Looking Back: When Does the ‘War of the Spirits’ Start?

Appendix Looking Back: When does the ‘War of the Spirits’ Start?

George L. Mosse begins his classic analysis of German ideology in the 1870s, at a time when the unification of the country and the rise of industry evoked a fierce critical response from a section of the intellectual elite.1 The movement against modernisation continued to grow from then on, accelerating at the turn of the century and engaging with anti-Semitism and racism. During World War I, motifs and arguments previously mobilised for condemning the degradation wreaked by civilisation were deployed in the “war of the spirits.” They were aimed at the outside, against the enemies of the nation and the state. The point of departure for this process appears to have been as fascinating as its results. Did phenomena typical of the ‘war of the spirits’ appear in the early years of the “crisis of German ideology” as well, when the Reich was inaugurated? The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War did not involve a national mobilisation at first. Both French and German journalists depicted it as a clash of world powers that would naturally conclude with the victory of their own side. At that point, declara- tions of faith in one’s nation’s capabilities did not yet require the demonising the opponent. This changed in September 1870, as a result of the inconceivable failure of the French army. Following the Emperor’s capitulation and the proclamation of the Third Republic, a juxtaposition between French civilisation and German barbarism emerged in public discourse along with revolutionary calls for a nationwide rout of the invaders. Michael Jeismann has examined phenomena that at that time foretokened later uses of the symbolic antithesis of civilisation and Kultur.2 There were other similarities with the next conflict on the French-German frontier. Thanks to increasingly widespread access to the press, truly mass propaganda was now feasible.3 This fact contributed to a paranoia about espionage in France similar to the one that struck the nation in 1914. The victims were usually civilians captured in the vicinity of battlefields. Charg- es of treason were also raised against defeated generals. On the other hand, French calls for a popular revolt against the Germans fed German fears of the dangers posed by the civilian population. Letters and journals of German soldiers, as well as press

1 G.L. Mosse, The Crisis of German ideology. Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, 3rd edition, New York 1998, pp. 3–4. 2 Jeismann, Das Vaterland der Feinde, pp. 224–225. 3 J. Leonhard, “Der Ort der Nation im Deutungswandel kriegerischer Gewalt,” in: Jahrbuch des Historischen Kollegs (2004), pp. 111–138, here 115.

correspondence, insistently recall stories of Frenchwomen supposedly gouging out the eyes of wounded German soldiers, of stealth shootings, and of clergymen inciting their the faithful to rebel and shooting at the army from church spires.4 In response to these real and imagined threats, Germans used violence against both captured armed volunteers and ordinary civilians. The Battle of Bazeilles, a city located south of Sedan, where French troops were joined by armed citizens, became symbolic for both sides. Upon taking the city, Bavarian troops murdered scores of civilians, and when the battle was finally won, they burned Bazeilles. Both for German and French propagandists, the key role in representations of these events was played by a woman, depicted either as a fury treacherously murdering wounded Bavarian soldiers or as an innocent victim of German violence.5 The motifs of treason and barbarism that emerged in 1870 vividly resemble those of World War I propaganda. The introduction into nationalist ideology of elements drawn from the discourse around gender counts as one of the most characteristic signs of this continuity. Even the ambiguity of the barbarism imputed to Germans remained largely unchanged. That charge was raised in two major contexts: historical and biolog- ical. In the former, French authors claimed that ‘the sons of Attila’ had not yet acquired the manners of civilised men, or that, as a result of political events, had regressed to their original uncouth customs. The second context drew on the latest findings of science. Germans were deemed a missing link in human evolution, an allemand-outang.6 Already in 1870, French intellectuals felt compelled to ask how – if ever – the German barbarism observed in the war could be reconciled with their scientific and artistic achievements. The ‘mechanised’ conduct of the war convinced them that for Germans science had become a tool for barbarism.7

‘War of the spirits’ AD 1870

Wartime mobilisation did not fail to affect the most prominent scholars. Markus Völkel describes the head-to-head clashes between historians – David Friedrich Strauß and Er- nest Renan, Theodor Mommsen and Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges – which served as a point of reference for leading intellectuals in both nations.8 The transformation

4 H. Mehrkens, Statuswechsel. Kriegserfahrung und nationale Wahrnehmung im deutsch- französischen Krieg 1870–71, Essen 2008, p. 111. 5 Ibidem, p. 117. 6 Jeismann, Das Vaterland, pp. 225–228. 7 Ibidem, p. 230. 8 M. Völkel, “Geschichte als Vergeltung. Zur Grundlegung des Revanchegedankens in der deutsch-französischen Historikerdiskussion von 1870–71,” in: Historische Zeitschrift 257 (1993), pp. 63–107.

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‘War of the spirits’ AD 1870 249 of Germany – its militarisation and, as many observers surmised, perfect organisation – evoked both censure and approbation, and even a desire to emulate the German model. This contradiction was evident in Renan’s appreciation of the racial energy of the Germans, commanded as they were by the desire for world domination. Even so, both for him and for other French intellectuals, the adaptation of the German model of education and social service in France seemed a means to rejuvenate the country and recoup the lost provinces.9 Efficiency and barbarism thus seemed to be two sides of the same coin. This association was exemplified in the way the war was conducted, particularly the artillery barrage of Paris. To deny the existence of German civilisation beyond the technical sphere completely contradicted the German auto-stereotype and the imagined social profile of the nation’s army. In spite of statistics and common sense, the latter was commonly associated with the universities, as if students and graduates of colleges constituted the majority, or even a sizeable proportion of the armed forces. Meanwhile, the enemy army on the opposite side of the front was seen as far inferior, often equated with a treacherous armed mob, or – worse – with Black soldiers from the colonies. As early as August 1870, Robert von Mohl, a law professor, called the use of African troops France’s disgrace. The country “thus places itself morally on a far lower level than its intellectual standing would suggest.”10 Professors from Göttingen reacted to French charges of barbarism with an address that stated with horror: “Even our institution, which takes pride in its German character, has sent hundreds of German youth to serve under the nation’s banners, disregarding the unequal situation which forces us to fight half- savage Africans or the assembled mob of Garibaldian troublemakers.”11 A wave of patriotic fervour swept across all German universities. Over 25% of the nearly 14,000 students enrolled for the summer semester 1870 joined the military. Profes- sors delivered speeches in which they encouraged students to take action and analysed the war from the perspective of their native sciences. For instance, the constitutionalist and pro-rector of the University of Heidelberg, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, proposed the introduction of a legal prohibition against further deployment in Europe of ‘barbarian’ troops from Africa.12 Speeches by other intellectuals referenced the idea of a Franco- German conflict of national character. The literary scholar Karl Hillebrand, who had

9 G.-L. Fink, “Der janusköpfige Nachbar. Das französische Deutschlandbild gestern und heute,” in: Fiktion des Fremden. Erkundung kultureller Grenzen in Literatur und Publi- zistik, D. Harth, Frankfurt am Main 1994, pp. 21–57, 43. 10 Cf. Mehrkens, Statuswechsel, p. 55. 11 C. Tollmien, “Der ‘Krieg der Geister’ in der Provinz – das Beispiel der Universität Göttin- gen 1914–1918,” in: Göttinger Jahrbuch 41 (1993), pp. 137–210, here 209. 12 J.C. Bluntschli, “Das moderne Völkerrecht in dem Kriege 1870,” in: Der Deutschen Hoch- schulen Antheil am Kampfe gegen Frankreich, L. Bauer, Leipzig 1873, p. 352.

