Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe (Basees Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies)

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Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe

In the absence of democratic state institutions, Eastern European countries were considered to possess only myths of democracy. Working on the premise that democracy is not only an institutional arrangement but also a civilisational project, this book argues that mythical narratives help to understand the emergence of democracy without ‘democrats’. Examining different national traditions as well as pre-communist and communist narratives, myths are seen as politically fabricated ‘programmes of truth’ that form and sustain the political imagination. Appearing as cultural, literary, or historical resources, myths amount to ideology in narrative form, which actors use in political struggles for the sake of achieving social compliance with and loyalty to the authority of new political forms. Drawing on a wide range of case studies including Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, this book argues that narratives about the past are not simply legacies of former regimes but have actively shaped representations and meanings of democracy in the region. Taking different theoretical and methodological approaches, the power of myth is explored for issues such as OHDGHUVKLSFROOHFWLYHLGHQWLW\IRUPDWLRQOLWHUDU\UHSUHVHQWDWLRQRIKHURLF¿JXUHV cultural symbolism in performative art as well as for the constitution of legitimacy and civic identity in post-communist democracies. Alexander Wöll teaches Czech and Russian at the University of Oxford, where he lectures in the Sub-Faculty of Russian and Other Slavonic Languages and at University College. He is the author of Doubles: Mirror-writing, stone monument and usurpation (1999) and Jakub Deml: Life and work – a study in Middle European literature (2006). Harald Wydra teaches Politics at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of St Catharine’s College. He is the author of Continuities in Poland’s permanent transition (2001) and Communism and the Emergence of Democracy (2007).

BASEES/Routledge series on Russian and East European studies Series editor: Richard Sakwa Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent Editorial Committee: Julian Cooper, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham Terry Cox, Department of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow Rosalind Marsh, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath David Moon, Department of History, University of Durham Hilary Pilkington, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick Stephen White, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow Founding Editorial Committee Member: George Blazyca, Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University of Paisley This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, highquality, research-level work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social science subjects. 1 Ukraine’s Foreign and Security Policy, 1991–2000 Roman Wolczuk

5 Political Elites and the New Russia Anton Steen

2 Political Parties in the Russian Regions Derek S. Hutcheson

6 Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness Sarah Hudspith

3 Local Communities and Post-Communist Transformation Edited by Simon Smith

7 Performing Russia – Folk Revival and Russian Identity Laura J. Olson

4 Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe J.C. Sharman

8 Russian Transformations Edited by Leo McCann

9 Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin The baton and sickle Edited by Neil Edmunds 10 State Building in Ukraine The Ukrainian parliament, 1990–2003 Sarah Whitmore 11 Defending Human Rights in Russia Sergei Kovalyov, dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969–2003 Emma Gilligan 12 Small-Town Russia Postcommunist livelihoods and identities: a portrait of the intelligentsia in Achit, Bednodemyanovsk and Zubtsov, 1999–2000 Anne White

17 Soviet Dissent and Russia’s Transition to Democracy Dissident legacies Robert Horvath 18 Russian and Soviet Film Adaptations of Literature, 1900–2001 Screening the word Edited by Stephen Hutchings and Anat Vernitski 19 Russia as a Great Power Dimensions of security under Putin Edited by Jakob Hedenskog, Vilhelm Konnander, Bertil Nygren, Ingmar Oldberg and Christer Pursiainen 20 Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940 Truth, justice and memory George Sanford

13 Russian Society and the Orthodox Church Religion in Russia after communism Zoe Knox

21 Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia Philip Boobbyer

14 Russian Literary Culture in the Camera Age The word as image Stephen Hutchings

22 The Limits of Russian Democratisation Emergency powers and states of emergency Alexander N. Domrin

15 Between Stalin and Hitler Class war and race war on the Dvina, 1940–46 Geoffrey Swain 16 Literature in Post-Communist Russia and Eastern Europe The Russian, Czech and Slovak ¿FWLRQRIWKH&KDQJHV± Rajendra A. Chitnis

23 The Dilemmas of Destalinisation A social and cultural history of reform in the Khrushchev era Edited by Polly Jones 24 News Media and Power in Russia Olessia Koltsova

25 Post-Soviet Civil Society Democratization in Russia and the Baltic States Anders Uhlin

31 Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920–40 From Red Square to the Left Bank Ludmila Stern

