Kundera article (cont.)

[Andrey Shcherbenok]

Dear Daniel,

I can only quote Sergey Glebov's post on this point:

>Eurasianists would actually argue otherwise: they would say Russia-Eurasia
>completely lacked Western notions of civilizing mission and was an organic
>unity of Slavic and "Turanian" elements. In contrast, most Russian
>historical writing, with minor exceptions, represented Russia as an outpost
>of Christian Europe against Asia. <...> 

I do not think that thinkers as different as Kliuchevsky and Dugin can fit
under the same category of Russian nationalists -- except, of course, you
define Russian nationalists as a group of people who say something good
about Russia, even if for opposite reasons. I, however, do not see much
analytical benefit of the category "nationalist" defined so widely. I did
not read your article, though, so, maybe I misunderstand something.

What I find most interesting, however, is that the discourse of people like
Kliuchevsky is structurally very similar to that of many Polish or French or
German or Serbian or Ukrainian or whatever authors, including Kundera, who
would all position their respective countries as the outposts of European
civilization bordering with the orientalized non-European (or at least
not-quite-European) East. What particular culture qualifies as "East" is,
therefore, purely relational -- as Sergey Glebov wrote, cultural boundaries
is not an analytical concept but a concept of political practice. Depending
of what factors you emphasize, they can be drawn pretty much wherever one
pleases.

Andrey Shcherbenok


-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 3:10 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Kundera article (cont.)

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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