berardi and Anton Vidokle Chaos and Cosmos 93 Boris Groys and Arseny Zhilyaev Contemporary Art Is the Theology of the Museum 109 Marina Simakova, Anton Vidokle, and Arseny Zhilyaev Cosmic Doubts 133 Bart De Baere, Arseny Zhilyaev, and Esther Zonsheim Wahlverwandtschaft Introduction For those who still benefit from colonial wealth, the indigenous lifeworlds destroyed by the steamroller of modernity are always somewhere far away. It is important that they remain so. It is important that the centers of power remain places where healthy 5 state infrastructure and decent industry produce forward-thinking and empowered individuals with enough energy in their bodies and money in the bank to believe all of it had to be for the best. After all, progress always comes at a price. The heroes of modernity can never be allowed to waver in this, for they have learned the important lesson that trium- phalism can be the only entry to the modern. And their job is to give life to those poor souls whose his- tories were usurped, who can only traffic in death, whose victimhood disallows ever reimagining their own conditions. But what if the heroes of moder- nity are also paying the price? What if, behind the veneer of triumphalism and pity—pity for others, pity for oneself—we have all lost? What if we are all victims, not only of modernity’s great redistribution of wealth, but of its wholesale reformatting of life in relation to death? But what if another kind of modernity had been developed which was even more radical—so much so that its forward arrow actually sought to conserve and preserve previous lifeworlds against the ravages not of vanguardist reforms but of time itself? And reanimate those worlds.
  • Russian Museums Visit More Than 80 Million Visitors, 1/3 of Who Are Visitors Under 18

    Russian Museums Visit More Than 80 Million Visitors, 1/3 of Who Are Visitors Under 18

    Moscow 4 There are more than 3000 museums (and about 72 000 museum workers) in Russian Moscow region 92 Federation, not including school and company museums. Every year Russian museums visit more than 80 million visitors, 1/3 of who are visitors under 18 There are about 650 individual and institutional members in ICOM Russia. During two last St. Petersburg 117 years ICOM Russia membership was rapidly increasing more than 20% (or about 100 new members) a year Northwestern region 160 You will find the information aboutICOM Russia members in this book. All members (individual and institutional) are divided in two big groups – Museums which are institutional members of ICOM or are represented by individual members and Organizations. All the museums in this book are distributed by regional principle. Organizations are structured in profile groups Central region 192 Volga river region 224 Many thanks to all the museums who offered their help and assistance in the making of this collection South of Russia 258 Special thanks to Urals 270 Museum creation and consulting Culture heritage security in Russia with 3M(tm)Novec(tm)1230 Siberia and Far East 284 © ICOM Russia, 2012 Organizations 322 © K. Novokhatko, A. Gnedovsky, N. Kazantseva, O. Guzewska – compiling, translation, editing, 2012 [email protected] www.icom.org.ru © Leo Tolstoy museum-estate “Yasnaya Polyana”, design, 2012 Moscow MOSCOW A. N. SCRiAbiN MEMORiAl Capital of Russia. Major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation center of Russia and the continent MUSEUM Highlights: First reference to Moscow dates from 1147 when Moscow was already a pretty big town.
  • Refractions of Rome in the Russian Political Imagination by Olga Greco

    Refractions of Rome in the Russian Political Imagination by Olga Greco

    From Triumphal Gates to Triumphant Rotting: Refractions of Rome in the Russian Political Imagination by Olga Greco A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) in the University of Michigan 2015 Doctoral Committee: Professor Valerie A. Kivelson, Chair Assistant Professor Paolo Asso Associate Professor Basil J. Dufallo Assistant Professor Benjamin B. Paloff With much gratitude to Valerie Kivelson, for her unflagging support, to Yana, for her coffee and tangerines, and to the Prawns, for keeping me sane. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ............................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter I. Writing Empire: Lomonosov’s Rivalry with Imperial Rome ................................... 31 II. Qualifying Empire: Morals and Ethics of Derzhavin’s Romans ............................... 76 III. Freedom, Tyrannicide, and Roman Heroes in the Works of Pushkin and Ryleev .. 122 IV. Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov and the Rejection of the Political [Rome] .................. 175 V. Blok, Catiline, and the Decomposition of Empire .................................................. 222 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 271 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................
  • Eugene Miakinkov