26 The Collapse of Communist Power in Poland Jacqueline Hayden

32 The Germans of the Soviet Union Irina Mukhina

27 Television, Democracy and Elections in Russia Sarah Oates

33 Re-constructing the Post-Soviet Industrial Region The Donbas in transition Edited by Adam Swain

28 Russian Constitutionalism Historical and contemporary development Andrey N. Medushevsky 29 Late Stalinist Russia Society between reconstruction and reinvention Edited by Juliane Fürst 30 The Transformation of Urban Space in Post-Soviet Russia Konstantin Axenov, Isolde Brade and Evgenij Bondarchuk

34 Chechnya – Russia’s ‘War on Terror’ John Russell 35 The New Right in the New Europe Czech transformation and rightZLQJSROLWLFV± Seán Hanley 36 Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe Edited by Alexander Wöll and Harald Wydra

Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe

Edited by Alexander Wöll and Harald Wydra

)LUVWSXEOLVKHG by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business ‹6HOHFWLRQDQGHGLWRULDOPDWWHU$OH[DQGHU:|OODQG+DUDOG:\GUD individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-93466-0 Master e-book ISBN ,6%1;KEN ISBN10: 0-203-93466-0 (ebk) ,6%1KEN ,6%1HEN

To Dominik A.W. To my parents H.W.

Contents

Notes on contributors Preface and acknowledgements Introduction: democracy in Eastern Europe – myth and reality

xi xiii

1

HARALD WYDRA

PART I

Leadership, communism, and identity-formation 1 Mythology and the Trickster: interpreting communism

25 27

AGNES HORVATH

2 The non-being of communism and myths of democratisation

45

ARPAD SZAKOLCZAI

3 The power of second reality: communist myths and representations of democracy

60

HARALD WYDRA

PART II

Literature and representations of democracy

77

  µ0D]HSD¶DVDV\PEROLF¿JXUHRI8NUDLQLDQDXWRQRP\

79

THOMAS GROB

5 Misoteutonic myths: lopping noses in Hussite nationalism and love’s sweet cure ROBERT B. PYNSENT



x

Contents 6 The myth of the dialogue of myths: Russia and Europe

122

WALTER KOSCHMAL

7 Myths and democratic attitudes in Poland and Russia: an intermedial comparison

141

ALEXANDER WÖLL

PART III

Myths, legitimacy, and civic identity in post-communist democracies 8 Contested traditions? The usage of three national holidays in contemporary Hungary

167

169

HEINO NYYSSÖNEN

9 The paradox of infra-liberalism: towards a genealogy of ‘managed democracy’ in Putin’s Russia



SERGEI PROZOROV

10 Myth and democratic identity in Russia

203

RICHARD SAKWA

Index

219

Contributors

Thomas Grob teaches Slavonic studies at the Universities of Konstanz (Germany) and St Gallen (Switzerland). He is the author of Daniil Kharms’ unkindliche Kindlichkeit (1994) and Russian Post-Romanticism (forthcoming). Agnes Horvath teaches Political Anthropology at the Università Cattolica of Milan. She is the author of various articles dealing with transitory situations DQG¿JXUHVDQGFRDXWKRUHGWZRERRNVRQFRPPXQLVWSRZHU  Walter Koschmal is Professor of Slavonic Studies and Head of Department of Slavic Philology at the University of Regensburg, where he is also the Chairman of the interdisciplinary research centre Europaeum. Heino Nyyssönen teaches at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Currently he works at the Academy of Finland and also in Budapest. He is the author of The Presence of the Past in Politics: ‘1956’ after 1956 in Hungary (1999). Sergei Prozorov is Professor of International Relations at Petrozavodsk State University. He is the author of three books, the most recent being Foucault, Freedom and Sovereignty (2007) and a number of articles on political philosophy and international relations. Robert Pynsent is Professor of Czech and Slovak Literature at University College London (School of Slavonic and East European Studies). He is author or editor of seventeen books and some eighty articles in academic journals. He is under contract to write a history of Czech literary histories and a book on the ‘Czech idea’ from the Middle Ages to the present. Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent. His recent books include Putin: Russia’s choice (2004) and Chechnya: From past to future (2005) (editor and contributor). His current research interests focus on problems of democratic development in Russia and other post-Soviet states. Arpad Szakolczai is Professor of Sociology at University College, Cork. His publications include The Dissolution of Communist PowerZLWK$JQHV

xii

Contributors Horvath), Max Weber and Michel Foucault  5HÀH[LYH+LVWRULFDO6RFLR logy (2000), The Genesis of Modernity (2003), and Sociology, Religion and Grace (2007).

