A quarterly scholarly journal and news magazine. September 2011. Vol IV:3 From the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) conference Södertörn University, Stockholm reports BALTIC

W O Rbalticworlds.com L D S In Joseph Roth Land The project of Galicia Karl Schlögel on Puzzling displaced persons – Russia Abroad Patterns Travels through a Russia in of europe stagnation The limited effect of borders

book reviews illustration: moa thelander

battle before poltava / feudalism & modernization / life-stories / ddr youngsters remember cover2 artist dialogue

Wikipedia Moa Thelander, born 1985 warnings She feels like an artist, not an illustra- It is therefore Readers have made us aware of the tor, but finds it very rewarding to do dangers of using Wikipedia as an illustrations, since it involves dedicating striking that the authoritative source of information and herself to things she doesn’t address in history professor knowledge. We have, with a few excep- her own art. in Zubov’s team who tions, refrained from doing so when it Her “home” institution is Bergen comes to empirical evidence. If there is National Academy of the Arts in Nor- wrote on the Bolshevik correct information on Wikipedia, it can way. She spent last year at the Royal terror during the Civil always be found somewhere else. If the Institute of Art in Stockholm, and is ‘‘ information is only available on Wikipe- now commencing the third year of her War of 1918–1921 dia, one cannot be sure it is correct. bachelor’s degree program. referred to a news- We have not been persuaded that (as That Moa Thelander sought an edu- is occasionally claimed in the interna- cation in the arts was more or less a paper published in tional press) Wikipedia is self-correct- given. She grew up in an artistic home Edinburgh in 1923. ing; there are examples to the contrary. – devoting herself to art, but also to And Professor Zubov’s Nor do we maintain that other literature, writing, has been the obvious choice for online or in printed form, would, gener- a long time. defense of this ally speaking, be more reliable. It is, Writing is important – her own and historian’s reference however, subjected to a more exacting others’. For her there is no one single scrutiny, for example via reviews, but artistic exemplar, it could easily be In addition to her education in the merely confirmed my also public debates and controversies. language and literature that serve as arts, she thinks a lot about the future – first impression that This makes it easier to avoid inferior inspiration as she works with her art; to a great degree, deciding what to do neither of them had and unusable literature. authors she would mention in this con- involves the kind of life one wants to text are Sara Lidman and Djuna Barnes. live. even consulted the Web publishing that is not quality- Otherwise she is reading a lot of art To make a living from art is difficult. source for their table.” controlled is generally risky. Ideological theory at the moment, an active reading Moa Thelander says that it is very elements seem to be more prominent and searching for things that may be much (too much) about networking, here than in traditional book and useful in her own artistic process. marketing, and the now so-cherished Lennart Samuelson magazine publishing, where there is a As an artist, Moa Thelander uses entrepreneurial thinking. comments on Andrei Zubov’s commercial motive for strict objectivity. many different forms of expression – Perhaps it is possible to buy time for comment on his review on Freedom of publication and free access preferably at the same time – currently art via other ways of earning money, www.balticworlds.com. must be dealt with wisely, for example including: sculpture, photography, text, such as working at a second-hand when it comes to indicating primary and video. Not painting however; she bookshop, as she is doing now. The sources on the Internet. doesn’t see painting as her language. essential thing is to find a space for What we are talking about here is When she does illustrations for one’s own art, but she does not yet primarily the role of Wikipedia in the Baltic Worlds, a different work method know what this space should look like, wide realm of scientific references. But comes into play. She has a systematic if she is to feel both safe and free. ≈ this applies likewise to serious journal- approach and always starts with a MarieLouise Samuelsson ism. Wikipedia should be used primarily concentrated reading of the text, yet as a search engine, where it without tries not to ponder too much, but rather Note: Moa Thelander has previously question can be extremely useful. But it starts from the first impression, the first done illustrations for Baltic Worlds as Correction should not be used as evidence. ≈ image that pops up, and then tries to re- Moa Franzén. Last issue’s cover artist Ragni Svens- the editors fine it. Then things goes quickly, when son was regrettably not mentioned by she knows what she wants to convey. name.

Modernization is much needed in Russia Today, twenty years after the transition where. At the same time you find the troduced a compensatory tax system. at every level. There is a feeling of being in Russia, there is a polarization be- greatest number of poor in Moscow, Resources are redistributed from rich stuck and not being able to change tween regions and between people. more than one million people. Also you regions to poor so that people will re- one’s situation. People are focused on This process is noted by Natalia find large differences in income distri- main there and receive social services. survival. Putin and the government say Zubarevich, Department of Geography, bution, a factor of 32 and more. Here In the 2000s, this tax policy has meant they will take care of people, that ev- Moscow State University, who is key- you find the richest and the poorest.” that incomes have increased, and that eryone should be able to live well. This note speaker at Baltic Worlds Annual She argues that one reason for this the poverty rate has decreased. On the makes many people take it easy and Roundtable, “Market Reform and Socio- development is that growth was based other hand, the tax policy, according assume that the state will take care of all Economic Change in Russia”, October 6. for many years on the export of raw Zubarevich, has not given the regions problems,” says Zubarevich. ≈ Via telephone from Moscow she says: materials. Profits were rarely invested an incentive to try to modernize and “To start business is difficult every- in manufacturing. participate in socio-economic develop- Note: Read more about the Baltic where in Russia, but in Moscow there To counter polarization between ment: “Mobility is low — social, eco- Worlds Roundtable on the website. are more job opportunities than else- regions and people, the state has in- nomic, institutional, indeed, mobility BALTIC editorial 3

W O R L Dbalticworlds.com S

Sponsored by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies The shrill fear

contents he better people feel, a certain nationality. The international the more threatened community is a fellowship of the win- review essay they think they are”, ners. wrote German Scandi- Still, the Danes can hardly be consid- 4 A country that ceased to navianist Bernd Hen- ered losers. They were among the most exist — Galicia ningsen in a newspa- willing in the war against Libya — to per commentary on be sure, perhaps not a self-evident tri- feature Midsummer Eve. “In umph. (Germany declined.) For the last

Editor-in-chief this sense, it doesn’t few years, a Dane has been Secretary k arin sunvisson illustration: Anders Björnsson 12 Is the Baltic Sea curable? matter how real the General of NATO. (And many Danes Editor threat at hand is.” (Der have fallen in Afghanistan.) The threat Ninna Mörner reports Tagesspiegel, 2011-07- to national sovereignty needs not be an Publisher 24) He was alluding to imagined one — but this predicament is Anu Mai Kõll 15 Obsessed with Shalamov the Danish-German one Denmark shares with other coun- Editorial advisory board border war that was looming in the spring and early tries that have joined the European Sari Autio-Sarasmo, 16 Privatization as a magic summer, but also to the inflated Danish self-image — be Union. (Though certain people say, with Aleksanteri Institute, Hel- formula it self-delusional or not — as the happiest people in the some justification, that by EU as well sinki, Monica Hammer, world, and now also one of the most threatened. as by NATO membership, Danes have Södertörn University, 17 Cultural studies go East The issue is the concern of leading Danish politi- received guarantees of national sover- Lars Johannsen, Univer- cians that unwanted elements, exploiting Schengen eignty.) sity of Aarhus, Ann-Cath- 18 Russian identity Agreement provisions on free movement, will enter rine Jungar, CBEES, by land from Germany or by sea or bridge from Swe- So then: new imbalances in a world Anu Mai Kõll, CBEES commentaries den to a Denmark that in the eyes of the world is be- where differences tend to be filed (Director), Thomas Lun- coming, to an increasing degree, a xenophobic coun- down — where every major airport dén, Chair, CBEES, 9 Green is a German color try. One has visions of bands of robbers from Poland, looks the same, where it is permissible Jens E. Olesen, Universi- Latvia and Estonia who “abuse” the EU membership that coffee tastes the same in all world ty of Greifswald, Barbara 10 Different worldviews. Can of their own countries in order to terrorize the en- cities, where all boys have to play foot- Törnquist–Plewa, Lund we meet? circled, innocent people of the Sound. For this reason, ball. Against leveling, there are both University Danish Customs is hiring more people, and border good arguments and a potential for Editorial staff lecture controls are being tightened by the use of surveillance resistance. Whoever it is that actualizes Joakim Andersson cameras. this potential will then prove decisive. Peter Johnsson 21 Karl Schlögel. Russian All four “major” Nordic countries have Josefina Lundblad diasporas in Weimar Land Trafficking is a real problem (even if “sexual had populist parties in their parlia- Brian Manning Delaney abuse” seems not to be a particularly burning topic in ments since 2010 — not yet in their gov- Eglė Rindzevičiūtė story Denmark), but the stories of Eastern European gangs ernments. None of these parties, with Björn Rombach have often proved to be myths, legends that have the possible exception of the Swedish MarieLouise Samuelsson 42 Travels in a Russia asleep spread far and wide. Sometimes foreign organized one, has any kinship with earlier fascist Tove Stenqvist crime takes trucks packed with the furniture from an tendencies in Europe. Translator reviews entire home and disappears eastward in a dark, inac- So they do not threaten parliamen- Proper English cessible direction — strangely enough they are never tary democracy, they do not assault Proofreading 29 Battle of Poltava revised caught on the way out there. Sometimes foreigners the rule of law, they can also walk the Semantix come and take jobs away from reasonably prosperous streets safely. In a country like Sweden, Design 34 The people of Galicia leave Western Europeans, who themselves do not want the it is not extreme but mainstream politi- Sara Bergfors home worst jobs, and who, moreover, are in need of import- cians who are murdered. Indeed, what Lena Fredriksson ed skilled workers, for example doctors, because they is their concern, their shrill fear? ≈ Lars Rodvaldr / Oktavilla 38 Born in the East, growing up have not ensured (that is, have not seen themselves as Illustrators in the West able to afford) that a sufficient number are trained and Moa Thelander educated at institutions in Denmark. Katrin Stenmark poem Western European banks that create financial oli- Karin Sunvisson gopolies, with their attendant economic starvation Ragni Svensson 40 Freedom. By Péter Nádas cures, and tourists who live well off the reality of the Subscription economic crisis in certain Eastern European countries Sofia Barlind The next issue of BW is scheduled to do not perceive themselves as immoral in any way, let Printed by be published in December 2011. alone, of course, criminal. And, obviously, when there Wassberg+Skotte Contact BW at [email protected]. are imbalances things are often measured by different Tryckeri AB, Stockholm Subscription is free. More information yardsticks. Universal justice does not exist. Interna- ISSN 2000-2955 at www.balticworlds.com. tional tribunals always cage in villains of a certain sort,

A horrifying terrorist in Norway was a blond, native Norwegian. Not a matter for border control. 4 review essay

BY anders hammarlund illustration ragni svensson

Inventing Galicia The province that became a project

August 1914. Europe poor villages. At once we see the many lights splendent uniforms, strategy a theoretical game. In a is at war. Josef Redlich, of the large fortress city in the distance, but few efficient operations, the well-organized Imperial politician, historian, progress necessarily becomes slower as army would naturally be able to vanquish the Russian and professor of public one guard post after another calls us over; army, which while numerically superior consisted law in Vienna, wants a guard officer stands at the entrance to mainly of illiterate peasants! But how exactly was to follow events close the fortress; we smell all the timber felled this to be accomplished? One can imagine this as the at hand in what is in the forests alongside the road — clear- topic of discussion among the war correspondents expected to be a swift ings to create fields of fire for the advanced seated at the picnic tables in Count Męciński’s over- operation against artillery — and then another outpost, we grown park. Now Redlich is sitting at the table with intransigent Russia. drive down a suburban street, then across a the supreme commander, but his statements are He takes the train east beautiful bridge to the other side of the San, disturbingly vague and hardly inspiring of confi- to the village of Dukla where we hear at the city gendarmerie that dence: at the foot of the Car- the supreme command has been set up in Josef Redlich, portrait by Emil pathians. In a pocket- the barracks of the 45th infantry regiment. Conrad repeatedly talks to me about the Orlik, 1918. sized notebook, which [. . .] Broad-shouldered and dignified royal importance of luck to a field commander: he by chance ends up be- footmen take our coats, I open the door, see praises Auffenburg, whom I had imagined ing preserved for posterity, he records his impressions the huge, pure white and simple mess, the was a skilled unit commander, about which of Galicia. horseshoe-shaped table with all the officers he replied: “Oh no, he is a good general staff The beautiful but somewhat dilapidated palace of surrounding General Conrad von Hötzen- officer, but, and this is more important, he Polish Count Męciński in Dukla now serves as a press dorf, who sits in the middle. I go to the right, is always lucky in everything he takes on.” office and officer’s mess. Eight days before the out- Hoen to the left, Conrad sees me, jumps up, “You understand”, he said, “my dear friend, break of war, the Count ignored warnings and traveled takes my arm and says: “Well now, this is the next four to six weeks will determine my to inspect his estates on the other side of the Russian a surprise, I am truly delighted to see you life: you may see me again in some peace- border and was unable to return. here.” He then turns to [German] General ful alpine valley, in a loden jacket, a man Now he sits in Stockholm, penniless. von Freytag-Loringhoven sitting next to him who has retired. Oh, everything depends on Dukla must rely on more or less reliable telegrams and introduces me, saying, “This is Profes- luck. It is a horribly difficult task. You must about the progress of the war. Redlich wants to get sor Redlich, one of our most important now almost cross your fingers.” As soon as closer to the still relatively fluid front and accepts at parliamentarians and scholars, now a volun- I touched upon the conditions for a victory, once when invited on August 22 to accompany one teer military aide at the Ministry of Foreign he said deprecatingly, “Just don’t shout it Colonel Hoen to supreme command headquarters in Affairs”. Now I must take my seat to the right out, don’t talk about it.” About the actual op- Przemyśl: of the chief of staff and Baron Conrad went erations, he told me in so many words that so far as to wave down one of the doughty the truly decisive events would take place in I immediately went and packed a bag, took royal footmen — throughout the headquar- the next week or two. the loaded revolver and dashed over to the ters, the Court Treasury is providing for commander: in a few minutes we are ready the sustenance of high-ranking officers — to for departure. I ride with the colonel in Di- serve me the evening meal. Three dishes, an Fatalism. Hötzendorf confides in Redlich that he rector Belletz’s car, who drives brilliantly. excellent pilsner on tap, white and red wine is distraught, even paralyzed with dread in the face of [. . .] Our trip through the slowly falling sum- are laid out before me. his mission. The army is under-financed and far too mer night was glorious. The road, a true poorly armed. He is being forced to put the lives of mountain road after Jassenin, crosses the Redlich sounds out the Austrian chief of staff Hötzen- hundreds of thousands of conscripts at stake in some heights between Jasło and Przemyśl to the dorf. There was then still the shimmer of heroism kind of poker game. To start with, one can bluff one’s San valley, then to Przemyśl through mainly about the war; the officers were gentlemen in re- way forward with bold thrusts:

A battle front is a border that is recognized by no one. An inner border can also become a front.

6 review essay Warsaw • Galicia under Austrian rule Monday the 24th [. . .] A telegram arrives in the afternoon, notifying us that we have occupied Łysa Góra east of Weichsel and Taken from Poland: pushed back two Russian army corps at Lublin • Galicia 1772–1918 Kraśnik. The local Jews immediately gather and pay resounding homage to the colonel, West Galicia 1795; who was fetched from the taroc game in the merged with Galicia 1803; park. The Jews sing a ringing, utterly Ori- lost to Duchy of Warsaw 1809 ental Imperial hymn, the children sing folk hymns, old men in kaftans dance a sort of victory kolo. • Krakau The Hasidic Jews rightfully fear a Russian occupation, (Kraków) which would bring pogroms and lawlessness down Przemysl • • Lemberg upon them. A victory for the armies of Franz Josef (L’viv) is the only option. But the situation in Galicia shifts • rapidly. Only a few days later, it becomes difficult for Tarnopol (Ternopil) reporters to get any reliable information about the • situation at the Russian border. On August 27, Redlich Taken from Poland: Stanislau writes: (Ivano-Frankivsk) Free City of Cracow 1815; incorporated into Galicia A day of incredible tension! Yesterday (as Grand Duchy of Cracow) 1846 evening, Colonel Hoen was notified by tele- phone from Przemyśl that the Russians were • Tarnopol District lost to Russia 1809; Czernowitz on full offensive and that battles are being reattached to Galicia 1815 (Chernivtsi) fought along the entire line from Złoczow to Zołkiew. Today, all journalistic work has Bukovina been put aside: the correspondents and all taken from Moldavia and of us, officers included, are on edge. Most merged with Galicia 1775; separate Austrian province 1849 can hardly conceal the worry they feel deep inside. The Jews, who have heard about the great battle, have been praying for victory The map above shows conquests made by Austria (and one temporary loss), from the first partition of Poland to the all day long in the synagogue. The few mem- establishment of a sovereign Polish republic. bers of the local Polish intelligentsia are remaining very passive. this special part of the country, despite everything, purely geopolitical and cartographical invention. permeate his objective account. What was Austria supposed to do with this terri- History Larry Wolff’s book is about thesenotions , about tory? People were asking that question in Austrian and fantasy how an arbitrarily defined region was incorporated government circles. Empress Maria Theresa was un- As I read the introductory chapter of American histo- into a larger political narrative that was about reason enthusiastic about the acquisition, saying: “Ce mot de rian Larry Wolff’s book The Idea of Galicia: History and and progress on the surface but encompassed strongly partage me répugne” (“the word partition is repugnant Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (Stanford 2010), irrational and regressive elements. It is also about how to me”). Participating in the “division” of booty like I am reminded of Josef Redlich’s vivid depiction of the these in truth hardly realistic notions and ideas actual- one more political robber baron seemed to her un- late summer days of 1914. What Redlich describes is ly produce political and cultural realities and acts. The worthy of an apostolic monarch, but the matter had to the beginning of the end of a political project — Gali- book is based on a deep understanding of the political be accepted to maintain the balance of power; Prussia cia — that began in 1772 and soon became an impor- history of the area, but also a staggeringly broad read- and Russia would otherwise become uncomfortably tant element in the effort to legitimize the seemingly ing of fiction, in several languages, in which the ideas large and obtrusive. And when obsequious historians anachronistic existence of the Habsburg monarchy in of Galicia were produced, shaped, and reproduced were able to show that the Hungarian crown had actu- modern Europe. over 150 years. ally laid claim to parts of the area as far back as the It was precisely the history and possible survival 12th century, the morsel became a little tastier to Maria of the Habsburg monarchy that was the liberal Josef Theresa, whose titles included Queen of Hungary. But Redlich’s central preoccupation as a scholar and politi- Since it will soon be a hundred years since this what would the new province be called? “Austrian cian. In 1911—1913, he was one of the driving forces in Galicia ceased to exist as a political and administrative Poland” was one possibility, but such a name was the Imperial commission for administrative reform unit, let us orient ourselves in time and space. The politically unthinkable, since the aim was to erase appointed to study how the administrative structure apocalypse of the old Poland began in 1772 with the Poland from European history. Austria instead made of the realm could be modernized, in part to better first partition. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a connection to the medieval principality of Halych, meet the demands of an ethnically diverse population. which had been the dominant power in Eastern Eu- an heir of the state of Kiev that had encompassed part As a rationalist cultural scholar and advocate of mod- rope since the Late Middle Ages but had been declin- of the area before the eastern expansion of the Polish ernization, Redlich was to a certain extent a steward ing since the 17th century, was dissolved by the neigh- state. Galicia, Galizien in German, was bruited to be of the Austrian tradition known as Josephinism (Jose- boring states of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Austria the Latinized form of Halych. (The old word stems of phinismus), after the reformist Holy Roman Emperor was apportioned the southeastern part, an area that hal and gal, referring to the salt deposits in the region, Joseph II, although Redlich’s pragmatic and decentral- extended along the northern side of the Carpathians, echo in the name, which are also seen in the classical ist approach also implied criticism of the excessive where it bordered on the Hungarian part of the mon- ethnic designation Gaul. Those with long memories bureaucratism of the Austrian system. He wanted to archy (now Slovakia). In the northwest, the border will recall that Spain also has its Galicia. After the study realities, which was why he had gone off to the was partially along the Vistula, but the annexed area Habsburgs’ abandoned claims to the Spanish crown, Galician theater. But it is often clear in his notes from otherwise had no distinct historical or geographical the name was available, so to speak, in the Imperial 1914 how ingrained Viennese notions and clichés about borders. It was thus the product of negotiations, a list of useable provincial names.)

Borders are an intellectual endeavor. They come about via negotiations. 7

Now that the name was settled, it had to be filled been disadvantaged. For the Ukrainians, the growth the Jews in the enlightened, reasonable society, one with meaning. Galicia became a project. There were of a modern written language was made possible, and could, almost to the point of excess, clearly dem- two ambitions: to tie the new province more closely to for reform-minded Jews the Toleration Patent issued onstrate one’s lack of prejudice. But there was also the old Habsburg realm and distance it from the Polish by Joseph II was to be of great significance. Factions of another, more pragmatic and calculating aspect of the tradition, and to demonstrate Austria’s modernity and the Polish intelligentsia also considered Austrian pub- emancipation project. The Jews could become allies of reformist spirit. Galicia was seen as a sort of adoptive lic administration more tolerant and acceptable than the Habsburgs in their struggle against the Polish aris- child from the underdeveloped backyard of Europe that of Russia and Prussia, which had taken over in tocracy, and their mercantile tradition was also seen that would, in a paternalistic fostering project, be of- the other parts of the divided Poland. A kind of Polish- as an asset in terms of business policy. fered upward class mobility from muddy village street Galician culture emerged, a process Wolff illustrates to enlightened salon. Joseph II himself traveled to Gali- through the life and works of playwright Aleksander cia in 1773 to survey the situation. What was the best Fredro (1793—1876). To Fredro and his liberal circle, Liberation from feudal absolute power and reli- way to deal with the foundling? warding off Russian imperialism, which was consid- gious shackles engendered widespread enthusiasm And what was the situation, actually? In this south- ered a greater evil than the Viennese paternalism, was and sympathy among the Jews, and many proponents eastern part of the old Poland, there were three main more important than anti-Austrian agitation. Under of the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) and the ethnic groups — Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. The larg- the increasingly liberalized conditions of the late 19th various Jewish reform movements of the 19th century est group was the Orthodox Christian Ukrainians (or century, Galicia and Krakow also became a center of identified strongly with Josephine ideas and the Aus- Ruthenians, as the Austrians preferred to call them). Polish art and culture. trian state. Joseph Roth, the congenial delineator of Somewhat fewer in number were the Roman Catholic A significant event discussed from several different the Habsburgian Imperial state’s contradictory but Poles, followed by the Jews, who made up almost ten angles in Wolff’s book is the failed Polish revolution of culturally productive agonies in novels like Radetzky percent of the population there. There were several 1846. The uprising had been planned by exiled politi- March, The Emperor’s Tomb, and Hotel Savoy, grew up other small ethnic groups, such as the Carpathian cians in Paris and met with initial success in Krakow, in the Jewish town of Brody and the town sets the tone mountain peoples (the Lemke, the Hutsuls, and the which was annexed to Austria in 1795 but was made for many of his narratives. Vlach) as well as a German element in the cities. Roma a nominally independent city-state. The idea was At the same time, demands for secularization and and Armenians were also in the picture. Political and that rebellion would spread across Galicia and from Germanification engendered resistance among the economic power in this agrarian society was held by there to Russian-occupied Poland. But when certain large Hasidic population in eastern Galicia. In reality, the Polish or Polonicized aristocracy, the Szlachta, aristocratic nationalists raised the banner of uprising, Habsburg policies also led to the impoverishment who were the tip of a feudal pyramid whose broad but they were met with unexpected opposition among and proletarianization of large segments of the Jewish socially oppressed base was made up of the serfs and the Ukrainian peasants, who considered the Austrian population, whose traditional livelihoods were taken illiterate peasant masses. Religion was the central fac- administration their guardians against the feudal away and not replaced by new structures as a conse- tor in identity; national awareness was mainly a cur- oppression of the Polish aristocracy. In some towns, quence of the industrialization that essentially never rent within the aristocratic Polish intelligentsia. the peasants took matters into their own hands and came. To be a Luftmensch, to live on nothing, became massacred their nationalist conspirator estate owners. a far too common occupation in small Jewish towns Here, the Austrians had thus managed to foment a sort like Kolomea, Horodenka, and Tysmienica. Out of this Enlightened of Galician Landespatriotismus that was not built on came the strong migration flows into Vienna, where protection national lines but instead (sometimes far too violently) many prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Sig- Thus, the situation was one of marked social heteroge- emphasized socioeconomic and regional affiliations mund Freud, had Galician family roots. It was also the neity and inequality. How should order and dynamism and interests. Krakow was punished for its role in the impetus for proletarian emigration to New York. be brought to this diverse yet stagnant region? To the revolt with the loss of its autonomous status and was Austrians, the Polish aristocracy seemed a bastion of annexed to Galicia. reactionary irrationality; as a result, the dismantling Whipped of the Szlachta’s feudal privileges and traditions be- into subjection came an important goal. The Austrians divided the Lower East Side — One of the most written-about works of Austrian country into new administrative areas, Kreise, and Galicia In Manhattan literature, Venus in Furs, was published in 1870. With Austrian civil servants were appointed to leading posi- Galitzianer tantzerl was an often-seen song title on old this literary depiction of the life and times of fictional tions. German immigration was encouraged. Galician 78 records played in New York in the early 1900s. The Galician aristocrat Severin von Kusiemski, the author, calendars, reference works, floras, and history books musicians were immigrant Eastern European klezmo- Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, was to supply material were published, all to cement the idea of the province rim who brought their repertoire to a growing audi- for the definition of the sexual deviations described by — whose borders had been drawn arbitrarily — as an ence of galitzianer — Jews from Galicia — who usually psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his 1890 clas- accepted historical and cultural unit that had finally settled in the working class districts of the Lower East sic Psychopathia Sexualis: “I feel justified in calling this come under enlightened protection. Side on Manhattan. According to Wolff, the establish- sexual anomaly ‘Masochism’ because the author Sa- One of Wolff’s central ideas is that the treatment ment of the term “galitzianer” in Yiddish, and Galician cher-Masoch frequently made this perversion — which of Galicia reflects the new east-west dichotomy in the Jews’ perceptions of themselves as culturally distinct up to his time was quite unknown to the scientific view of European history that took shape during the from their Lithuanian and Russian co-religionists, world as such — the substratum of his writings.” Enlightenment. A traditional north-south polarity was due to the special significance of the Josephinist Sacher-Masoch (1836—1895) and his literary oeuvre based on the classical notion of the barbaric north reformers to Jewish living conditions. are given a central role in Larry Wolff’s study of the was exchanged for an evolutionary idea of a static, With its Counter-Reformation, strongly anti-Jewish ideas of Galicia. His reading shows that the Galician backward, and uncivilized Eastern Europe and a dy- tradition (clearly visible in Maria Theresa, among setting can actually supply a key to the author’s dis- namic and progressive Western Europe. These ideas others), the Habsburg state hardly welcomed the tinct symbolism and worldview. Leopold von Sacher- are related, of course, to the phenomenon now often large Jewish population that happened to come along Masoch belonged to an Austrian family of bureaucrats termed Orientalism: the notion of the essential incom- with the territorial acquisition of 1772. Jews were the who had come to Galicia by the end of the 18th century. patibility of “Eastern” cultures with Western individu- majority population in many villages and communi- His father was the chief of police in the provincial alism and the idea of progress. ties, especially in the eastern part of the province, capital of Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv in the 1830s and 1840s, Even though they entailed significant interventions where there was a complete Jewish community with whose duties included managing the repercussions in traditional life patterns in the province, Austrian a multifaceted religious and cultural tradition. But the of the failed aristocratic revolt of 1846. With a “Ruthe- reforms to the education system, legal system, and enlightened despot Joseph II saw the Jewish presence nian” peasant girl as his wet-nurse and nanny, Ukraini- public administration were met with relative enthusi- as a challenge more than anything else. In being so an was the language Leopold absorbed with mother’s asm, especially among the groups that had formerly magnanimously tolerant that one wanted to include milk. The wet-nurse sacrificially left her own child