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250 Appendix worked in France until the outbreak of the war, invoked the typical contrast between the ‘masculine’ attributes of the Germans and the ‘feminine’ aspect of the French:

To see how the role of women in French society coincides with the national character, one only needs to remember that the extent of their influence does not seem to have changed throughout the history of France … Even today, the Frenchwoman rules in the salon, in ministers’ offices, in the family, and even in trade, as she did before at court … The Frenchwoman truly merits this power, since she does indeed surpass the Frenchman both morally and spiritually.13

Alexander Ecker, an anthropologist from Freiburg im Breisgau, supplemented the comparisons between the two nations by invoking the idea of the struggle for survival, based on the assumption that the triumphs of German armies had to have a biologi- cal cause. The superiority of the German element was supposedly evident even in the higher birth rate, observable as well in those departments of France that in Ecker’s view were ethnically German.14 Furthermore, Germans constituted a superior anthropological material – a point illustrated with statistics on French conscripts, of whom fewer were deemed unsuited for military service in the east than in the west. Health and proper physical development were paired with intellectual achievements attested by the superiority of German medicine over its French equivalent. Such observations, along with examples from the press of the war being conducted immorally by the French, convinced Ecker that

it was the civilised nation that triumphed over the less civilised one … According to what the laws of nature had taught us about the struggle for survival, we were destined to win, and that is why we did win. And that’s not all: we can expect that in future, more peaceful competitions as well … we shall continue to win, and the Germanic race will play a decisive part in shaping the history of Europe, which is its birthright.15

The introduction of the concept of race into wartime thinking about the national character of the French and the Germans almost automatically mobilised mechanisms akin to those that accompanied the later “war of the spirits.” The belief in fundamental psychological distinctions between nations led to the search for their causes in different racial backgrounds. An appalled Hillebrand described the alleged cruelties of

13 K. Hillebrand, Frankreich und die Franzosen, 3rd ed., Straßburg 1886, p. 55. 14 A. Ecker, “Der Kampf um Dasein in der Natur und im Völkerleben,” in: Der Deutschen Hochschulen, pp. 373–374. 15 Ecker, Der Kampf, pp. 375, 380.

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‘War of the spirits’ AD 1870 251 the French, concluding that such deeds could never have been the responsibility of Teutonic Germanic or Latin ethnic components, rather: “they were due to the periodic return of the Celt to his proper nature: Grattez le Français, et vou trouverez l’Irlandais!”16 Ludwig Friedländer, a classical philologist from Königsberg, expanded on this claim:

Among the surprising insights into French national character that this war has brought to light, quite likely the most shocking has been the discovery of the profundity of the nation’s involvement with its Celtic past … Grattez le Français, et vou trouverez le Celte! … After all, as early as two thousand years ago, Cato characterised the Celts were above all by their profound attachment to esprit and gloire … Gallica credulitas was proverbial already for the ancient Romans … 17

Many motifs typical for characterological reflection of the World War I period had already emerged during the previous Franco-German clash. The extent of mobilisation among intellectuals was lower, the means of affecting public opinion weaker, but the mechanisms of the ‘war of the spirits’ remained largely identical. For instance, heated debates took place concerning suggestions that scholars from northern Germany be expelled from the Academie Française. Louis Pasteur voiced his protest by sending back the honorary diploma he received from the university in Bonn.18 Phenomena akin to the ‘war of the spirits’ of a few decades later can also be observed in disciplines that were then only emerging, but would be completely engrossed in the war effort during the Great War. Members of the Anthropological Society of Berlin (Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte), established only a year before the start of the Franco-Prussian War, perceived the presence of Black soldiers on the front not only as a threat to civilisation itself, but also as an opportunity to ex- pand scientific knowledge. The founder of the society, Rudolf Virchow, addressed his colleagues in October 1870 with a plea that matched nearly verbatim the one delivered by Georg Buschan 45 years later, exhorting them to exploit the opportunity and make photographic images of turcos found in German field hospitals.19 The editors of the Correspondenz-Blatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urge- schichte exhorted German amateur anthropologists to do their best to “collect skulls, and especially brains of the various African peoples that France has been so kind to

16 Hillebrand, Frankreich, p. 63. 17 Ludwig Friedländer, speech delivered on 18 January 1871 in the lecture hall of the university of Königsberg, in: Der Deutschen Hochschulen, pp. 223–224. 18 R. Virchow, “Nach dem Kriege,” in: Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medizin 53:1 (1871), pp. 1–27, here 19. 19 R. Virchow, (contribution to the discussion) Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 3 (1871), p. 16.

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252 Appendix send us.”20 The difference between the liberal paradigm of anthropology that still held sway in the 1870s and the later developments in the discipline was illustrated in Vir- chow’s pleas for scientists to be quick to study living African prisoners of war before they became Germanised and civilised due to being kept in German surroundings. Stalling could lead to a situation in which “establishing their savageness would prove complicated.”21 Scholars who subscribed to the later ‘war of the spirits’ generally did not invoke their predecessors from a few decades before. Among the exceptions was a remark by Ernst Hess published in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und psychisch-gerichtliche Medizin in 1915.22 Hess commented upon the German debates over a French psychological disorder identified by Leopold Loewenfeld: psychopatia gallica. As he pointed out, participants in the debates failed to note the fact that Loewenfeld was by far not the first German psychiatrist to identify the pathology. That honour belonged to Carl Stark, who had observed the phenomenon as early as 1871. According to Hess, the only difference between the two authors was one of terminology: “What in 1871 merited the name of degeneracy, today is called psychopathy.” The figure of Stark, who practised in Alsace following the Franco-Prussian War, also served as a warning to Loewenfeld and his cohorts. According to Hess, soon after the war, the German physician distanced himself from his earlier convictions and continued to voice regrets over them until the end of his life.23 Carl Stark’s work was indeed reminiscent in many parts of the later study by Leo- pold Loewenfeld. The two authors were even motivated by the same thing: irritation with the critical statements of their French colleagues.24 Both likewise professed the best of intentions, perceiving their role as that of physicians observing a shameful ill- ness and thus enabling its cure. Stark observed that the French – a nation at the end of its tether – had fallen prey to a condition similar to senile dementia. It was not by accident that French physicians became the first to diagnose cerebral softening. According to Stark, this was a result of the particularly high incidence of the condition in France:

Moving on, could it be merely an accident, and not by some feature of French national character, that this form of mental disease has reached such horrible

20 S., “Schädel und Gehirne von Turcos,” in: Correspondenz-Blatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte 1:1 (1871), p. 8. 21 Virchow, (contribution to the discussion) Verhandlungen, p. 16. 22 E. Hess, “Nochmals Psychopathia gallica,” in: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und psychisch-gerichtliche Medizin 72:4 (1915), pp. 372–373. 23 Ibidem, p. 372. 24 C. Stark, Die psychische Degeneration des französischen Volkes, ihr pathologischer Cha- rakter, ihre Symptome und Ursachen. Ein irrenärztlicher Beitrag zur Völkerpathologie, Stuttgart 1871, p. 4.

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‘War of the spirits’ AD 1870 253

levels in Paris, such that in Charenton over 50% of the admitted patients suf- fer from progressive dementia, while in our country they account for at best 12%?25

War losses and excessive consumption of absinthe exacerbated the condition of the national psyche, leading to progressive paralysis, which was manifest in the completely unrealistic, maniacal conviction in the nation’s capabilities and in their savage brutality towards the German wounded (Stark supplied a long list of supposed French war atrocities). The disease explained why, instead of accepting German superiority as the only cause of their defeat, the French sought out traitors, wishing to pin the blame on them. “These facts,” wrote the German psychiatrist, “allow me to draw a parallel between the French nation and a madman who told me he could fly.” Asked for evidence to his opinion, the lunatic had jumped out of a ground floor window, falling into the bushes. He explained the fall in the following terms: “Naturally, I can fly, but my neighbour has secretly magnetised me in order to prevent me from doing so.”26 The insane were typically said to be incapable of assessing their own actions objectively. That was the reason why the French persisted for months in not feeling any remorse for shooting at the enemy from Parisian fortifications, but when the enemy finally retaliated with a bombardment of the city, they reacted with the utmost indignation and accusa- tions of barbarism. According to Stark, French hypocrisy, spy paranoia, cynicism, and immorality also resulted from medical conditions, deriving partly from the syphilis common among French troops.27 In the conclusion to his brochure, the German psychiatrist somewhat mitigated his diagnosis, while affirming its main points:

Thus, we see that it would be hard to obtain a greater convergence of the symptoms [between individual and mass psychological pathology – MG]. And even if it would be folly to maintain, on the basis of the evidence collected, that the French nation suffers from progressive dementia or the folie raisonnante, we can surely observe symptoms of a psychological disorder in the mental condition of the French nation and identify it as pathological and degenerative. No physician who found the above symptoms in a single patient would hesitate to diagnose him as insane and mentally ill.28

Commenting on the German-French intellectual conflicts, Rudolf Virchow, though usually not given to chauvinism, found in Stark’s study a series of relevant observations.

25 Ibidem, p. 9. 26 Ibidem, p. 14. 27 Ibidem, p. 21. 28 Ibidem, p. 25.

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254 Appendix

In his view, the dramatic political events in France, the civil war, and the recurring spy hysteria testified to the deplorable mental condition of the French. He was particularly discouraged by the involvement of scholars in the nationalist campaign.29 In this re- gard, he condemned the political involvement of both the French and the Germans, such as Alexander Ecker, the author of a Darwinian interpretation of the war.30 For him, these men had failed in their duties as scholars: “Politics divide, while sciences bind nations together, and woe betide those who cut these bonds apart.”31

The Prussian Race

Of the scholars criticised by Virchow, one occupied a special position, and not only because of his high rank and similar scholarly interests. Jean-Louis Armand de Quatre- fages de Bréau (1810–1892), a French anthropologist and zoologist, was the co-founder (along with Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Pierre Paul Broca) of the Paris Anthropo- logical Society (Société d’Anthropologie), and an unrelenting propagator of science, with memberships in a number of French and foreign scholarly associations.32 He studied in Strasbourg, where he later lectured in chemistry, physics, and – after completing his education – medicine. From 1833 on, he practised as a physician in Toulouse, where he founded the Journal de Médicine et de Chirurgie de Toulouse. After moving to Paris in 1840, he focused exclusively on studing problems of anthropology. An opponent of Darwin’s theory, he was – as his Polish translator stressed – “one of the very few … whose criticism of [Darwin’s] theory was purely scientific.”33 A member of different academies of sciences and – after 1879 – of the Royal Society of London, he was also awarded membership in the Légion d’Honneur. Towards the end of his life, he presided over the Société de Géographie, of which he had been a member since 1856. For the Parisian anthropologist, as for many other French intellectuals, the defeat came as a shock, and the Prussian bombardment of Paris appeared intolerably barbarous. Among the targets hit by the barrage was the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, which held rich anthropological collections. Behind the actions of the Prus- sians, Quatrefages perceived a methodical plan in the destruction of the exceptional

29 Virchow, Nach dem Kriege, p. 7. 30 Ibidem, p. 10. 31 Ibidem, p. 21. 32 For more on Quatrefages’s life, see: D. Ferembach, “Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (1810–1892),” in: International Journal of Anthropology 4 (1989), pp. 305–307. 33 J. Ochorowicz, “Kilka słów tłomacza,” in: A. Quatrefages: Karol Darwin i jego poprzednicy. Studium nad teorią przeobrażeń, trans. J. Ochorowicz, Warszawa 1873 (French original published 1870), p. III.

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The Prussian Race 255 collections for the sole purpose of degrading French science. His reaction was swift and sharp. In a separate pamphlet appended to the Revue de Deux Mondes and reproduced in English translation a few months later, he offered a study of the ‘Prussian race’.34 His findings amounted to the exclusion of Prussians from among the Aryan nations and their inclusion among the Finno-Turanian peoples (and thus – in accordance with the beliefs of the period – Mongolians). It was this publication that ensured Quatrefages a place in scholarship on the history of racism in Europe.35 Quatrefages opens his study with assurances of his own scientific objectivity, stat- ing the incidentally quite justifiable belief that “Every political subdivision, founded on ethnology, immediately leads to absurdity.”36 Heeding his own warnings, he very cautiously proceeds to outline the main topic. In the introduction, he analyses the outward appearance of representatives of the Turanian race, with his main conces- sion being that the example provided is not the Prussians, who were, after all, the subject of the pamphlet, but Estonians. As is well known, states the anthropologist, the latter speak a non-Aryan language similar to Finnish. Even their physical appearance bears out this similarity: “Their bust is long; their legs short, and the region of the pelvis large in proportion to that of the shoulders… The eyes … are generally deeply set; the nose, straight and but little rounded, is often too small for the width of the cheeks, and the space separating it from the mouth is too short.”37 Having discussed the appearance of Estonians, the author moves on to Latvians, who, in contrast to their northern neighbours, do speak an Aryan tongue. However, in anthropological terms, they should count among “the group of races named by turn Tchudes, Mongolians, Turanians, and North Ouralians.”38 Only having thus established a solid backdrop for his considerations does Quatrefages invoke the observation of another member of the Anthropological Society, Charles Rochet, who described the appearance of Prussian