Alexander Wöll teaches Czech and Russian at the University of Oxford, where he lectures in the Sub-Faculty of Russian and Other Slavonic Languages and at University College. He is the author of Doubles: Mirror-writing, stone monument and usurpation (1999) and Jakub Deml: Life and work – a study in Middle European literature (2006). Harald Wydra teaches Politics at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of St Catharine’s College. He is the author of Continuities in Poland’s Permanent Transition (2001) and Communism and the Emergence of Democracy (2007).

Preface and acknowledgements

Two main intuitions were at the root of this project. On the one hand, we were TXLWH XQVDWLV¿HG ZLWK WKH LQVWLWXWLRQDOLVW DFFRXQWV RI GHPRFUDWLVDWLRQ WKDW KDYH dominated the social science literature on post-communist Eastern Europe throughout the 1990s. In our view, the dominant paradigm of democratic transition and consolidation did not really grasp the predicament of countries in deep transformation. We were suspicious of its quasi-mythical status of a politically non-negotiable programme of truth, which would be the only acceptable interpretation of political change. On the other hand, we sensed that understanding the realities of democracy in the region would require transcending the standard tools applied to the processes of institutional differentiation in democratic systems. Acknowledging the importance of literature, culture, and history for shaping the political and social imagination in the region, we undertook the analytical connection between democracy and myth. In our view, mythological conVWUXFWLRQVRIUHDOLW\KDYHEHHQSROLWLFDOO\HIIHFWLYHDVWKH\LQÀXHQFHGGHPRFUDWLF visions and aspirations before the fall of communism, but have also been constiWXWLYHIRUWKHSROLWLFDOLPDJLQDWLRQDIWHU Quite a few of the contributions in this volume emanate from the conference ‘Myth and Democracy in eastern Europe’, held in late October 2002 at the University of Regensburg. This conference brought together political scientists, scholars of literary studies, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians with the objective to gauge the relationship between mythical narratives and representations of democracy, both under communism and in contemporary contexts, in different countries of the region. We acknowledge the valuable and committed assistance of Rita Jeromin and Irina Wenzel in organising the conference. We also appreciate the generous support by the Hans-Vielberth Foundation and the Thyssen Foundation. Finally, we would like to thank Mathias Marquard for his research assistance in editing all of the manuscripts. $OH[DQGHU:|OODQG+DUDOG:\GUD Oxford and Cambridge

Introduction Democracy in Eastern Europe – myth and reality Harald Wydra

Introduction Democracy and myth are not obvious companions. Many political scientists understand by democracy the institutionally organised competition for power in states where representatives of the people act inside the constitutionally guaranteed boundaries of the rule of law. Political decision-making in a representative democracy relies upon the division of labour between an elite of professional politicians, whose exercise of authority is contingent on the consent of voters. Thus, democratic politics depends on the institutionalisation of uncertainty, which is bounded by a framework of rules and norms. This dominant view of democratic politics would exclude myth, which is seen as apolitical or, at best, SUHSROLWLFDO7KHV\PEROLFQDWXUHRIP\WKGRHVQRW¿WZHOOWKHZRUOGRILQWHUHVW based and institutionally designed power politics. Myth refers to strong stories WKDW DUH ¿UPO\ EHOLHYHG E\ SHRSOH EHFDXVH WKH\ JURXQG WKH RULJLQ RI UHOLJLRQ culture, a people, or a nation in unmovable certainties about the past. Tinged with subjectivity, irrationality, and relative to individual cultures, myth is at odds with universally applicable criteria such as party competition, legal frames for democratic accountability, economic performance, or levels of freedom according to which democracy as a systemic arrangement is often measured. Myths may be used in political rhetoric as discursive resources in order to shape social attitudes but due to their idealism they seem to be averse to controversy, and, therefore, have no place in interest-based politics. With its tendency to defend one non-contingent truth, myth appears to be openly anti-democratic. Eastern European political history makes the connection of these two concepts appear even more paradoxical. Until the recent wave of democratisation DIWHUGHPRFUDWLFSROLWLFVZDVFRQVSLFXRXVE\LWVDEVHQFHLQWKLVSDUWRIWKH world. Although forms of totalitarian democracy or people’s democracy were central to the legitimisation of communist rule, the practices of Soviet-type regimes were monopolistic and undemocratic. This lack of democratic experience has largely been associated with authoritarian practices of power that supported ethnic against civic, romantic against enlightened, or idealist against realist conceptions of politics. The pervasiveness of essentialist approaches to nation, ethnicity, or the people precluded practices of democratic government in

