Kundera article (cont.)

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

12 Jan 2007

Dear Andrey and Alexandra,
I think you have both caught the Russian nationalist subtext.  The 
nationalist idea of Russia taking pride in protecting Europe goes back 
to people as different as Pushkin, Blok, and Stalin.  The Eurasianist 
movement of today (e.g., Dugin) is an extreme variant of Russian 
nationalism.  Solzhenitsyn too is a Russian nationalist.  The odd thing 
is that no one yet has mentioned the Slavophiles (who were really 
Russophiles in disguise) and the pan-Slavist movement (again, really 
pan-Russian).  For details, see my ROSSIIA I RUSSKIE GLAZAMI 
AMERIKANSKOGO PSIKHOANALITIKA (Moscow: Ladomir, 2003).

Regards to the list,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere


Alexandra Smith wrote:

> Quoting Andrey Shcherbenok <avs2120 at COLUMBIA.EDU>:
>
> Russia more often than not perceived
>
>> itself as the essentially Western country protecting Europe from the 
>> attacks
>> of Mongolian hordes and exporting European civilization to Central 
>> Asia et
>> al.
>
>
> - Andrey,
>
> My impression is that the view expressed above represents only a  
> certain group of Russian intellectuals advocating Eurasian ideas...
> I also think that Kundera's previously expressed views on European  
> poetry and European novel help to understand his search for new  
> identity conveyed in his recently published article... And if we view  
> him as postmodern author, we could detect some polemical touches with  
> Masaryk who was part of the modernist paradigm... In the end of the  
> day, any writer of significance wants to mould his or her image in  
> accordance with his/her creative needs... It seems to me that in this  
> particular article Kundera fashions himself in the clothes of  
> anti-Solzhenitsyn and/or anti-Havel...since Havel stressed the point  
> that living in truth should be considered as integral part of the  
> Czech literary tradition...perhaps, Kundera views his own works  in  
> metanarrative terms?
>
> All best,
> Alexandra
>
>
> =====================================
> Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
> Lecturer in Russian
> School of European Languages and Cultures
> The University of Edinburgh
> David Hume Tower
> George Square
> Edinburgh EX8 9JX
> UK
>
> tel. +44-(0)131-511381
> fax: +44- (0) 650-3604
> e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk
>
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