34 A. de Quatrefages, “La race prusienne,” in: Revue des Deux Mondes 41:91 (1871), pp. 647– 669. Further citations for: J.-L.A. de Quatrefages, The Prussian Race Ethnologically Con- sidered. To which is Appended Some Account of the Bombardment of the Museum of Natural History, etc., by the Prussians in January 1871, trans. I. Innes. London 1872. 35 Cf. e.g. J. Comas, Racial Myths. The Race Question in Modern Science, Paris 1958, pp. 42– 48; L. Poliakov, Der arische Mythos. Zu den Quellen von Rassismus und Nationalismus, trans. M. Venjakob, H. Fliessbach, Hamburg 1993, pp. 295–297; L. Poliakov, Ch. Delacam- pagne, P. Girard, Über den Rassismus. Sechzehn Kapitel zur Anatomie, Geschichte und Deutung des Rassenwahns, Stuttgart 1984; I. Hannaford, Race. The History of an Idea in the West, Washington (DC) 1996, pp. 287–290; G. Ahlbrecht, Preußenbäume und Bagdad- bahn. Deutschland im Blick der französischen Geo-Disziplinen (1821–2004), Passau 2006; see also in older studies written from a racist perspective, e.g.: W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe. A Sociological Study. New York 1899, pp. 219–221; W.Z. Ripley, “The Racial Geogra- phy of Europe,” in: Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly 52 (1898), pp. 49–56. 36 Quatrefages, The Prussian Race, p. 2. 37 Ibidem, p. 19. 38 Ibidem, p. 21.

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256 Appendix soldiers from Pomerania.39 In the eyes of both Frenchmen, despite a slightly greater height from Latvians or Estonians, Pomeranians generally shared a far-reaching similarity to both nations.40 The lack of the right proportions of the body was portrayed as a result of the fact that Finns descended from the most primordial, and thus the most primitive population of Europe: the palaeolithic hunters. Finns were distinguished from the Aryan peoples by their physical appearance as well as psychology – being peaceful, bound to tradition, but also distrustful. “Unhap- pily all the good in this picture is marred by a quality which seems to be thoroughly national. The Fin [sic] never pardons a real or supposed offence, avenges it on the first opportunity, and is not fastidious in his choice of means. Thus is explained the frequency of assassination in Finland amongst the peasants.”41 Those features of the primordial inhabitants of Prussia were then supplemented with the worst attributes of the Slavs who conquered them: a desire for conquest and a tendency to treason. Germans, who were the next to conquer Prussians, absorbed the old Prus- sian elites in particular. In Quatrefages’ view, the last stratum partaking in this process brought the most benefits to Prussians. They were the French Huguenots, who pre- dominated among the elites of the state and were the only culture-making stratum of the whole country. The fact that Quatrefages saw Prussians as a mixture of four nationalities and two races – the Finno-Turanian primordial Prussians and the Aryan Slavs, Germans, and French – did not mean that their attributes constituted an amalgam of the psychological features of each of the types involved. On the contrary: the two ‘primordial’ groups proved capable of dominating the newcomers: “The German and the Frenchman would naturally turn into a Slave or a Fin.”42 The phenomenon supposedly reached its most striking form in the case of the French, still bound to their former fatherland by the tongue they used, but in racial terms already ‘Prussianised’:

Men were to be found only too easily in all ranks of the Prussian population and army who spoke French purely and without a German accent. These had no difficulty in passing themselves off as Frenchmen, in slipping in everywhere, in surprising and betraying what it was most important for us to conceal, and in preaching undiscipline and insurrection.43

39 Ch. Rochet, “Communication sur le type prussien,” in: Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris (1871), pp. 75–77, 188–196. 40 Quatrefages, The Prussian Race, p. 37. 41 Ibidem, p. 61. 42 Ibidem, p. 65. 43 Ibidem, p. 59.

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The Prussian Race 257

The loss of Huguenot families was as tragic for them as for France. Quatrefages, himself a Protestant, lamented the event with particular bitterness. For France, it had brought on defeat. For the descendants of the French Protestants, on the other hand, it meant the loss of racial maturity, which their brethren of the old country came to pos- sess. Meanwhile, the Prussian race was still experiencing growing pains, taking form while locked in a state of barbarism. The relationship between the Prussian race and the Germans constitutes an interesting aspect of Quatrefages’ considerations. The French anthropologist concluded that Prussians were completely distinct from Germans in racial terms. The fact that Germany accepted Prussian leadership was a misunderstanding, an ‘anthropological error’, since in reality, “Prussia is ethnologically distinct from the peoples she now rules over, through the plea of a (pretended) unity of race.”44 The conclusion of the French anthropologist’s work takes the shape of an appeal to European public opinion. After France’s defeat, he writes, dark clouds were gathering over Europe, as Prussian pan- Germanism was capable of rousing the spectre of Russian pan-Slavism.

In the possible conflicts caused by these pretensions, what will Prussia do? Will she turn her cannon against her formidable neighbour? Or will she invoking [sic] then the affinity of race, as she now invokes the affinity of language, rivet the bonds which already exist? Will the Slavo-Finnic races wish to reign alto- gether, over Germans and Latins? And would the world, thus shared, submit in silence?45

Quatrefages’ pamphlet met with a lively response both in his homeland and in the Reich. In France, he found a sizeable group of followers who were proving, like Louis Figuier, that the primordial Finnish cruelty had come back to life in contemporary Prussians.46 Racial theories became one of the more interesting strains of French na- tionalism.47 On the other hand, authorities in the Reich invoked similar arguments to stress the bonds between the annexed provinces (Alsace and Lorraine) and Germany.48

44 Ibidem, p. 85. 45 Ibidem, pp. 86–87. 46 L. Figuier, Tableau de la nature. Les races humaines, Paris 1872; cf. Poliakov, Der arische Mythos, p. 295. 47 Cf. S. Michl, Im Dienste des “Volkskörpers”. Deutsche und französische Ärzte im Ersten Weltkrieg, Göttingen 2007, pp. 60–63; Fink, Der janusköpfige Nachbar, pp. 21–56; Mehr- kens, Statuswechsel, passim. For a detailed analysis of the racial current in French public discourse, see: C.R. Paligot, La République raciale. Paradigme racial et idéologie républi- caine (1860–1930), Paris 2006. 48 W. Freund, “Disputierte Bevölkerung. Der gelehrte Streit um die Menschen an der deutsch-französischen Grenze,” in: Bevölkerungsfragen. Prozesse des Wissenstransfers