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WHUPV RI LQWHUHVWEDVHGFRQÀLFWUHVROXWLRQ:KLOH5XVVLD EHIRUH  SURGXFHG ‘sham constitutionalism’, Eastern Europe saw failed democratic experiments in the inter-war period. Communist power in Russia and in Eastern Europe after UHOLHGXSRQFRQVWLWXWLRQDOP\WKVFXOWVRISHUVRQDOLW\DQGWKHGRJPDWLVP of Marxism–Leninism, as well as the eschatological myth of a transition to communism. The relevant literature on democratisation in post-communist Eastern Europe has not only concealed this paradox but used it for the sake of imposing its programme of truth. Democratisation was reduced to the institutionalisation of interest-based party politics, guided by the interests and the knowledge of enlightened elites who would craft, develop, and consolidate democracy. After  WKH SDUDGLJP RI µWUDQVLWLRQ WR GHPRFUDF\¶ KDV DVVXPHG D TXDVL mythical character in as far as the idea of its establishment by design has become politically non-negotiable. Despite extended criticism, the concept of transition KDV PDLQWDLQHG FRQVLGHUDEOH LQÀXHQFH ZKLFK LV UHÀHFWHG LQ WKH P\ULDG ZRUNV WKDW GHSORUH GHIHFWLYH GHUDLOHG LQFRPSOHWH XQ¿QLVKHG RU IDLOHG GHPRFUDFLHV By identifying the ‘West’ as the place of origin of democratic universalism, the complex social and narrative construction of the concept of democracy is simpli¿HG5DWKHUWKDQSD\LQJWULEXWHWRWKHLQWULFDFLHVRILWVKLVWRULFDOEHFRPLQJFRPSDUDWLYHUHVHDUFKDI¿UPVRQHGRPLQDQWVRFLDOLGHQWLW\WKDWDSSHDUVWLPHOHVVDQG excludes competing alternatives. The underlying idea of this book is to examine how the role of culture and discourse can account for the paradox of the victory of democracy without democrats. This volume works on the premise that mythical narratives have shaped meanings of democracy in Eastern Europe. The impact of myths was crucial for the self-representation of countries in the region as democratic but also tangible in the creation of the image of Western democracy that cast a spell on the popular imagination in Eastern Europe. Rather than following the stereotypical divide between democratic West and non-democratic East, the engagement of imagination and myth also applies to what Westerners think about Easterners and to inter-regional discourses among different regions and intellectual traditions in Central and South-east Europe, and Russia. A recent study, Making Capitalism without Capitalists, has argued that post-communist societies not only developed new forms of capitalism but that this new experience also forces us to reconsider classical approaches to capitalism (Eyal et al. 1999). In the absence of a class of private proprietors in Central Europe under communism, a different social strata, the cultural bourgeoisie (Bildungsbürgertum), assumed the historic mission of building a capitalist economic order. Capitalism entered Eastern Europe not through a professional elite but by way of humanistically oriented intellectuals. Often socially unattached, they would use the power of strong stories about the uneven modernisation of Eastern Europe in a push for the Westernisation of forms of economic production. Contextualising how narratives emerge in social settings of disruption and crisis makes myths appear as deliberate political programmes aiming to shape the social imagination. To use a term coined by Bruce Lincoln, myths are ‘ideol-