Galicia — a European Wild East. Polish landowners were the ones to be civilized. 8 review essay

among the fur-clad peasants in the village of Winniki miotic mark on Habsburg consciousness in Galicia and seen as characteristic of the Habsburgian spirit, per- to save the frail child of civil servants in Lemberg with became for Sacher-Masoch the sexual obsession of his meates his hastily scribbled observations and descrip- her healthy natural product. She also instilled into life and his literature.” tions. “Ce mot de partage me répugne.” An empire that him a dose of the Ukrainian folk storytelling tradition, Sacher-Masoch later married a woman who took could not bear the position to which fate had elevated it. whose motifs recur in his works. the name Wanda von Dunajew. She wrote a slave In early September of 1914, Redlich takes another The boy more or less grew up at police headquar- contract with her husband which stipulated that she car trip to the fortress city of Przemyśl. Facing the risk ters in Lemberg, where his father devoted his free would whip him while dressed in furs. “Not a day of being surrounded by the advancing Russian army, time to his herbarium and his mineral collection. A passed”, wrote Wanda in her memoirs, “without my the Austrians have now been forced to evacuate the life-sized doll wearing the costume of a Carpathian whipping my husband, without proving to him that I provincial capital of Lemberg. Fleeing people are robber stood in one corner of his office. The walls was keeping my part of the contract.” For Sacher-Mas- choking the roads, villages are burning. Rumors begin were decorated with bearskins and antique weapons. och, Galicia was the realm of urges and expression, a to spread that command headquarters will be with- In his autobiographical Erinnerungen, Sacher-Masoch “Half-Asia”, to use the term coined by Karl Emil Fran- drawn from Przemyśl. One last time, Redlich sits down relates: zos, the literary portrayer of Jewish folk life in the fic- to dine with the worn out Conrad von Hötzendorf, tional town of Barnow, which was both seductive and who explains the difficult situation, but is inclined to Here my father sat when his serious charge, frightening. This is also reflected in Sacher-Masoch’s turn to personal things and talks a great deal about the uninterrupted struggle against Polish almost romantic fascination with Hasidic Jews, whom his mistress, Gina von Reininghaus: “If I fail, I will also conspirators, gave him a free hour, and un- he erroneously perceived as an Oriental sect that lose this woman, a dreadful prospect, for then I must troubled by the death sentence that some- had repudiated asceticism to embrace sensualism. retreat into loneliness for the rest of my life.” one had posted on the gate, he organized His description of a visit in 1857 to the famous Rebbe Finally, Redlich paints a picture of the officer’s his treasures, which he had collected in the Lieb-mann in Sadhora gives the impression of a harem mess in Przemysl that could be the final scene in a fate- woods, meadows, swamps, and quarries interior from A Thousand and One Nights, with fur- ful drama about the decline and fall of the Austrian around Lemberg; he took the beetles out of trimmed caftans and Turkish divans as paraphernalia. Empire: the alcohol flasks to stick them on needles From the Russian-Jewish perspective, on the other and exhibit them in the cork-lined cases, hand, Galicia could also be understood as an outpost While this quiet conversation went on, like soldiers in formation; he worked on the of the progressive West. The Broder shul, a synagogue most of the gentlemen had risen from the stones with a hammer, and pasted the dried founded in Odessa by Haskala-oriented Jews from table and left the mess, at last even General and pressed plants on white paper. Brody, represented the German-speaking Jewish re- Höfer, who sat across from us with his sad form movement. Here, “di galitzianer” were men of eyes. The two of us, Colonel Hoen, and two Little Leopold played quietly in a corner of the room, the Enlightenment in the spirit of Moses Mendelssohn, general staff majors in a corner, were finally anxious not to disturb his father as he meticulously Lessing, Kant, and the von Humboldt brothers. alone in the room, which with its burned- arranged his collections. During the revolutionary down candelabras and cold white walls now year of 1848, the police directorate was moved to looked very dismal. It was past ten o’clock Prague and the Sacher-Masoch family left Galicia, but Orange-colored when we rose and General Conrad once the twelve childhood years in Lemberg had shaped phantom pains again bade me a cordial farewell. The fat Leopold for life and the cultural atmosphere and tradi- Beliefs often become prescriptions, mental maps of royal footmen now looked at me with some tions of the province became the source materials for a sort after which reality is adjusted and structured. hostility; they must have seen me as the the fantasies he not only put into print, but lived out Even though, with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, reason for the long lingering in the room. in reality. Galicia ceased to exist, the idea of Galicia has a kind We went home, shaken to the core, because The masochistic hero of Venus in Furs, Severin von of ghostly presence in contemporary politics. The I found my pessimistic opinion, which had Kusiemski, meets Wanda von Dunajew, a widow from area was incorporated in 1919—1923 in the resurrected been reinforced for several days, confirmed Lemberg, in a resort in the Carpathian Mountains. She Polish state, only to be divided twenty years later through the conversation with the chief of invites him to become her slave and he is passionately between Germany and the Soviet Union as a result staff. Humanly, my heart went out to Con- taken with the idea. The pair write a contract whose of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. This cleaving in two rad: he cannot bear the status to which fate clauses stipulate utter subjection. Mrs. von Dunajew endured through the “shift” of Poland westwards after has elevated him. ≈ has not only the right to punish her slave for the least the Second World War. East Galicia became part of infraction as she sees fit, she can also beat him for no Soviet Ukraine and thereafter of independent Ukraine. reason at all, or simply to pass the time, according to The still meaningful distinction between a Galician litterature her fancy; she can even kill him if she wishes. He is, West Ukraine and a Soviet-stamped East Ukraine was Josef Redlich’s diaries are published in Schicksalsjahre Österreichs quite simply, her property, over which she has unre- clearly expressed, according to Wolff, in the Orange 1908—1919: Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs; Bearbeitet stricted control. Revolution of 2004. In the more liberal West Ukraine, und herausgegeben von Fritz Fellner. Veröffentlichungen der the old connection to Vienna and Krakow became a Kommission für neuere Geschichte Österreichs 39—40, Graz-Köln marker of identity and a resource for mobilization, 1953—1954. The quotations are from vol. II, pp. 251—271. The feudal patterns are inverted. The Galician despite the radical break in cultural continuity that the Redlich’s activities are depicted in Anders Hammarlund’s aristocrat is transformed into a Galician serf. The ob- mass deportations and genocides of the Second World Människor bortom lustprincipen: Mähriska öden [People beyond the pleasure principle: Some Moravian life stories] (Stockholm session with the permutations of slavery was imprint- War entailed. The idea of Galicia as a Josephine West 2006), and in historian Fredrik Lindström’s doctoral dissertation ed on Leopold during his formative childhood years also lives among those born after the breakup of the Empire and Identity: Biographies of Austrian Identity in an Age of in Galicia, according to Wolff. The brutal conditions Soviet Union, even in families and settings where past Imperial Dissolution (Lund 2002). of Galician serfdom were a topic of lively discussion in generations had never lived under the paternalistic Most of the English-language editions of Venus in Furs seem the 1840s within the Austrian administration. The Jo- protection of Habsburgian officialdom. to go back to a translation by Fernanda Savage (possibly a sephine officials, who wanted to limit the rights of the pseudonym?), originally from 1921. Polish aristocracy to robot (the obligation to perform day work), depicted serfdom as a kind of slavery. The Joseph II’s project thus seems to have a rare en- Note: See also Anders Björnsson’s review of a book whip was emphasized as an attribute of the arbitrary durance and potency, even though it was carried out by Martin Pollack on mass emigration from Galicia on will of the aristocracy and became a general symbol half-heartedly and left unconcluded. I return to Josef p. 34. of the Eastern European barbarism from which it was Redlich’s Galician diary from the outbreak of war in the Habsburg’s mission to liberate its subjects. Wolff 1914. The distinctive mix of order and incompetence, distills this when he writes: “The whip thus left its se- of pretense and reality, of realism and escapism often

The whip was the most prominent symbol of European serfdom. Later it became the hammer and sickle. commentaries 9

Making peace, not war. The emergence of a new post-Holocaust Germany

he American political and in- tellectual elites have a myopic view of contemporary Ger- many. This view is framed by the constantly revived memory of the Holocaust and questions about the reli- ability of German politics. The fact that Germany is in the process of undergo- ing a major transformation of its politi- cal culture goes unrecognized. The fixation on the Holocaust as a unique scene of terror and on Nazi Germany in general makes it impossible for the American elites to understand and appreciate that Germany today has one of the fastest growing Jewish com- munities in the world. The more than 300,000 members of this community, among them an estimated 6,000 Israe- lis, no longer sit on packed suitcases, waiting for signs of an impending anti- Semitic catastrophe. They insist on par- ticipating at all levels of German society. The German Jewish weekly and month- ly newspapers demonstrate a degree of critical engagement in political analysis that is admirable. More importantly, these newspapers do not shy away from criticizing Israel’s intransigent policies towards the Palestinians.

Germany’s recent unwillingness to join the other Western powers in the NATO intervention in Libya has been commented upon as a sign of an emerg- ing isolationism. The abstention in the UN Security Council’s vote, however, reflects something other than an inten- tional withdrawal from global political responsibilities. The traumatic impact of the destruction wrought by World War II has turned Germany into a pre- dominantly pacifist society. The deep- rooted aversion to involving German troops in foreign conflicts — not with- standing German participation in the Kosovo episode in 1999 and the 5,000 illustration: ragni svensson troops sent to Afghanistan — is also a consequence of the successful process- G. W. Bush and Tony Blair had manipu- (1963—1965) ended the great silence racist and anti–European Union (EU) ing of the Nazi past and especially the lated intelligence data about weapons after 1945. As remarkable as these as- parties in their parliaments. These par- role the German military played in this of mass destruction (WMD) in order to pects are, even more important is the ties threaten not only the fabric of their history of large-scale violence all over justify their reckless war policies. fact that Germany is the only European respective societies, they endanger the Europe. Germany’s century-old love af- society today that is not troubled by the survival of the EU with their anti-EU fair with militarism has ended. For that presence of a successful right-wing par- rhetoric. Germany is the only mem- reason, American, British, or French The remarkable rebirth of the ty in its national parliament. All Scan- ber state of the EU that is free of this prodding will always encounter resis- Jewish community and the widespread dinavian societies, Holland, Belgium, scourge on their national scene, though tance in German society. Chancellor pacifism in contemporary Germany France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and there are right-wing extremists in a few Gerhard Schroeder’s decision in 2003 reflect the successful processing of the most Eastern European societies are state parliaments. American pundits to stay out of the Iraq war was widely Nazi past since the early 1960s, when confronted with the emergence of rabid occasionally register this absence of a popular in Germany long before it be- the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (1961) nationalist, sometimes proto-fascist (as right-wing party in the national sphere, came obvious that the governments of and the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt in Hungary), always xenophobic and but are unable to make sense of it. They commentaries10

Continued. Making peace, not war

are actually frustrated by the absence plants. When he finally becomes tions of Merkel’s Christian Democrats. world, go anti-nuclear has been com- of political features that they have con- persuaded by his friend Daniel Cohn- The sudden appearance of a Green mented upon in international media as sidered since World War II to be part of Bendit (the “Red” Danny of the Paris prime minister in this traditionally con- being anything from risky to irrational. the German cultural DNA. They often events in May 1968 that almost brought servative state has therefore led to spec- Though these critical concerns were try desperately to identify the features down the de Gaulle presidency) to ulations about the Greens becoming also raised in Germany, the general sup- that should be there but can’t be lo- join the Green Party in the early 1980s, the majority party in the next general port for the move has been positive. Her cated. They do not understand that the one can follow the intriguing political election in 2013. Names of future Green belief that German technological, engi- processing of the Nazi past in West Ger- education and rise of a charismatic and candidates for chancellor are already neering, and manufacturing ingenuity man culture from the 1960s to German rhetorically gifted political leader from circulating in the media, a Turkish-Ger- will get an enormous boost from this Reunification in 1990 has successfully his radical street fighting beginnings man politician’s name among them. decision received widespread support. immunized that society against the re- to the pinnacles of power. He freely In order to avoid this sea change, The need for replacement technology sentment rhetoric of the extreme Right. admits that he did not know what it conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel would revitalize all kinds of industries meant to be a politician until he became underwent her own dramatic conver- in the near future and position them Minister of Environmental Affairs in the sion. Whether her decision to support favorably in the global economy. After the events in Oslo in late July, state of Hessen. The eighteen months of the perennial Green cause to end the the American and European reporting failure of this appointment and the col- age of nuclear power in Germany was about the events in Norway painted a lapse of the coalition government with a Machiavellian calculation by a politi- Merkel, however, did not discuss European political landscape of grow- the Hessian Social Democrats sent him cian who is well known for her success- her move in advance with her Euro- ing right-wing extremism that included into unemployment and the temporary ful tactical power moves, or whether pean partners. As in the Greek and the Germany by using Angela Merkel’s career of a Frankfurt cabdriver. This it was, as she claimed, a response to other Euro-zone budget crises, she earlier statement about the failure of encounter with the lifeworlds of ordi- the triple catastrophe of Fukushima, showed not only a lack of compassion multi-culturalism. Merkel’s unfortunate nary citizens, he claims, cured him of remains unclear. In any case, she suc- but also an almost total blindness with remarks about the slow process of in- his righteous and fundamentalist views ceeded in preventing the Greens from regard to the European leadership role tegration of immigrants into German about the world. He became the leader running away with the nuclear power that Germany is expected to play as a mainstream political culture say more of the Realo wing of the Green Party issue as their political trademark and consequence of its economic power about her ignorance in this matter and that finally moved into the center stage she has opened the possibility of form- and its location at the center of the EU. her lack of political sensitivity than of German politics by forming a coali- ing a coalition government with the Merkel’s upbringing in the communist anything else. Her remarks certainly tion government with Gerhard Schroed- Green Party. GDR prevented her from sharing the do not reflect the kind of denial that er’s Social Democrats from 1998 to Whether the other major party of European vision in her socialization Scandinavian politicians, intellectuals, 2005. A highlight in the documentary is post—World War II politics, the vener- that has informed the political design of journalists, and ordinary citizens mani- Fisher’s memorable confrontation with able Social Democratic Party (SPD), most of her West German predecessors fest when they refuse to recognize the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at which produced three successful chan- in the office of chancellor. For her, the growth of right-wing political parties in the Security Conference in Munich in cellors, namely Willy Brandt, Helmut fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse all Scandinavian societies as a backdrop January 2003, when he told Rumsfeld in Schmidt, and Gerhard Schroeder, will of state socialism in the GDR, the rest of of resentment that has tolerated ideo- a speech that he was “not convinced” be able to regain a creative political Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union it- logical discourse like the ranting of the by his arguments for moving against vision for the post-industrial future self meant regaining access to a national Oslo Nazi. Germans are far ahead on Saddam Hussein. One can see the grim remains uncertain. Despite the fact that space and imagining politics primarily the historical-political learning curve. and grimacing faces of Democratic and trade unions still play a major role in from that perspective. Merkel’s national Yet many American and European Republican US senators sitting in the the German political economy, they are blindfolds make it impossible for her to commentators cannot resist constantly front row during Fischer’s speech. But no longer automatically delivering their clearly see the trans-national European pointing to Germany as the perennial the more fascinating dimension of this membership as a voting block to the trajectory of West German, and, since provider of paradigmatic illustrations documentary feature is that one begins SPD. The rather sad present political 1990, united German politics. of evil. to understand through the medium of condition of the SPD has no impact on Merkel’s failure to recognize the Eu- A German documentary about the this biographical reconstruction why the survival of the achievements of the ropean dimension of German politics former German foreign minister Jo- Germany stands today at the thresh- post-War welfare state, for which the will help the Greens in the next elec- schka Fischer (Joschka und Herr Fischer, old of a political transformation that Social Democrats can claim partial cred- tion. Fischer’s repeated pleas during 2011) provides an impressive record of will have European and global conse- it. These achievements have become the euro crises for German pro-EU the transformation of German politi- quences. accepted by all political parties. In this action and his passionate commitment cal culture. Joschka Fischer retraces regard, all parties that are represented to the EU make it clear that the Greens his own biography by commenting on in the Bundestag find themselves politi- would be willing to let the spirit of news clips and other film material that This transformation is reflected cally located to the left of the American the post-Holocaust phoenix energize illustrates the various stages of his life. in the rise of the Green Party to the Democrats. The only German party that not only Germany, but the EU as a The drop-out high school student was status of a major player in German would today find any resonance in the whole. ≈ attracted to the constantly changing politics. The recent election success of US is the liberal FDP, because they are manfred henningsen menu of social movements in the 1960s the Greens in one of the big states of the pro-business libertarians. Yet they may and 1970s. He describes in vivid detail Federal Republic, Baden-Württemberg, not survive the next national elections Professor Emeritus of political science how and why he joined protests against has been interpreted in Germany as a to the Bundestag, and thus may become at the University of Hawai‘i. Was born the War in Vietnam, realtor greed in watershed in post-War political culture. as irrelevant as the extreme Left (Die during World War II and grew up on the Frankfurt, police violence, the building This state is the home of Mercedes-Benz Linke), which is primarily a party of German side of the border between of a new airport runway, environmental and other major manufacturing and East German resentment. Denmark and Germany, near Flens- destruction, the stationing of Pershing chemical companies and for decades Angela Merkel’s decision to let Ger- burg. One of his recent publications is missiles, and the building of nuclear has been one of the most reliable bas- many, the fourth largest economy in the Der Mythos Amerika (2009). 11

Tale of a Serbian general. The problem of simultaneousness

y Croatian friend’s mother I don’t know whether it is better or was born on the island of worse than ours, but I used to believe it Krk and wanted, after she was long since extinct. This is obviously turned eighty and was not the case — people from all times can widowed, to move back there instead of exist simultaneously, in the same room, being put into a retirement home. and this takes place every day in our Being a good son, my friend wanted Europe. to fulfill his mother’s wish and buy the But this has also made me less sure house she had in mind in the small har- about what a European is. Nowadays bor town of Omišalj. A Serbian general, I am only sure about this when I am in living in Belgrade, was the owner of the North America. This has even worse house. The Serbian family had spent consequences for the EU; in Brussels, their summers in the house, but then they speak continually — and very sol- war broke out and Yugoslavia was no emnly — about common values and a more. Serbs were also not regarded as common identity. But what does this welcome neighbors in Croatia, especial- really mean? In real life, very little. For ly not if they were wearing a general’s one person the state is a provider of uniform. safety, for another, a threat; here taxes Furthermore, his — Croatian — are an expression of solidarity, there, neighbors had broken into the house confiscation and something to be avoid- and stolen as much as they could take ed; for some work is the meaning of life, with them. It is understandable that for others it’s a millstone. And so on. the Serbian family no longer wanted And we all have to fit into the mold of to spend their summers drinking cof- the “European” for the EU to function. fee on the town square or lying on the beach, if they every time they left their home they were compelled to say a My friend has learned from oth- friendly hello to neighbors they had ers that the general is walking around good reason to suspect were watching Belgrade holding him accountable for the weather report on a stolen TV, or his children having to still live at home, were putting their milk into a refrigera- and for his house in Krk not only being tor that had not so long ago belonged to plundered, but also in a state of decay. the general. But you could not expect less of the But my friend’s old mother had al- illustration: ragni svensson Croats, a people who destroyed Yugo- ways been friendly towards the Serbian slavia and who were all fascists during family (maybe because her deceased nor bought in Croatia. To find a buyer, completely overgrown, no one is heat- World War II. husband — a Croat — had been an officer someone willing to pay 80,000 euros, ing and airing out the house in the win- And the Croatian side is happy to get in the armed forces) and, moreover, she was a gift from heaven. ter, no one keeps a check on the elec- revenge: How are you supposed to be knew the house was for sale. This was But the general had two adult chil- tricity and on the water pipes. The roof able to do business with the Serbs, who confirmed when the son phoned Bel- dren, one son and one daughter, and will soon start leaking, then holes will have never sold anything but a pig or grade and asked. The general wanted they each needed an apartment in appear in it, and finally it will cave in. two? Who do not know anymore about 80,000 euros for the house. Much reno- Belgrade. This need was now the decid- Then the house will quickly be trans- economics than what they learned at vation would be needed, but after a day ing factor for the price. My friend did formed into ruins. the Turkish bazaar? of pondering my friend called and said, not understand how this could have Somebody points out that neither yes, he would buy it. anything to do with the prospective the Croats nor the Serbs are members To his surprise, the asking price transaction. A price, he explained to the To me, the fascinating thing about of the EU — yet. My answer is: Those al- for the house had now been raised to general over the phone, is what some- this sad story about the destruction of ready in are not one iota better. ≈ 120,000 euros. Was it the same house? body is willing to pay for something, capital is that which is so contrary not richard swartz Yes. Had he misheard the sum on the not a reflection of a need or a wish. That only to all literature on economics, but phone last time they spoke? The phone is just a fantasy. also to plain common sense. We like to wires between Croatia and Serbia are Nonetheless, he raised his offer to see so-called common sense as some- For almost forty years the East Euro- not always the best. No. Had another 85,000 euros. The general regarded thing universal and obvious, but this is pean correspondent of the Swedish buyer expressed interest in the house? No. this as a direct offense, since he needed not the case. Because what I describe daily Svenska Dagbladet, stationed in 120,000 euros, not 85,000. Shortly here is a process and a set of reactions I Vienna. Studied in Stockholm and Pra- thereafter, negotiations broke down. myself keep witnessing again and again ha, where he took his PhD. A regular The latter wasn’t very likely — the Since then a few years have passed. in this part of Europe. The rationality of contributor to international newspapers empty house was for sale at a time My friend’s mother has already moved common sense and market economy (I and magazines, including Süddeutsche when the global financial crisis had to a retirement home. How the Serbian almost wrote “instinct of self-preserva- Zeitung. started spreading, a crisis everybody general solved his family problems is tion”) has to give way to a sense of hon- in this part of Europe thought had not known. And nobody from Belgrade or, agreements, time, and “economy” Note: This article was previously nothing to do with them whatsoever. has turned up in Omišalj to inspect the that relates rather to the Homeric era published in Dagens Nyheter (Stock- But as it was, houses were neither sold house. It is decaying: The little garden is than to the modern world. holm). 12 feature TOO MUCH NITROGEN OR TOO MUCH

PHCONTROOSV e r sy INPH ba lticORUS wate r s ? BY ann-louise martin

“It is the sunrise I remember, and the sunset, the in this form are phytoplankton and algae along the strong light over the sea”, says Enno Hallek, who has, shores. The sea becomes a billowing smorgasbord with greater mastery than most, captured the soul and for species after species to thrive in. Green algae and colors of the Baltic Sea in his paintings. cyanobacteria (formerly called blue-green algae), for As a little boy, he lived half the year on his father’s example, eat until they die and in turn sink down to fishing boat in Estonia, where the fyke net gathered the anoxic seabeds. This goes on all summer, and as the catch into the well in the middle of the boat. The soon as the sun peeks out after the ice breaks up, it is entire family lived in the slim, agile vessel, which his time for the next spring bloom. father had built with his own hands, the boat that in Where do the nutrients come from? From us. In the 1930s had taken them to Finland and Sweden to the last hundred years, phosphorus and nitrogen have sell eels as far in as Slussen, the lock that separates been flowing out, ever faster, from toilets, agriculture, Lake Mälaren from Saltsjön, the Baltic, right in the and livestock farming, along with nitrogen pollution middle of Stockholm. from vehicle traffic and combustion. We have some Enno has seen the sea, the green sea teeming with control over sewage when it is routed through waste fish, and since reaching adulthood has been con- treatment plants, but it isn’t treated everywhere. cerned about what happened to life in the sea in the That the Baltic has become more nutrient-rich last century. This is within Enno’s living memory, and is beyond doubt. The question is whether it can be that of many others. called eutrophic or whether it is out of balance in So, what happened? Scientists have not always relation to its former self. A hundred years is nothing agreed on either the causes or the possibility of restor- in the life cycle of the Baltic Sea. But everything we ing the cloudy, fish-poor, partially oxygen-deficient, amount of nutrients in the sea — whether the Baltic have done in the last hundred years to improve crops, algae-blooming, oil-slicked Baltic Sea. is eutrophic or not — you must first agree on a time transportation, heating, and urban hygiene, and to Wherein lies the disagreement? There seem to be frame. The Baltic is a young sea, which was for long expand livestock farming — all of this is doubtless a two main controversies: periods quite deficient in plant nutrients by its nature burden on the Baltic, which has been reshaped. 1. The Baltic Sea is eutrophic. Or is the Baltic — oligotrophic, to use the technical term. We must reduce the nutrient load — that is the Sea not eutrophic? During the last hundred years, the anoxic seabeds theme of the second distinct controversy. 2. Algae blooms are controlled by the nutrient have increased five-fold: they now take up an area the phosphorus. Or is the bloom controlled by size of Denmark. In chemical terms, oxygen deficiency Is there too much phosphorus? Or nitrogen? Should both phosphorus and nitrogen? on the seabed is an on/off switch for more nutrient- waste treatment plants be expanded to deal with ni- rich conditions. The explanation is that when dead trogen as well? Is the whole thing due to traffic, which There is another core question: Can the Baltic Sea organic material sinks down to the bottom, it should loads nitrogen pollutants in exhaust fumes? Should return to the ideal status it had around the middle of preferably encounter a healthy, oxygen-rich environ- waste treatment be required only of the big cities? Or the last century? ment, where the material is converted to sludge, nutri- is the problem the uncontrolled — and perhaps uncon- In addition, there are the questions having to do tious sludge. trollable — diffuse emission sources that here, there, with the Baltic Sea biota: seals, fish, zooplankton, phy- and everywhere ooze out their nutrients into the near- toplankton, and bacteria. As well as the fact that the sea When the surface of the seabed lacks oxygen, the est straightened watercourse, which in turn delivers is being polluted by things other than nutrients: primar- precipitated organic material will essentially rot in- them swiftly and efficiently to the Baltic? Might the ily industrial discharge, and environmentally hazard- stead. Chemically, this means the nutrients will not problem be the straight, dredged, and drained rivers ous shipping. Then there is the problem of overfishing. remain in the bottom sediment — phosphorus will be and streams that no longer work as natural water puri- To approach the issue of the health of the Baltic released and carried up into the body of water again. fication systems, as a winding river does? Sea, you have to consider essentially all these compo- What creatures want this nutrient enrichment? First: nitrogen versus phosphorus. nents. But if you start with the question related to the The only types of organism that can absorb nutrition Proponents of expanding phosphorus treatment

Phosphorus or nitrogen – is the culprit urban or rural? and ignoring nitrogen base their arguments on the fol- that are hardly touched by surrounding movements. lowing: The phosphorus content is stable in the water. The inflow is from two directions: from freshwater riv- It cannot be eliminated naturally from the water or the ers, and from the south in completely unpredictable bottom sediment. However, it is easy and relatively deep-water currents of saltwater from the Kattegat. cheap to treat wastewater to remove phosphorus. The body of water is always layered, with a more Nitrogen purification, on the other hand, is an saline sub-surface layer and a brackish surface layer. expensive process, one where we also encounter the This is one of the reasons the deep trenches are almost problem that nitrogen moves chemically between air always anoxic in the deepest parts. But increased nu- and water. Certain plants, such as cyanobacteria and trient loads and plankton blooms during the last cen- land plants like beans and peas, do not need to be tury have caused the drastic expansion of shallower served nitrogen in the water or the soil. They can take anoxic regions as well. nitrogen out of the air themselves — they are nitrogen fixers. Thus, some scientists argue that there is no Everyone who works with the Baltic Sea knows point investing in nitrogen purification of sewage. All this — it is a highly complex system that scientists have we need is massive separation of phosphorus to re- been trying to model ever since computers allowed store the nutritive balance of the Baltic Sea. such large calculations. But this happy news does not hold up to scrutiny. With a grant from the Ministry of the Environment The argument is far too simplified according to Rutger in Sweden, Fredrik Wulff has been able to expand on Rosenberg, professor of marine ecology with Marine his previous success in modeling the Baltic in the Mare Monitoring in Lysekil on the west coast of Sweden. Project. He has now been able to establish the Baltic The thing is, the Baltic Sea does not behave the Nest Institute (BNI), located at Stockholm University, same way all year round and in all the subregions. where predictive modeling is being done. In the spring when the ice breaks up, the Baltic Sea Fredrik Wulff: proper is packed with both nitrogen and phosphorus “One of our first assignments was a job for HEL- and the spring bloom explodes — it blooms, and wilts, COM, the Helsinki Commission. How much should the sinking to the bottom. Afterwards, there is no more nutrient loads be reduced to restore the environment? accessible nitrogen in the water, but some phosphorus How should the load reductions be allocated among is still there and additional phosphorus seeps out from the different countries? Along with my colleagues and the anoxic seabeds — and so it is time for a massive using the models and databases we have developed, bloom of cyanobacteria, nitrogen-fixing blue-green I was able to perform these calculations, which HEL- algae, instead. However, there are very few nitrogen COM included in BSAP (Baltic Sea Action Plan), which fixers in the saltier regions of the Baltic: the Danish was signed by all the countries in Krakow in November straits and the Kattegat (see map). 2007.” If we go back within living memory, that which tells The importance of nitrogen purification is thus sea- us what the Baltic was like during the last century, the sonal and regional: it is least important in the north- fishing is what we remember. It was so easy to reel in ern Gulf of Bothnia, and considerably more important a beautiful pike for dinner, the codfish banks bubbled in the southern parts. with life, the fishing boats landed laden with their Professor Fredrik Wulff of Stockholm University catches. We all know how the discussions about cod adds: fishing have sounded, how fishing quotas have been “If the spring bloom can be reduced by lowering exceeded, how the eels have disappeared — what hap- the nitrogen content of the water, less organic material pened? will sink down to the seabeds, resulting in anoxia. But Everything is connected. Take cod for example: the connections are complex and difficult to describe Cod cannot reproduce in the Baltic Sea without suf- in simple terms. In addition, the Baltic leaches nitrog- ficient highly saline water. Inflow of salty water from enous water into the Kattegat, which is highly undesir- the Kattegat is necessary, since cod eggs develop able. Increased nitrogen content there causes other suspended in a water layer between the saline bottom blooms than blue-green algae.” water and the merely brackish surface water. If the This controversy has begun to wane; the need salty, oxygen-rich inflows from the Kattegat are absent for nitrogen purification is more widely accepted for too long, the eggs do not survive: they die of lack of today, with certain exceptions. But it is not enough to oxygen and too low salinity. concentrate efforts on urban waste treatment plants and skip the extremely neglected issue of fertilizer The annual successful reproduction of cod is thus and livestock farming in the eastern Baltic countries. somewhat uneven, which is not a disaster as long as Waste from cows, pigs, chickens, and people also play the fishing pressure is moderate. When it increases, in different emissions leagues, so to speak. Emissions and the market prefers large fish, the parental genera- from people, all 85 million of them around the sea, tions of cod that are the source of regeneration vanish. are significantly lower than emissions from animals. The cod is our sea’s top predator fish — it is at the Farmyard manure combined with commercial fertiliz- top of the food chain. It eats the sprat that we do not ers used on the fields account for the bulk of the nutri- want. When the cod decline in number, we have an ent supply to the Baltic Sea. excess of sprat, which devour all the animal plankton And the Baltic is not a single water area. It is divided upon which many other fish depend. The balance is into three parts: The Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Fin- disturbed. No other creature will eat sprat, it is too Part of the work “Mina åror från Estland och minnen” [“My land, and the Baltic Sea proper, which all have differ- pointy. Zander (often called “pikeperch”) and pike oars from Estonia and memories”], Enno Hallek, 1975. The ent depths and salinity. There are shallows between prefer herring, and suddenly the herring decline as left pair of oars is from the boat Hallek rowed as a child. these areas that limit the exchange of water and nutri- well. Photo: Enno Hallek ents between the basins, but also deep sea trenches Everything is connected. And with its low salinity,

Man or animal? 14 feature

ENNO HALLEK was born in Estonia in 1931 in the coastal town of Rohuküla. His grandfa- ther was a farmer, his father a fisherman. The entire family lived on the boat during the summer months. The family fled to Sweden in 1943 and settled in Blekinge. Enno won a drawing competition early on, which took him to Paris. He later studied at Signe Barth’s school of painting and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1953—1958. His first one- man exhibition was held in 1963. Enno Hallek’s use of color is rich, bright, and aus- tere. His art spans painting, sculpture, reliefs, and mixed media. His love of the sea is deep and wide: it shines through the works and embraces marine attributes, simplified and clarified.