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258 Appendix

On 14 October 1871, during a meeting of the German Anthropological Society, ge- ographer and cartographer Heinrich Kiepert presented Quartefages’ main theses. The audience did not try to conceal their indignation at what they heard.49 Rudolf Vir- chow’s reaction was more subdued, but at the same time more practical. During one of the subsequent meetings of the Society he relayed to the members the assurances he had received from a Swedish anthropologist in Helsingfors (Helsinki), Otto Hjelt, who, while confirming the Frenchman’s thesis about the vengeful nature of the (true) Finns, also denied that they showed a propensity for treason or cruelty.50 In Septem- ber 1873 Virchow informed the Society of plans for taking anthropological measurements of German students (the Prussian army, he reported with dismay, had refused his proposal to measure German recruits), whose numbers eventually reached several millions.51 At the same time, he sent an official request to Russian authorities to permit him to carry out similar research in Finland. Both these large research projects, as he explained, were to serve the purpose of verifying Quatrefages’s theses:

Gentlemen, you know that the French conflict gave rise to the conviction that Central Europe is inhabited by two categories of people, namely, the ancient primordial population of the area, characterised by slight build, dark eyes, dark hair, and somewhat darker skin, and said to belong to the Finnic or Estonian race … and the Aryan newcomers … believed to be tall, even very much so, blue- eyed, pale, and tough. Thus, in the eyes of our western colleagues, the distinction between Celts, Germans, and Slavs is rendered null and void. All Aryans are believed to be blue-eyed, blond, tall, strong, and of pale complexion.52

in Deutschland und Frankreich (1870–1939), eds. P. Krassnitzer, P. Overath, Köln 2007, pp. 210–215. 49 “Sitzungen der Localvereine,” in: Correspondenz-Blatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte 11 (1871), p. 83. 50 “Sitzungsberichte der Localvereine,” in: Correspondenz-Blatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte 5 (1872), p. 33. 51 See: P. Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945, Cambridge 1989, pp. 48–49. 52 “Sie wissen, dass gerade durch den französischen Streit die Meinung in der Vordergrund getreten ist, dass es auf dem Gebiete des mittleren Europas zwei Kategorien von Bevöl- kerungen gebe, nämlich eine uralte Aboriginerbevölkerung, welche sich vorzugsweise durch kleineren und schwächeren Körperbau, durch dunkle Farbe der Augen und des Haares, sowie zum Theile auch der Haut auszeichnen soll und welche die finnischen oder der estnischen … Rasse zugerechnet wird, — und eine arische Einwanderung …, von der man … behauptet, dass sie gross, sogar sehr gross, blond, blauäugig, hellfarbig und stark gewesen sei. Das Celtische, Germanische oder Slawische erscheint in diesem Augenblicke den Augen unserer westlichen Collegen gleichgültig; ist jemand arisch, so muss er blauäugig, blond, gross, stark und hellfarbig sein”; R. Virchow: (contribution to the discussion), in: Die vierte allgemeine Versammlung der deutschen Gesellschaft für

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The Prussian Race 259

The anthropological survey yielded results that entirely disproved Quatrefages’ claims. The measurements conducted on students testified to the fact that the anthropological traits attributed to Aryans were most commonly found in inhabitants of Prussia, particularly in Pomerania. In 1874, upon his return from Finland, Virchow stated that in that country – just as in the rest of Europe – one could find both long- and short-skulled types. Moreover, he speculated that in anthropological terms the population of Finland differed little from that of Russia, and thus, “If pan-Slavism is relying on anthropology for legitimacy, its strategy is flawed.”53 His exposition concluded with a statement that, in his view, put an end to the entire debate: “We are without a doubt unable to unambiguously decide whether any tribe of Central Europe is Indo-Germanic or Finnish.”54 Adolf Bastian also engaged in a polemic with Quatrefages in the Zeitschrift für Eth- nologie. He disputed the identification of ancient Prussians as a Turanian people on grounds of the former’s kinship with the Indo-Germanic Lithuanians. Furthermore, as a result of the Teutonic Knights’ conscious policy, Prussia had for hundreds of years drawn in settlers from all regions of Germany, to the extent that they now rep- resented the ethnic quintessence of the country. Like other Germanic peoples (and unlike ‘Latin-Celtic’ ones), Prussians were the avant-garde of global progress, having achieved scientific, cultural, and economic supremacy. The French, on the other hand, consistently overstated their influence on the development of civilisation, claiming as their own discoveries and inventions made by others. Beyond that, they had provided Europe with bloody spectacles of unthinkable barbarism for centuries, culminating in the battles with the Paris Commune.55 The theories put forward by the French- man Quatrefages also affected anthropologists from other nations he chose to include among the Turanian peoples. Pál Hunfálvy, for example, did not conceal his indignation, while scholars from Finland and the Baltic provinces of Russia joined Virchow’s research team.56

Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte zu Wiesbaden am 15. bis 17. September 1873, ed. A. von Frantzius, Braunschweig 1874, p. 28. 53 “Wenn also der Panslawismus im Augenblicke vom anthropologischen Standpunkte aus sich construiren will, so hat das seine misslichen Seiten”; R. Virchow, “Über die Verbreitung brachycephaler Schädel in vorgeschichtlicher und geschichtlicher Zeit in Deutschland,” in: Die fünfte allgemeine Versammlung der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte zu Dresden vom 14. bis 16. September 1874, ed. H. von Ihering, Braunschweig 1875, p. 14. 54 “Das ist also unzweifelhaft, dass wir nicht in der Lage sind, einfach zu sagen, es sei ein Volk oder ein Volksstam in Mitteleuropa indogermanisch oder finnisch”; Virchow, Über die Verbreitung, p. 15. 55 Cf. Ch. Manias, “The Race prussienne Controversy. Scientific Internationalism and the Nation,” in: Isis 100 (2009), pp. 733–757, here 749–750. 56 Ibidem, p. 753.

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260 Appendix

The dispute between Quatrefages and Virchow foreshadowed the battles that Eu- ropean anthropologists were to wage against one another a few decades later. It took place on one of the major fronts of the “war of the spirits,” between France and Ger- many. Traces of a continuity of attitudes and strategies of argumentation between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I are quite easy to find, even if later authors were not particularly keen to take note of them. Even in 1870, France and the German states provided in many respects a suitable terrain for waging a modern propaganda war. Analogies between the two conflicts confirm the role of Quatrefages’ oeuvre in historical analyses of racism. In the aforementioned studies, the dispute over the Prussian race is perceived as anticipating the later nationalisation of racial anthropology.