Introduction 3 RJ\LQQDUUDWLYHIRUP¶5DWKHUWKDQGH¿QLQJP\WKRQHVKRXOGOLPLWRQHVHOIWRWKH observation that myth denotes a style of narrative discourse and its attendant VSHFL¿F LQVWDQFHV /LQFROQ  L[  7KH LQÀXHQFH RU SRZHU RI P\WK FDQ EH strongly positive, such as when denoting primordial truths or sacred stories of origins, but also used negatively, standing for lies or obsolete world views. Unlike autocratic power, political authority in democracies cannot be maintained without an ongoing quest for legitimacy. Mythical narratives are a crucial device for legitimising systems of symbolic world-maintenance. As the novus ordo saecolorum in the founding of the United States of America or the powerful myth of the French Revolutions indicate, nascent republics invoke their own origins and the need for beginnings. While constitutions and declarations of rights are supposed to regulate the normative and procedural aspects of the workings of a democratic system, they are often also articles of faith. Postcommunist countries celebrated founding elections but also went through shock WKHUDSLHV RU DWWHPSWV DW SXUL¿FDWLRQ ZKLFK LV LOOXVWUDWHG E\ WKH ULWXDOOLNH ODQguage of lustration. The recent process of drafting a constitution for Europe revealed the tight relationship between the search for constitutive beginnings and WKHSUDJPDWLFUHDOLVPRIGHPRFUDWLFFRQVWLWXWLRQEXLOGLQJ7KH¿UVWGUDIWRIWKH preamble to the Constitution for Europe in May 2003 expressed the desire to root the future European democracy in its Greek origins by using Pericles’ funeral oration as recorded by Thucydides (Canfora 2004: 11–16). It stated that ‘our constitution is called democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the entire people’.1 The convention was driven by the commonVHQVHLGHDWKDW*UHHFHLQYHQWHGGHPRFUDF\EXWFRXOGQRW¿QGPXFKVXSSRUWIRU democracy in philosophers such as Plato or Demosthenes and, therefore, turned to Thucydides. However, Thucydides’ portrayal of Pericles stresses that what ZDV QRPLQDOO\ FDOOHG D GHPRFUDF\ LQ UHDOLW\ ZDV D JRYHUQPHQW RI WKH ¿UVW citizen (pròtos anèr). While the funeral oration acknowledged that the power emanating from the majority does not abolish liberty, the idealisation of democracy in the draft constitution as the power of the entire people distorted and falsi¿HGWKHRULJLQDODFFRXQW This example of how democrats use mythical representations of the ‘origin’ of democracy is instructive for two main reasons. On the one hand, the very idea of origin commands more authority than historical accuracy. Beyond mere political correctness one submits to the creation myth of Western civilisation, according to which all good comes from Greece, where the transition from mythos to logos occurred, standing for progress, science, and rationality. On the other hand, the crucial attribute of myth is not to make disappear but to distort (Barthes  /LNHDOOP\WKPDNHUVGHPRFUDWVEHOLHYLQJLQWKHWUXWKRIDQRULJLQ of their constitutional form (Greece invented democracy) tend to make their VWRU\µIDOVL¿FDWLRQSURRI¶E\SURMHFWLQJDQLPDJHRIWKHSDVWDVµQDWXUDO¶LQRUGHU to make it instrumental for the present. Thus, the mythopoeia of stories and meta-narratives provided by democrats is not limited to metaphors. The story of liberal democracy in the West could not have become the dominant programme of organising power in states, had democrats not backed up their practices with