Hallek in 2010 with a self-portrait from 1961. Photo: margareta Hallek

the Baltic is a more sensitive environment than most. where should we start? Is there something wrong with give up until he was very old. After the Russians in- Baltic Sea researchers at the Swedish Environmental the joint international action plans? What is required vaded Estonia during the war, they scuttled his boat Protection Agency’s Marbipp Project on marine bio- of the nine coastal nations and the 85 million people so that he could not leave the country. When the Ger- diversity compared the species-rich North Sea to the who live in them for visibility to improve in the Baltic mans later held the country, he salvaged the apple of species-poor Baltic and determined that species loss is and the balance to be adjusted? his eye from where it lay beneath the ice, repaired it considerably more severe in the Baltic: What we can say is that the focus of the problems is — and fled Estonia with his family in 1943. And he kept “If you eliminate a species on the west coast of changing. While the coastal city of Kaliningrad is still fishing, though now in Blekinge in southern Sweden, Sweden (such as the blue mussel), it might be analo- dumping all of its sewage into the Baltic untreated, it where he built yet another boat of the right size for gous to losing one letter of the alphabet, while on the looks like the waste treatment plant in St. Petersburg eel fishing in Hanö Bay. But the eel was already on the east coast it would be like losing a large chunk of the will, with outside help, soon be finished. And waste decline — something Enno sees as his wake-up call to language.” treatment plants are being expanded in Poland as what was happening in the Baltic. His pictures are tes- It could be that the cod is on the way back, helped well. timony of his love for his polluted sea and his yearning along by fishing regulations that, this time, have met for change. with better compliance. But this is, as said, just one ex- What has been added to the mix is the voluminous “Can we have a cleaner sea?” I ask Fredrik Wulff. ample of the difficulties involved in keeping the Baltic growth of intensive agriculture and livestock farm- “Of course we can, if the political will is there”, he Sea in balance. As for the eel, it seems to have given up ing around the coast and along the rivers, which are answers. “But that will require a different kind of agri- hope for the Baltic. This is partly the fault of the hydro- adding nutrients to the sea, completely uncontrolled. culture, which will result in higher food prices.” power plants, where the silver eel have been caught in Fredrik Wulff estimates that this will become the pre- Are we ready for that? ≈ the turbines for many years — but the main problem is dominant addition within ten years. Opportunities to probably the grotesque overfishing of elvers along the use the large manure volumes for energy production entire coast of Europe. They do not even make it up to are as yet unexploited. the Baltic. Engineers have suggested various large-scale tech- Another problem is that the sea has been fouled nical methods in recent years for addressing the prob- with substances that stay in the animals, and plants, lem of dead seabeds in the open Baltic Sea. A project and are stored in the bottom sediment. Organic called “Simulation of the effects of some engineering chlorinated substances of various kinds, of which the measures aimed at reducing effects from eutrophica- most well-known are DDT and PCB, which destroyed tion of the Baltic Sea” used modeling programs to test seal reproduction, bullhead skeletons, the protective some of these measures. wreath of the seaweed belt around newborn life on the A report signed by Rutger Rosenberg and Anders shore, and the sea eagles that took their sustenance Stigebrant, head of the Marine Systems Analysis Group from the sea. These particular problems are slowly in Gothenburg, is expected in the autumn of 2011. It declining, or being embedded in the sea floor, but new will assess the effects of pumping oxygen down into substances are always threatening — fire retardants are the Bornholm trench and the Gotland trench. Wind- one of the current concerns. driven pumps are one idea for making a costly project But what we see, and what we react to, are the of this kind possible. plankton blooms. It is that repulsive soup of algae and In the future, deepwater oxygenation of the Baltic In a previous issue of BW, Thomas Borchert wrote on cyanobacteria that thwarts life in the archipelago in may make it possible to stabilize cod production, for Baltic Sea fishery policy. summer, invasions that are not predictable and about which there is such high demand. which it seems nothing can be done. A warmer cli- But can we return to the Baltic Sea as it once was mate does not help the situation — on the contrary. So, within living memory? Enno Hallek’s father did not

The eel’s path towards decline – from The Tin Drum to hydropower. conference reports 15

Life and work, world literature and Soviet history. Exploring the moral necessity of Varlam Shalamov

uring two scorching hot ary manner of reading. When we read days in the middle of June, Shalamov, we move from observing a diverse assembly of them to exploring us, ourselves. Us is scholars from Russia and here, of course, taken to mean a parti- beyond converged in Moscow in search cular people — the Russian people — but of answers to two questions: What is is far from limited to it: it is rather us in Varlam Shalamov? And why do we need our capacity as humanity. His is a litera- him? The international conference’s ture that is intimate and immediate; it is dichotomous approach to the Russian no artistic depiction of some hypotheti- twentieth-century writer appeared cal past — this is where we have been, even in its title: “Sud’ba i tvorchestvo who we have been and what must never Varlama Shalamova v kontekste miro- happen again. voi literatury i sovetskoi istorii” [the fate Perhaps there was another, a third, and works of Varlam Shalamov in the illustration: karin sunvisson question lurking beneath all of the context of world literature and Soviet his- conference’s neat methodological ap- tory]. The focus was not on his factual life anyone and everyone conducting re- ars; this summer’s conference further proaches, the at times heated polemics, or his fictional production, but on both search on Shalamov. The international affirmed the trip’s ceremonial status as and meticulous poetic analysis, namely: — an academic synthesis of the common conference in June was the culmina- the two days in Moscow were immedi- How do we read Shalamov? combination or separation of the two. tion of their commitment to spreading ately followed by two days in Vologda. Where one might have expected a strict knowledge about him. After academic work, the participants After a lifetime spent in various states division between such different scholarly Not all young Shalamov scholars transferred directly from the closing of opposition, Shalamov continues aspects as Shalamov’s poetics in the light originated through Skepsis, though; at banquet on Friday evening onto an to be a representative of resistance: of literary tradition and the writer as an least one came to be a part of the group overnight train to wake up on Saturday culturally and politically, but most individual in the historic reality of his almost accidentally — I’m speaking morning for cultural diversions. Thus, of all morally. The moral necessity of country, this summer’s ambitious con- here of myself. In the summer of 2009, in the very structure of the conference a Shalamov is especially acutely felt in the ference tried to bridge the gap between I was but a curious Master’s student fruitful dichotomy prevailed as well. Russian Federation of today, where the them — and succeeded. in Yekaterinburg who had only begun A writer of Shalamov’s breadth de- state’s interpretation of World War II reading Shalamov some months before. mands just such a merger of two seem- has escalated in its glorification of the Hosted by the Moscow School of Yet I was already addicted to his prose ingly irreconcilable yet complementary Victory on May 9th to the point where Social and Economic Sciences, the and to his person; thus, it seemed al- features: since his works continue to be lavish military parades throw some of seventh Shalamov conference was dedi- most natural that I should travel alone taken as factual rather than fictional, his their glittery shine on Stalin. In a politi- cated to the memory of Irina Sirotins- to the northern Urals, to the towns of prose must be approached within the cal climate where a figure like Stalin kaya, the writer’s muse and later copy- Solikamsk and Krasnovishersk, where web of discrepancies it creates. Shala- may become ambiguous, a figure like right owner of his works, who passed Shalamov spent parts of his first con- mov cannot be read merely through the Shalamov must continue to be con- away in January this year. Supported by centration camp sentence in 1929—1931. prism of the tragic aspects of Soviet his- troversial. Often compared to or even the Russian State Archive of Literature When I noticed that http://shalamov.ru tory it depicts, though the abundance equated with Solzhenitsyn (after all, and Art, the Memorial Society, and lacked one picture from Krasnovishersk of authentic names, places, and dates they did write about the same Gulag, Moscow State University of Psychology — the billboard at the city limits with a makes it tempting to do so; rather, he did they not?), Shalamov remains the and Pedagogy, as well as financially by large photograph of the writer and a should be read as an integral part of less comfortable choice when it comes the Mikhail Prokhorov Fund, the con- telling quote from Kolyma Tales — I of- the greater tradition of world litera- to camp literature. His prose cannot be ference was primarily organized by the fered to supply it. ture. And yet Shalamov may never be tamed for official use nor framed for the group of young Shalamov scholars who stripped entirely of his role as a histori- general masses; it does not serve the in- founded the website http://shalamov.ru Soon I found myself absorbed in cor- cal witness: we know that he was there, tents of church or state, and will never in 2008. The majority of these enthu- respondence with these scholars, and and that his Kolyma was also everyone succumb to scripting for a romantic siastic young professionals — all still twice in 2010 I made the journey to else’s. At the opening plenary session, blockbuster drama. Shalamov’s works, in their mid-twenties to early thirties them in Moscow, as well as to Vologda, John Glad, the first English-language as he himself put it, constitute every in- — emerged from the Russian scientific- Shalamov’s birthplace — this time ac- translator of Shalamov, expressed the dividual’s own uncompromising guide educational journal Skepsis. According companied by them. In January of that view that even if Shalamov’s Kolyma to behaving in a crowd. His literary to the journal’s editor, Sergei Solov’ev, year, I went to meet with Russia’s lead- had been a fabrication of the writer’s trademark is short stories that appear it was after seeing the published col- ing Shalamov scholar, Valery Esipov, imagination, his works would still have as simple slices of camp life but through lection of papers from the conference about a generation older than the aver- to be considered great literature. the act of slow reading transform into commemorating the 100th anniversary age young Shalamov scholar, for the an experience of the depths of what it of Shalamov’s birth in 2007 that a col- first time. Valery Esipov lives and works This accurate observation, however, means to be human. lective decision was made: “We can do in the same town where Shalamov was is at the same time inappropriate: there The kind of “slow reading” required better than this.” Their service of mak- born, in a building that now houses a is value in the authenticity behind by Shalamov’s “new prose” is today ing Shalamov accessible to the public museum dedicated to the writer’s life Shalamov’s art, not because people, an unpopular pastime. In a cultural began with a Russian website, the ex- and works. To make the pilgrimage up locations, and events can be verified as climate where even serious works of tensive searchable archive of which has north to Vologda has become some- true, but because the presence of such art are created for quick consumption, become an irreplaceable resource for thing of a ritual among Shalamov schol- a truth forces us to alter our custom- his works seem to be a rather unlikely

The heroes of our age don’t have time for suicide. They are at risk of being overrun. conference16 reports

Continued. Narratives on Exploring the moral necessity of Varlam Shalamov privatization in Eastern Europe.

option among the multitude of main- that has yet to receive the scholarly re- possible more questions. Social scientists use seminars and stream entertainment offered today’s search it deserves, as well as perceptive The woman whom the conference conferences as “test runs”, where nar- reader. In a world where we consume suggestions for future investigations. commemorated, Irina Sirotinskaya, ratives and incomplete theories are pre- bite-size texts within seconds only to af- During such a fusion of the prospec- once asked Shalamov: “Kak zhit’?” sented and tested through examination firm our appreciation of them by click- tive with the retrospective, it seemed [How to live?] Perhaps this third ques- in light of the experiences and aggre- ing “Like”, Shalamov is definitely not only natural that Chetvertyi shalam- tion might now rightfully be added gate knowledge of other researchers. A the hero of our time. ovskii sbornik [The fourth Shalamov to the two famous questions “Chto test run provides inspiration and guid- Though not intending to establish collection] was published in connec- delat’?” [What is to be done?] and “Kto ance for further work with studies and him as such, this year’s Shalamov tion with the conference. The edition vinovat?” [Who is to blame?] that have presented texts. Everything takes place conference might have come close — contains materials from the writer’s haunted Russian literature since the 19th in the encounter with other scholars. It close in with respect to the impressive archive, little known reminiscences century. And it is with his answer to the is fruitful if the conference contributions amount of obstacles it assigned itself to about him, and recent articles by schol- third question that Varlam Shalamov lead to a discussion that takes both the overcome: First, to affirm a writer who ars prominent and old as well as novice will be granted an undisputed place in author and other seminar participants is still not a household name in Russia and young. the Russian canon. ≈ further in their work. The editors asked nor widely read as worthy of a much I myself most certainly fall in the lat- Björn Rombach to attend the “Privati- josefina lundblad different fate. Second, to place a far ter category. When I saw my own article zation and Liberalization” conference from fully researched writer in world published in the same collection — “Ot- arranged by Södertörn University and literature as well as in Soviet history. lik cherez stoletie, cherez prostuiu ba- PhD candidate, University of California, the Stockholm Institute of Transition Only twenty years after the first Shala- niu (k teme ‘Shalamov i Dostoevskii’)” Berkeley Economics (SITE) held June 16—17, mov conference was held in Vologda, [a response after a century, through a 2011, and to share his reflections. “shalamovedenie” (“shalamovistics”) simple banya (to the topic “Shalamov Note: This is a report from the Interna- is still a young science. With one sec- and Dostoevsky”)] — it occurred to tional Shalamov Conference in Mos- tion called “Shalamov and Soviet His- me that the girl who wrote it had been cow, June 16–17, 2011. o privatize is to make private. tory”, two sections on the poetics of twenty-three years old at the time. Someone makes something Shalamov’s prose, and a round table of When I produced my first contribution more private and thus less translators from Germany, the United to shalamovedenie, I was but a child public. When it comes to the Kingdom, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, who did not ask herself what Shalamov arts and culture, being private is nor- and France, the conference managed to was or why she needed him. At the time mally not desirable — if one wants to address the need to uncover further bi- I never wondered how to read Shala- be appreciated by one’s critics, that is. ographical details as well as to discover mov; I understood his voice intuitively Real and personal, yes, but not overly more about his writing. and soon said to myself, “This is what private. The public, on the other hand, I’m going to spend my life exploring.” is often driven by curiosity and thus In many ways, the conference marked a Had someone asked me then what ex- drawn to private affairs — especially if beginning, without actually being one. actly this was, I would probably have they are already known to the public. By continuing previous scholarship, answered: “Varlam Tikhonovich Shala- One question is whether excessively the conference participants showed mov. Russian writer. Born 1907, died private cultural expressions have been through their presentations and papers 1982.” Today my response sounds a little privatized, or not made public. Why that shalamovedenie already has a past. different.This is everything indispensi- should everything be perceived from Something in the friendly atmosphere ble to understanding his works in their the outset as something private that and something in the challenging dis- complete context — and that is always needs to be made public? Private affairs cussions revealed that we have arrived within literature and history and never may be as real as it gets, but have been somewhere. There is a firm foundation without the moral necessity of Varlam privatized by the author, or dancer, as to fall back on; it is not the end of the Shalamov. the case may be. It works the same way road and at the same time not the jour- with operations, programs, or services ney’s first step. Several literary scholars In the 1980s, John Glad told Mikhail that have been privatized. Some have directed their attention away from the Gorbachev that he would not believe previously been deprivatized and taken familiar Kolyma aspect of Shalamov’s in perestroika until Shalamov was pub- over by the state. Others have been prose to his less famous antinovel lished in the Soviet Union. Shalamov’s started and run for a long time by the Vishera; in this regard Elena Mikhailik’s importance for Russia as a measure- citizenry through the state. paper “Prose Experienced as a Docu- ment of health — political, cultural, If something that has been made ment: ‘One Ought to Tell the Saga as moral — could stretch well into the 21st public is regarded as too private, it it Happened’” at the opening plenary century: as long as Russia doesn’t know comes up for discussion on the arts pag- session was especially noteworthy. On how or why Shalamov should be read, es of the newspaper or in a blog some- the second day of the conference, the it is bound to be a country in denial. A where as soon as the judgment is made. esteemed academic Vyacheslav Ivanov simple writer who is more than simply The question of what is actually private turned the conference’s attention to a writer, Shalamov’s significance will is also open to debate when it comes to Shalamov’s poetry. Ivanov presented always reach beyond his words. Instead organizations. Is a company owned by both an innovative view of the writer’s of ending a dialogue of controversy, the a neighboring state really private? And poetry, a side of his literary production conference’s search for answers made what about corporate groups that are as

What is true life? The question that cannot be answered because an answer may always be called into question. 17

Reflections after attending a conference

big as countries and buy the enterprises That the state is not mar- chairman noted that this was, after all, privatized by the state? Does the prop- ginalized here has more not a privatization. erty become private? Individuals who to do with the distinctive Privatization processes and their ef- want to make a difference now have a nature of the industry fects showed palpable similarities from longer road to travel. On the one hand, than with the fact that it one state to the next. There were many this is a matter of definition. If by “pri- was mainly state-owned parallels in narratives from Poland and vate” we mean one thing and not the before privatization. The Turkey, which differ in many respects. other, the questions are easy to answer. wider question of the In this way, some parts of the narratives On the other hand, one can easily be role of the state in areas could be generalized. And that is as far amazed by how the private and the per- that have been privatized as we got. With respect to the link to sonal drift apart in this way. was left for discussion theory and the development of theory, A conference entitled “Privatization during the break. Schools the conference’s indications could per- and Liberalization” at Södertörn Uni- and health care provid- haps have been clearer. There has to versity could have been given a broad ers were brought up as be more than simply narratives about approach. The limitation was put in examples of areas where privatization and network industries in place by indicating the focus on “Net- the role of the state Eastern Europe for researchers who are work Industries and Eastern Europe”. changes — but does not unmoved by such to manifest any inter- The collaboration with SITE at the end — after privatization. est. When everyone is dealing with the Stockholm School of Economics also Now that we nonethe- same problems, the limitations of the seemed to set limitations by contribut- less are concentrated on seminar become clear to outsiders, but ing to the focus on narratives from the network industries, we almost impossible for the participating field and the practical lessons learned can easily determine that scholars to discern. from them. Perhaps the limitations there is a need for huge were a sign that the climate in both di- investments in Eastern After the seminar day at Södertörn rections has become tougher in recent Europe. Infrastructure University, the character of the confer- years. is important. Invest- ence changed. We moved to SITE, the ments in networks are suits and ties multiplied, the technical

The approach and focus during the k arin sunvisson illustration: normally paid for by problems became less obvious in con- two conference days in mid-June be- the taxpayers, not the nection with the presentations, busi- came very narrow — sometimes to the users. And willingness ness cards were distributed without point of being private. That is not a tries that, to a great extent, formerly did to pay can decline in times of greater asking, and the parallel sessions were criticism, however, and this is not a con- not have market economies. The narra- austerity. Investments in networks do exchanged for panel discussions in ference review. In the academic world, tives were taken from Eastern Europe, not create jobs on a large scale, which plenum. And yet everything was much the answer to the question of what is mainly from the former Eastern Bloc, makes them less interesting in rhetori- the same. The narratives were again in narrow is in the eye of the beholder. It but Turkey was included as well. On cal terms. focus at this half-day event. Theories is easy to agree on depth, but that much the other hand, despite the limitation, would have felt out of place, and they harder to agree on breadth. quite a lot of material dealt with matters Privatization in Turkey is an inter- were not brought up. It was perhaps A lot of us have taken an interest other than network industries. esting case in itself. On the subject of surprising that more expert advisers in the privatization of activities previ- Privatizations in states with no actual historiography, it is to be hoped that were not invited to attend. ously performed by the public sector. market economy obviously become Jonas Prager (New York University) and We heard narratives about CSC Tele- In countries like Sweden, where large legislative matters. For instance, mat- Bulent Acma (Anadolu University) will com in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. areas of operations were dominated ters related to property rights may need get back to us with an article in Baltic Looked at very close up, developments by public works, privatizations have to be re-regulated. The role of EU law Worlds. Accounts were presented at the obviously differ even in these states, led to massive changes. Over the past in privatization was brought up at the conference on state entrepreneurship, which are so often clumped together. twenty years or so in the research field, conference. The law does not regulate where state-owned enterprises engage And then there’s Kazakhstan. The dif- a great many narratives have been col- privatizations, but contains a great deal in market-like conduct, and on privati- ference compared to the previous day’s lected and a substantial body of theory on liberalization, which in turn affects zation driven by red figures in the books presentations was that the focus was has been developed. This knowledge is privatization. Matters related to the of state-owned enterprises. The signifi- now on corporate roles and strategies. relatively unknown outside academia, alignment of legislation have made law cance of who it is that buys these enter- We also heard about the role of regula- which is due to the fact that the issue of more interesting for all of us who usu- prises when they are privatized is an tion, but from the consultant perspec- privatization of public sector produc- ally categorize legislation among the interesting question. The state-owned tive and the state perspective on this tion was politicized early on. Whether restrictions. enterprise may be sold to a foreign or day of the seminar. The narratives were privatization was good or bad was a giv- domestic company or it may be sold to tinged with personal elements, and the en for the policymakers and the politi- The post-privatization role of the or distributed among the citizens, with lack of theory was not disturbing here, cal opposition. Non-normative research state is another interesting question. or without restrictions. The discussion but expected. One might perhaps think was marginalized and theories were Here, the role was discussed in relation became extremely heated when the the advertising elements unnecessary. regarded as serving no useful purpose. to privatized network industries, where Turkish Army’s purchase of companies A second panel discussed electricity But the subject of this conference the state always has a role to play, as came up. To the relief of all present, and energy, with electricity markets turned out to be privatization in coun- regulator and examiner if nothing else. things cooled down again when the the main topic. There were many nods

What is private and what is public is often an empirical matter. But not what should be private or public. conference reports

Continued. Cultural studies travel. Eastern Europe To (and from) East Central Europe

of recognition in response to Milko On June 15–17, 2011, the Advanced Kovachev’s (Worley Parsons) narrative Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden from Bulgaria, where privatization was (ACSIS) organized its biennial confer- followed by sharp decreases in state ence, this year dedicated to “Current subsidies — exactly as intended. The Issues in European Cultural Studies”. goal was to reduce government spend- Together with the Department for Stud- ing. But since privatization does not in ies of Social Change and Culture (Tema and of itself result in lower production Q), ACSIS forms a vibrant research and or distribution costs, the outcome was educational milieu for urban, youth, and services that are more expensive. When ethnic subcultures, as well as gender citizens become consumers, this is the and cultural policy studies, at Linköping price they pay. This generates criticism, University. Spotlight panels discussed even though the tax levy for this par- the recent development of cultural ticular service is reduced by a roughly studies in five geographical areas: equivalent degree. Privatization is not Central, Eastern, Northern and South- always the villain. ern Europe, and the UK. This report And so it was time for lunch, an highlights some of the issues that were illustration: karin sunvisson Asian buffet shared with my friend discussed at the panel session “East Hans, who works at the address where European Cultural Studies: The ‘New’ ratization of culture” by distributing several innovative conceptual artists the conference was held. After catching Europe”, chaired by Professor Irina high culture, previously accessible only created parallel academic or pseudo- up about our respective families, he Sandomirskaya of CBEES. to the elite and upper-middle classes, academic universes (Collective Action, wanted to know what he had missed. to the working class. Consequently, Medical Hermeneutics), tapping into How much can you cover by the time the notion of “culture” was identified the highly legitimate rationalist rhetoric after-lunch coffee is served? That we he development of cultural with “high culture” — opera, drama, of science and constructing powerful had taken away several narratives about studies as an academic disci- literature, orchestral music (it has to be interpretations of the Soviet canon. privatization in Eastern Europe, a hope pline was embedded in the added that folk and amateur cultural that theory development will have process of the democratiza- practices were also perceived as legiti- The democratization of Eastern made more progress the next time we tion of higher education and cultural mate, though less valuable than the Europe saw the introduction of neo- meet, and thoughts about the differ- research. Groundbreaking studies by professional arts). liberal principles into the economy ence between the private and the priva- Richard Hoggart and Raymond Wil- The spotlight panel session ques- and higher education that in many tized. And there you have it. ≈ liams presented the cultural practices tioned several aspects of this picture. ways worked towards maintaining the of the British working class as legitimate First, critical cultural research was marginal status of local actors and, to björn rombach objects of academic inquiry, and fought not completely absent under au- put it crudely, subjected them to the he- against treatment of these cultural thoritarianism. Second, after 1989, the gemony of Western standards. Allaine Professor of business administration practices as inferior and unworthy of introduction of cultural studies into Cerwonka, chair of gender studies at at the School of Public Administration, the proud name “culture”. The “lowly” post-state-socialist academia was not the Central European University in Bu- University of Gothenburg fields in question included television always emancipating because of the he- dapest, discussed the development of programs, romantic novels, and pop gemonic character of Western science. gender studies in East Central Europe music. The emancipating and democ- Further, as Sandomirskaya argued, the as a neoliberal project that resulted in ratizing agenda of cultural studies was concepts and methods of cultural stud- marginalization. Although many gen- later extended to embrace other mar- ies were quickly adopted by the grow- der studies departments emerged in ginalized categories: gender, non-West- ing ranks of public relations experts. Eastern European countries thanks to ern cultures in the West, immigrant Finally, it is by no means certain that generous funding from the American communities, and youth subcultures. cultural studies was ever exclusively philanthropist George Soros, the new The democratization of Soviet bloc “Western European”. Eastern European gender scholars countries in the 1980s and 1990s saw were disenfranchised from the global the introduction of cultural studies as a Johan Öberg, research secretary at the academic community in some ways: liberal Western mode of knowledge pro- Arts Faculty, University of Gothenburg, the influence of publications in local duction. Scientific research under state tackled the issue of the absence of dem- languages was limited and local case socialism was notoriously conservative ocratic approaches to studying culture studies were regarded as insufficient and compartmentalized in clearly de- in Soviet Russia. According to Öberg, to make generalized claims. Western lineated disciplines, which rarely inter- there was some space to question the cultural studies, a politically motivated acted with one another. Furthermore, established cultural hierarchies, even project of knowledge production that social sciences had a notorious lack of under the authoritarian regime, some- is meant to give voice to subalterns and empirical research: empirical data was thing that is revealed in the work of emancipate them, seems to reinforce ideologically dangerous. In addition, Moscow conceptual artists. Curiously, the hegemony of Western science by the cultural field was strictly hierarchi- although Soviet academic disciplines reducing Eastern European voices to cal. State socialist cultural policy was could not afford to risk engaging in em- “only” empirical data. built on the principle of the “democ- pirical studies of contemporary culture, On the other hand, the contribution

If all culture becomes popular culture, there is perhaps little reason to distinguish the one from the other. 19

The Russian context. Broken dreams and political engineering

of scholars from Eastern European alking about stability in Rus- greatness, is part and parcel of the myth countries to “Western” cultural re- sia with any credibility is only of recurring difficulties. search is often underestimated. The going to get harder for Prime “In my interpretation, one key to the history of structuralism and post- Minister Putin and his cohort, understanding of Putin’s popularity fig- structuralism, particularly semiotics President Medvedev. A picture emerged ures is that he has been very capable of and actor-network theory (ANT), is an at the “Russia After the Soviet Empire latching onto this popular myth-making especially apt example. I myself noted conference” at Lund University of a so- about the rightful great power status in the seminar that linguistic structur- ciety where various factions are moving and cyclical, recurrent periods of dif- alism, traditionally regarded as “the in parallel towards a breakdown in con- ficult times”, says Petersson, who has negative other” by cultural studies, sensus with the Russian government. studied Putin’s speeches to the nation. supplied Soviet cultural researchers The government is struggling to regain For example, Putin has said: “Russia is with analytical tools that enabled them the confidence of both the middle class not claiming the status of a great power; to legitimately bypass Marxist-Leninist and right-wing nationalists. Minority it is a great power, by virtue of its huge doctrines. Particularly interesting is groups, such as Russians of “non-Slavic potential, its history, and its function.” the case of French semiotics developed appearance”, as the euphemism goes Is the need for a stable, long-term, by Algirdas Julius Greimas (1917—1992), in Russia, are risking their lives in the and cohesive national identity the who was born to Lithuanian parents in process. chord Putin has managed to strike Tula, Russia, and educated in Kaunas “Putin is seen as a traitor by the that can explain his popularity? These and Grenoble in the 1930s. His father ultra-nationalist movement; he is no are the questions asked by Flemming was deported and perished in the Gu- longer seen as a role model”, says Eliza- Splidsboel Hansen, whose research lag, but Greimas escaped from occupied veta Gaufman, one of whose research interest is Russia and its sense of onto- Lithuania to France in 1944. Starting in interests is the influence of growing logical security. He portrays Putin as 1965, Greimas was the director of stud- ethnonationalism on Russian migration the successful psychotherapist to the ies of general semantics at the École des policy. The political repercussions of Russians, and calls the phenomenon of hautes études en sciences sociales in nationalist riots in Manezh Square, Mos- insecurity that has benefited Putin the