Transfer: A Microhistory

It is not my intention to question the relationship between the ‘war of the spirits’ of 1870–1871 and its younger sibling. However, one should consider whether 1871, the year Quatrefages published the first version of his treatise, does indeed open a new chapter in the history of the younger disciplines of the human sciences. Surrounded by doubts concerning the originality of his contribution to the history of the political involvement of science, he was as original as he was little known. Franciszek Henryk Duchiński’s life did not follow the pattern typical for a scholar.57 Duchiński himself took pains to add colour to his life story in autobiographical notes that pepper his works. He was born in the Ukraine to a family of petty nobility. His father died when he was young, and his mother Zofia (née Bojarska) supported herself and her two sons by working as a governess in the house of Count Tyszkiewicz. After her death in 1829, Duchiński attended a Basilian school in Humań and later worked at a school for girls in Niemirów. In 1834, he moved to Kiev where – by his own account – he entered the Historico-Philological Faculty of the local university. For a time he earned a living as a private tutor; he claims to have been active in the student organisation of the Association of the Polish People (Związek Ludu Polskiego). Duchiński avoided persecution after the arrest of Szymon Konarski, and he remained in Kiev until the

57 For basic biographical information, see: S. Grabski, Życie, pp. I–XXXIV; A. F. Grabski, Na manowcach myśli historycznej. Historiozofia Franciszka H. Duchińskiego, in: A. F. Grab- ski, Perspektywy przeszłości. Studia i szkice historiograficzne. Lublin, 1983, pp. 226–239; M. Czapska, “Franciszek Henryk Duchiński,” in: Polski Słownik Biograficzny, vol. 5. Kraków, 1939–45, pp. 441–443. For positive assessments with rich biographical information, see: A. Giller, O życiu i pracach F. H. Duchińskiego Kijowianina w jubileuszową rocz- nicę pięćdziesięcioletnich jego zasług naukowych, Lwów, 1885; S. Duchińska, Młode lata Franciszka Duchińskiego uzupełnione rzutem oka na jego działalność naukową, Lwów 1897.

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Transfer: A Microhistory 261 mid–1840s. In 1846, he escaped to Turkey via Odessa and then he moved to Paris, where he cooperated with the Polish emigré journal Trzeci Maj. In 1848, he participated in propaganda activities for the Polish Legion in Italy, then served as a Polish representa- tive to the Istanbul legation of the Hungarian insurrectionary government. Following the defeat of the Hungarian Uprising, he served as Prince Adam Czartoryski’s agent in the Balkan region, while publishing his early amateur studies in the ethnography and anthropology of Russia and Ukraine. Relieved from duty on the eve of the Crimean War, Duchiński remained in the Balkans, publishing articles in the Journal de Constan- tinople. In 1855, he entered the English service, officially to supervise railway work- ers, but actually for the purpose of delivering propaganda speeches to British, French, and Turkish soldiers. On his return to Paris in 1856, he found employment in the Pol- ish School for Higher Learning. At the same time he gave public lectures for French audiences and published profusely. Invited to join the French Ethnographic Society, he rose to the position of vice-chairman in 1871. He also co-edited Actes de la Société d’Ethnographie and, in 1865, joined the Parisian Geographical Society. This period saw him achieve two major triumphs in his public activities. First, he succeeded in effect- ing a change in the name of the Chair of Slavic Literature at the Collège de France to ‘Chair of Slavic Literatures’.58 Second, with the support of journalist and deputy Casi- mir Delamarre and the famous historian Henri Martin, Duchiński managed to change the curriculum in the history of Eastern and Central Europe at French schools. Early in the 1870s, after a short stay in Galicia, Germany, and Austria, he became the curator at the Polish National Museum in Rapperswil. Several attempts to obtain a chair at the Jagiellonian University came to nought, but Duchiński continued to publish in Polish and Ukrainian journals, publicising his anthropological theories, and even founded the ephemeral Przegląd Etnograficzny (Ethnographical Review) in Cracow. In 1878, he was involved in the organisation of the Polish stand at the Universal Exposition in Paris. In 1885, he celebrated the twenty-five years of his career as a scholar in L’viv. His death, a year after that of Quatrefages, was noted in the Ethnographic Society’s news- letter, among other venues.59 In Polish historiography, Franciszek Duchiński remains a marginal figure. His ethnographic views are associated with de Gobineau’s theories and placed in the context

58 L. Kuk, “Zmiana nazwy katedry słowiańskiej Collège de France w roku 1868. Z dziejów stosunku Francji wobec tzw. kwestii słowiańskiej w XIX wieku,” in: Publicyści późniejs- zego romantyzmu wobec rządów zaborczych i spraw narodowościowych na ziemiach dawnej Rzeczypospolitej, ed. S. Kalembka, Toruń 1998. 59 G. Barclay, “Rapport annuel fait à la Société d’Ethnographie sur ses travaux et sur les pro- grès des sciences ethnographiques pendant l’année 1893,” in : Bulletin de la Société d’Eth- nographie 35:76 (1893), pp. 123–124.

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262 Appendix of the liberal Russophobia of the mid-nineteenth century.60 The Ukrainian scholar Ivan L. Rudnytsky, however, offers a different assessment, acknowledging the role Duchiński played in the development of the Ukrainian national idea.61 An analysis of Duchiński’s numerous works shows that criticisms by scholars were entirely justified. His references to existing scholarship, his research apparatus, and active participation in scientific societies all served to advance a theory with a clearly political resonance. The belief that Russians were of non-Slavic origin was his idée fixe; he claimed that “it is a grave and sadly very common error to perceive relations between Slavic nations from a linguistic standpoint, based only on the analysis of select words, in the manner proposed by Dubrowski.”62 Duchiński averred that “where ethnographic studies are impossible to carry out, logographical analysis … can be of help, but even that cannot provide foolproof data, as nations can change languages.”63 Anthropology, or ethnography, as Duchiński preferred to call it, was a far more suitable method of investigation. According to Duchiński, the white race was divided into Aryans and Turanians. The former, comprising Slavs, Germans, and Latins, inhabited Europe as far as the Dnieper river and were settled, farming, and culture-making peoples. The latter, made up of Turks, Finns, and Mongols, inhabited territories east and south of Ukraine, and were still nomadic peoples or had retained nomadic characteristics under a thin veneer of civilisation. Duchiński explained:

The features of the Aryan people reflect … their main pursuit: freedom. Bound to their fatherland, they love agriculture for its own sake and not for the trading opportunities it provides. Their provincial life is highly developed; their sense of individual self-reliance deeply inculcated; property rights are respected and family names greatly venerated. A deep love for their country leads them to make the greatest sacrifices. Their emotional attitude is in harmony with their level-headedness, as they are blessed with perseverance and enormous creative