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‘ideology in narrative form’. Democratic states legitimised their own system internally but also turned these practices and knowledge of them into programmes of ‘truth’ to be defended against the outside. Although tentative and provisional in their interpretations of pasts and potential futures, the chapters in this volume share a common concern for the historicity of a concept’s nature and for understanding political reality by the KHUPHQHXWLFDO DFFRXQW RI WKH IRUPDWLRQ RI PHDQLQJ &KDEDO DQG 'DOR]  Wydra 2007). Using various approaches to myth, all contributions insist that myth-making as the fabrication of strongly structured stories has a rationality of its own. Writers, historians, politicians, or scholars simplify contested visions of political goals, social crisis, or existential uncertainty because they want to create loyalty, belonging, and social identity. Part I consists of a number of chapters that use the prism of comparative mythology and symbolic politics to examine the interplays between communism and democracy from a perspective of leadership, political spirituality, and identity-formation. Taking the cases of the Czech lands, Russia, and Poland, Part II examines how literature expresses culturally and historically grown social imaginations of inside and outside, as well as of self-representations as democratic. Part III comprises a number of chapters that look at how post-communist democracies use myth for the sake of legitimisation and the creation of civic identity.  7KLVLQWURGXFWLRQDGGUHVVHVWKUHHLVVXHV,QD¿UVWVWHSLWRXWOLQHVDFRQFHSWRI myth that questions its apolitical nature. Myth as ideology in narrative form draws on the fabrication of knowledge out of social strife and political struggles, aiming to maintain social identities against ‘enemies’ but also to create reality by constitutive imagination. Such practices of the constitutive imagination are anthropological constants used by democrats in democratic systems and by states that rely upon authoritarian practices. In a second step, this introduction outlines how the story of democracy has been characterised by shifts in meaning of the concepts, often marked by violent transitions and performative symbolisations of individual leaders in reactions to these. The post-war theorisation of democracy as inaugurated by Schumpeter developed a master-narrative for purposes of shaping and defending social identities and power arrangements. While it was a response to the manipulative power of myths used by the totalitarian regimes of fascism and Bolshevism, its effect under the conditions of the Cold War was to turn the Western version of democracy into an ‘ideology in narrative form’, which became an empire of the mind for many Eastern Europeans. In a third step, it is intended to problematise the reciprocities between East and West. The lack of democrats in the accepted Western sense of the word was offset by a powerful imagination where internal narratives about national traditions of collective identity and self-government became allied with representations of democracy as a realm of freedom from communist rule. Deprived of representative forms of democracy, the power of constitutive imagination made people desire what they conceived as an elsewhere reality, which harboured the ‘truth’ of freedom. Freedom and equality were goals of aspiration, focused in the urgency of the imaginative power to acquire them.

Introduction  

The political uses of myth As scholars such as Roland Barthes have reminded us, myth is depoliticised speech, where the contingent and historical quality of a given political fact disDSSHDUV %DUWKHV  ±  +LV IDPRXV H[DPSOH HYRNHV D EODFN VROGLHU VDOXWLQJWKH)UHQFKÀDJ+HUHWKHPHDQLQJRIWKHSLFWXUHUHFHGHVDVWKHP\WKRI )UHQFKLPSHULDOLW\DQGLWVLQWHJUDWLYHFKDUDFWHUKDYHWKHJUHDWHVWLQÀXHQFH7KH point is not to deny things, as myth is very explicit about imperiality, rather to SXULI\WKHPWRJLYHWKHPDQDWXUDODQGHWHUQDOMXVWL¿FDWLRQDVLI)UHQFKLPSHULality was a fact that needed no explanation. Myth turns historical and political contingency into an essential, natural, fact. Yet, the idea that myth would simply be apolitical is in itself a well-hedged myth. If we turn from the assessment of myth as a phenomenon of language that structures speech and discourse to its role as a resource in the struggle for political power, then it appears that myths have a distinctively political dimension as far as they are symbolic resources in repertoires of political contention. In historical reality, the tendency to the natural and timeless quality of myth can be traced back to how not only leaders, crowds, intellectuals, interpreters, and legislators, but also historians and scholars of myth themselves fabricate myths. While transformations of power rely upon the material basis of institutional differentiation and the aggregation of interests, they also require the discursivesymbolic recreation of worlds of meaning. This relationship is neither paradoxical nor pathological. Any major social revolution or war shatters acquired systems of symbolic world-maintenance. Political and social revolutions produce formidable authority vacuums, reverse meanings and feelings, and cast a spell on the popular imagination. The rebirth of politics in the late Soviet 8QLRQDQGLQ(DVWHUQ(XURSHGXULQJWKHVVXEVWDQWLDOO\XQGHUPLQHGWKHULWXalistic character of communist myth-making. Yet, the conquest of new spaces of political articulation came along with new myths such as ‘Europe’, the ‘market’, or ‘democracy’. For many Western observers, the proliferation of mythologies DIWHUZDVHTXLYDOHQWWRWKHULVHRILUUDWLRQDOLW\DQGWUDGLWLRQDOIRUPV RISROLWLFDOLGHQWLW\+RVNLQJDQG6FK|SÀLQ7LVPDQHDQDX 0\WKRlogical constructions of reality, however, refer not only to destructive and demonising myths of vengeance and victimisation, but also to integrative projects of state independence, national homogenisation, and acts of foundation such as ‘democratic constitutions’. Despite their ‘anti-revolutionary’ character, WKH UHYROXWLRQV RI  DQG  ± ODFNLQJ D UHYROXWLRQDU\ FODVV WHOHRORJLFDO expectations, or political utopias – nevertheless acquired a cosmic dimension. The politics of enchantment imply the ‘nonrational’, the sacred, or symbols, which become pillars for the reconstitution of legitimacy in the reordering of SHRSOH¶VHQWLUHPHDQLQJIXOZRUOGV9HUGHU\±  This brings us to Emile Durkheim’s and Marcel Mauss’s observation that µHYHU\ P\WKRORJ\ LV IXQGDPHQWDOO\ D FODVVL¿FDWLRQ EXW RQH ZKLFK ERUURZV LWV SULQFLSOHVIURPUHOLJLRXVEHOLHIVQRWIURPVFLHQWL¿FLGHDV¶'XUNKHLPDQG0DXVV ± 7KHPRGHUQVWDWHDVWKHFHQWUHRIEXUHDXFUDWLFUDWLRQDOLVDWLRQDQG