Paris. Greimas’s seminars inspired Bru- cow, in December 2010, played straight k arin sunvisson illustration: “search for ontological security”. The no Latour to apply the Greimasian theo- into the hands of nationalist elements. term is taken from psychology. Onto- ry of actants to study the socio-material About 5,000 nationalists and soccer He describes Russian society as cyni- logical security is developed in the first organization of science. In the words of fans participated in the riot, and two cal and easily manipulated due to the years of life, and without it, individuals Latour, the ANT perspective treated the guest workers died in the disturbances. lack of a clear sense of self. “The media lack a sense of continuity in their lives; semiotic organon as ontology. One of Putin’s first measures was to image can change very quickly, de- there is no pattern and no meaning. Although the Greimas Centre for tighten migration regulations. pending on the interests of the political Security theorists have elevated on- Semiotics and Literary Studies was es- “Unfortunately, the government is class”, he says. tological security from the individual tablished in Vilnius in 1991, academia in pretty much doing whatever it can to level to the collective level, which is Lithuania has so far failed to recognize either conceal this ethnically motivated Several researchers are focusing considered controversial. ANT as a potential part of Lithuania’s violence or try to profit from this na- precisely on how the Russian identity intellectual heritage. Since the 1970s, tionalistic popularity”, Gaufman says. has changed in the last twenty years Through his “psychotherapy”, Putin Lithuanian semioticians have continued In her research, she has seen a pattern and the role of the state in this process. has shifted the collective sense of what to restrict the use of Greimas’s theory in which the government imposes Bo Petersson discussed two myths that Russianness is. The Russian identity and methods to explorations of mythol- restrictions on migrants in situations political powers are using to legitimize has moved away from the anti-Soviet ogy and literature. Elsewhere, however, when nationalism poses a threat. themselves and their image of Russia: and Western-oriented tack of the early ANT has come to be seen as an influen- the myth that Russia is by its very na- 1990s to increasingly viewing the West tial approach that transformed much of Trying to understand where post- ture a great power, and the myth that as its putative opposite. Splidsboel Han- sociological and cultural research. ≈ Soviet Russia is going seems to be a mat- the country is repeatedly thrown into sen describes how the process started ter of understanding how the society is difficult times and hence cannot always when the collective ontological security eglė rindzevičiūtė redefining itself: contradictory pictures realize its inherent potential as a great was shaken during the Yeltsin era im- are circulating of what precisely Rus- power. mediately after the fall of the Soviet PhD in cultural studies; post-doctoral sia and “Russianness” are. The official Putin has used these myths to Union, when neither foreign responses researcher at the Gothenburg Research picture of a united and multicultural explain the developments of the last nor domestic developments turned out Institute of the Stockholm Russia is being challenged from several twenty years to the Russian people. as expected. When ontological security School of Economics, the University directions. The years under President Yeltsin are has been lost, the need to reestablish it of Gothenburg, and Tema Q, “In Russia, 15,000 people and some painted as one of these recurring peri- becomes a psychological imperative — Linköping University, Sweden CNN cameras on Red Square would be ods of predestined decline. During his which opens the doors to searching for enough to start political changes”, says time in power, Putin has bounded onto — and being receptive to — other new Russian BBC reporter and analyst Kon- the stage as the one who will rescue identities. stantin von Eggert, the introductory the nation from chaos. This figure of “If I should answer the question speaker at the conference, which was the savior who materializes just when ‘What is Russia?’ in one sentence, I arranged by the Center for European things seem the darkest, to once again would say: Russians today perceive Studies. lead the country into a new period of themselves as the ones Westerners

The Russian great power has often been on the decline. Other powers have not become accustomed to decline. conference20 reports

Continued. Broken dreams and political engineering

don’t like”, says Splidsboel Hansen. clear picture of what Russian identity is, at the history; I cannot imagine paral- a human rights activist in Russia, in the He sees the move over two decades as the prerequisites for discussing the role lels for instance between Poland and world he describes? Is it possible to be a mix of broken dreams and political of distribution policy in social develop- Russia or somebody else and Russia. In Muslim, not want Sharia law, but still engineering. ment seem to end up in the shadows. my opinion Russia is a very, very special want an independent Chechnya? The The change in identity is of relevance Discussing identity-creating pro- case.” main thing you as a listener want to ask for marginalized groups who are strug- cesses without discussing the structure However, the restraint he sought on is what perspectives are excluded by the gling for their human rights. It is easy of the material world might seem comparisons with regard to what Russia narrative. What repressed understand- to talk about what Putin is homog- paradoxical, and can appear to give a is, has been, and can become did not ings about the situation in the Caucasus enizing, perhaps harder to show the severely limited picture of the world apply when he outlined the evolution are implied by the understanding pre- consequences for minorities in Russia. where these identities are created and, of Islam in Russia since the fall of the So- sented by Aleksei Malashenko? Minorities are paying the price of the ultimately, of the identities analyzed by viet Union: “When I am in Dagestan or With such an exclusive narrative, it new ontological security and catch- scholars. But dismissing the focus on another Caucasian republic, I feel that becomes difficult for us as listeners to words like liberalism, individualism, identity seems an oversimplification. practically it is not a big difference from look critically at ourselves and acknowl- and cooperation with the West are be- Part of Splidsboel Hansen’s point is that maybe Egypt. More and more they are edge our personal roles in xenophobic ing replaced by order, collectivism, and everyone, both individually and on the becoming Islamized.” societies. How does our examination of rivalry with the West. collective level, needs and seeks onto- Russian nationalist movements work, “That is why there can’t be gay logical security, that is, a clear sense Malashenko described how the for example? It is perhaps easy to point parades in Moscow”, says Splidsboel of who they are and their role in life. It struggle for independence in the Cau- the finger at Russian right-wing extrem- Hansen. Given that Russia is promoting follows, as Splidsboel Hansen says, that casian republics has been changed by ism as “the constitutional Other” in human rights, a banned and attacked “people may value ontological security gradual Islamization. And that this can order to avoid dealing with our own cul- gay pride parade seems a failure, but if over material security”. be understood as a reaction to the war pability in the evolution of such thought one applies the search for ontological Groups with a “non-Slavic appear- in Chechnya, corruption, and injustice structures. security as an explanatory model, it ance” are beleaguered. And nationalist from the Russian state. He also empha- may appear as a creation of meaning. forces no longer support the official sized that the Russian majority’s nega- Russian political forces that are find- Liberalism and the West may connote picture of who is Russian and what Rus- tive images of their Muslim countrymen ing it increasingly difficult to uphold something negative, while order and sia is. There are European ideas like are a major problem that should be their image of Russia as stable and the rejection of Western influences ethnopluralism found among the right- taken seriously. united was a recurring picture at the may instill a new sense of ontological wing extremists. In the Russian version, But more than anything else, he conference. As more and more informa- security. this means that what Russia needs to painted a picture in which Muslims in tion becomes available on the Internet, become the “true great Russia” again is Russia constitute a growing threat, and the image of Russia is also being decen- The security that a ruling power tries to become ethnically pure, rather than he expressed no hope for a solution in tralized as a more open media climate to infuse into a population is unevenly be restored as a vast geographical terri- the Caucasus, nor for sympathetic dia- is forced into existence. Even on state- distributed among different social tory. In his paper, focused on ethnoplu- logue among the population groups: owned TV stations, there is a growing groups. The multicultural Russian soci- ralist trends, Niklas Bernsand described “I think this problem has no solu- tendency to address perspectives other ety may now be caught up in a process how this worldview fits together. tion, the point when one could have than the government’s — as the stations in which the search for ontological An ethnopluralist perspective may been found was missed about five years must do to maintain any credibility. security divides rather than unites. Pu- emphasize the non-hierarchical nature ago. “When the state channels are cover- tin’s “therapeutic method” of providing of differences between cultures, and “But, indeed Islam is becoming, ing stories that are delicate subjects for a homogeneous sense of self seems to seem to refrain from judging cultures as despite all the blah blah blah [sic!] the Kremlin, they are also forced into be meeting with increasing antagonism better or worse: it is assimilation itself about dialogue between civilizations, more objective reporting, where both from the actually heterogeneous “pa- that is thought to be a bad thing. The an obstacle in the path of mutual under- sides of the issue are allowed to speak”, tients”. nationalist version creates an idea of standing.” says Konstantin von Eggert. There was a recurring focus on eth- rights as follows: “You will have your In the discourse of this model of Many groups are making progress nicity at the conference in relation to independence in exchange for deporta- thought, a person’s Muslim identity in expressing their views on issues. understanding contemporary conflicts tion.” This is an ethnopluralist message ends up on an immediate collision Controversial subjects like the Khodor- in Russia. The ethnicity filter of the con- aimed, for example, at Russians from course with the “Russian” identity, and kovsky trial, the Khimki Forest, and Pu- ference could be a reflection of current the Caucasian republics. rhetoric reminiscent of that used by tin’s palace, as well as populist expres- Russian domestic policy. Twenty years nationalist political leaders in Europe is sions like “ethnic crime”, are covered in after the fall of the Soviet Union, class One conference participant who generated. the news nowadays. von Eggert refuses issues are being put aside and attention reacted strongly against studying “It spreads among all Muslim com- to make any predictions about which is aimed at the issues of ethnicity that phenomena in Russia from a general munities”, says Malashenko, who in his groups will be most successful, saying: many of the papers addressed. This human perspective, in terms of the talk vacillated between knowing how “Russia is an unfinished project.”≈ perhaps leaves scope for narratives that “search for ontological security” for “they” and “all” Muslims are, choose, joakim andersson naturalize ethnicity as a problem. example, was Professor Aleksei Malash- think, and orient themselves, and on The absence of discussion about the enko of the Moscow State Institute of the other hand giving personal exam- & tove stenqvist material and economic prerequisites International Relations: ples of people whom he has met. Freelance journalists for different lives, in Russia, must be “This is my private opinion; maybe As a listener, you are left wondering put in relation to the alternative interest I am mistaken, but never compare Eu- about a great deal: can you, for ex- in identity-creating processes. With no rope and Russia. Look at the map, look ample, be Muslim and at the same time

The Russian dialectic: between empire and nation, individuals and subjects, strength and weakness. lecture 21

Investigating russian berlin in weimar Germany Culture and Displacement in the Ag e of War a nd R e volution 1 BY Karl schlögel illustration karin sunvisson

When I did my first research project on Russian Ber- series of bestselling books like Russendisko and whose can navigate through Russian cafes and restaurants, lin — that is, on the community of Russian émigrés in Cafe Burger in Berlin-Mitte is one of the attractions attend openings of Russian galleries and exhibitions. Berlin in the 1920s — one could hardly imagine that for EasyJet tourists from all over the world. You can Sometimes you can get the impression that Berlin has Berlin would again have a large Russian community.2 find Russian kindergartens, schools, bookstores, and become the twin city of Moscow, with people moving Everybody living in Berlin today has the impression large sections with Russian food in supermarkets if back and forth — even on planes that take off in Berlin- that there must be thousands of Russians or at least you don’t prefer shopping in one of the central places Schönefeld at midnight, timed to land in one of the Russian-speaking people in town. At newspaper where you can get almost everything Russian, from Moscow airports at sunrise. stands, you can find dozens of Russian newspapers, everyday products to video-blockbusters — for in- dailies, weeklies, yellow press, and highbrow. Rus- stance in the Rossija shop at Charlottenburg station on sian sounds can be heard everywhere, but more Stuttgarter Platz. You can discover the infrastructure Twenty years ago, Russians entering Berlin used intensively in special locations such as KaDeWe, the of widespread community life, with subtle differences to be called the “New Russians”: this was the label for upper part of Kurfürstendamm, in bus number 19 or reflecting the diversity of the Russian-speaking colony: the rich and superrich, people who had made money 29, called “Russenschaukel” in the 1920s — the Russian the urban Jewish immigration of the 1970s and ’80s, overnight in the “troubled time” of the collapse of roundabout. One of the most popular writers of the the post-1990 immigrants, the Russian Germans, and the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the picture has younger generation is Vladimir Kaminer, who came the people in transit. You can listen to Russian con- changed slightly. The rich and superrich do not settle to Berlin in the early 1990s and who has published a versations in the steam baths and fitness clubs, you down in Berlin, but in Kensington and similar neigh- 22 lecture 23

borhoods. The Russians of Berlin are quite wealthy, in close cooperation with Russian colleagues we did will show the fate of those scholars and scientists who but more of the upper middle class. There are also some basic research on the Russian diaspora and its returned to Russia. masses of tourists and a lot of young people, among centers: in Constantinople, Sofia, Belgrade, Helsinki, Michael Marrus, in his great study on exiles in the them many students. If you have a Schengen visa, you Riga, Prague, Paris, New York and other places. Many 20th century — The Unwanted — focuses on the émigrés/ can move around — from Helsinki to Berlin or Paris. monographs have been published since then in Russia refugees of Hitler-dominated Central Europe.7 You can buy anything from a cup of coffee to an apart- and elsewhere. I am convinced that, if we include the history of the ment without significant problems, and everything is But when I go back to this subject now, I do so with Russian émigrés into our panorama of emigration, we cheaper in Berlin than in Moscow. The official statis- a new interest and new intention. Let me briefly ex- will not only get a more comprehensive picture, but the tics of the Berlin authorities do not reflect the number plain. picture itself will somehow be transformed. And that and the presence of Russians in the town. I am quite is essential in the process of creating a “pan-European sure that the numbers are much higher than usually memory” which has overcome the great East-West di- assumed, maybe around 150,000. But this reappear- When I started my research on forced migration vide of our perception and the asymmetry of attention ance of a Russian community is only one cause of the in Central and Eastern Europe, ten or so years ago, I usually linked to it. new interest in this issue, and at the end of this talk discovered that the best and often sole publications we have to discuss in what respect the community of on this subject were written by Russian and mostly Interwar Russian today differs from that of the interwar period. Russian-Jewish authors. Most of them were familiar to Berlin — the stage, When I started research, we had brilliant stud- the specialists on demography and migration, but not ies on Russian Berlin. I will mention only Robert C. to a broader audience. I have in mind Eugene Kulis- the actors, the time Williams’s Culture in Exile: Russian Émigrés in Ger- cher, with his monograph Europe on the Move, which The Berlin of the Weimar Republic has found its his- many 1881—1941, published in 1972, and Hans-Erich was published in 1948; Joseph Schechtman, with his toriography: from Peter Gay and George Mosse, from Volkmann’s Die russische Emigration in Deutschland two-volume work Forced Migration in Europe; and Ja- Fritz Stern to Heinrich August Winkler, it was called 1919—1929, published in 1966.3 The new situation in the cob Lestschinsky’s work on Jewish migration.6 None of “Faust’s Metropolis” and “Grand Hotel Abyss”. The late 1980s and the early ’90s came about with the col- these works have been translated into German despite impact of the Russian communities — the White and lapse of the Soviet Union and the reassessment of the the fact that they represent the most detailed studies the Red — is best reflected in Walter Laqueur’s study Russian emigration and the cultural heritage of “Rus- on forced migration and population transfer, includ- of the intimate German-Russian relations in that sia Abroad”. For the first time since the Revolution ing the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe period.8 The fascinating aspect of Russian Berlin in and the Great Exodus, the fate of Russia outside Russia and the former Eastern provinces of the Reich. Three Weimar is that Berlin for a very short period was the was not only debated by historians but by the public observations came together here: Eugene Kulischer “capital of Russia outside Russia” and simultaneously at large. The Russian public, not just historians, dis- was the author who invented the term “displacement” an outpost of the Russian revolution, represented by cussed the topic without restrictions. For the first time and “displaced persons”. Joseph Schechtman was the the Comintern, German communists and the Soviet the archives were opened up to research, and the trea- author who wrote the most detailed study on forced representatives in Germany. In Berlin both factions of sures of the captured Prague archives, transferred to migration to this day. Jacob Lestschinsky was the the Russian Civil war could meet — and they did. Both Moscow after 1945, were declassified. This was a revo- demographer and scholar who first analyzed the hu- factions had their impact on cultural and intellectual lution in the approach to the émigrés who, in Soviet man losses of the Shoah, which he estimated at about life. Both factions did their best to fight for their aims. propaganda, had always been stigmatized as “White six million lives. All three of them were Russian Jews, Weimar Berlin was a transitional period, covering a bit Guardist” and “counterrevolutionary”. Thousands of all three of them spent most of the 1920s in Berlin, all more than a decade. But for few years Berlin was the documents, books, and works of art have been pub- three were in close contact with the German scholarly home of 200,000 to 300,000 émigrés, and proletarian lished, reprinted — decades and generations after their world, all three of them succeeded in escaping Eu- neighborhoods like Wedding and Moabit were called publication abroad. They include famous writers, po- rope under Nazi rule. Alexander Kulischer, Eugene’s “Little Moscow”. For a short period Berlin was the in- ets, artists, politicians, scholars of all disciplines. The brother, was arrested crossing the border in Southern formal capital of Russia Abroad with the former politi- late 1980s and 1990s were a time of homecoming for a France and died in a German concentration camp. cal elite, army representatives, provisional institutions culture hitherto banished and exiled, forbidden and This was the main impulse for me to go back to in touch with German official institutions, networks stigmatized. The great names of Russian culture finally Russian Berlin. I had the strong impression that the of organizations, professional associations, more than returned home — sometimes with their bodies from discovery of the huge migration processes of the 20th 100 publishing houses, dozens of newspapers, dailies the cemeteries in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Prague. The century as a core element of modern demography has featuring the most prominent writers and analysts of discovery and reevaluation of the cultural heritage of to do with the personal experience and collective fate prerevolutionary Russia, literary circles, magazines, Russia Abroad can be understood as a substantial ele- of those who moved through the turmoil of the Rus- shops, hotels, travel agencies, etc. — a parallel world ment of the reintegration of a culture that had suffered sian and German revolutions, and that Russian Berlin inside Berlin, a community functioning quite well, heavily from the consequences of civil war and inter- was the intellectual place for the emergence of this based on traditional prerevolutionary loyalties and national conflicts, especially from the Second World new theme, new in scholarship and in politics. suffering from prerevolutionary factionalism and par- War and the subsequent Cold War. The rediscovery But this attention placed on Kulischer, Schecht- tisanship. All the maladies of an émigré community and reconsideration of Russian emigration constituted man, and Lestschinsky was to a certain degree the that is kept alive by despair and the hope of returning a kind of reconciliation for Russia at the end of the 20th trigger for new and not-so-new questions and dis- home. And all kinds of alliances can be observed, century.4 coveries. Going back into the intellectual fabric of extreme-right terrorists from the Russian “Blackhun- Weimar Berlin, I realized that there were many more dred” movement and the extreme-right terrorists networks, nodes, hubs. And I want to talk here about from the German Freikorps and the early Hitler move- It was Marc Raeff who took the lead in this reas- some of them. I am convinced that Berlin has been the ment. We do not have time and space here to give an sessment with his Cultural History of the Russian Emi- transition point for very specific insights that shaped overview of Russian Berlin; it may suffice to generalize gration 1919—1939, published in 1990.5 I had the good and revolutionized our perception of the epoch, as follows. fortune to meet him and to work with him. Raeff, born which Eric Hobsbawm called the “Age of Extremes”. I For most Russians — and I have in mind the citizens in Moscow in 1923, lived with his family in Berlin in will try to show this in the impact Russian scholars in of the former Russian Empire, including ethnic non- the ’20s, then moved to Czechoslovakia, France, and exile, many of them Marxists, had on the development Russians such as Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, finally the United States, where he taught for decades of modern Russian and Soviet studies in the United Jews, Balts, etc. — Berlin was the place of a double at Columbia University. There he made ample use of States. But it is necessary to keep in mind that intellec- displacement. They had to move twice: the first time the treasures of the Bakhmeteff Archive, representing tual transfer and transmission went in both directions, after the defeat in the Civil War in 1920/21, and the in many regards the fate of this generation in exile. So not only into the United States. With some examples, I second time in the wake of the crisis and after the col- 24

lapse of the Weimar Republic. For most, the demise of extremely disparate experiences — the experiences of Sorbonne. There were many others: Mark Vishniak, a the Weimar Republic was a reiteration, a kind of déjà one or two generations in “normal” time, telescoped former social-revolutionary and prominent figure of vu of the Russian Revolution. They were experienced into a few years. In short, the Berlin years were ex- Russian Berlin, was a student in Freiburg and Heidel- in studying the impact of war on the disorganization of tremely intensive and instructive. berg before World War I. So for many émigrés the exile social and political life. They all had gone through pe- was a kind of homecoming. riods of disobedience, rebellion, insurrection, desta- The research institutions of Wilhelmine Berlin, bilization, the radicalization of the masses. They were Laboratory Berlin — above all the university (for the humanities) and the “experienced observers”. They all had experience The privilege of place Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (for the natural sciences), with forms of military dictatorship and the impact It was the young George F. Kennan, who clearly de- had an international reputation, and even in the Wei- of arms and violence. They felt that prewar Europe scribed the advantages, or, I would say, the privileges, mar period there were centers which attracted young had passed away and that conventional wisdom did of the place. As a member of the US mission in Riga, he Russian students — expatriates as well as Soviet citi- not help in finding solutions. They could observe a came to Berlin in 1929 in order to get “training for Rus- zens. The young Wassily Leontief, the Nobel Prize win- process of exhaustion of the institutions of civil soci- sia”. He found everything he needed here: academic ner in economics in 1973, was attracted by the seminar ety and the emergence of a new type of mass politics. surroundings, linguistic training, contact with every- of Werner Sombart and Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz at Their experience was international and transnational. one involved with Russia — Soviet or émigré — and the Berlin University and defended his inaugural dis- In Berlin, two organizations — or more precisely, two finally a Norwegian girl who later became his wife. He sertation Die Wirtschaft als Kreislauf, on December 19, worlds of transnational, and international character — participated in the seminars of the outstanding profes- 1928. It was later published in Archiv für Sozialwissen- were operating. The Russian emigration was by defini- sors of Russian history, Otto Hoetzsch and Karl Stäh- schaft and Sozialpolitik, the most prestigious journal in tion a transnational and international phenomenon, lin. His private tutors were for the most part simply the social sciences of the time. and the sections of the Communist International were highly cultured Russian émigrés. He heard lectures on Alexander and Eugen Kulischer, the sons of the also, by definition, operating across national borders. strictly Soviet subjects: Soviet finance, Soviet political great Russian scholar of economic history and anthro- Reading the émigré press with correspondents in structure — Berlin was the only place where he could pology Mikhail Kulischer, wrote their fundamental almost all countries of the diaspora reminds one in study this at that time. Building on this training in Ber- study Kriegs- und Wanderzüge, Weltgeschichte als Völk- many respects of the press of the Communist Interna- lin in 1929—1931, Kennan became one of the greatest erbewegung under the influence of the great German tional. The Russian Berlin of the émigrés as well as the experts and diplomats the United States ever had. sociologist Franz Oppenheimer, and published their Russian members of the Comintern contributed a lot monograph in one of the most renowned publishing to the specifically international, cosmopolitan spirit houses, Walter de Gruyter, in 1932. This work was also of the German capital at that time. Investigating the It seems to be a paradox that Berlin became the the basis for the letter of recommendation the Kulischers intellectual and cultural topography of Weimar Berlin, first center of the Russian diaspora — Germany was the got from Marcel Mauss after 1933 when they applied for we make the discovery that, up to now, most research enemy country in World War I, and after the Rapallo an academic post and visa for the United States. succumbs to the partitions that are the result of the Treaty in 1922 was on good terms with Bolshevik Rus- Another center of attraction was the Seminar für division of academic labor: research on German Com- sia. But there are reasons for Berlin to be the center osteuropäische Geschichte and the journal Osteuropa, munism and Soviet Russia is one thing, research on of Russia Abroad. Berlin was close, easily accessible. directed by Otto Hoetzsch, a famous historian and White Russia and German culture is another. The re- The city had a good Russian infrastructure of printing Russophile deputy of the Deutsch-Nationale Volks- ally fascinating subject, however, is the entanglement and publishing houses. And there were more impor- partei in the Reichstag. Many people from the émigré and interrelationship among them all. For example, tant reasons. One of them was that, for many Russian community found some work in and around the insti- we have Mensheviks working in the Soviet Embassy. intellectuals, Germany had been a home in prewar tute and found ways of publication. This was also the One of the greatest archivists of the 20th century — Bo- and prerevolutionary times. The universities of Berlin, place where George F. Kennan found contacts. ris Nicolaevsky — worked for the Marx-Engels Institute Freiburg, and Heidelberg, the technical universities in Moscow and simultaneously for the Menshevik of Charlottenburg, Darmstadt, and Karlsruhe were delegation in exile. The editor of the leading liberal traditional places of study and training of the intel- From the Russian side, the Russian research Russian daily, Rul, Iosif Gessen, encounters the Soviet lectual elite, sometimes the only places where Russian institute was the most prestigious. Assisted financially ambassador at diplomatic receptions and parties. On women or Russian Jews could go. So many prominent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, prominent scholars, the street or in the barbershop, the victim of an anti- representatives of Soviet Russia as well of the Russian exiled from Soviet Russia, could find jobs there before Jewish pogrom in the Ukraine could easily meet one of exile community graduated from German universities. most of them left Berlin for Prague, where conditions the perpetrators, an officer of the White Army, now in The poets Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak were were much better as a result of president Masaryk’s exile. Many such situations are recounted in the mem- students at Heidelberg and Marburg, respectively. The “Akcia Russka”. Around the Russian Scientific Insti- oirs of Russians in Berlin. philosopher Semen Frank was a student of the Freder- tute, we find all the prominent figures and personali- ick William University in Berlin. Sergei Gessen, the son ties who arrived in Berlin after being deported from of the editor of the Berlin-based Russian daily Rul, Iosif Leningrad to Stettin: Nikolai Berdyaev, Fedor Stepun, What I wanted to say is that despite all antago- Gessen, was student of the universities in Heidelberg, Boris Vysheslavtsev, Ivan Ilyin, Semyon Frank, and nism, rivalry, and factionalism, Berlin was the stage Freiburg, and Marburg, and called himself a Neo-Kan- many others who later on became quite famous in the for a very mixed society, and that in this mixture, in tian from the school of Windelband, Emil Lask, and West. this belonging to two or even more cultural fields, lies Friedrich Meineke. Iosif Gessen’s brother was a stu- Another center of attraction and encounter was the productivity of Weimar Berlin in general, and of dent of the universities of Zurich and Dresden. Alex- the close contact between the intellectuals of the Men- Russian Berlin in particular. Thus, it was a short pe- andre Koyré, born 1892, studied in Göttingen — under shevik organization abroad and the SPD, especially riod, but a period of radical ruptures, discontinuities, Edmund Husserl and David Hilbert — and later at the in the editorial boards of the journals Vorwärts and

Iosif Gessen, editor of a leading liberal Russian daily, George F. Kennan, American diplomat, and Osip Mandelstam, poet. lecture 25