    Eugene Miakinkov

    Russian Military Culture during the Reigns of Catherine II and Paul I, 1762-1801 by Eugene Miakinkov A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Department of History and Classics University of Alberta ©Eugene Miakinkov, 2015 Abstract This study explores the shape and development of military culture during the reign of Catherine II. Next to the institutions of the autocracy and the Orthodox Church, the military occupied the most important position in imperial Russia, especially in the eighteenth century. Rather than analyzing the military as an institution or a fighting force, this dissertation uses the tools of cultural history to explore its attitudes, values, aspirations, tensions, and beliefs. Patronage and education served to introduce a generation of young nobles to the world of the military culture, and expose it to its values of respect, hierarchy, subordination, but also the importance of professional knowledge. Merit is a crucial component in any military, and Catherine’s military culture had to resolve the tensions between the idea of meritocracy and seniority. All of the above ideas and dilemmas were expressed in a number of military texts that began to appear during Catherine’s reign. It was during that time that the military culture acquired the cultural, political, and intellectual space to develop – a space I label the “military public sphere”. This development was most clearly evident in the publication, by Russian authors, of a range of military literature for the first time in this era. The military culture was also reflected in the symbolic means used by the senior commanders to convey and reinforce its values in the army.
  • Toronto Slavic Quarterly. № 33. Summer 2010

    Toronto Slavic Quarterly. № 33. Summer 2010

    Michael Basker The Trauma of Exile: An Extended Analysis of Khodasevich’s ‘Sorrentinskie Fotografii’ What exile from himself can flee Byron1 It is widely accepted that the deaths in August 1921 of Aleksandr Blok and Nikolai Gumilev, the one ill for months and denied until too late the necessary papers to leave Russia for treatment, the other executed for complicity in the so-called Tag- antsev conspiracy, marked a practical and symbolic turning point in the relations between Russian writers and thinkers and the new regime. In the not untypical assessment of Vladislav Khoda- sevich’s long-term partner in exile, Nina Berberova: …that August was a boundary line. An age had begun with the ‘Ode on the Taking of Khotin’ (1739) and had ended with Au- gust 1921: all that came afer (for still a few years) was only the continuation of this August: the departure of Remizov and Bely abroad, the departure of Gorky, the mass exile of the intelligent- sia in the summer of 1922, the beginning of planned repres- sions, the destruction of two generations — I am speaking of a two-hundred year period of Russian literature. I am not saying that it had all ended, but that an age of it had.2 © Maichael Basker, 2010 © TSQ 33. Summer 2010 (http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/) 1 From ‘To Inez’, song inserted between stanzas lxxiv and lxxxv of Canto 1 of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. To avoid undue encumbrance of the extensive crit- ical apparatus, works of nineteenth and twentieth-century poetry by authors other than Khodasevich will generally be identified by title or first line, and cited without reference to the standard academic editions from which they have been taken.
  • Complete List Catalog

    Complete List Catalog

    Cultivate an open mind Complete List Catalog www.questbooks.net 2012 House Publishing Theosophical TABLECOMPLETE OF CONTENTS QUEST TITLE LIST QUEST BOOKS are published by THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA P.O. Box 270, Wheaton, Illinois 60187-0270. The Society is a branch of a world fellowship and membership organization dedicated to promoting the unity of humanity and encouraging the study of Complete Quest Title List ............................................................ 3 religion, philosophy, and science so that we may better understand ourselves and our relationships within Complete Adyar Title List ...........................................................13 this multidimensional universe. The Society stands for complete freedom of individual search and belief. Complete Study Guide List .......................................................21 For further information about its activities, write to the above address, call CD / Audio Program List.............................................................21 1-800-669-1571, e-mail [email protected], or consult its Web page: www.theosophical.org. DVD / Video Program List ..........................................................28 Author Index ..................................................................................36 VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT Order Forms....................................................................................46 WWW.QUESTBOOKS.NET Visit our website for interactive features now available Ordering Information....................................Inside
  • Can Solar Activity Influence the Occurrence of Economic