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H. Wydra

as a secularised entity seems to be in open contradiction to religious motivations. As Alessandro Pizzorno has shown, however, the emergence of the political and the appearance of the modern state did not expunge transcendence and godly HQGV3L]]RUQR± $WWKHRXWVHWRIWKHPRGHUQVWDWHZDVWKHGLVVRFLDtion not of religious from state power but of the spiritual from the temporal SRZHUV%HIRUHWKHWHUULWRULDOLVDWLRQRIWKHVWDWH±ZKLFKDOORZHGIRUWKHLGHQWL¿cation of the ‘other’ as not belonging to or threatening this territory – the Church delimited the space between friend and enemy spiritually. The emergence of the ‘Western style’ of vesting power in a state consisted of an absolute project that established spiritual power as a compound of four types of power: the control of RUJDQLVDWLRQ RI NQRZOHGJH WKH SURGXFWLRQ RI QRUPV WKH SROLWLFV RI GHYRWLRQ DQGWKHLGHQWL¿FDWLRQRIWKHHQHPLHVRIVRFLHW\7KHGHPRFUDWLFDJHGLGQRWIXQdamentally discontinue the engagement between religion and politics. The overthrow of God as a source of legitimate authority in the French Revolution came along with the re-divinisation of politics, replacing the divine right of kings with what Edgar Quinet called a people-God (peuple-Dieu /HIRUW 7KH French Revolution can be likened to a religious revolution in as far as it took the citizen in an abstract way as much as religion takes man in an abstract way with UHJDUGWRWUDQVFHQGHQFH7RFTXHYLOOH± 7KXVWKHGHFOLQHRIUHOLgion as a function of the growing separation of church and state and patterns of legal-rational domination should not conceal that both logically and historically PRGHUQ SROLWLFVUHVWV XSRQ D WKHRORJLFDOSROLWLFDOIRUPDWLRQ/HIRUW   7KH GLVLQWHJUDWLRQRIWKHERG\RIVRFLDOLQVWLWXWLRQVWKHORVVRIDGH¿QLQJFHQWUHRI power and identity was met by an attempt to sacralise human and secular institutions such as the People, the State, the Nation, or Sovereignty. Thus, the analysis of modern states must conceive of political order by distinguishing at least two levels (Edelman 1964: 12–20). While political systems rely XSRQWKHLQVWLWXWLRQDOLVDWLRQRISROLWLFDODXWKRULW\ULJKWVFODLPVDQGFRQÀLFWWKH nature of man and his volition hinge on the irrationality of political constitutions and the expressive and symbolic functions of the polity. When the structural constraints of political authority, social control, legal order, or tradition are weakened, the authority vacuum threatens the basis of human existence and demands an existential response to it. The meanings of values and norms associated with the intentions and behaviour of leadership do not pre-exist action as belief-systems, but are articulated in liminal situations of authority vacuum before being ritualised and discursively aggregated in state ideologies. Thus, ‘political reality’ also contains meanings and symbolic markers of certainty that illuminate human beings who continuously create and bear them as the mode DQGFRQGLWLRQRIWKHLUVHOIUHDOLVDWLRQ9RHJHOLQ±  Modern political thought could not theorise the new type of politics in states without an appeal to the authority of an invisible power. This invisible power is of higher authority, of a quasi-divine nature that casts a spell on the collective imagination by myths and symbols. The power of myth was central to the theoretical foundations of modern politics, which in the exemplary cases of MachiaYHOOL+REEHVRU5RXVVHDXDUHXVXDOO\FKDUDFWHULVHGE\µUHDOLVW¶µVFLHQWL¿F¶RU