Unter den Linden, Berlin opened up a third space for reflection and Berlin, 1922, with reconsideration of what had happened to Russia and the famous Europe. It was George F. Kennan who characterized “Café Kranzler”. World War I as “the great seminal catastrophe of this century”. This feeling had been articulated by various authors almost simultaneously and independently of one another. The German cultural philosopher Oswald Spengler published his Untergang des Abend- landes [The Decline of the West] in 1918, almost simul- taneously with the Russian-Jewish thinker Grigory Landau’s book carrying almost the same title — Sum- erki Evropy [the twilight of Europe].10 It was a common feeling in the post—World War I period that old Europe and the bourgeois world had come to an end. The spiritual and artistic world during the Weimar years of Berlin reflected the seismic repercussions of the age of war and revolution. There was no single problem which was not untouched by radical reinterpretation Die Gesellschaft. The leadership of the Russian Men- gether with his wife and sons, he lived and worked in and reevaluation. A time of “Umwertung der Werte”, sheviks, the rival Marxist party, banned and forced Berlin’s Buch district, and became one of the pioneers to use the Nietzschean term, a general sense of a glob- to go underground in Soviet Russia, had been in exile of genetics. We will see that Chayanov’s and Timofeev- al crisis, political as well as spiritual, resurfaced again in Berlin since 1922. So the legendary figures of this Ressovsky’s fates ended in catastrophe: Chayanov and again: in the financial and economic collapse after revolutionary party — Martov, Abramovich, Stein, was killed with some of his relatives and pupils in 1937, Black Friday in 1929, in the rise of the Nazi movement David Dallin, Fedor Dan, Boris Nikolaevsky and others together with his colleague, the famous economist in Germany, in Stalin’s revolution from above with — were in close cooperation with the leadership of the Nikolai Kondratiev, who devised the “Kondratiev forced industrialization, warfare against the Russian German social democrats, direct colleagues of Rudolf cycles”. Both perished in the year of the Great Terror, village and subsequent famine with millions of deaths. Hilferding, Eduard Bernstein, Rudolf Breitscheid and 1937/1938. others. The Russian Menscheviks in Berlin were not Timofeev-Ressovsky, whose son was killed in Maut- only comrades in the struggle for a just society, but the hausen for his active underground struggle against the For most members of the intelligentsia it was most distinguished experts on Soviet Russia, and, as Nazi regime, was deported in 1945 to the Soviet Union quite clear that the fall of the empires was not just the we will see, the hard core for future Soviet Studies in and forced to work in a special camp for scientists — result of a mistake by this or that statesman or party the United States.9 Solzhenitsyn describes him in The Gulag Archipelago leader, but something more fundamental: that a way — and only in his last years was he able to publish the of life, a way of thinking had come to an end. The fall results of his pathbreaking research, much respected of the empires and the birth of a Europe of dozens of Berlin in those years was the privileged place of by the elite of Soviet natural scientists and Nobel minor nation-states created an entirely different out- encounters between Russians with the “Red pass- Prize winners such as Petr Kapitsa, Lev Landau, Igor look. The transnational structures of dynasties were port” of the USSR and the émigrés with the Nansen Kurchatov and others. replaced by nation-states in which territory, state, and passport, given to stateless people. Thus Berlin was Besides institutes, Russian Berlin had created people were to coincide, and where this was not the the place where filmmakers from the Soviet Union journals for historical documentation and analysis, case, a process of forced homogenization and assimi- could meet actors in exile, artists and painters like the first scholarly journals dealing with contemporary lation had to transform the existing society. The fall Leonid Pasternak could visit the vernissages of their Russian history — Archiv russkoy revolyutsii and Na of the empires provided space for the rise of national- colleagues who preferred to stay in Soviet Russia, and chuzhoi storone, up to our days a source of eminent im- ism and the creation of the minority question all over a writer who hated all things Soviet — like Vladimir portance. Europe. From Wilson’s declaration of the 14 points of Nabokov — could observe the success modern Soviet What I wanted to show in this part of my presenta- self-determination and Lenin’s proclamation of inde- literature had in the Weimar culture. tion is the networks, the nodes and the hubs of intel- pendence for all nations of the former Russian empire, The ’20s were still years of the open door, and lectual encounter and cooperation, the fertile ground the new postwar order may be said to have begun. scientific exchange was still possible between Germa- and environment for intellectual innovation — salons, Everywhere in Europe, ethnic conflicts and minority ny and Soviet Russia. One of the most prominent rep- institutes, journals, boards, seminars, centered on ac- problems emerged, and the minority that suffered resentatives of the cooperative movement in Russia tivities and personalities, representing the modernity most, because it had no territory, no state, and no le- and a fascinating author of utopian fiction, Alexander of Berlin. gitimate representation, was the Jewish minority. The Chayanov, visited Berlin several times and met other new order after the fall of the empires and the Paris specialists in the field of agrarian economics, such peace treaties produced a new class of human beings, as Professor Otto Auhagen. He also published in Ger- Modern times, the apatrides, the stateless people, the outcasts. Many man journals such as Schmollers Jahrbuch. The other new questions of the refugees in the interwar period were outlaws, example is the geneticist Nikolai Timofeev-Ressovsky, Russian Berlin had become a hotbed of new experi- Vogelfreie, as Hannah Arendt called them in her book who was on academic exchange in Germany and de- ences. Russian Berlin was Russia outside Russia, Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft.11 cided not to go back when he was recalled in 1937. To- beyond Soviet censorship. In many respects, Russian The falling apart of age-old empires and the new

Boris Pasternak, poet, Nobel laureate, Wassily Leontief, Nobel laureate in economics, and Nikolai Berdyaev, philosopher. 26

borders, the new front lines between new nations and The steamer new social orders, provoked a series of movements all “Oberbürgermeister over Europe. “Europe on the Move”, the summary of Haken”. the great analysis of Eugene Kulischer, reflects perfect- ly what had been going on since the prelude to World War I: the Balkan wars and the first experiments in mass population transfer. The new Europe would be one of redefining borders and citizenships, of inclu- sion and exclusion, of privilege and persecution. It is quite clear why Jewish authors like Eugene and Alexander Kulischer, Schechtman and Lestschinsky were particularly sensitive: the handling of the Jewish question was the most precise indicator of respect for universal rights. At the same time — the early 1920s — waves of anti- Semitism raged over Europe. Somebody had to be who characterized Carl Schmitt as “Kronjurist des Moscow like Alexander Izgoev; writers like Michail responsible for the apocalyptic disasters, for the fall Dritten Reiches”), and prominent Russian Menshe- Osorgin; and representatives of the local political and of the empires and the old classes. Pamphlets like The viks.13 intellectual elites outside the capital cities. This fairly Protocols of the Elders of Zion attracted public atten- To summarize we can state that Russian Berlin had representative body was placed on board two rented tion, an international of anti-Semites was organized, been the laboratory or the studio in which central steamships, the Preussen and the Oberbürgermeister and the simultaneity of the assassinations of Walther experiences or implications of the “great seminal Haken, bound for Stettin in Germany. They continued Rathenau and Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov in 1922 catastrophe” were reflected. But the time was short, on by train to Berlin, where they were received by the by German and Russian right-wing terrorists was not too short. The circumstances forced people to move, Berlin émigré community at Stettiner Bahnhof, now just a coincidence. Many among the Jewish intellectual to save their lives, to escape. Berlin was stimulating, the site of Nordbahnhof in the central borough of Ber- elite all over Europe immediately perceived the deadly but too dangerous to stay in. It ceased to be a haven for lin. Some members of this group established the Rus- threat of the new combination of Anti-Semitism and refugees. Berlin in 1933 is the place from which Rus- sian Scientific Institute in Berlin; some continued on to Anti-Bolshevism, and some of them started a cam- sian refugees started anew in order to save their lives. Prague, where the government of the recently found- paign to explain that despite the presence of promi- Let’s have a look at the directions and destinations ed Czechoslovakian republic had the intention of cre- nent Bolsheviks of Jewish background — Trotsky, of survival and transfer. ating a kind of Russian Oxford. In retrospect, we may Zinovev, Kamenev and many others — the Bolshevik say that this act of deportation saved the lives of many regime and the social upheaval in Russia were in fact Parting of ways, among this group of Russian intelligentsia. Others who radically undermining the social and cultural founda- did not have the good luck to get on board perished tions of the Russian Jewry. One of the most shocking final destinations, in the Stalin era, while their colleagues made their controversies, initiated by prominent liberal and new junctions way into scientific institutions and built their reputa- conservative Russian Jews in Berlin in 1923 and 1924, There is no event more symbolic of what happened to tions. But the act itself, in its surgical precision, in its concerned the struggle against identifying Bolshevism Russian intellectual life and Russian culture than the ruthlessness and shamelessness, was something new, with Jewry in order to fight the rising tide of anti-Semi- systematic deportation of a huge group of Russian in- unthinkable under the old regime, which had indeed tism all over Europe, especially in Germany.12 tellectuals in the autumn of 1922. The deportation put made frequent use of internal exile, prison and other into practice the decision of the Soviet leadership, and forms of persecution, as we all know. But the surgical of Lenin personally, to get rid of any possible focus of act, of dislocation and displacement, was something It is no surprise that Russians who had been autonomous spirit. The decision was prepared and new, and a very carefully calculated measure.14 eyewitnesses to the explosive rage of the masses had formulated in the summer of 1922 by the inner circle — The ways out of Berlin were much less clear. The a specific sensitivity to the new dangers of populism, Lenin, Trotsky, Dzerzhinsky, and others. The individu- Russian émigrés had to go where they could find jobs, mass violence and ochlocracy, the dictatorship of the als selected for deportation from Russia were highly in order to make a living for their families. There were lower classes. And it is no surprise that Russian think- representative of the Russian intelligentsia. The 225 institutions in other centers of the Russian diaspora — ers like Nikolai Berdyaev were trying to find a way to people in question represented almost all disciplines in Belgrade, Prague, Paris, later in the United States. transform the old system by means of consensus and and professions, political parties and religious confes- For a very important and influential group in Rus- through corporativistic institutions. Ideas of a “third sions; they came from all ethnic groups of the former sian Berlin in 1933, the Russian Jews, Hitler’s rise to way”, of organized capitalism, planned market econo- empire. The sole criterion was that they could be a power was the last exit. The Russian community was mies, even monarchies of the people and national risk, a danger — that they could become an element of now — and in 1937, completely — under the control of bolshevism, were commonplace in that time. opposition of which the leadership was so frightened pro-Nazi Russians like General Vasily Biskupsky, who Finally, the exiles of two dictatorial regimes, of the even after their victory at the end of the Civil War. The had been collaborating with the Nazi party since the “Red Dominicans” and the “German National Social- lists of deportees encompassed philosophers, writers, Munich putsch of 1923. In 1937, Vladimir Nabokov and ists”, as the Jewish historian Simon Dubnov called physicians, scientists, journalists, political leaders, his Jewish wife, and the philosopher Semyon Frank them, contributed to the early diagnosis of the new sociologists and economists, and lawyers, among and others left Germany. Where did they go? Or, more phenomenon of totalitarian rule, of unlimited power them well-known figures. Since we have the lists, the precisely: To what places were the intellectual and cul- and despotism, in combination with ideological ma- records of discussions and interrogations, and the ap- tural heritage of Russian Berlin transferred? nipulation and the ruthless use of violence. Thinkers plication forms for German visas, we can reconstruct To a minor degree, it was to Paris, as a traditional who had passed through both the Soviet and the Ger- the whole process of extradition, deportation, and center of Russian life with its very effective religious man systems were confronted with a new phenom- dislocation of representatives of the Russian intel- world of churches, monasteries, libraries, and theo- enology and unseen forms of political power. And it is lectual elite. In the list we find the sociologist Pitirim logical institutes. Many prominent Russians settled in obvious that the new terms of “total” or “totalitarian” Sorokin, who later held a chair in sociology at Yale; the Paris. states date back to the 1920s and 1930s, long before the philosophers Nikolai Berdyaev, Nikolay Lossky, Boris Another way out was to go to Palestine. Since the Cold War was staged. We find the new word, coined Vysheslavtsev, and Semyon Frank, who were success- 1920s, there had been lively communication between for a new phenomenon, in texts of Simon Dubnov, ful in continuing Russian thought in France; brilliant Berlin and Palestine, encouraging not only German Waldemar Gurian (who was, by the way, the author journalists of the leading newspapers of Petrograd and intellectuals like Gershom Scholem to move to Eretz lecture 27

Israel, but also members of the Ostjuden community, after the October Revolution and Civil War. Or take the Dallin), Soviet espionage (David Dallin), Europe on the Yiddish-speaking Hebraic community that existed much-discussed case of Ayn Rand, the Leningrad stu- the move (Kulischer), a theory of the advantages of in Berlin. Some prominent figures of Russian-Jewish dent, pupil of the Russian philosopher Nikolay Lossky, backwardness (Alexander Gerschenkron), the crisis Berlin turn up again in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, includ- bestselling author and initiator of an intellectual group of Western civilization (Pitirim Sorokin), the collec- ing Vladimir Zhabotinsky and Joseph Schechtman, to which people such as Alan Greenspan belonged. tivization of Russian agriculture (Naum Jasny), Russia repeated visitors to Berlin, the eminent economist Significant centers of research in the field of Rus- in the age of absolutism (Marc Raeff), the Menschevik Boris Brutskus, and others. The center of this “East sian history, war and revolution were established movement (Boris Sapir, Leopold Haimson). In the cur- European Jewish connection” was the house of Simon in the United States. I have in mind the depositories riculum vitae of most of these authors, Berlin left an Dubnov in his Berlin years. Research on this Berlin be- of the Hoover Institution, a unique archive in all re- important mark.18 tween Charlottengrad and Scheunenviertel was subject spects, the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia Univer- Also essential for the shift of Russian studies is the of a fascinating research project in recent years, spon- sity, and many other important places. To a certain rise of authoritative journals, published in the United sored by the German Research Foundation, and based degree, they represent the memory of Russia outside States: The Slavic Review, The Russian Review, Novyi mainly at Freie Universität Berlin.15 Russia. The archivists and especially the great Boris zhurnal [New journal] and others. Nicolaevsky represent this heroic effort of preserva- The institutionalization of generously funded Rus- tion in a century of destruction and oblivion. Boris Ni- sian and Soviet studies reached its peak at the end of The center of the Russian diaspora moved over- colaevsky was the man who saved the archives of the the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold seas. We do have some analyses of the impact of the German Social Democrats as well as the papers of the War, with the second wave of Russian, or more pre- German and Austrian refugees on American life and Russian Mensheviks. Berlin played a central role in the cisely, Soviet emigrants and refugees, non-returnees culture, for instance Martin Jay’s great book on the making of this great pioneer of the archival science. after the end of the war and displaced persons who Frankfurter Institut für Sozialforschung, but not one The place for training for Russia, to use George F. refused to go back to Stalin’s Russia. The foundation of of the Russian colony.16 To a certain degree, this has Kennan’s phrase, were transferred from Europe, from the Harvard Russian Research Center and the Ukrai- to do again with the self-perception of Russia Abroad. Germany, from Berlin, to the United States, due to the nian Research Center and the expansion of area study The Russian diaspora in the European capitals re- Nazi rise to power. If we look at the prominent figures institutes dealing with Soviet communism — including garded itself as in transition, on a provisional stopover in teaching Russian history since the 1930s, we cannot such different regions as Eastern Germany, Russia, on its way home, it fulfilled the mission of preserving avoid mentioning the scholars of American universi- North Korea, and China — marked the peak in the Russian culture as the émigrés understood it from ties who quite often came from a Russian background evolution of Russia and communist-centered studies. communist and Soviet depravation. They promised and quite often via Berlin. In the first phase these were very innovative and origi- to bring back the real, authentic Russian culture. The nal both in theory and method; in the later period, situation in the United States was entirely different. rather redundant and even dogmatic. In the context Millions of emigrants had moved to the United States George Karpovich, born in Tbilisi, Georgia, of the Cold War, findings and insights accumulated between the 1880s and the First World War, millions of formed an entire school of historians focused on Rus- earlier, in prewar times, were reactivated. In 1946, Russian Jews from the shtetls in the Pale of Settlement sia at Harvard, as George Vernadsky and Georges George F. Kennan sent his famous telegram, leading came to the United States in search of a better life and Florovsky did at Yale, and as Michael Rostovtzeff did to the publication of his article “The Sources of Soviet in pursuit of happiness. The Immigration Act of 1922 for the field of Byzantine history. John Normano, the Conduct” under the pseudonym “X”, which again drastically reduced the numbers of immigrants. But brilliant economist, also a Berlin émigré, made a ca- became a point of reference at the demise of the Soviet the main fact remained: Russians came to the United reer for himself at Harvard. Vladimir Nabokov found Union in 1991. Some of the Russian refugees who had States not in order to create centers of Russia Abroad, a good place at Wesleyan College for teaching and found shelter in Berlin in the early twenties visited the or a diaspora, but to leave Russia behind and enter writing in his “American years”, as his biographer city under siege in 1948, as did Alexander Kerensky, American society, to become Americans. Russians Brian Boyd called his life after leaving Berlin in 1937. the prime minister of the Provisional Government in coming to the United States had no intention of re- And Leopold Haimson, the child of a family that was 1917. Some experts trained in Russian Berlin in prewar turning, but wanted to plunge into the melting pot of a founded in exile, in Harbin, Manchuria, then moved times came back to a Berlin in ruins to take part in new society. to Berlin and Brussels, was the teacher of at least the Congresses for Culture and Freedom in the early Having said this, it is of great interest to follow the two generations of historians of Russia in the United 1950s. And some left the United States for Europe traces of Russian immigration, or to be more pre- States.17 because they preferred a place like the Instituut voor cise, immigration from the Russian empire and its Important new ideas and concepts for rethinking Sociale Geschiedenes in Amsterdam to American insti- successor states. We could show a list of prominent the Russian and Soviet experience and seminal books tutions, as Boris Sapir did. Twenty years later Alexan- scholars and scientists, actors and film directors who dealing with interpretations of the contemporary dre Kojève (Aleksandr Kozhevnikov) the Russian-born come from Russian backgrounds: the great aviation Soviet Union came from authors with Russian or Hegelian with a Freiburg and Heidelberg education, engineer Igor Sikorsky, the pioneer of electronics and Russian-Jewish backgrounds, who settled down in visited Berlin 1967 on his way back from China for a TV, Vladimir Zworykin, the great man of twentieth- American institutions after they had been forced to discussion with the leaders of the radical left student century chemistry Vladimir Ipatev, engineers like leave Europe. Here should be mentioned some of the movement — his recommendation to Rudi Dutschke Stepan Timoshenko, the great economist Wassily themes and authors: forced labor in the Soviet Union was: learn Ancient Greek and study the Greek classics! Leontief, the conductor of the Boston Symphony or- (David Dallin), labor in the Soviet Union (Solomon The way out of Russian Berlin before World War II chestra, Serge Koussevitzky, the founder of New York Schwarz), memoirs of Russian revolutionaries (Nikolai was the way to the United States; the way to the East City Ballet, George Balanchine, the Hollywood movie Volsky/Valentinov: Encounters with Lenin), the Great led many émigrés of Russian Berlin into a trap. The star Yul Brynner, who was born in Vladivostok — they Retreat (Nicholas Timasheff), input-output analysis case of Simon Dubnov, the representative of Russian- are all representatives of the first wave of emigration (Wassily Leontief), German rule in Russia (Alexander Jewish Berlin and the most authoritative scholar

Alexander Chayanov, agricultural economist, Pitirim Sorokin, sociologist, Boris Vysheslavt- sev, philosopher, and Ayn Rand, a Leningrad- born libertarian thinker. To the right: members of the Russian Scientific Institute in Berlin, 1923 or 1924. 28 lecture

on the history of Eastern European Jewry, may be is dangerous in the long run for any country. But at 1922—1933; Göttingen 2005; Viktor E. Kelner, Simon Dubnow: regarded as symbolic. He first moved in 1922 from the same time, the difference from the first-wave eine Biographie, Göttingen 2010; Yuri Slezkine, Das Jüdische Petrograd via Kaunas and Danzig to Berlin, where he emigration is striking: there is no political structure, Jahrhundert, Göttingen 2006. had the most productive period of his life, and when no government in exile, there is no expulsion similar 14 Vysylka vmesto rasstrela: Deportatsiia intelligentsii v he was forced to emigrate a second time, he decided to the deportation of 1922. Post-Soviet Russia is quite dokumentakh VChK-GPU 1921—1923 [Expulsion instead of execution: The deportation of intellectuals in Cheka and GPU to go from Berlin to Riga in order to be close to Eastern different from the early Soviet power. The situation of documents, 1921—1923], Moscow 2005. Europe and the centers of Eastern European Jewry. the revisionist “Unholy Alliance” between the Soviet 15 Results of a German research project, based in the There, in the ghetto of Riga, he was killed in 1941 when Union and Germany of the 1920s has passed. There is universities of Berlin, Göttingen, Munich, and Frankfurt/ the Germans entered, whereas another brilliant rep- not even a shadow of the spirit of Rapallo; the entire Oder. See Verena Dohrn, Transit und Transformation: resentative of Russian Berlin, the philosopher Grigory scenario has changed. In more general terms, I would Osteuropäisch-jüdische Migranten in Berlin 1918—1939, Landau, was deported and perished when the Soviet say: despite the disastrous effects of the enormous Göttingen 2010. secret police, the NKVD, and the Red Army occupied brain drain for Russia’s development, the emergence 16 Martin Jay, Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Riga. of Russian communities abroad can also be seen as an Migration from Germany to America, New York 1985. indicator of a normalization resulting from the open- 17 Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, Princeton ing up of the country after a long period of isolation. 1991; Nikolai N. Bolkhovitinov, Russkie uchenye-ėmigranty Concluding remarks: If we want to tell the story For Berlin, it is the regeneration of the mixed and (G.V. Vernadskiĭ, M.M. Karpovich, M.T. Florinskiĭ) i stanovlenie of expulsion, forced migration, emigration in the 20th more cosmopolitan society of the pre-Nazi and prewar rusistiki v SShA [Russian emigré-scientists (G.V. Vernadskii, M.M. Karpovich, M.T. Florinskii) and the evolution of Russian century, we have to bring together the many different epoch. ≈ studies in the US], Moscow 2005. currents and movements of this chaotic and tragic 18 On Mensheviks and others, see Liebich, From the Other Shore. process. And this is not because I want to demonstrate 19 See the chapter “Russian Connection: Das neue russische a specific theoretical approach or a certain method, references Berlin” in Karl Schlögel, Das russische Berlin: Ostbahnhof but because real history has entangled the paths of ref- 1 This is the short version of the Fritz-Stern-Lecture, given May Europas, Munich 2007, pp. 425—448; Judith Kessler, Jüdische ugees and emigrants. All over the world, we encounter 31, 2011, at the American Academy in Berlin Migration aus der ehemaligen Sowjetunion seit 1990, http// the refugees of both dictatorships: in Shanghai we 2 Karl Schlögel (ed.), Der Große Exodus: Die russische www.berlin-judentum.de/gemeinde/migration-1.htm, meet the White Russians and the Jews from Central Emigration und ihre Zentren 1917—1941, Munich 1994; Karl accessed 2011-04-26. Europe, in Prague German Social Democrats and Rus- Schlögel (ed.), Russische Emigration in Deutschland 1918 20 New Times, http://www.newtimes.ru/articles/print/39135, sian émigré scholars settle side by side, in Paris we bis 1941: Leben im europäischen Bürgerkrieg, Berlin; Karl accessed 2011-05-25. find Nikolai Berdyaev and Walter Benjamin, Alexan- Schlögel, Katharina Kucher, Bernhard Suchy / Gregor Thum dre Kojève and Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt and Eu- (eds.), Chronik russischen Lebens in Deutschland 1918—1941, Berlin; Karl Schlögel, Das Russische Berlin — Ostbahnhof gene Kulischer. The German invasion destroyed this Europas, Munich 2007. exclave, as Weimar Berlin had been destroyed years 3 Robert C. Williams, Culture in Exile: Russian Emigrés in before. It seems to me that there were places where Germany, 1881—1941, Ithaca 1972; Hans-Erich Volkmann, Die the refugees, the outcasts of both totalitarian states, russische Emigration in Deutschland 1919—1929, Würzburg could meet, encounter, and reflect. Such was for in- 1966. stance the ocean steamer, when Ernst Cassirer and 4 For one of the early Soviet projects to reconsider the Roman Jakobson, both fleeing from Europe, tried to experience of the Russian diaspora, see Leonid K. reach the New World. And such was probably a place Shkarenkov, Agoniia beloi emigratsii [The agony of White like the New School for Social Research, and New York Russian emigration], Moscow 1987. City in general, with its cosmopolitan society. There 5 Marc Raeff,Russia Abroad: A Cultural History of the Russian we can find the key for a comprehensive study of dis- Emigration, 1919—1939, New York & Oxford 1990. placements and cultures in the 20th century. 6 The main publications of these authors are: Alexander Kulischer and Eugene M. Kulischer, Kriegs- und Wanderzüge: Weltgeschichte als Völkerbewegung, Berlin 1932; Eugene Kulischer, The Displacement of Population in Europe: Studies And what about Russian Berlin today? Many fea- and Reports, Series O, No. 8, Montreal: International Labor tures are reminiscent of the Russian Berlin of the 1920s Office 1943; Eugene Kulischer,Europe on the Move: War — for instance the size of the Russian community, and Population Changes, 1917—1947, New York 1948; Eugene the emergence of a differentiated infrastructure, the Kulischer, “Displaced Persons in the Modern World”, media networks, etc.19 According to a brilliant study, American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Annals 262 based on opinion polls conducted in the spring of 2011 (1949); Jakob Lestschinsky, Balance Sheet of Extermination, by the Levada Center, about 50% of the respondents New York 1946. wanted to leave the country; the percentage among 7 Michael Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the the younger and best qualified generation is even high- Twentieth Century, New York 1985. er. One and a quarter million people have left Russia 8 Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict, Boston 1965. forever in the last three years — for Great Britain, Ger- many, France, and Austria, but also for countries like 9 On the Russian Mensheviks in exile, see André Liebich, From the other Shore: Russian Social Democracy after 1921, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Thailand, and, of course, Cambridge, Mass. 1997. the United States. In Germany we have a community 10 Grigory A. Landau, Sumerki Evropy: Stat’i i zametki [The of more than four million Russian-speaking people. twilight of Europe: Articles and notes], Berlin 1923. Russian demographers compared in an issue of the 11 Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, New York 1973. journal New Times the emigration of the last five years 12 On the Russian revolution, the role of prominent Jews and the 20 or so with the Great Exodus after the Civil War. And rise of anti-Semitism, see Iosif Bikerman, G. A. Landau, I. O. the consequences are frightening indeed, because it Levin, D. O. Linskii, V. S. Mandel’, and D. S. Pasmanik (eds.), is the middle class, the highly motivated and most dy- Rossiia i evrei: Sbornik pervyi [Russia and the Jews: The first namic and most entrepreneurial elements of the Rus- collection], Berlin 1924. sian society, that has left the country: businessmen, 13 Simon Dubnow, Buch des Lebens: Erinnerungen und IT specialists, scientists, artists — a brain drain which Gedanken; Materialien zur Geschichte meiner Zeit, vol. 3: reviews 29

Birth of the Russian Empire. Tenacious retreat of Sweden as a great power

Pavel Konovalchuk & n 2009, the three- Einar Lyth hundredth anniver- Vägen till Poltava sary of the Battle of Slaget vid Lesnaja IPoltava was marked 1708 in Sweden, Russia, and Ukraine. In addition to a [The road to Poltava: The Swedish-Russian anthol- battle of Lesnaya, 1708] ogy whose main focus Svenskt militärhistoriskt was on the consequences bibliotek of the battle for Sweden’s Stockholm 2009 and Russia’s historical de- 249 pages velopment and long-term relations, the tercentena- ry saw the publication of Vladimir A. Artamonov new literature about the Poltavskoye srazhenie course of military events. K 300 letiyu Poltavskoy In addition to new source pobedy material, the latter studies benefited from [The engagement at unprecedented collabo- Poltava: ration among Swedish, In commemoration of Russian, and Ukrainian the tercentenary of the scholars. victory at Poltava] The prelude to the MPPA BIMPBA Battle of Poltava is the Moscow 2009 subject of Vägen till Pol- 640 pages tava: Slaget vid Lesnaja 1708 [The road to Poltava: The battle of Lesnaya, Valery A. Moltusov 1708], written by Russian Battle of Lesnaya by Jean-Marc Nattier. Poltava 1709 — military historian Pavel vändpunkten Kono-valchuk and retired Swedish Brigadier Einar Lyth. In the of his 2002 master’s degree thesis at was wont to listen to his generals and compel them to [Poltava, 1709: foreword, the authors thank Professor Moscow State University — for which Ar- argue in defense of their positions. Once the decisions the turning point] Vladimir A. Artamonov of the Russian tamonov was his academic adviser! had been made, they were also forced to sign the min- Svenskt militärhistoriskt Academy of Sciences in Moscow and Such is the intricacy of the intercon- utes along with the monarch so they would be unable bibliotek Russian-Ukrainian historian Valery A. nectedness of the various projects. to disclaim responsibility later. Even though the most Stockholm 2010 Moltusov for their kind assistance, while important Russian documents from the campaign of 213 pages Artamonov thanks Konovalchuk and Another work that can be added to 1708—1709 have been in print for at least a century, Lyth for the same in the foreword to his the circle of new Poltava studies is Pavel the Russian perspective has been surprisingly absent book, Poltavskoye srazhenie: K 300 letiyu A. Krotov’s book, entitled Bitva pri from Swedish scholarship. Karolinska förbundet (The Pavel A. Krotov Poltavskoy pobedy [The engagement Poltave: K 300-letnej godovsjtjinje [The Society for Research on the Swedish Caroline Age) Bitva pri Poltave at Poltava: In commemoration of the Battle of Poltava: On the occasion of the made significant investments in order to translate Rus- K 300-letnej tercentenary of the victory at Poltava]. 300th anniversary]. Krotov is a profes- sian documents from the 1708—1709 campaign into godovsjtjinje Artamonov also thanks Bertil Wenner- sor at Saint Petersburg State University, Swedish. Nevertheless, interest in the project waned holm, who, along with Lyth, made whose previous work includes studies after World War I, and the documents that had been [The Battle of Poltava: significant editorial contributions to the of Peter the Great’s navy. translated were published finally in the society’s 1933 On the occasion of the presentation of Valery A. Moltusov’s One problem confronting scholars yearbook. At that point, the project had not yet gotten 300th anniversary] Poltava 1709 — vändpunkten [Poltava, studying Charles XII’s Russian cam- as far as the actual Battle of Poltava.1 Istoricheskaya 1709: the turning point] to Swedish read- paign is that Swedish field records were According to the interpretation brought out in Swe- Illyustratsiya ers. Wennerholm, a former Swedish Air lost after the battle. Given, however, den by 19th century historians critical of Charles XII, Saint Petersburg 2009 Force colonel, is a prominent expert on that Charles XII, the absolute monarch such as Julius Mankell and Ernst Carlson, the battle in 397 pages Caroline military history. His research of Sweden, was not in the habit of jus- June 1709 was a desperate undertaking. The Swedes, on the Swedish standards captured at tifying his decisions to anyone, it is un- who had laid siege to the city of Poltava in Ukraine, the Battle of Poltava has cast doubt on certain whether we would have known were weakened by starvation and disease and lacked previously established beliefs about that much more about the plans for the ammunition. When Peter I arrived with a numerically the size of the Swedish army and thus Swedish campaign if the records had strong relief army, the Swedes were aiming for a swift the number of fallen Swedish soldiers. survived. But there is abundant con- conclusion by means of a bold attack on the Russian According to Wennerholm, there were temporary source material preserved camp, but Charles XII and Field Marshall Rehnskiöld between 8,000 and 9,000 casualties, on the Russian side, which includes had not clearly communicated the plan to their subor- rather than the accepted figure of 6,900. not only orders and reports, but also dinates. Russian redoubts in the path of the advancing Finally, it must be said that Moltus- minutes of meetings of Peter I’s coun- Swedish army came as a total surprise: the Swedish ov’s Poltava book is a reworked version cils of war with his generals. The Tsar battle array was fragmented and the initiative lost. reviews30

