R: aspects of IE poetics

[Renato Piva]

Alberto Lombardo wrote:

> There's another very interesting book about the subject above, it's Gabriele
> Costa, Le origini della lingua poetica indoeuropea. Voce, coscienza e
> transizione neolitica, Leo S. Olschki editore, Firenze 1998, lire 95.000.

> My review http://www.lapadania.com/2001/febbraio/06/06022001p11a2.htm

> where you could find a very big bibliography too.

I have read the review mentioned above. Here are a few considerations for those
who don't know Italian very well, but also for all those interested in the good
name of Indoeuropean studies, or in a more general sense, of comparative and
historical linguistics. Freedom of speech and seriousness of scientific
research are concerned.

1. The review doesn't contain a 'very big bibliography' - it contains no
bibliography at all. Just a few names are mentioned (Gimbutas, Eliade,
Jünger, Evola, Guénon, Devoto, Tilak, Fabre d'Olivet, H. Wirth), and not a
single title.

2. It seems that the weird spirits of the past, when Nazi ideology was using
Indoeuropean studies for their inhuman purposes, are coming again upon our
science, and I think it's the scientific community's duty to prevent history
from repeating itself. Lombardo's review has been published in a
nationalist/regionalist daily newspaper called 'La Padania - Mitteleuropa'
(february 6, 2001) belonging to a party with clearly fascistoid and racist
tendencies and an irrational hate for anything coming from outside Central or
Northern Europe (considering Northern Italy as part of Central Europe, of
course, and Middle and Southern Italy as part of the 'odd and lazy'
Mediterranean world). I.m.h.o., this is not just an exotic or minor thing; for
reasons I am going to explain, this fact should be of great importance to all
scientists. This party's coalition may obtain the majority in the coming
elections, next May (and the situation would be even worse than in Austria). As
the review clearly demonstrates, the party's ideology doesn't accept any
scientific theories about Indoeuropeans coming from any parts of the world -
except from the north, while other theories are merely called 'superstizioni
orientali'. Compare e.g. the polemic title suggesting cultural superiority of
the Europeans: 'La poesia č nata al Nord. Smentita in pieno l' origine russa
della cultura indoeuropea' (Poetry was born in the North. Final denial of the
Russian origin of Indoeuropean culture). The same ideological abuse applies
when he ridicules M. Gimbutas' hypothesis: 'l’origine della cultura
indoeuropea nelle steppe russe (nientemeno)' (this last word is ironic; it
literally means 'nothing less', but is to be read in the sense of: "could you
imagine that?").

3. Scientifically, I don't agree with Gimbutas' hypothesis on the Kurgan
culture either, nor do I think her feminist interpretations of prehistory are
right. But I feel that I have to react, when lies are reported, as is done in
Lombardo's review, in order to disseminate a certain political (i.e.
nationalist and racist) position. Lombardo calls Gimbutas 'la studiosa
sovietica che ha introdotto (...) una sorta di dogma fra gli studiosi
“progressisti” di archeologia e di linguistica' (the Soviet scholar who
introduced (...) sort of a dogma among "progressive" scholars of archeology and
linguistics). And he also imputes 'la volont? di fornire lustro storico e
nobili origini alla patria del comunismo mondiale' (the aim to give some
historical splendour and noble origins to the fatherland of communism). These
assertions can't be true for several reasons. M. Gimbutas can't be called a
'Soviet scholar': she joined the Lithuanian underground resistance against the
Soviet regime at the age of 20, in 1941, she had then to hide in the woods for
some time, and she finally fled from the Soviet Union to Vienna, and later to
Germany, in 1944, when the Nazis were still ruling! (by the way: the
'fatherland of communism' should be Germany, as Marx and Engels were
Germans...)

4. Although he uses inverted commas with the expression 'idee "ariane"',
Lombardo clearly refers to such ideas as he reproaches Costa, the author of the
book he's reviewing, with their rejection 'quasi volesse esorcizzare i rischi
di pericolosi e imbarazzanti accostamenti' (as if he wanted to exorcize the
risk of a dangerous and embarassing approach').

5. Lombardo's argumentation sounds very much the same like the one used by
Nazis and Fascists in order to discredit their ennemies (still a common way of
argumentation among all far right and populist parties, especially in Italy
nowadays): just call your enemies 'progressive', 'leftists', or 'communists'.
The danger lies in the fact that it 'somehow sounds plausible', and therefore
'scientific', to the non-expert, and that one day we might have to handle with
politicians surrounded by such pseudo-scientists as their advisers - exactly
like in Germany only half a century ago.

I hope these considerations will enhance academic awereness and dicussion.

Renato Piva