60 Review of existing works in: M. Górny, “‘Pięć wielkich armii naprzeciw wrogom naszym’. Przyczynek do historii rasizmu,” in: Kwartalnik Historyczny 4 (2011), pp. 681–706. 61 I.L. Rudnytsky, “Franciszek Duchiński and his Impact on Ukrainian Political Thought,” in: I.L. Rudnytsky, Essays in Modern Ukrainian History, ed. by P.L. Rudnytsky, Edmonton 1987, pp. 187–202. 62 F. H. Duchiński, “O stosunkach Rusi z Polską i z Moskwą zwaną dzisiaj Rosją. O potrzebie dopełnień i zmian w naukowym wykładzie dziejów polskich. Przy otwarciu roku szkolne- go Szkoły Wyższej Polskiej w Paryżu, przy bulwarze Mont Parnasse w dniu 7 XI 1857,” in: F. H. Duchiński, Pisma, vol. 1. Rapperswil 1902, p. 64. The author was referring to the work of the illustrious Czech linguist Josef Dobrovský (1753–1829). 63 F. H. Duchiński, Zasady dziejów Polski i innych krajów słowiańskich i Moskwy, part 2, in: F. H. Duchiński, Pisma, vol. 2. Rapperswil 1902, p. 113.

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Transfer: A Microhistory 263

powers, which they exhibit in a myriad of ways … Women are held in great re- gard in their societies.64

Turanians, by contrast,

[are] psychologically disposed … to passivity, and have displayed no originality of mind; their ability to imitate compensates for this shortcoming, blind fanati- cism replacing religious fervour … In Turanian society, which is based on military discipline, the woman ranks low, something that can be seen very clearly among the Turks, for example … Centuries have passed. With the advance of civilisation, the last vestiges of nomadism have disappeared in Europe, and yet, the descendants of the old nomads still exhibit the proclivities of their forefathers.65

Duchiński was interested in one branch of the Turanian race in particular: the Musco- vites. He rejected their claims of a Slavic origin. While Ruthenian (that is, Ukrainian) influences were bound up with the civilising influence of the Kievan Rus’, they were unable to transform the essential character of the Finno-Mongol nomads. This belief led Duchiński to formulate his unique views on Russia’s history and geography. He disputed the Ural Mountains as a boundary between Europe and Asia, claiming that both sides of the range were populated by the same people. He also held that from the perspective of Muscovite history, the Tatar invasion should be treated as a blessing:

The invasions of Mongols and Tatars did not lead to the separation of Moscow from the Rus’, as there had never been a bond of moral unity between the two … on the contrary, the invasions did a great service to the laws of race of the Musco- vites by merging the peoples of Suzdal, Ves’, Merya, Murom, and Chuvash-Vietke (Viatka Tatars) with the Muscovites who settled beyond the Oka river as well as in Kazan, and were ruled by national khans … Thus, the conquest of the Suzdal Muscovites by Genghis Khan was beneficial rather than harmful to them … since it served to engender laws of tribal purity which is craved even more forcefully by tribes of shepherds and tradesmen than by Indo-European nations.66

In Duchiński’s opinion, racial differences were permanent. While he claimed that he wished to see Moscow free and Catholic, he added that “even free and Catholic

64 F. H. Duchiński, Pierwotne dzieje Polski, in: F. H. Duchiński: Pisma, vol. 3. Rapperswil 1904, pp. 15–16. 65 Duchiński, Pisma, vol. 3, pp. 17–18. 66 F. H. Duchiński, “Zasady dziejów Polski i innych krajów słowiańskich i Moskwy,” part 3, in Duchiński, Pisma, vol. 2, p. 243.

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264 Appendix

Russians differ from Indo-Europeans in the mission they have been entrusted to fulfil here on earth, and they will be different forever.”67 The Europeanisation of Russia for him was a pipe dream. Claims of the Muscovites’ racial distinction were justified with the supposedly ob- vious (according to Duchiński) differences in physical and characterological features between Muscovites on the one hand, and Europeans and especially ‘true’ Ruthenians on the other. Indo-European peoples, as Duchiński claimed in one of his works,

are physically more refined, while the Turanian people constitute an unformed mass, raw, undeveloped meat. The head of a Turanian is indistinct from his neck, it has not yet fully set itself apart from the torso, and his legs barely sprout out from the loins … The most striking feature of the Muscovite, the katsap [Ruskie], is neither his face nor head, but his neck! The neck is simply the essence of the Muscovite … With the neck out of proportion to the head, and generally to the entire physiognomy, their noses are as upturned as to render the hair inside clearly visible.68

Therefore, it should not be surprising that “these two human types, the Muscovite and the Ruthenian, need only to cast a glance at each other to know that they have nothing in common.”69 According to Duchiński, the society of the Muscovites, too, was repulsive. The term ‘morality’ was foreign to them: “Generally in Moscow, and especially in relation to women, there is no other morality than that engendered by the criminal code, with police officers as its custodians.”70 The Kiev-bred scholar compared Russian women to ‘emancipated Muslim women’, doubting their intellectual and legal autonomy and de- ploring their supposed “indifference to ownership of land, lack of any uplifting fables from the history of their own sex.”71 Moscow differed from Europe in almost every- thing: the density and type of population, the landscape, the climate.

67 F. H. Duchiński, Odezwa do ziomków, Paris, 1861, p. 3. 68 F. H. Duchiński, “Galeria obrazów polskich. Oddział pierwszy. Różnice ludów indoeuro- pejskich a turańskich pod względem fizjonomii i odzieży,” in: Duchiński, Pisma, vol. 3, pp. 212–214. 69 Duchiński, Galeria, p. 216. 70 F. H. Duchiński, Pomnik nowogrodzki. Periodyczne wyjaśnienia projektu rządu moskiewskiego, aby uroczyście obchodzić w następnym 1862 r., jakoby tysiąc–letnią rocznicę założenia dzisiejszego państwa moskiewskiego w Nowogrodzie, miewane publicznie (obecnie w Paryżu), Paris 1861, p. 15. 71 F. H. Duchiński, “Pomnik nowogrodzki. Periodyczne wyjaśnienia projektu rządu moskiewskiego, aby uroczyście obchodzić w następnym 1862 r. jakoby tysiąc–letnią rocznicę założenia dzisiejszego państwa moskiewskiego w Nowogrodzie,” in: Duchiński, Pisma, vol. 3, p. 170.