Continued. Tenacious retreat of Sweden as a great power

reviewers When Peter I’s superior forces moved had departed Riga in June with 13,000 soldiers and a by surprise at Lesnaya was made up out of their fortified camp and began supply convoy of 4,500 wagons, 1,000 pack horses, of special dragoon regiments, which to form battle lines for a counterattack, and 13,000 head of cattle — was meant to join Charles could not only fight on foot, but also the Swedes were forced to stake every- XII’s invading army, which had marched from Sax- brought their own mounted artillery. thing on a single turn of the cards and ony, somewhere south of Smolensk. The plan might The Swedes had no mounted artillery, attack. The Swedish onslaught was shat- have been to use these supplies to mount an offensive nor any mounted reconnaissance units tered in a downpour of artillery fire, the against Moscow, where there were further stores comparable to the Russian Cossack Gunnar Åselius soldiers scattered, and it all ended in available to prepare for the winter. Lewenhaupt was units. The lack of cavalry and concomi- Professor of military crushing defeat. The capitulation of the attacked by the Russians at Lesnaya in present-day tant weak intelligence service explain history at the Swedish defeated army at Perevolochna Belarus, and when he was able to join the king two much of the Swedish misfortune in National Defence College three days later was depicted as the logi- weeks later, all the supplies and half of his troops had Russia. in Stockholm. Among cal conclusion to what had been a reck- been lost. In the classic manner, Konovalchuk and Peter I, however, felt healthy respect his books are The Rus- less military operation from the outset.2 Lyth examine the commanders’ words and deeds, but for the Swedes, and was unwilling to sian Menace to Sweden also recreate the mundane concerns of war, with its meet them on the open field without (1994) and The Rise and After 1900, when nationalist currents marches and transports, its bread baking and forag- support from field fortifications. Ac- Fall of the Soviet Navy in Swedish historical research led to ing. Although much remains shrouded in mystery, no cordingly, he ordered the building of in the Baltic 1921–1941 more favorable estimations of Charles one has previously devoted this kind of scholarly ef- the Naryshkin line — a fortification line (2004). XII as king and military commander, fort to the logistical conditions of Charles XII’s Russian of redoubts and abatis stretching a full Lund University professor Arthur Stille campaign. Lewenhaupt’s supply column had a theo- 750 kilometers and laid the entire way and Swedish general staff historian Carl retical length of 83 kilometers, but really was closer from Pskov down to Sevsk at the out- Bennedich instead contended that the to 150 kilometers, we are told. It seems obvious that skirts of the steppes. Moltusov contends Swedes had voluntarily elected to fight it was more or less impossible to protect it effectively. that the Naryshkin line contributed to at Poltava and had every prerequisite And it was hardly possible to exploit local resources to Charles XII’s decision in the fall of 1708 for victory, if only the king had not been supply an invading army in these sparsely populated to veer south and down into Ukraine in- wounded before the battle and forced outlands of Europe, especially not when the Russians stead of continuing via Smolensk along Fredrik Eriksson to relinquish command to his less deci- systematically laid waste to the land in the path of the the main road to Moscow, the route that PhD in history, re- sive generals. Despite the setback, the Swedes. As a result, the Russian campaign of Charles followed the wide Russian rivers Don searcher at the Institute army had also been in good shape after- XII was a highly doubtful enterprise from the start. and Dnieper, which both Napoleon and of Contemporary History, wards and the capitulation at Perevo- Hitler would later choose. Södertörn University. Has lochna was thus needless. Bennedich’s Konovalchuk and Lyth not only calculated wagon Field fortifications were also used on written on agricultural version, in which infantry commander space and feed consumption, played war games, and the battlefield at Poltava in the form of policy and the Swedish General Lewenhaupt was assigned the climbed the terrain, they also made use of previously the ten famous redoubts southwest of Conservative Party. lion’s share of blame for the defeat, almost entirely neglected source material — records, the Russian camp. Unbeknownst to the went down in the official history of the found in the archives of the Justice Council in the Swedes, construction of the last four General Staff and later influenced the Swedish National Archives, of interviews with 1,100 began the night before the battle. The accounts in Frans G. Bengtsson’s and soldiers and officers who managed to get back to position and formation of the redoubts Ragnild Hatton’s classic biographies of Swedish-controlled territory in the Baltic region after is still an unresolved issue. The last Charles XII.3 There was no reevaluation the Battle of Lesnaya. In order to clear themselves remnants of them were torn down in of the battle until Gustaf Petri’s essay in of suspicion of desertion, each and every man had 1817, and the sites marked with monu- Karolinska Förbundets Årsbok of 1958, to recount his experiences before a military tribunal ments on the terrain at the bicentennial Andrea Pető which revived Mankell’s and Carlson’s in Riga. As with the Cathar village of Montaillou in commemoration in 1909 are incorrect, Professor at the Depart- pessimistic assessments of Swedish French medieval historian Roy de Ladurie’s famous as far as can be judged. The question ment of Gender Studies prospects.4 book of the 1970s, the Swedish Caroline army is of whether the redoubts were grouped at the Central European Peter Englund’s The Battle that brought to life through court records — a fascinating in a T or a V is essential to assessing the University, Budapest. Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth community that was at once multicultural and ortho- Russians’ intentions, and not merely a Her book on Júlia Rajk, of the Russian Empire still bears dox Lutheran, strictly hierarchical and Swedish egali- silly academic dispute. Saint Petersburg Geschlecht, Politik und traces of Bennedich’s account. Unlike tarian. The recounting of the thoughts and memories historian Pavel Krotov, whose aim is to Stalinismus in Ungarn, Bennedich, Englund has no desire to that may have crossed the minds of soldiers and offi- shed light on the founder of his home came out in 2007. heap encomiums on the warrior king, cers on the morning of the day of battle — Michaelmas city, Peter I, and the Tsar’s knowledge Awarded the Bolyai Prize but still aims to keep the excitement Day — with detailed descriptions of contemporary cus- of classical and Byzantine military by the Hungarian Acad- alive for his readers, and thus describes toms related to the holiday in various parts of Sweden, authors, speculates that the redoubts emy of Sciences in 2006. the final engagement outside the Rus- Finland, and the Baltic region — is beyond doubt one were built as a deliberate stratagem to sian camp as a relatively open question. of the highlights of the book. splinter a Swedish attack. He thus sup- Here and there in the book, it is obvious Lesnaya demonstrated that Peter I’s military ports the T-formation theory. Moltusov, that Englund’s text was based on the reforms after his defeat by the Swedes at Narva in who holds that the redoubts were built general staff history.5 1700 had begun to bear fruit. According to Arta- as a purely routine measure to protect monov, Menshikov’s victory at Kalisz, Poland, in the Russian camp against surprise at- How then do the recently published the fall of 1706, must be regarded as an early turn- tacks, is more inclined towards the V- works on the Battle of Poltava relate to ing point. The number of Swedish prisoners taken formation. Whether or not the Russians the earlier, traditional interpretations? there — 2,600 — would not be exceeded until Poltava. had planned it, however, one third of Peter I described the victory at Le- The reorganized Russian cavalry in particular was a the Swedish infantry — six battalions snaya in September 1708 as “the Mother force to be reckoned with. The bulk of the lightning- under the command of Major General of Poltava”. General Lewenhaupt — who fast “flying corps” corps( volant) that took Lewenhaupt Roos — became bogged down in a fruit- 31

less onslaught against the third of the after the battle if he had not personally fought on the references reviewers four newly built redoubts. (Six battal- front line. 1 “Valda handlingar rörande fälttåget ions may sound insignificant, but it is In other words, there are still things about Poltava i Ryssland Juli—Oktober 1708: Svensk noteworthy, by way of comparison, that open to debate. In their remarks on Moltusov’s book, öfversättning ur dokument till Stora the total battle force of today’s Swedish Lyth and Wennerholm list additional unresolved is- nordiska krigets historia utgifna av army is seven battalions!) After suffer- sues. kejserliga ryska krigshistoriska sällskapet” [Select documents relating to the campaign ing heavy losses, Roos surrendered his Old-fashioned patriotic tones sometimes ring in Russia from July to October 1708: Swedish command to a Russian detachment in through in Artamonov’s book — especially when the translation of documents about the history Anders Björnsson a ravine south of the city. According to Ukrainian Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa, who chose of the Great Northern War published by Editor-in-chief of BW Moltusov, the detachment that accept- to collaborate with the invading Swedes, comes up. the Imperial Russian Military Historical and translator of short ed the capitulation had actually been It is easy to see why the publication of the work was Society], Karolinska Förbundets Årsbok stories of Joseph Roth dispatched to relieve the garrison in granted financial support from the state program for 1932—1933, Lund 1933. into Swedish. Awarded Poltava and happened to be in the area the “patriotic education of the citizens of the Russian 2 Julius Mankell, “Om Karl XII såsom an honorary doctorate by mainly by coincidence. Federation”. Still, no one can deny that Artamonov fältherre, jemte en öfversigt af de the University of Gothen- is one of the foremost authorities on Russian military strategiska grunddragen af hans fälttåg” burg last spring. [On Charles XII as commander, and review The rest of the Swedish army waited history of the epoch and that he fully understands of the strategic elements of his campaign], for two hours on the other side of the both the Russian and Swedish source material on the in Kungl. krigsvetenskapsakademiens redoubt line for Roos’s battalions to Russian campaign of Charles XII. To some extent, his Handlingar och Tidskrift [The proceedings join them. When the Russians were judgmental evaluations of Mazepa are part of a polem- and journal of the Royal Swedish about to attack, the Swedes were finally ic against certain Ukrainian historians who have cho- Academy of War Sciences] 1867; Ernst forced to advance on the Russian camp. sen in recent years to describe the events of 1708—1709 Carlson, “Slaget vid Poltava och dess The element of surprise was utterly in an at least equally patriotic context. However, the krigshistoriska förutsättningar enligt samtida förutsättningar” [The Battle of lost. The Caroline tactic of charging close collaboration now established among scholars in Poltava and its military historical conditions the enemy with edged weapons had different countries provides hope that further advanc- according to contemporary conditions], worked against Russian troops before, es are possible. Broad consensus prevails among the in Historiska studier: Festskrift tillägnad Michael Rießler but now the Russian army had another authors that the battle became a turning point in the Carl Gustaf Malmström den 2 november PhD in general linguistics; kind of confidence and an astounding Great Northern War and laid the foundations for the 1897 [Historical studies: Festschrift for Carl since 2008, researcher in mass of artillery — according to Krotov, Russian Empire. But here as well, there is latitude for Gustaf Malmström, 2 November, 1897], Scandinavian linguistics a full 282 guns including the artillery on gradations of meaning. The war continued for another Stockholm 1897. at Albert-Ludwigs-Uni- the redoubts. The Swedish army had eleven years. The Swedish Empire put two additional 3 Ragnhild M. Hatton, Charles XII of Sweden, versität Freiburg. Among four guns, none of which were used in armies together after this original army had been London 1968; Frans G. Bengtsson, Karl the topics he has written XII:s levnad 1—2, Stockholm 1935—1936; an the final battle. That the Swedish can- lost down in Ukraine. Caroline Sweden thus proved on are Sami culture and abridged English translation: The Sword linguistics. nons were left behind had to do with surprisingly tenacious, even after an unimaginable Does Not Jest: The Heroic Life of King Charles the need for speed and surprise. The military disaster like the one at Poltava. ≈ XII of Sweden, New York 1960. Russian tactic of dominating through gunnar åselius 4 Arthur Stille, Carl XII:s fälttågsplaner superior firepower seems, at least in 1707—1709 [Charles XII of Sweden’s hindsight, more modern and forward- campaign plans 1707—1709], Lund 1908; Carl looking than the Swedish tactic of Bennedich, “Poltava”, in Nordisk familjebok: subduing the enemy by charging with Konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi swords. [Nordic family book: encyclopedia], Stockholm 1915; Swedish General Staff,Karl XII på slagfältet: Karolinsk slagordning sedd The enormous Russian firestorm mot bakgrund av slagtaktikens utveckling unleashed over the Swedes in the fi- från alla äldsta tider [Charles XII on the nal stages of the battle makes Krotov battlefield: Caroline battle array in light skeptical of the accepted wisdom that of the evolution of battle tactics from the the Royal Swedish Life Guard — bro- earliest times], Stockholm 1918; Gustaf ken down and routed before the at- Petri, “Slaget vid Poltava” [the Battle of tack — nevertheless managed to break Poltava], Karolinska Förbundets Årsbok 1958. through the Russian front line. Krotov 5 In particular, compare Swedish General also doubts the notion that the Tsar Staff,Karl XII på slagfältet [Charles XII on personally commanded the Novgorod the battlefield], pp. 852—857, with chapter regiment in the famous counterattack 17 of Englund, The Battle that Shook Europe: that is supposed to have pushed back Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire, the Swedish Life Guard. No such feat on London 2003. the part of the Tsar is mentioned in the original dispatches from the battle: the story was told for the first time in the 1750s by Russian historian Pyotr Kryok- shin. Artamonov, who like Moltusov has faith in the report, objects that the origi- nal victory bulletins were extremely laconic and that Peter I would hardly have found Swedish bullets in his scarf reviews

The ability of the Old World to survive. European nobility on the threshold of modernity

András Vari he role of agrarian elites in Herren und Landwirte: history is a recurring theme in re- Ungarische Tsearch that reflects the existence Aristokraten und of a more fundamental question: Is Agrarier auf dem Weg historical change dependent on a grass- in die Moderne roots development or is it the result of (1821—1910) decisions made by elites? There is no obvious answer to this question — one Studien zur Sozial- und that becomes highly pertinent in rela- Wirtschaftsgeschichte tion to the modernization process and Ostmitteleuropas 17 especially to agrarian aristocratic elites. Wiesbaden: Harrowitz The landowning aristocracy in 19th Verlag 2008 century Europe has been thought to be 273 pages an elite in decline, mainly as a result of the expansion of the market economy, which brought new groups, rooted in a capitalist mode of production, to the forefront of power. The modernization process also entailed the increasing integration of industry and agriculture. Taken together, this should have lead to the undermining or marginalization of the status of the aristocratic elites. The traditional conflict between the hier- archical system of the nobility and the increasingly powerful non-noble groups has not, however, always resulted in loss of status for the nobility.1

Norwegian historian Francis Sejer- sted has defined modernization as a project of liberation made up of factors that have included technical/economic progress, ideological differentiation, and nation-state consolidation.2 With illustration: moa Thelander liberation, scientific rationality came to replace various mythological ex- premise of the landowning elites. Consolidation of the a process of change during the 19th cen- planations of the world. This was not nation-state, on the other hand, did not necessarily tury. The Central European nobility has a process where the mythological ex- strip the elites of their status: avenues of influence re- generally been regarded as an atavistic, planations broke down; instead, new mained there longer. conservative, and traditional power dimensions were added to the general that defended its position against de- explanations of the world. Technical/ Historians Arno Mayer and Dominic Lieven have mands made by other groups. Vari pres- economic progress did not immediately shown that the emergence of the bourgeoisie in Eu- ents a picture of a much more diverse lead away from poverty but prepared rope did not immediately lead to the decline of the ar- Hungarian elite that closely monitored the foundations for future economic istocracy. Aristocratic preserves survived.3 Lieven ar- international trends and sometimes fol- and societal development. Differentia- gues that the aristocracy generally had three strategies lowed its own path of development. tion meant that society went from a for building a front against the increasing influence The study of the Hungarian aris- common worldview to more diverse of urban business and of family farmers: The nobility tocracy encompasses the entire 19th perspectives and the individual saw the could choose to resist through violence, ally with its century and thus covers the period world through new, group-specific eyes. opponents through adaptation, or forge an alliance usually called the shift to liberal reform, The nation-state was reinforced and be- with the church in an antiliberal front. In Prussia, it from around 1820 to 1870. This process came the framework of modernization. was the bourgeoisie that had to adapt to the nobility, is characterized by a tension between Similar processes challenged while Swedish nobles coexisted with an influential conservative aristocratic groups and landowning elites in Europe. When group of family farmers. liberal civil servants. This tension has multiple groups were included in deci- Hungary and other parts of Central Europe have been found in research on other coun- sion making and the shaping of public been considered a region where the traditional nobil- tries, including Sweden.4 Economically, opinion, the aristocracy lost its clear ity preserved its social standing the longest and where the Hungarian aristocracy was liberal, leadership position. Social differen- modernization had the most difficulty taking root. like European nobility in general. The tiation was based on the technical/ These were also societies where modernization pre- international depression in agricultural economic progress that laid the mate- sented huge challenges to the traditional hierarchies. markets that began in 1873 prodded rial foundations for the new groups. András Vari, professor at the University of Miskolć, agrarians all over Europe to take to state Technical development and capitalist provides a new interpretation in his book, where he interventionism and protectionism, but ownership structures changed the very argues that the Hungarian agrarian elites underwent on this point, Hungary departs from the 33

general trend. The leading Hungarian ism and protectionism are part of its quotidian ups references politician during this period was the es- and downs. 1 Ulf Jonsson, “Den jordägande aristokratin tate owner Kálmán Tisza, from the high och moderniteten i Europa under 1800- och nobility, whose governments during the The strength of the book is the overall approach. To början av 1900-talet — en spänningsfylld och period of 1875—1890 gave strong support understand how estate owners acted and reasoned, motsägelsefull relation” [The landowning to industrial development. The more Vari compares them with the farmers. He augments aristocracy and modernity in Europe in th th typical reaction to the agrarian crisis of this with studies of agricultural policy and relation- the 19 and early 20 centuries: a tense and contradictory relationship], in Historisk the 1870s and 1880s was a more activist ships between the elites and the state, and analyzes tidskrift 1997:4. conservatism.5 But Hungary broke this dependencies between industry, trade, and banking, 2 Francis Sejersted, Socialdemokratins pattern to a certain extent by preserv- as well as organizational formation. In the latter re- tidsålder: Sverige och Norge under 1900-talet ing a more liberal political stance. Vari’s spect, the aristocracy was a driving force in the first [The age of social democracy: Sweden and findings consequently give us a new pic- half of the 19th century, initially involving scientific Norway in the 1900s], Nora 2005, pp. 8—11. ture of Hungary, which has, in earlier and/or financial associations. Their primary task 3 Arno Mayer, The Persistence of the Old research, often been described as rife was not political, but rather business-oriented. Their Regime: Europe to the Great War, London with social conflicts. The point is that aim was economic modernization, even if they later 2010; Dominic Lieven, The Aristocracy in the Hungarian aristocracy partly ac- evolved into political groupings. Noble societies and Europe 1815—1914, London 1992. cepted the modernization of society; it other types of aristocratic clubs were therefore trans- 4 With respect to Sweden, see Torbjörn was not only an estate-owning nobility formed into political bodies to promote aristocratic Nilsson, Elitens svängrum: första kammaren, that strove to preserve the status quo in interests, even though the original purpose had been staten och moderniseringen 1867—1886 [Latitude of the elite: the upper house, social respects and defended its privi- something else. This was also part of the moderniza- the state, and modernization 1867—1886], leges. The group was diverse and con- tion process, wherein modern organizations were re- Stockholm 1994; see also Sten Carlsson, sisted in equal measure of industrialists quired to preserve the aristocracy’s position of power Ståndssamhälle och ståndspersoner and estate owners. But the traditional and the old clubs were thus reshaped into political 1700—1865: Studier rörande det svenska hierarchies were in general not meant organizations. ståndssamhällets upplösning [The class to be shattered: what they wanted was society and class representatives 1700—1865: economic development without more Clearly, the Hungarian aristocracy of the late 19th studies of the dissolution of the Swedish class society], Lund 1973. serious social reforms.6 century no longer possessed the unquestioned leader- But despite everything, Hungary ship of the realm. Its corridors of power narrowed, 5 Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Das deutsche Kaiserreich 1871—1918, Göttingen 1973; was characterized by grave social and even as aristocratic identity strengthened. But aristo- Herman Lebovics, The Alliance of Iron political unrest. In some cases, the cratic thinking is not synonymous with conservatism. and Wheat in the Third French Republic Hungarian nobility attempted to assert By adopting economic modernity and liberal trade, 1860—1914, Baton Rouge 1988; and Fredrik itself in relation to the German-speaking the representatives of the aristocracy elevated other Eriksson, Det reglerade undantaget: högerns nobility of the Habsburg Empire. It groups to positions of power, sometimes inadvertent- jordbrukspolitik 1904—2004 [The regulated even achieved a kind of status quo after ly. The high aristocrats were dispersed in the ideologi- exception: right-wing agricultural policy the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of cal space. The antagonists were primarily non-noble 1904—2004], Stockholm 2004. 1867 (Ausgleich), which established the groups and, to an equal extent, the low nobility. They 6 Fredrik Eriksson, “Modernity, Rationality dual monarchy. One of the Hungarian could find their allies within the agrarian intelligent- and Citizenship: Swedish Agrarian Organizations as Seen through the Lens aristocracy’s opposition forces was sia: professional groups of agronomists, engineers, of the Agrarian Press, circa 1880—1917”, in the agrarian socialists, who built their and economists. In some cases, aristocrats changed Piotr Wawrzeniuk (ed.), Societal Change support on the large groups of the rural their bearings and were designated in more profes- and Ideological Formation Among the Rural landless. Despite the modernization of sional terms, something that also occurred in coun- Among the Population of the Baltic Area the aristocracy, the social antagonisms tries like Sweden.7 The reason for the change was the 1880—1939, Huddinge 2008. in Hungary were never fully resolved; need to establish an identity in the international agrar- 7 Fredrik Eriksson, “Modernity, Rationality instead, they exploded into civil war ian market. Suppliers had to compete on the basis of and Citizenship”. and revolution after the breakdown quality and the path to quality went through science. of the dual monarchy in the aftermath Professional groups became more important, partly of World War I. Béla Kun’s communist in concert with the aristocracy’s attempts to bring regime of 1919 was defeated by admiral, about economic development of their businesses. But nobleman, and estate owner Miklós despite the economically modern stance, the relation- Horthy, himself an integrated part of ship between the aristocracy and their employees the aristocratic culture. This culture was informed by the more patriarchal relationships was an international phenomenon of the premodern age, in a mix of the modern and the whose tone was set by English aristo- traditional. cratic culture in the 19th century. Horse- András Vari’s study of the Hungarian aristocracy racing and casino gambling were part of provides an intriguing glimpse of 19th century Hungar- a European trend, and horseracing was ian history and an elite that blended economic liberal- also a link to modernity through horse ism with social traditionalism by remaining true to breeding. Breeding became a noble aristocratic values. It presents an elite that was threat- prerogative. ened by economic change, but managed to preserve In the spirit of Braudel, Vari argues its status relatively intact. ≈ that cultures are slow-moving phenom- fredrik eriksson ena. The aristocratic culture is one of the long waves of history, while liberal- reviews

Exodus from Galicia. Inferno of the swindlers and the swindled

Martin Pollack hilippe Halsmann (1906—1979) mentioned by name, in journalistically effective of mainly Eastern European origins. Kaiser von Amerika: was one of the greatest photo- scenes based on source material taken directly from (The first shipment of 67 young Jewish Die grosse Flucht aus Pjournalists and portrait photog- official archives. These are the people and the settings girls had been sent to Brazil in 1867.) Galizien raphers of the 20th century. He took pic- one encounters in Joseph Roth’s short stories. The These people had no future, whether tures for Life, Time, and Vogue; it was he economic deprivation was endemic, the precarious- in the new country or in the old: for Vienna: Paul Zsolnay who took the iconic photograph of the ness of day-to-day life was interrupted only by failed the vast majority, returning was out Verlag 2010 melancholy Einstein. harvests and pogroms (although not as murderous as of the question. Naturally, there are 285 pages As a young man, he came very close those in Russia, on the other side of the border), and counterexamples, even among the to disaster. Together with his father, a ordinary people were utterly lacking in education. The “Galicians” (whether Poles, Jews, wealthy dentist from Riga, he had gone situation deteriorated drastically when this remote Ukrainians, Germans, Slovaks, or even hiking in the Austrian Zillertal Valley. corner of a sprawling empire was dragged into the so-called “Northern Hungarians”), His father fell down a cliff. Philippe ran modernization process through the expansion of the and the society that seems to have immediately for help, and when help railways and expanded markets for industrial goods. been the most welcoming to the new arrived, his father lay on the ground, Village tailors and shoemakers lost markets. Prices for arrivals was Canada, discovered as a robbed and murdered. agricultural products dropped and field allotments destination in the 1890s by Ruthenians For some reason, suspicion fell on shrank dramatically in size. Vodka sales were the only or Galician Germans (sometimes called the son, Philippe. Despite a lack of lucrative business in the villages and small towns. And “Swabians”). These people never had evidence or motive, he was convicted almost all publicans were Jews (who often doubled as a choice to voluntarily move eastward of murder, later commuted to man- moneylenders), as were for that matter many stew- toward Russia like 19th century Finns, slaughter. An international campaign ards (Pächter) of large estates. Not a good mix. for example, who had been subjects of was launched to have the conviction the Tsar since 1809, and a number of overturned, backed by luminaries in- But it was a splendid basis for enticing and fooling enterprising Swedes who were happy cluding Sigmund Freud and Thomas the most miserable of the miserable to sell what little to settle temporarily or for good in the Mann. It was suspected that local busi- they owned and make their way to a new country of world city of Saint Petersburg and other nessmen had reason to make what was infinite riches and enough milk and honey for every- parts of the vast Russian Empire. A probably the work of robbers look like a one. Illiterate emigrants who crossed the ocean often group of humble, land-hungry people family conflict in order to prevent tour- had no idea where the new country was located, and from Podolia, the most wretched dis- ists from fleeing. Anti-Semitic attitudes perhaps not even what it was called, how far away it trict in all of wretched Galicia, who left were widespread in the Tyrol, and the was, or in what direction it lay; they knew nothing of in 1892 for the paradise of “Rozalya” on Halsmanns were a Jewish family. any exchange rate when they went to change their utterly false premises, returned disap- meager gold for marks or dollars; they had to pay for pointed to a brutal homecoming. In When Philippe was finally released, everything in advance, and if there was anything left point of fact, horrible stories had been he himself fled, encouraged by life- over after they had received their tickets and other told about life under the Tsar and the time banishment from Austria — first documents, that, too, was taken from them by force. whip by fleeing Jews who had become to France, and later, after the German In often painful detail, Pollack describes this dirty, the targets of state terror and officially invasion of France, across the Atlantic stinking racket, which played out in a corruptive black- sanctioned pogroms after the anarchist to America. market economy during the infancy of European- assassination of the “reformist” Em- Many young Europeans had preced- Atlantic robber baron capitalism. The whole enter- peror Alexander II in 1881. Russian Jews ed him on this journey. The Halsmann prise was perilous for most of those involved. The emi- came over the border to Brody on the affair took place in 1928 and the convict grants were not only robbed, fleeced, and sometimes Austrian side, the town where Joseph was released three years later at a point beaten, they were also in danger of being arrested by Roth was to grow up. From there, they when Europe was on the brink of a new the Austrian authorities who did not routinely permit journeyed to gather in places with sub- wave of Jewish persecution. Martin Pol- emigration and often judged it as an attempt to evade sequently fateful names like Auschwitz lack told the story with meticulous pre- military service and thus as a form of desertion and and Birkenau. These were destinations cision and literary brilliance in Anklage treason. (The majority of emigrants were men, either for not only Russian Jews, but also Jews Vatermord: Der Fall Philipp Halsmann young or in early middle age; most of those arrested from Romania, a country afflicted since (2002). In his new book, Pollack limns were sent back to their home districts, poorer than the early 1870s by officially staged anti- the background to one of the major they were when they left.) And in steerage in the big Semitism. waves of emigration — the exodus from ships (most sailed from Hamburg and Bremen, al- Galicia, the poorest of the Crown lands though traffic to South America also left from Trieste And it is now that things begin to hap- of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy — and Le Havre, where competition was cut-throat pen in the demographics. In the 1880s, which was most intense during the among the emigration agents in both ports) the food sixty percent of all Galician emigrants period of roughly 1880—1920. was poor, sanitation dreadful, and the death toll high. were Jews, although they made up only This was an exodus in which the Jew- No jobs were waiting in the port on the other side. ten percent of the population. During ish population was strongly overrepre- the thirty years from 1881 to 1910, no less sented, among both the travelers and Or else they were waiting. On Brazilian plantations, than forty percent of the Jews of Galicia the businessmen and agents who made where working days were unbearably long, slavery chose to call on the United States. The fortunes on ticket sales, swindles, and widespread (legal until 1888 but still practiced there- Lower East Side of Manhattan in New violence, as poor and ignorant Eastern after), and wages never paid. And there were jobs, York City then became in reality a Jew- Europeans ventured out into the great of a sort, at the brothels in Constantinople, Bombay, ish city. unknown. Pollack describes the pro- and Rio de Janeiro. Human trafficking constituted a There were other reasons beyond cess with great empathy, always on the special trade, organized mainly by Jewish madams the economic and cultural that set microscopic level and with the people who offered mainly Jewish beauties to brothel owners these human masses in motion. The 35

line, was taken away by revolutionary sailors and died on November 9, 1918, the same day the republic was proclaimed in Germany. With the German defeat and the simultaneous dissolution of the Habsburg monar- chy, the contemporary equivalent of the “Fall of the Wall,” all Galicians had become Poles. But that is another story alto- gether. The former Spiegel reporter Pollack’s book is a first-rate work and a worthy successor to his breakthrough Galizien: Eine Reise durch die ver- schwundene Welt Ostgali- ziens und der Bukowina (2001), although there are no references to the literature and source material he made use of, which makes the book less useful in scholarly illustration: ragni svensson contexts. What Pollack so clearly shows is how so- social structure in Galicia, controlled by Kaiser von Amerika? One of the many legends that cieties under great duress and distress landowners, guaranteed backwardness swept through the anguished Galician countryside can react en masse and utterly lose their and stasis. Opportunities for advance- around 1900 is the one about Emperor Franz Joseph’s bearings. Many of the phenomena he ment for the ambitious subsistence son, Crown Prince Rudolf. According to the story, addresses, such as human trafficking farmer, the day laborer, the peddler, Rudolf had not committed suicide along with his lover, of various types and forced mass emi- and the tradesman, were marginal at seventeen-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera in 1889, but gration, are not entirely things of the best. Poverty was so close to the limit of had actually traveled to Brazil and become the ruler past. ≈ prostration that people simply did not of this remote kingdom. Now he received all Galicians anders björnsson have the strength to work, and since who went there with open arms. This wild imagina- they were unable to work, they lost the tion, this singular belief in completely unexpected opportunity to support themselves. everyday miracles, is another thing one constantly en- Note: See also Anders Hammarlund’s Or it wasn’t permitted. Pollack states counters in the works of Joseph Roth. And it certainly review essay on p.4. that in Galicia in the 1870s, there were was a miracle that so many managed to survive none- 100—120 established religious holidays theless, at home and in foreign lands. Galicians were in thirty-four districts of the province, also a prime commodity close to home — as seasonal 120—150 in twenty-two districts, and labor on the East Elbian latifundia (and yes, on manor 150—200 in the remaining six districts, farms in Denmark and southern Sweden, where they according to a report by a government worked picking and cleaning beets for several months authority. Lethargy was chronic and the until winter arrived). For a liberal like Max Weber, Crown land was bleeding economically. in the 1890s, these “Poles” were a veritable national The only thing that increased was the scourge, since they were willing to work for less than population. Actually, one other thing the wage German subsistence farmers had previously increased: antagonisms between popu- been able to count on as day laborers — and thus has- lation groups through the national unifi- tened the emigration of ethnic Germans! cation movements. All of these had one thing in common: they regarded Jews But the biggest emigration shipping king of them as a foreign species. This was an inferno all, Albert Ballin, must also be counted as a Kaiser of where both the swindled and the swin- America. His agency in Hamburg, Hapag, went under dlers were victims, each in their own as a direct consequence of the outcome of the Great way. These districts would later endure War, the defeat of Germany, and the decline in trans- the worst suffering of all in the murders atlantic travel. Ballin, son of an insignificant Jewish of the second world war. emigration agent, head of the world’s largest shipping reviews36