    Can Solar Activity Influence the Occurrence of Economic

    CAN SOLAR ACTIVITY INFLUENCE THE OCCURRENCE OF ECONOMIC RECESSIONS? Mikhail Gorbanev This paper revisits evidence of solar activity influence on the economy. We examine whether economic recessions occur more often in the years around and after solar maximums. This research strand dates back to late XIX century writings of famous British economist William Stanley Jevons, who claimed that “commercial crises” occur with periodicity matching solar cycle length. Quite surprisingly, our results suggest that the hypothesis linking solar maximums and recessions is well anchored in data and cannot be easily rejected. February 2015 Keywords: business cycle, recession, solar cycle, sunspot, unemployment JEL classification numbers: E32, F44, Q51, Q54 Mikhail Gorbanev is Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund 700 19th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20431 (e-mail: [email protected]) Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not represent IMF views or policy. The author wishes to thank Professors Francis X. Diebold and Adrian Pagan and IMF seminar participants for their critical comments on the findings that led to this paper. 2 I. INTRODUCTION This paper reviews empirical evidence of the apparent link between cyclical maximums of solar activity and economic crises. An old theory outlined by famous British economist William Stanley Jevons in the 1870s claimed that “commercial crises” occur with periodicity broadly matching the solar cycle length of about 11 years. It is common knowledge that this “beautiful coincidence” claimed by Jevons and its theoretical explanation linking the “commercial crises” to bad harvests did not stand the test and were rejected by subsequent studies.
  • Dialectics of Sin: Snokhachestvo Incest in Maxim Gorky's Fiction

    Dialectics of Sin: Snokhachestvo Incest in Maxim Gorky's Fiction

    CONTINENTAL THOUGHT & THEORY: A JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM Thinking Sin: Contemporary Acts and Sensibilities Volume 3 | Issue 2: Thinking Sin 123-142 | ISSN: 2463-333X Dialectics of Sin: snokhachestvo Incest in Maxim Gorky’s Fiction Henrietta Mondry Russian literature famously contributed to thinking about sin in the works of its most celebrated writers, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, dubbed as “Russian thinkers” to denote their contribution to moral, philosophical, and psychological thought.1 Dostoevsky explored the problem of sin and crime in Crime and Punishment, and in his last most philosophical novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1880), he even posited the problem of the hereditary nature of sin with its focus on the family. Leo Tolstoy also explored the relations between sin, crime and evil within the family, notably in his play The Power of Darkness (1886) that controversially depicted the Russian peasant family as home to criminal and sinful acts of incest and murder. So powerful was Tolstoy’s indictment that the play was forbidden to be staged till 1902. My present investigation focuses of the work of another celebrated classic of Russian literature, Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), whose contribution to thinking about sin/crime in relation to the workings of the Russian family has not been fully explored. In particular, his stories reveal a preoccupation with the theme of father and daughter-in-law incest, in direct relation to the notion of sin in Judeo-Christian tradition. Writing on the topic of sin and evil in European literature, Ronald Paulson has noted that topics of sin in literature often relate to transgressions of sexual prohibitions set out in Leviticus in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).2 Paulson uses the writings of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur who maintains in his The Symbolism of Evil, that “sin does not so much signify a harmful substance” but rather a violated personal relation to God, a violation of a religious bond, of a contract with the deity himself (p.
  • Letters of Blood and Other Works in English

    Letters of Blood and Other Works in English

    Letters of Blood and other works in English Göran Printz-Påhlson Robert Archambeau (ed.) Publisher: Open Book Publishers Year of publication: 2011 Published on OpenEdition Books: 11 January 2013 Serie: OBP collection Electronic ISBN: 9781906924584 http://books.openedition.org Printed version ISBN: 9781906924577 Number of pages: 210 Electronic reference PRINTZ-PÅHLSON, Göran. Letters of Blood and other works in English. New edition [online]. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2011 (generated 19 décembre 2018). Available on the Internet: <http:// books.openedition.org/obp/858>. ISBN: 9781906924584. © Open Book Publishers, 2011 Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 UK Göran Printz-Påhlson Letters of Blood and other works in English EDITED BY ROBERT ARCHAMBEAU LETTERS OF BLOOD Letters of Blood and other works in English Göran Printz-Påhlson Edited by Robert Archambeau https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2011 Robert Archambeau; Foreword © 2011 Elinor Shaffer; ‘The Overall Wandering of Mirroring Mind’: Some Notes on Göran Printz-Påhlson © 2011 Lars-Håkan Svensson; Göran Printz-Påhlson’s original texts © 2011 Ulla Printz-Påhlson. Version 1.2. Minor edits made, May 2016. Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution- Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. Attribution should include the following information: Göran Printz-Påhlson, Robert Archambeau (ed.), Letters of Blood. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0017 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https://www.