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Transfer: A Microhistory 265

This line of reasoning rested on a particular selection of data. Duchiński included in several of his books ethnographic maps prepared by Alfred Ciszkiewicz, secretary to L’École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. The maps, showed a mosaic of ‘Turanian’ peoples east of the Dnieper River, while the category ‘Russians’ was entirely absent. One of the maps was prepared for an anthropological section of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878. Henryk Sienkiewicz, who visited the exhibition, noted it approv- ingly, though without going into details: “Ciszkiewicz’s ethnographic map gives a pre- cise account of the tribes that inhabit our parts and can be of use in resolving scholarly disputes.”72 Duchiński invoked the dynamically developing discipline of craniology, claiming that skull measurements, too, lent credence to his theory.73 He illustrated his arguments about the social pathologies of Tsarist Russia with statistical tables.74 As will be discussed below, Duchiński placed great importance on maintaining contact with the international scholarly community. On the eve of the January Uprising of 1863, he unsuccessfully courted financial support for the “Revue, published in French and devoted to the dissemination of my principles.”75 All his efforts testified to his belief that “It is science, bad as much as good, that rules the world.”76 In an article on the history of French ‘Turanism’, Marléne Laurelle somewhat anx- iously notes how a teacher from the Polish lyceum in Paris had managed to impose his theories on a number of celebrated and prominent figures of French public life: Henri Martin, Albert Réville, August Vicquesnel, Charles de Steinbach, Casimir Delamarre, Édouard Talbot, Emmanuel Henri Victurnien marquise de Noailles, Élias Regnault, and others.77 As she observes, the ‘Turanian’ thesis became one of the centrepieces of French Russophobia in the 1860s.78 Its impact can be traced in the developments in the thought of perhaps the most distinguished of the French advocates of Duchiński’s theories, Henri Martin. In spite of his pro-Polish leanings illustrated in numerous publications from the period of the January Uprising, Martin initially treated the Kievan scholar’s theories with scepticism.79 However, affected by the Pole’s lectures, he changed his mind, informing Duchiński of that fact by mail (and Duchiński did

72 H. Sienkiewicz, “Z wystawy antropologicznej w Paryżu,” in: Nowiny 42, 11 August 1878. 73 See, e.g.: F. H. Duchiński (de Kiew), Peuples aryâs et tourans, agricultureurs et nomades. Nécessité des réformes dans l’exposition de l’histoire des peuples Aryâs-européens & Tourans, particulièrement des Slaves et des Moscovites, Paris 1864, p. XXX. 74 Cf. ibidem, pp. 82–90. 75 F. H. Duchiński, Odezwa do ziomków Kijowianina Duchińskiego, Paris 1862. 76 Ibidem, p. 44. 77 M. Laurelle, “La Question du ‘touranisme’ des Russes. Contribution à une histoire des échanges intellectuels en Allemagne — France — Russie au XIe siècle,” in : Cahiers du Monde Russe 45:1–2 (2004), p. 17. 78 Ibidem, p. 61. 79 See: H. Martin, Pologne et histoire, Paris 1863. This collection of articles on the history and politics of Poland racial questions were not discussed at all.

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266 Appendix not fail to publish fragments of the letter): “Muscovites, Turanian by race and spirit, are not a part of the European community; they sow confusion and disorder; they will never become an element of harmony.”80 Two years later, Martin published La Russie et l’Europe, in which he reprised Duchiński’s claims almost in full.81 In the conclusion to that work, he wrote: “The Muscovite [is] alien to the European family.”82 Other French advocates of Duchiński’s theory also developed a habit of repeating the scholar’s views, sometimes to the extent of nearly plagiarising his works (and often without citing them). His thesis that Nestor was a Polish chronicler was repeatedly invoked. French authors also quoted – without citation – from Duchiński’s translation of excerpts of Nikolai Karamzin’s works, which had not yet been published in French. Similar practices were also applied to maps showing the extent of Indo-European set- tlement.83 The only exception to this rule was Élias Regnault’s treatise, in which the author skilfully systematised Duchiński’s arguments, dividing them into those pertain- ing to geology, hydrography, ethnography, the character of the soil, and customs and social norms, while also responding to critiques levelled against these claims by scholars from Russia or Russian scholarly institutions. Duchiński’s name was mentioned on multiple occasions in the study.84 Clearly, the ‘politics of history’ pursued by the Hôtel Lambert faction of the Polish political emigration played an interesting, albeit second- ary, role in the French reception of Duchiński’s work. The Kievan scholar relied on the financial support of the Czartoryski family from time to time. Some of his French publications appeared thanks to subsidies received from the Treasury Office. The same support was offered as well to at least some of his supporters, including Regnault.85 There were several reasons for Duchiński’s presence in French publications based on his theories. The first, and perhaps the most important, was Duchiński’s own attitude to the truths (or perhaps single Truth) that he preached. He considered their dissemination both a quasi-religious duty and a patriotic contribution to the liberation of Ruthenia, in its everlasting union with Poland. In his address to the insurrectionary government of 1863, he explained: “We are going to take part of the Muscovites’ power away from them by employing their own methods of fighting, that is: by exercising our

80 “Les Moscovites, touraniens de race et de génie, ne sont pas de la société européenne; ils la troublent et la désorganisent; ils n’en seront jamais un élément harmonique”; Duchiński (de Kiew), Peuples aryâs, p. VII. 81 H. Martin, La Russie et l’Europe, Paris 1866, esp. pp. II–III, 8–17, and 98–120. 82 “Le Moscovite, étranger à la famille européenne”; Martin, La Russie, p. 259. 83 See, e.g. the map included in: A. Charlier de Steinbach, La Moscovie et l’Europe. Étude historique, ethnographique et statistique, Paris 1863. 84 É. Regnault, La question européenne improprement appelée polonaise. Réponse aux ob- jections présentées par M. M. Pogodine, Schédo-Ferroti, Porochine, Schnitzler, Soloviev, etc., contre le polonisme des provinces lithuano-ruthènes et contre le non-slavisme des Moscovites, Paris 1863, pp. 7–10 and 149–153. 85 See: W. Czartoryski, Pamiętnik 1860–1864. Protokoły posiedzeń biura Hotelu Lambert cz. I i II. Entrevues politiques, Warszawa 1980, pp. 211, 218 i 296.

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Transfer: A Microhistory 267 right to name them, by having Muscovites be called Muscovites instead of allowing them names that they appropriated for themselves and used to legitimise their pur- ported rights to a major part of Poland, Ruthenia.”86 Motivated by his sense of mission, he was untroubled by questions of authorship or the originality of his French followers. The Polish ethnographer was apparently content with being an unnamed accom- plice. His wife, post-January Uprising émigrée Seweryna Duchińska, reminisced about his willingness not only to inspire, but even co-author other people’s studies. Before the publication of Martin’s work on Poland and Russia, “the post office would deliver whole packets of pages every day to Rue Montparnasse, where the French historian lived.”87 The