Negotiating Soviet gendered reality in Lithuania. Among superwomen and alcoholics

Adopting and ltimately, Soviet memory gory, belong those who wanted to share with her their of the Soviet woman, a wife of a party Remembering no longer has a place, nor “true experiences”. Leinarte decided not to include leader, a wife of an alcoholic husband. Soviet Reality: “Uany significance, in this any of the stories in this third category, since their She conducted the interviews herself Life Stories of world.” (p. 16) This is a rather resigned narration is incoherent and illogical in the context by the narrative interview technique, Lithuanian Women closing sentence for the first part of a of the overall project of the book, but she very often a method she carefully describes in 1945—1970 volume that reflects on the complexity uses some segments of interviews conducted with this the methodology section of the book. and inexpressibility of Soviet women’s group of women to illustrate certain points. This edito- The stories also contain the questions Edited and adapted by experience in Lithuania, analyzed by rial move is understandable — the goal being to grasp asked, illustrating the intervention of Dalia Leinarte Dalia Leinarte, an internationally re- the complexities of women’s lives — but it leaves the the interviewer, which is necessarily Amsterdam & New York: nowned expert on Lithuanian family reader wanting to know more about the subject. unbalanced: sometimes there is a lot of Rodopi history and women’s history. For more intervention by the interviewer; some- 2010 than a decade, Leinarte has been work- The second part of the book, “Women, Work, and times the narration just rolls smoothly 234 pages ing on an oral history project that is in Family in Soviet Lithuania”, is an overview of the without further questioning. the process of collecting narratives of Lithuanian social welfare system during Soviet times. Lithuanian women about Soviet times. It shows how the Soviet egalitarian family model, The last sentence of the conclusion For the present publication, she select- introduced with the hope of eliminating the dis- points out that “erasing the Soviet past ed ten stories out of fifty for publication crimination against single mothers, met with major from Lithuanian women’s memory is in the book.1 opposition from the traditional, Catholic Lithuanian an ongoing process, and, most prob- In the first part of my review, I would population. This part of the book also analyzes gender ably, former ‘ordinary Soviet people’ like to reconstruct the complex task of roles and family life, everyday practices of family and will not pass on their Soviet experiences the volume, and then will offer some work life, and the “Soviet” concept of romantic love to future generations” (p. 200).3 This critical reflections on the main themes and friendship. Leinarte uses interview segments to il- statement raises not only the question and theses of the book. lustrate her points and underlines that no matter how whether memory can be erased, and if The volume begins by reviewing much official state policy advocated equality between so, with what consequences, but also other works that use the method of men and women, the pay gap was still 40 percent (p. what this “Soviet past” is that is now be- oral history in analyzing Soviet and 28), but the sphere of employment became a space ing erased. Leinarte’s summary makes post-Soviet experience. From the start, for women to exercise their agency.2 The complex- it clear that the Sovietization of Lithu- Leinarte makes it clear that “a precise ity of this topic is also revealed in the contradictory ania brought mixed results as far as a account of past events is not the impor- statements related to happiness. The women who transformation of gender roles is con- tant task of oral history” (p. 9), so she were interviewed pointed out that they were happy in cerned. Partly this is because it was only focuses on the formation of subjectivity their work life (p. 34), but for them, the most impor- from the 1950s on that more money was in a historical context. This orientation tant element of their life was family (p. 198). Leinarte invested in social welfare is the exception in the field of oral histo- notes that other scholars also found that talking about infrastructure, enabling more women ry, especially in the field of post-Soviet one’s family life proved to be difficult, which is likely to work outside the home, which studies, where the histories are very not unrelated to the ideological-rhetorical pressure caused a major transformation. The often interpreted as “true stories”. Lein- constituted by the image of the working mother as su- concept of romantic love was also re- arte never questions the “authenticity” perior to the non-working mother. In the next section placed by a pragmatic deal between of these stories; instead she analyzes of the second part, on gender roles and family life, she partners. Interestingly enough, this the frames and rhetorical strategies, points out that life was difficult not only for women, emotional deal supported not only and more importantly, the constraints but also for men, because “yesterday’s peasant sons, women’s participation in the labor of available rhetorical strategies of who were today’s Soviet plant and factory workers, market but also increased men’s partici- speaking about past experiences. This were unable to adapt to a new model of gender roles. pation in the household work and sta- opening literature review section, like Raised in patriarchal families, they had difficulty ac- bilized relationships, moving them to a the book as whole, is characterized by cepting modern gender roles based on partnership” practical level. This shift from emotions unusual parsimony. The reader is left (p. 37). This difficulty manifested itself in broken mar- towards a practical arrangement was wanting to know more about the opin- riages, and very often in alcoholism and violence. For an important step towards construct- ions and thoughts of the author, but her women in Soviet times, and not only in Lithuania, the ing equality of partners in heterosexual approach was probably the only way to only role they could strive to comply with remained marriages. But we learn from the stories keep this volume elegantly slim. the superwoman who copes with all responsibilities of Lithuanian women that, in practice, at home as well as at the workplace, as well as with the this equality was not open to all. In In this first part, she also addresses “neo-patriarchal hierarchy of gender roles” of Soviet working class families, women were still the main theoretical challenge for the propaganda. subjected to violence and exploitation, interpretation of oral histories: the The third part of the book consists of ten life stories a condition which, I suspect, would issue of silence. She collected a large with an introduction and carefully footnoted explana- not have been significantly affected by archive of oral histories, and, based on tions of the narratives — which don’t unnecessarily in- whether a Soviet or bourgeois regime an examination of them, she divides the terrupt the flow of the text — followed by a conclusion. was in place in Lithuania. With the nar- women granting interviews to her into It is difficult to reconstruct the category of “Lithuanian ratives of women, the book proves that three categories. To the first category women”, but with the selection of ten stories, Leinarte “Soviet memory” or “Soviet reality” belong those whose nostalgic narrative has tried to complicate the picture as much as possible is contextualized and negotiated over depicts the Soviet period as better, in by selecting atypical, invisible, and “invisibilized” time. Some had more negotiating pow- the second are those giving narrations women: an orphan, a mother of a child with disabil- er, some less. An important argument of the suffering under communism, and ity, a political prisoner, an artist, a member of the of the book is that the Sovietization of to the third, the most numerous cate- nomenklatura, a barmaid, an exemplary role model Lithuania, which had an enormous 37

these clichés. (p. 199) I would explain this phenomenon differently, by raising the question of the unspeakability of memories of the Soviet past. There is no other narrative frame available for these women to talk about their private lives and feelings than the vocabulary of their youth. After 1991, this narrative was replaced by the interwar tradition- alism, which had been alien to them, since they had spent their lives with paid labor. The victorious neo-liberal- ism combined with re-traditionalization did not offer any space of identification for them other than victimhood and consumption. It is left to the reader to rethink the consequences of the slow disappearance from the women’s nar- ratives of the element of employment as a space of happiness and pride. What remains is the habitual practice of suffering and self-sacrifice, which is the perfect setting for a conservative backlash.6 This book is an attempt to create a space for the memory of Soviet times, thus lending this period greater signifi- cance. ≈ andrea pető references 1 The structure of the book is similar to that of Jehanne M. Gheith & Katherine R. Jolluck (eds.), Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile, New York 2011. — Both volumes leave out an analysis of the extremely valuable visual material. 2 See similar findings based also on other sources interviews with women in heavy industry in Malgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland, New York 2010. 3 Leinarte, p. 200. illustration: katrin stenmark 4 Leinarte, p. 197. 5 See for example: Andrea Pető, Geschlecht, impact on gender relations, happened displacement and change in the elite, remained less Politik und Stalinismus in Ungarn: Eine relatively smoothly, especially after the resistant to the Soviet ideal of the woman worker as far Biographie von Júlia Rajk, Herne 2007. 1950s — for two reasons. One was that as women’s employment is concerned. 6 On the neo-conservative turn in post- the Soviet occupying forces ideological- communist Eastern Europe, see Andrea ly discredited the “bourgeois model” of Leinarte closes her book with an interesting claim: Pető, “Anti-Modernist Political Thoughts gender relations in interwar Lithuania, she argues that while resistance to the Soviet occupa- on Motherhood in Europe, in a Historical Perspective”, in Heike Kahlert & Waltraud which otherwise would have offered, tion was very much present in the attitude of much of Ernst (eds.), Reframing Demographic with its hierarchical Christian tradition- the Lithuanian population, Soviet propaganda “was Change in Europe: Perspectives on Gender 4 alism, a strong basis for resisting Soviet- difficult to resist in the private sphere”. This is pre- and Welfare State Transformations, Berlin ization. The second reason involves de- cisely the opposite of what scholars of gender studies 2010, pp. 189—201. mographic factors. Lithuania suffered found in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, where significant losses during WW II because family proved to be a successful site of resistance to of forced displacement, the Holocaust, Sovietization.5 It was impossible, she argues, to avoid the war itself, and emigration. In 1951, state intervention into family life, and the women after the World War II deportations, the whom she interviewed were narrating their lives from population of Lithuania was ten percent the mid-1950s onwards using Soviet clichés, such less than it was in 1945. (p. 19) The rural as the canonized figure of the heroic Soviet woman population, which suffered less forced worker. Leinarte argues that women “internalized” reviews38

Dissertation review. When the border between East and West becomes a border between now and then

than as a reader’s critical contribution. lation on the basis of other categories, Sofi Gerber is investigating the devel- particularly “class”, “nation”, “place”, opment of East German identity in the and “gender”. The terms “East” and unified Germany. The most important “West” as identity categories have been questions are how people define the outdated since the end of the GDR, but categories “East” and “West” and which at the same time, these categories still concepts with regard to identity con- have meaning in the social realities of tribute to the self-image of former GDR East Germans today. citizens. Gerber chooses a discourse The study begins with a general in- theory in the tradition of the political troduction that explains the theoretical theoreticians Laclau und Mouffe as the and methodological framework, and theoretical-methodological framework positions the study in the history of re- for her investigation. Central concepts search (chapter 1, pp. 9—39). The main are dislocation, which causes subjects body of the study consists of six chap- to define themselves in totally new ters in which different aspects of iden- identity categories because of changed tity development are presented based social and historical hegemonies, and on the subjects’ life memories between the articulation of these identity catego- their childhood in the GDR and their ries in verbal, non-verbal, or material personal life conditions in the Germany discourse. Using the example of the of today. These chapters are organized historically different levels of East-West chronologically and begin with material discourses, Gerber examines and de- aspects of the “modern GDR”, for exam- scribes how identities are established ple life in the Platte (suburban residen- and at the same time how they must tial area of large apartment buildings constantly change. built from prefabricated concrete slabs) and how people deal with the lack of For her investigation, Gerber inter- goods (chapter 2, pp. 40—68). Chapter 3, viewed 25 East German men and wom- “Disciplining and Resistance”, revolves en born in the 1970s, asking questions around the subjects’ experiences as about the course of their lives in the schoolchildren and members of social- GDR during the Wende (the collapse of ist youth organizations, as well as their the communist system, which led to the memories of the Stasi, among other dissolution of East Germany in 1990), things. Chapter 4, about the Wende, and in the united Germany. In order deals with the events between 1989 and to tap into and describe the structural 1990 and the end of the GDR (chapter 4, connections of the world her subjects pp. 101—139). Chapters 5 through 7 look illustration: ragni svensson remember living in, Gerber drew upon at various aspects of life in the Germany a number of other sources, among them of today: “The New Country” describes, Sofi Gerber I research literature on recent German history and for example, attitudes toward the con- Öst är Väst men Swedish ethnologist investi- identity history, popular versions of the topic in litera- sumer society and Ostalgie (nostalgia Väst är bäst: gates East German identity and ture and the press, and, in particular, her own obser- for aspects of life in the former GDR). Östtysk A describes how former GDR citi- vations during her stays in Germany. As a result, the Chapter 6, “Changed Life Circumstanc- identitetsformering zens are adjusting to life in a united Ger- book also presents a good historical overview of East es” focuses on the changes in the school i det förenade Tyskland many, and how they think about their German history over the last 40 years. In doing so, it system and life at work (chapter 6, pp. own history and their environment be- also places the interaction of identification processes 170—192). Finally, chapter 7, “Conform- East is West but West fore and after the unification of the two and social change in Germany in the much broader ist Antagonists”, revolves around topics is best: East German German states . . . . Reviewing this book context of late capitalism and globalization. related to identification in late modern identity formation represents an exciting but challeng- Central topics in the life stories Gerber recorded society, such as the differing individual in unified Germany ing task for me personally. On the one are the end of the socialist GDR and its transition to treatment, flexibility and insecurity of Stockholm University hand, my path and that of Sofi Gerber a capitalist system. For those who were part of this men and women in their present work- (Stockholm Studies in are diametrically opposed, because as a process, these social and political transformations ing life (chapter 7, pp. 193—211). The final Ethnology 5) 2011 German student from the former GDR, I involved opportunities, challenges, and also restric- discussion (chapter 8, pp. 212—221) and 248 pages once took a great interest in Sweden, and tions, and are sometimes described simultaneously as the summarized results of the study in was able to observe myself in Sweden a liberation and a disappointment. The study exposes English (Summary, pp. 222—232) are negotiating “Eastern” and “Western” these and other dichotomies in their life histories, and followed by a list of the published and identities. At the same time, I belong pre- reconstructs how those interviewed develop a reflex- unpublished primary and secondary cisely to that generation of East Germans ive position in relation to themselves, their history, sources (pp. 233—241), and a list of the upon whom this extremely fascinating and their social environment by negotiating the vari- interview subjects with (pseudony- investigation focuses. Since I am not a ous identity discourses, historical and current. mous) first name, year of birth, and a colleague of Sofi Gerber, and approach few short pieces of biographical data this topic principally from a personal Gerber’s study shows that the categories “East” and about their current work and their point of view, my review should be “West” do not have a firmly fixed significance but can place of residence and place of birth. understood less as an objective critique be assigned meaning only by means of identity articu- In addition, the book contains four 39

photos by the author, illustrating some in 1989 were already young adults (roughly those born his early school years were not enough on their own. of the “materialized discourses”, such no later than 1973; 12 people) and the younger ones (13 Normally people preferred to sign up right away for a as the Platte in Berlin-Marzahn (p. 45; people). longer period of military service (three years instead discussed p. 40 ff. and elsewhere) and I am not familiar with all of the interview mate- of the basic military service of a year and a half ) for a the Ampelmännchen (the East German rial that was recorded and analyzed, but it strikes “dream” course of study like medicine. In addition, pedestrian crossing light with a little me that in the case of the topics specific to the GDR many candidates competing for university courses green man) (p. 142; discussed p. 141 f., (school, Stasi, etc.), it is mainly the statements of the that were particularly in demand also joined the SED and elsewhere). All interview texts used older interviewees that are quoted, and that most of (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) “voluntarily”. What in the analysis are transcribed in Swed- the youngest interviewees do not appear until much would Karl’s stance have been in relation to these ish, and the excellent (almost literary!) closer to the end of the investigation (except for the issues of conformism and resistance during the exis- Swedish translation takes into account youngest, Inge, who says something about almost tence of the GDR? all of the relevant linguistic and stylistic every topic). Indeed, in a couple of places Gerber her- features of the original, which itself is self talks about the age range of her interviewees and III also reproduced in footnotes. Where reflects on the differences in their memories during A few other details also demonstrate that although necessary, the cultural/historical or the Wende (p. 102). In the chronologically earlier chap- Gerber understands the big picture very well, she politically relevant background of the ters, however, the relevance of the age range must only reconstructs the details indirectly or at second topic under discussion is explained reveal itself even more clearly. For example, children hand. Yet many details are absolutely relevant to her briefly in footnotes. will more likely have learned about the repressions analyses. Without a doubt, schoolchildren in the GDR, The study succeeds wonderfully of the Stasi indirectly (perhaps hearing about it from as members of the socialist organizations for children in terms of content and style, and the their parents while the GDR was still in existence, or and youth, conformed to the GDR regime. However, material is presented clearly. Because even not until much later). Young adults, on the other to interpret this “fellow-traveling”, we must take into of the chronological organization of hand, most certainly compared notes about it among consideration that the Jungpioniere, Thälmannpioniere the topics under discussion, the reader themselves, even if they had not personally come into (socialist children organizations), the FDJ, and other follows the life histories of the intervie- contact with the Stasi in some way. organizations such as the Society for German-Soviet wees eagerly. Their personal reports Of course, what is important is not how true the Friendship (DSF) functioned differently than member and the historical explanations that memories are, but the personal standpoint that the in- organizations today. Personally, I do not find it at all accompany them are skillfully built into terviewees chose in the discourse. The reconstruction remarkable that almost all of those interviewed were the convincing analysis. Nowhere does of an appropriate historical context is, however, of sig- members of the socialist youth organizations of the the analysis, continuously theoreti- nificance for the correct interpretation of the subjec- GDR (p. 80). Much more remarkable are the very few cal, become taxing — on the contrary: tive statements. For example, Gerber tries to interpret exceptions (among Gerber’s subjects these include Gerber’s conscientious reconstruction why Steffi did not take an active part in the protests in only Tanja, who from time to time withdrew from the of East German identity formation the fall of 1989 (p. 108). One banal reason could be that FDJ, and Erich, whose Christian parents did not allow convinces even the reader who is not Steffi at 14 was possibly too young to think about going him to become a member of the youth organizations). schooled in discourse theory. to the demonstration. Jana’s statement that she never As Gerber argues, the regular flag ceremony at schools went shopping in an Intershop (shop for high-quality and the youth organizations clearly illustrate the so- II goods paid for with hard currency, p. 119) also seems cialist discipline. She is also right when she says that There are only a few details in the unremarkable from the perspective of that time, be- the subjects, from their current perspective, have an analysis that I personally could not cause 12-year-olds would go to these shops only with ambivalent position on this: on the one hand, it was understand, and on the whole, they their parents. normal, and on the other, it was “socialist discipline”. were of rather minor importance. Some It also seems that Gerber may not pick up too easily Yet, given the social reality of that time, some of of them have to do with the age of the on some indirect clues about relevant personal differ- Gerber’s analyses rest on shaky ground. It does not people questioned. According to Ger- ences in the biographies. A good example is a passage matter whether Andrea expressed it explicitly, it is cer- ber, her interviewees are representative about Inge, who describes her own childish image of tainly clear, for example, “who honored the partisan of the last generation of GDR citizens the West as “naive and distorted”. Gerber cautiously fighter with flowers and whether Andrea herself was who can give us information about concludes that from today’s perspective Inge could one of the pioneers who participated in the flag cer- both the time before and the time after certainly be described as politically indoctrinated emony” (p. 72). Of course Andrea participated in the the Wende. The age of the interviewees (p. 64). In fact, it seems very likely that Inge and her flag ceremony! The whole school took part and laid varies so greatly, however, that at the family must have been indoctrinated by the socialist flowers at the memorial because it was a regular part beginning of the peaceful revolution system. Her father was apparently a career soldier of the school program. the youngest, Inge, was just beginning (pp. 51, 185) and therefore a comrade with privileges; However, in summary, it must again be emphasized her fifth year of school at the age of in addition, soldiers and their families were forbidden, that my criticism does not affect the central theses of ten. The oldest, Georg, aged 19, had among other things, contact with West Germany, and this extremely interesting study. Sofi Gerber is without finished his schooling long before. In therefore had to sever relations with any West German question a specialist in her field and in addition has an my opinion (and in my personal experi- relatives. excellent understanding of recent German history. I ence with comparably younger people), have gained personally from the opportunity to read these nine years encompass worlds of It is possible that other biographies also mention this study and to reflect on my own life history while difference. Gerber’s subjects can all issues that were extremely interesting but were not ex- doing so. Putting her research results into a popular offer plenty of memories of the former pressed in the study. Karl is described in several places science format is of course not the author’s priority. GDR, but I would hardly consider the as fitting in well in the GDR and at the same time being However, it would be interesting to observe how the youngest among them as “completely critical of the system. He had been admitted to univer- emotionally laden East-West discourse of the German socialized in the GDR” (p. 223). My own sity in medicine before the Wende (p. 177). Yet, to fulfill feuilleton would receive Gerber’s theories. ≈ feeling, therefore, is that the intervie- his career choice, it is possible that membership in michael rießler wees belong in two groups: those who the FDJ (Free German Youth) and good marks through poem40

Where can freedom be found

Where can freedom be found. into the far distance, Is it matter, a concept, or a fantasy. we are gripped by a deficiency disease. Can it be found in particular places, Lack of light, Or does it inhabit our heads. that means depression. What is freedom. As once a friend in Rome mercilessly said In the Old Testament it appears rather to be the weaker part of a duality. in the Termini railway station, As opposed to You crawled out of the dark hole of the Cold War. captivity, servitude, slavery, serfdom, Although I had simply arrived by train. dependence, exploitation, He was one of the later generation, handsome, gifted, he wore white linen feudalism, yoke, trousers, a salmon-colored silk shirt, subjugation, oppression, he didn’t even notice that still earlier I had crawled out of the dark hole it stands quite alone, of the Second World War. gives the impression of being fragile. I was only slowly cured of my lack of light One is simply displaced, sold, shackled, after the Warsaw Pact troops had occupied Czechoslovakia thrown into dark dungeons. on the 21st of August 1968, God! What darkness here! and I, moved by this, O dreadful silence! finally dared In Psalm 80, too, there is a call for liberation: to give up my career as a journalist Stir up your strength and to turn my back on my home town. and come and save us! I could barely pay God, comfort us again my absurdly low rent to a farmer’s wife. and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. When I really did not know which way to turn, The radiance, the light in the darkness is I cautiously asked a girlfriend — indispensable for freedom. Behold the fowls of the air, Freedom is light — she replied, they sow not, neither do they reap, that is my manifest experience from dictatorship. yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. When we know that this fragile thing has receded That was really funny. We were just going for a walk. clipping 41

INTELLECTUAL TEMPTATIONS and disappointments “Finally, the growth of direct communication be- tween the socialist sector of the globe and the rest, if only in the form of journalism, tourism, cultural interchange and the creation of significant bodies of emigrants from socialist countries, influenced developments in Marxism inasmuch as it swelled the body of information about them accessible to Western Marxists, which could only be overlooked with in- creasing difficulty. If such countries were nevertheless still turned into models, sometimes almost utopian, of what Western revolutionaries aspired to, it was largely because Western revolutionaries knew little about them, and sometimes were in no position, or did not care, to learn more. “The idealisation of the Chinese ‘Cultural Revolu- tion’ by many Western revolutionaries had about as lit- tle to do with China as Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes had to do with Iran, or the eighteenth-century ‘Noble Savage’ with Tahiti. All used what purported to be the experience of a remote country for the social critique of another part of the world. Nevertheless, with the growth of communication and information, the ten- dency to see utopia under some already fluttering red state flag diminished markedly. “The period since 1956 is one in which most West- ern Marxists were forced to conclude that existing socialist regimes, from the USSR to Cuba and Viet- nam, were far from what they would themselves have wished a socialist society, or a society in the process illustration: moa Thelander of constructing socialism, to be like. The bulk of Marx- ists were forced to revert to the positions of socialists everywhere before 1917. Once again they had to argue for socialism as a necessary solution for the problems created by capitalist society, as a hope for the future, BY péter nádas but one only very inadequately supported by practical experience.

Laughed out loud. “Conversely, the migration from socialist countries That was radiance, this laughing, light. Light is matter and of ‘dissidents’ reinforced the old temptation to iden- wave, charisma and energy. tify Marx and Marxism exclusively with such regimes, Oh, what joy, and expecially with the USSR. It had once served to Oh, what joy, to breathe easily exclude from Marxist community anyone who failed in the free air. to give total and uncritical support to whatever came Freedom is light and air and word. from Moscow. It now served those who wanted to re- Whether this light is reflected on the features ject all of Marx, since they claimed that the only road of a smiling Buddha or a girlfriend which led forward from the Communist Manifesto, or or on the angry face could lead forward, was that which ended in the gu- of an occidental god lags of Stalin’s Russia or their equivalent in some other is of little significance. state governed by Marx’s disciples. This reaction was Words are bodies of sound, they make the air vibrate. psychologically comprehensible among disillusioned Through the body of the word, through the vibration of the air communists contemplating ‘the god that failed’. It and through the radiance of joy, was even more comprehensible among intellectual person and community are bound dissidents in and from socialist countries, whose rejec- to a phenomenon of unknown origin. tion of anything to do with their official regimes was Freedom is a constant. total — starting with the thinker to whose theory these That is roughly how I would describe freedom. regimes appealed. Intellectually, it has about as much Admittedly, we have our ongoing problems with it, justification as the thesis that all Christianity must logi- individual and communal, local and global. cally and necessarily always lead to papal absolutism, For example, for more than two hundred years or all Darwinism to the glorification of free capitalist we have linked freedom to individuality, competition.” ≈ and by doing so have come up against hard boundaries. While we desperately struggle with the terrible inheritance of From Eric Hobsbawm, How to Change the collectivist societies, the possibilities of the the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism. individual seem to have been exhausted. London: Little, Brown 2011 42

Memories of a land in stagnation During the final years of socialist stagnation, dissident culture in the Soviet Union reawakened. Everyone listened to the songs of Vysotsky, most people had a distrust of official statements. And Sabina Spielrein’s fate began to unravel in unfathomable ways. BY magnus ljunggren

The USSR in 1983 to Yelena Bonner from Russian émi- gré friends. In those days, Vysotsky’s n the spring of 1983 I spent a gravelly voice sounded all over the few months in the Soviet Union, country on tape recordings — mag- working at Moscow State Univer- nitizdat. Three years after his death, sity on a research grant. I tried to people were still gathering at his make maximum use of my time grave in the Vagankovo cemetery in Ito perform essentially three different Moscow. He lived in the hearts of the tasks: to conduct research in govern- people — but he could not be published. ment and private archives related to Naturally, the customs officials imme- Russian Symbolism; to converse with diately pounced on the three-volume colleagues — and survivors — in my par- set: most likely, the truth was that they ticular field; and, finally, on behalf of loved Vysotsky as much as everybody Amnesty International, to give aid and else in this country. I was bold enough succor to political prisoners and their to ask them if they were not ashamed to families. During the day, I traveled back steal such a precious thing from me for in time and lost myself in the bottom- their own gain. Something utterly un- less well of the Russian archives. In the expected then happened: they gave the evening, I often lived very close to the Singer and poet Vladimir Vysotsky’s (inset) grave in Vagankovo Cemetery, still heaped volumes back. struggle for civil rights that was to lose with flowers three years after his burial. And so I installed myself at Moscow momentum so definitively that very State University and began my work in year of 1983. rested. One friend of mine, historian Arseni Roginsky the manuscript department of the Lenin Library. I had At that point, it was nearly impossible to breathe in (now executive director of the organization Memo- recently defended my doctoral dissertation on Andrei Russian society. Everything seemed to have stagnated. rial), had been in a camp since the decade began; an- Bely and wanted to keep writing about his friend, pub- Leonid Brezhnev had died in November of 1982. other, literary scholar Konstantin Azadovsky, had just lisher and music writer Emili Medtner, who had ended Power had been passed on to Yuri Andropov, head of been released — he could testify first-hand about the up in therapy with C. G. Jung during the First World the KGB. At his last public appearance, Brezhnev had bitter cold in Kolyma. War. My work was also done in private family archives, almost staggered onto the Kremlin podium. Andropov where I was kindly given free rein. One day, the Medt- was so sick that he was nowhere to be seen. The war in ner family gave me permission to take 700 pages of let- Afghanistan ground on. Several of the leading cultural I felt the grotesqueness of the situation the moment ters to the Swedish embassy for photocopying. I rarely figures had been driven into exile and successively I crossed the Finnish-Soviet border by train. I had felt watched, but could sense a few shadows that time. stripped of their citizenship. The figurehead of the with me a three-volume American edition of Vladimir When my taxi driver understood our predicament, he civil rights movement, Andrei Sakharov, and his wife Vysotsky’s songs and poems in the original language: took on a gleeful expression, stepped on the gas, and Yelena Bonner were in domestic exile, isolated and songs and poems of corruption and queues, of the made sure he left the shadows in the dust. watched around the clock in an apartment in Gorky. black market trade and vodka tippling, of despair and Everything in the Land of Andropov was built on More civil rights activists were constantly being ar- the reality of imprisonment. The whole thing was a gift paradox. Nothing was really clear-cut. The ideology story 43

Above: Linguist and ethnologist Vyache- slav Ivanov and his friend, psychiatrist Viktor Gindilis. Left: Linguist, eth- nologist and literary scholar Vladimir Sabina Spielrein with her family. The year is 1909, the photograph was probably taken in connection with the celebration of her Toporov. parents’ silver anniversary. From left to right, Sabina’s mother Eva, Sabina, Sabina’s father Nikolai, and her three brothers Emil, Isaak, and Yan. was so weakened that the powers that be had been pable personal troubles that people were crying out forced to seek support from symbolist Aleksandr Blok, “Ivanov finished the for new psychodynamic ideas. Ivanov and his wife’s whose birth centennial had recently — in 1980 — been evening by doing some- dinner guests included a young woman psychologist celebrated, and who was lauded as an important patri- and a psychiatrist named Viktor Gindilis and his wife otic poet. Meanwhile, Chingiz Aitmatov had published thing quite remarkable. (of Swedish ancestry). Gindilis was a fascinating ac- a novel, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, He brought a little quaintance, since he had dual roots in the healing arts which had garnered a state prize, even though it re- and the struggle for civil rights. He was Jewish and had lated an old Kyrgyzian myth about “mankurts”, slaves blackboard and chalk to grown up having a father in a Gulag camp. He was able made to wear caps of raw hide that dried and shrank, the dinner table and to tell stories of the political mental hospitals from compressing their heads like iron bands until they the inside and about how the diagnosis of “insidious lost all memory. The Soviet Union was existing in a began to lecture while schizophrenia” applied to dissidents had once arisen kind of mankurt reality. Stalin’s Terror was taboo, the at the notorious Serbsky Institute. opposition silenced, the great artists driven out. And sketching on the board.” Eventually, the conversation turned to Sabina yet dissenting voices trickled through. When I was Spielrein. There had been a powerful upsurge of out- not buried in the manuscript archive, I was allowed to possible, still broader in his erudition. He had been side interest in this key figure in the early history of work in a reading room for professors, where I could the foremost contributor to the recently published, psychoanalysis, the Russian link between Freud and take from the shelves a physics journal that included very fine dictionary of mythology (a total of 1,400 Jung, after her letters and diaries had been found in Andrei Sakharov’s most recent scientific paper, pub- pages). All told, he wrote 1,500 works (without a type- a basement in Geneva. I had planned to get in touch lished even though the man now had been elevated writer, much less a computer) about ancient Slavic with any surviving relatives who might be in the Soviet nearly to the status of an enemy of the people. literature, Russian saints, Old Prussian vocabulary, the Union to gain clarity about her fate. The prevailing Siberian Ket language, Slavic locatives, and the literary opinion in the West was that she had died in Stalin’s Petersburg myth from the semiotic perspective, as the Terror. At dinner, I was told there was a biochemist One day I was invited to give a lecture on Medtner challenge of the periphery against the center. Ivanov in Moscow, whose first name was Menikha, who was and the early Russian interest in psychoanalysis at the and Toporov had close ties to Yuri Lotman’s cultural apparently the daughter of Sabina’s brother Isaak, a Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies. The two main- studies in Tartu — the Tartu that was, of course, itself a professor of psychotechnique. stays of the department, Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladi- periphery that was ideologically balanced against (and mir Toporov, both possessed encyclopedic knowledge would in the end overcome) the center in Moscow. of the kind one could perhaps only find in the Soviet Their institute stood out as a unique free zone. Ivanov finished the evening by doing something Union. Ivanov — now an octogenarian who commutes Ivanov and Toporov soon extended invitations quite remarkable. He brought a little blackboard and between Boston and Moscow — is primarily a linguist, to their homes. At that moment and in addition to chalk to the dinner table and began to lecture while ethnologist, and literary scholar. He has written about everything else, both were writing about symbolism. sketching on the board. In all seriousness, he dis- the two halves of the brain, the film theory of Sergei Ivanov, it turned out, was particularly keen to ask cussed whether a high-tech civilization might have ex- Eisenstein, and the dialogic philosophy of Mikhail about current psychiatric theory in the West. He was isted in Africa sometime around the time of the birth Bakhtin. He is equally at home with Tocharian as with interested because young people in Soviet society of Christ that later fell and left few traces. Perhaps the Strindberg’s plays (since he also reads Swedish). To- (where some were losing themselves in occult specula- spirit of the times, the chimerical Andropov society, porov — who died a few years ago — was, if this is even tions and others had become Oblomovs) had such pal- allowed greater scope for speculations like these. 44

Sabina Spielrein back in the Soviet Union. The photo is Sabina Spielrein in the early 1890s with her mother Eva Sabina Spielrein’s three brothers: the physicist Yan, the from the 1920s. and her sister Emiliya, who died young. psychotechnician Isaak, and the biologist Emil. Photos from 1937 and 1938.

At Toporov’s house, the walls were all covered in In later years, Menikha increasingly devoted her books. He seemed gravely preoccupied, his gaze far “[Menikha] could only energies to the memory of Sabina. She translated texts off in the distance. Based on my lecture, he noted sputter out three words: and attended conferences. She had been born in Ber- that the Russians — who had been the leaders of the lin during the First World War and was given a name aesthetic avant-garde at the beginning of the centu- ‘S uma soiti!’ — ‘I think that meant “peace” in Hebrew. Her lifelong dream was ry — were also the first to adopt the new psychothera- to see this Berlin once again. When she finally made it, peutic ideas of the times. Afterwards, the situation I’m going mad!’” at more than 80 years of age, she suffered a stroke that progressively declined. He saw the communist epoch led to her death. as an appalling national cataclysm. The country was ceived as impractical and out of step with the times, After my homecoming (on July 15), I published an now in a painful phase of decadence. “But one thing almost helpless in everyday Soviet life. She could only article in the Swedish evening paper Expressen about you should remember”, he added. “Sooner or later, sputter out three words: “S uma soiti!” — “I think I’m the meeting with Menikha that included the new infor- Russian literature always overcomes power. It is in- going mad!” mation about Sabina and her brothers’ deaths. It was vincible in the long run.” And he gave me an example: Now I was told that Sabina — in her utter disillusion- illustrated with the first known pictures of her — taken in 1937, at the apex of the Terror, Stalin was forced to ment with communism, which had executed her three from Menikha’s personal files. It turned out that short- seek legitimacy from Pushkin. The commemoration brothers, all of whom worked in various scientific ly before (on June 30), the famous Bruno Bettelheim of the hundredth anniversary of the poet laureate’s fields — had believed German assurances and thus re- had, in the New York Review of Books, publicly sought death was celebrated in parallel with the murdering. fused to flee from Hitler’s troops when they occupied Sabina’s relatives. Eventually, he rather slyly took Toporov believed there were only ten or fifteen her home town of Rostov. Ultimately, she, both of her credit for the scoop in his memoirs, where he implied people in all of Russia with insight into the real state daughters and hundreds of other Jews were shot in the that he had dispatched me on the mission. That was of society. The odd thing was that I found the same “Snake Ravine” outside the city. Quite simply, Stalin not true. words in the Lenin Library in an unpublished sec- and Hitler had divided the family between them. tion of Andrei Bely’s memoirs, which remarked on Menikha remembered her father’s arrest in 1935, the status of Russia during the years that particularly when she was 19 years old. As a pioneer in psycho- A woman lecturer from a state research insti- interested me: 1913—1914. In hindsight, I am inclined to technique, he was very close to Sabina. Menikha had tute soon came to the university to drone on about believe that I — and all of us — semi-consciously used loved him above all else in life. But she had also been Poland’s unhappy situation. Interest was minimal: the past as a filter to form an understanding of what fostered to become a Soviet woman, full of enthusi- out of a student body of thousands, the audience was happening around us. The crash came very soon, asm for the building of the new society. She could not numbered a total of eight. Poland was declared “the as it had done then. Things were not so petrified. rationally interpret the dreadful events. Her father’s center of the international class struggle”. Solidarity Gorbachev gained power just eighteen months later. disappearance and her mother’s subsequent expul- was mentioned only in passing as the “underground Soon — under glasnost — previously banned literature sion remained a mystery: it was as if the family had provocateurs”. The lecturer expressed her fears about rolled in like a shock wave that carried everything been shattered by a force of nature. Despite general the Pope’s forthcoming summer visit to Poland, de- before it. difficulties, she remained active in Komsomol. And signed to incite new “social explosions”, with the class then came Khrushchev, who ripped apart the myth of enemy — the CIA in cahoots with the Vatican — acting Stalin. Her father’s name could once again be spoken as the undercover director. The interesting thing was I eventually found Menikha Spielrein. She lived in aloud. The Nobel laureate Igor Tamm himself deliv- that her representation of the Polish church perfectly a dismal concrete suburb called Tyoply Stan. Sudden- ered an emotional speech commemorating her father described the state of the Soviet Communist Party: ly, there I was on her doorstep, describing for her in a at the House of Scientists. As she sat there in the first a massive propaganda machine that forced people single breath the dawning world fame of her aunt. She row with her mother and listened, the horrible wound into subjection, disengaged youth caught up in empty had a very hard time connecting this information to an split wide open. She wept inconsolably — 25 years of rituals, a belief utterly diluted and dead. Afterwards, aunt she had, as a young member of Komsomol, per- repressed anxiety flowed out. a visiting student from Ireland asked: “How can it be? story 45

Menikha Spielrein, biochemist and Sabina’s niece. When she retired, she devoted herself to the life and work of her Menikha Spielrein in Berlin with her father Isaak and her aunt. She translated Sabina’s German texts and participated in conferences about her pioneering work. mother Rakhil, around 1917.

Why have I never met a single Polish communist?” He seemed utterly unaffected by the opposition I happened to end up sitting between Eichenwald The lecturer answered: “That shows the seriousness against which he had to struggle now and then. He and Kiselyov, who had the same first names and pat- of the situation. Leninism will have to be beaten into could imagine eventually including Bely in the series. ronymics. I was told this meant I had the right to make the entire Polish society.” Priceless art hung on his walls. He had landed in acute a wish. My wish was for us to gain final clarity about After this, she most likely went home and com- political difficulties on one occasion. He had then the fate of Raoul Wallenberg. Kiselyov, who had no plained like everybody else about the misery around walked up to the Central Committee and quashed the legs and rolled around on a board, was the maximalist her — perhaps while listening to Vysotsky on the tape grumbling at the price of “one Aivazovsky” — a work among us. He looked me straight in the eye and said: recorder. Was she schizophrenic? No, she was simply by the renowned marine painter now valued so highly “The Swede on Russian soil who is not constantly equipped with a Soviet double consciousness. It was in our auction rooms. Silberstein was born to succeed. seeking information about Wallenberg is derelict in the same situation with the much-admired artist who His status was not exactly hurt by the fact that he had his duty.” shocked my Danish neighbor (in the adjoining room at also been married for some time to the female head of Shikhanovich, Starchik, and Eichenwald had an university). He appeared on television and praised the the State Archives of Literature and Art. experience in common: they had all at various times Party’s policies, while privately he had just warned I was able to learn more about Andrei Sakharov’s been victims of repressive psychiatry. Eichenwald was the Dane about “socialism”. peculiar life in exile at the home of mathematician declared mentally ill as early as 1952, towards the end I met the Byzantologist Sergei Averintsev at the De- Yuri Shikhanovich, a close friend of Yelena Bonner. of Stalin’s reign. While at the hospital, he had jotted partment of World Literature. Some years before, he Since 1980, he had been one of the secret editors of down Gorky’s dramatic poem The Song of the Stormy had garnered attention for an erudite and completely the samizdat bulletin Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy Petrel on a scrap of paper. The doctor treating him non-Marxist article about Sophia, the Divine Wisdom, [Chronicle of current events], while “officially” he took this socialist classic to be a flagrant manifestation in the major Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He was an- wrote articles for the popular mathematics journal of his mental illness. The attitude toward him report- other giant of scholarship. In her memoirs, Nadezhda Quantum. Khronika had been distributed by the edly did not become more benevolent once the error Mandelstam mentions that Averintsev and Ivanov, chain letter method in typewritten copies every other was discovered. When we met, he had not been vis- in particular, had been able to acquire such broad month since April 1968, reporting on all that was un- ited by the KGB for a long time, not even for the tiniest knowledge because both had, as a result of illness, seen in the Soviet reality: new arrests and trials, new raid, even though he had published his satirical study been spared a Soviet education. Now we talked about samizdat literature, current conditions in camps, pris- Don Quixote on Russian Soil in the West. He interpreted Jung, another of Averintsev’s areas of expertise. He ons, and political mental hospitals. It was an essential this as a particular strategy on the part of the security regarded the double consciousness as an obvious trait source of information, the very mirror of the struggle service: to seemingly pay no attention and feign disin- among essentially all Soviet men and women. for civil rights. terest, only to suddenly swoop in. Shikhanovich looked frail, but he was tough as “Shikh” introduced me to Natalya Sarmakesheva, nails. He knew what he had taken on and was pre- wife of his mathematician colleague Vadim Yankov. One early morning, I dropped in to visit art histo- pared to pay the price. He held a 50th birthday party Her husband’s research in the field of hyperintension- rian and literary scholar Ilya Silberstein. He was then one evening, where despite the serious situation, the al logic had gradually taken on increasingly stronger well advanced in years and diabetic, but still worked activists met in great cheer: Yuli Daniel’s son Aleksandr leanings toward moral philosophy. Shortly before the like a horse. He received me at exactly seven o’clock. (now one of the driving forces behind Memorial), the military coup in Poland in 1981, he had sent out a It was he who had once upon a time (1932) started talented balladeer Pyotr Starchik, Leonid Vul, editor seven-page samizdat letter in which he encouraged the scholarly literary publishing series The Literary of earlier editions of Khronika and grandson of one of the Soviet working class to follow Solidarity’s example Heritage, weighty tomes that excelled in footnotes and the later executed camp commandants of the 1930s in order to (1) regain self-respect, (2) recreate the sense factual details in that specifically Russian way. Now (“As long as I have my Vul, I am secure”, said Stalin of social participation, and (3) demonstrate non-vio- he was deeply involved in a magnificent five-volume before the reversal of fortunes), theater scholar Yuri lence as a way to take back personal freedom. He was publication of material related to Aleksandr Blok and Eichenwald, disabled rights activist Yuri Kiselyov, and sentenced in January 1983 to seven years’ deprivation symbolism, the 92nd volume of The Literary Heritage. others. of liberty for those seven A4 sheets. When I was there, 46 feminism

Feminists in Eastern and Western Europe – Researchers and activists “Why is there no happi- ness in the East?” was the, according to many, pro- vocative title of a confer- ence put on by CBEES and Södertörn University Sep- tember 8–10 of this year. The organizers of the con- Vadim Yankov with his wife Natalya and daughter Anastasiya, ference, Teresa Kulawik, Agnieszka Graff. 1981. Renata Ingbrant and Youlia Gradskova, wanted to bring he was still in remand detention at the Lefortovo pris- together feminist scholars for a discussion on. I interviewed Natalya — at home with three kids in about conditions facing feminism in the East the Moscow suburb of Dolgoprudny — about the high and in the West after the Berlin Wall, as well as price the family had had to pay for his exceptional the role of the EU and politics in the develop- courage. She declared, curtly: “To be able to stand ment of feminism. tall and tell it like it is at least once in your life — that’s Agnieszka Graff, Warsaw University, said worth seven years.” that the situation is quite distinct in Eastern Natalya had the right to send Vadim two one-kilo Europe. In the West, namely the United States packages of food per year to supplement his meager and northern and western Europe, the aca- prison diet. She and I went to a special “Beryozka” demic feminism was an offshoot of the feminist store (to which ordinary citizens did not have access movement; in the East it is rather the other and where the shelves were groaning with luxury way around. Conference invitation. foods) and bought sausage and chocolate. She also got a bottle of wine for herself. On their wedding anniver- In Poland, however, being a gender researcher then to have to translate their results and find- sary, she took the bottle in hand and took a symbolic and being an activist is the same thing. In post- ings back to the audience in the West. walk around Lefortovo before going home to drink the socialist countries, communism and feminism There is another paradox that was highlight- wine with great ceremony. are also linked. ed at the conference. Gender equality is a value “Viewed today, communism seems like Europe claims to stand for. The EU nonetheless an upside-down world, an incorrect order of accepts patriarchal oppression, as an expres- Once or twice I ended up in a quandary. Literary things. Now, when society needs to be recre- sion of unique cultural characteristics and a scholar Mikhail Meilakh came in from Leningrad. He ated as a capitalist society, patriarchy is also part of national identity. had published annotated editions of the absurdist re-created”, Agnieszka Graff explained. Take for example the Polish legislation works of Daniil Kharms and the OBERIU (Union of Under communism, there was a well-estab- that has been drafted which would prohibit Real Art) writers in the West. He told me that he could lished childcare system and women partici- abortion even in cases of rape. According to feel how the KGB was slowly tightening the noose pated in professional life. When the commu- Agnieszka Graff this bill is a consequence of around his neck. I decided on behalf of Amnesty Inter- nist system fell, public childcare disappeared. the nationalistic movement that has given the national to invite him to a fabulous lunch at the unlike- Today, people who push the issues of greater church a strong political position. The Polish ly International Hotel, jerry-built in the old working possibilities for parental leave and expanded Church is now claiming that embryos should class district of Krasnaya Presnya by the Soviet Union’s childcare facilities risk accusations that they be regarded as living people and protected by favorite American capitalist, Armand Hammer. The are communists. The backlash was, in certain law. brand new building housed seven fine restaurants, areas, so profound that in the Eastern Europe three saunas, a specialty food store, a perfume store, of today, one must fight for basic rights. As a discussant at the lively panel “Con- and a Beryozka bookstore (selling literature that was There is a paradox here, noted Marina ceiving Bodies”, Jenny Payne Gunnarsson, very hard for Soviet citizens to get hold of ). There Blagojevic, of the Institute for Criminological Södertörn University, posed the question sat the OBERIU expert in the midst of all this excess, and Sociological Research, Belgrade: “Femi- “whether it is a human right to be a mother, browbeaten, unemployed, unable to publish a single nists in the West experience a certain fatigue whether everyone with fertility problems word in his native country — thoroughly enjoying or feeling of déjà-vu when confronted with the should be offered treatment, and if so, how himself. issues that feminists in the East are struggling many, by no means cheap, fertilization at- I received word shortly after I arrived home: with today. They have already dealt with these tempts should be offered”. Meilakh had been arrested. He was later sentenced questions and do not want to be reminded of What values ​​lie behind the notion that a to seven years in a camp followed by exile. Shikha- their struggle by joining in as activists. They woman who cannot give birth to children novich was arrested that autumn and also got seven want rather to use Eastern Europe as a testing should be entitled to help from society? asked years — and Khronika had to cancel its publication. A ground for their theories, formed in the West. Kathrin Braun, University of Hannover. Isn’t 15-year epoch was over. As for me, a year and a half But they do not understand the particular his- there a presumption here that motherhood later, oddly enough in conjunction with Gorbachev’s tory here. They do not take the time to study means true happiness for women, that which coming to power, I was declared persona non grata. that reality.” unites all women? Kathrin Braun: “Neoliberal- The KGB had caught up with me. The visa ban was not Marina Blagojevic also says that she and ism regards happiness as the norm. The next lifted for five years. By then, the new era had come other researchers in Eastern Europe must de- step is that all people must be happy. This can and all political prisoners had been released. A few vote considerable time and effort to translating lead to measures such as the state paying all ad- months later, the Soviet Union collapsed. Absurdistan theories and concepts from the West into their dicts who sterilize themselves. For us German was no more. ≈ own language and their own reality — in order feminists, the idea of setting a value on human among our contributors BALTIC W O R L D S Feminists in Eastern and Western Europe Anders – Researchers and activists Ann-Louise Martin Hammarlund Karl Schlögel Magnus Ljunggren life, who shall be born and who shall not, generates ugly associations. Even Worked Associate Professor Professor fetuses should have some protection.” for many professor of East Emeritus That neoliberalism has not been ad- years as of musicol- European of Rus- vantageous to the women’s movement a science ogy, and History at sian at the is a theme many at the conference took journalist, works at European University up. Socio-economic changes have led to primarily at the Centre Univer- of Goth- hierarchies between the sexes, and be- Swedish for Swedish sity Viadrina enburg. tween minorities and different groups Radio. Limnologist by train- Folk Music and Jazz Research Frankfurt (Oder). His most Contributed to BW IV: 2 with of women. Nation-building in Eastern ing, previously a researcher (Stockholm). His latest work recent published works are two Russian travelogues, Europe has been based on the idea of at the Swedish Environmen- is Intet: Musiker, medier, mys- Moskau lesen (2011) och one from 1968, and one from men as citizens and women as resourc- tal Research Institute (IVL), tiker [Nothingness: Musicians, Terror und Traum (2008). 1974. At www.balticworlds. es that can give birth to new citizens for (Stockholm). Has written mediums, mystics] (2011). Among his awards are the com there is a related report the nation, says Teresa Kulawik. for BW on subjects such as Currently working on a book Lessing-Preis der Freien und from this year’s Yuri Lotman Gail Lewis, Open University, UK, not- marine archeology (II:1). about a cantor in the Mosaic Hansestadt Hamburg (2005), Symposium in Helsinki. ed the importance of an intersectional (Jewish) community in Göte- Leipziger Buchpreis zur analysis: “We must always ask ourselves borg. Has written about and Europäischen Verständigung who is represented and who is made done ​​radio broadcasts from (2009) and Samuel-Bogumil- invisible. Variables such as ethnicity, central Europe. Previously Linde-Preis (2010, together race, and class cut across the division contributed to BW III:1 with with Adam Krzemiński). between the sexes. That women are an article about the “Amber Schlögel was interviewed in present in decisions does not mean Road”. BW II:2. that minority women are involved, nor is there a representative of the specific situation of minority women if minori- in memory ties are represented by a man. Minority women remain without a voice.”

There exists a division in status between the Eastern Europeans in Western Europe and non-Europeans in cosmopolite hammarskjöld Europe. Common to many people who, Catastrophe. Was it a pure accident, as migrants, find themselves in the geo- or was he, his staff, and the crew of the graphical space of Europe is a lack of aircraft deliberately assassinated, shot protection and rights. This was shown down, by rebel or foreign forces? The by Aleksandra Sojka, University of matter has come to the surface once Granada, who has studied the situation more, after half a century. of Polish domestic workers in Spain. Second-rate citizens, all those Hammarskjöld, educated as an citizens who do not have the same op- economist in the tradition of the fa- portunities and the status others have, mous “Stockholm School”, to which are partly a result of the post-transition Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal also neo-liberalism. There is a division belonged, was for several years an un- between those who have information der-secretary of the Swedish Ministry of and resources to make choices that Finance, and then effectively a deputy make them happy, and those “others”, foreign minister, before he was elevated who, as a result of various factors such to the UN top job in 1953. Later on, he as class, race, and gender, do not have was expected to be given the position choices available to them that lead of permanent secretary of the Swedish to successful results. Is the regional Academy when his second UN term had integration of Europe thus primarily expired. It is known that Martin Buber adapted to the needs of white men? Is Dag Hamarskjöld, 1959. was one of his favorites for the Nobel that why there is no happiness in the Prize in literature. East? ≈ Fifty years ago, on September 17, 1961, government under controversial prime On this occasion, Birgit van der Dag Hammarskjöld, a prime example minister Patrice Lumumba to keep the Leeden has written an essay on Ham- ninna mörner of the international civil servant, died country together, putting pressure on marskjöld’s posthumous book Markings, while on mission in Africa, in his capac- the self-proclaimed leader of the mineral- a collection of poetic aphorisms, trans- ity as secretary-general of the United rich Katanga Province, Moise Tshombe, lated into English by W. H. Auden. ≈ Nations. who was aided by foreign interests, to Rebel activities had unleashed a civil accept a negotiated peace settlement. Note: van der Leeden’s essay can war in de-colonialized Congo, where the Nobody on board Hammarskjöld’s be found in the original German at UN was supporting efforts of the central aircraft survived the so-called Ndola www.balticworlds.com. A quarterly sponsored by the Foundation for Baltic BALTIC and East European Studies W O R L D S

Muslim influences, to Sicily, to Spain. They ruled from Inside the Alhambra metropolises such as Cordoba and Granada. palace complex, In Tales of the Alhambra (1832), Washington Irving Granada. writes, with the eyes of a romantic charmed by Photo: R a-smit the mild manners of the Moors once they got a foot- hold on the southern European part of the continent:

Repelled within the limits of the Pyrenees, the mixed hordes of Asia and Africa, that formed this great irruption, gave up the Moslem principle of conquest, and sought to establish in Spain a peaceful and permanent dominion. As conquerors, their heroism was only equaled by their moderation; and in both, for a time, they excelled the nations with whom they contended. Severed from their native homes, they loved the land given them as they supposed by Allah, and strove to embellish it with everything that could administer to the happiness of man. Laying the foundations of their power in a system of wise and equitable laws, dili- gently cultivating the arts and sciences, and promoting agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, they gradually formed an em- pire unrivalled for its prosperity by any of the empires of Christendom; and diligently drawing round them the graces and refine- ments which marked the Arabian empire in the East, at the time of its greatest civi- lization, they diffused the light of Oriental knowledge through the western regions of benighted Europe.

The driving out of the Moors was no charming little story, even if Washington Irving’s overly sunny picture of their rule can stick posterity in the eye. But where is one at home and where is one a stranger? Who is the intruder and who is the doorman? Where is tolerance Complicated presence the greatest: among those who are visiting, or among those one who are forced to be hospitable?

urope is the only continent that has named inauthentic, alien, its stepchildren. Roma and Jews The threat of an “Islamized Europe” is discussed itself (and all the others), and it wants to have experienced this, and are still experiencing it. from time to time. But it is not always clear what is be- continue to decide who gets to be called In many European countries, the Muslim presence is ing threatened. Professor Andreas Wirsching, newly a European. It is a political conceit and particularly complicated, primarily for the Muslims appointed director of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte has very little to do with culture. Cultural themselves, who always assume an inferior position in Munich, has reported on an official investigation in E boundaries within each part of the world can be just there. the Federal Republic of Germany that indicates that as sharp as those between them. One could also put four percent of German Muslims object to their daugh- it thusly: certain cultures do not have better access to ters receiving sex education in schools: in the German progress and civilization than others do; it is a mat- Always? It was not so obviously the case every population as a whole, the corresponding figure is 15 ter of different kinds of progress and civilization. In now and then. In certain historical epochs, Muslims percent. “Obviously”, says Wirsching, “the percent- Europe, not long ago, the most brutal wars of all time could be numbered among the ruling people of Eu- age among Catholic and other fundamentalisms in were fought. rope. And before there were any Muslims anywhere, this matter is higher than in the Muslim population.” Neither can one say that Europe is simply syn- there were people in the Eastern Mediterranean with (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2011–04–27) onymous with war and brutality. But Europe must whom people by the Baltic Sea had commercial and No one owns modernity. No one can monopolize be placed in relation not only to its own past but also other contacts. In the world of Norse sagas, there are tolerance. Anyone can suffer setbacks or be left be- to its surroundings. Sometimes its surroundings, reminiscences of ancient Troy. The Ottoman sultan hind. And Europe no longer controls the fate of the however this might be defined, enter into European considered himself to have taken over the dignity of world. Just as well. ≈ life; sometimes Europe later pushes away what feels the Roman emperor. But from the Arab world came