Introduction 7 ‘rational’ perspectives. Confronted with the puzzle of how to account for contingency and necessity in politics that threatens to frustrate the hopes, expectations, and outcomes of our actions, Machiavelli secularised the half-mythical power of IRUWXQHWKDWKDGWREHFRXQWHUDFWHGE\KXPDQYLUWXH&DVVLUHU±  Hobbes’s ‘individualist’ foundation of political order in the interest of selfpreservation works on the premise of a non-human authority. In the need to MXVWLI\KRZD¿UVWFRQWUDFWFRXOGHVWDEOLVKDVRYHUHLJQSRZHULQFRQGLWLRQVRIWKH absence of civil law in the state of nature, Hobbes refers to a sacred oath as the expression of the fear of that invisible power, which is the worship of God (Hobbes 1991: 99). Rousseau’s solution for taming the self-destructive force of self-love (amour propre) resorts to patriotism by the worship of the collective god of the nation (Rousseau 1990: 42). The coercive apparatus of the state cannot do without myths as markers of GLIIHUHQWLDWLRQ([WHUQDOO\QDWLRQVOHJLWLPLVHWKHPVHOYHVE\DI¿UPLQJWKHLULGHQtity through stories and narratives, which differentiate them substantially from their enemies. Domestically, they rely upon a politically fabricated pool of myths and symbols associated with revolutionary events or the consequences of wars, which includes deliberate forgetting and historical error, as crucial elements for successful nation-building. The rise of nationalism anywhere requires the ascendancy and the representation of the idea of a chosen people, which claims to submit individual liberties to a national interest, which in reality is an imagined community based on literature, language, and narrative (Anderson 1991). Narratives about the foundation of the United States of America, the rise of democratic politics in the French Revolution, the imperial expansion of Britain as bringing capitalism to the world, or about West Germany’s economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) after the Second World War have attenuated social contradictions and political contention. The radicalisation of the masses during and after the First World War gave a new twist to the relationship between myth and democracy. The rise of the political religions of Bolshevism and fascism drew on the emergence of mob rule in the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War as well as on the deep economic and moral crisis in Italy and Germany. Bereft of material, moral, and spiritual certainties, people’s fears were radicalised by reckless demagogues and their skilful manipulation of crowds. Arguably, no other author than Georges 6RUHOKDGPRUHLQÀXHQFHRQ0XVVROLQL/HQLQDQG+LWOHU:KLOHKLVP\WKRIWKH general strike had little appeal to the proletarian masses, his voluntarism about P\WKDVWKH¿UVWDFWRIUHEHOOLRQDJDLQVWUHDVRQUHFRJQLVHGWKHSROLWLFDORSSRUWXnity to stir up emotions and engineer, to use a metaphor by Gustave Le Bon, the ‘souls’ of crowds. Given the manipulative power of states with regard to crowds, it is not a paradox that the great technical age of the early twentieth century developed a new technique of manufacturing myths as a form of mental rearmament, which preceded Germany’s real rearmament after 1933 (Cassirer 1946:  )RU*HRUJHV'XPp]LO*HUPDQ\¶VPLOLWDULVDWLRQFRXOGEHGLUHFWO\OLQNHGWR P\WKLFDOURRWVVXFKDVLQWKHSUDFWLFHVRIJRG2GLQ'XPp]LO ,QKLVYLHZ the absence of strong priestly institutions differentiated the Germans from all

  H. Wydra other Indo-European peoples and account for the bellicosity of their mythology. The sovereign magician Odin was characterised by a host of ills such as confused egalitarianism, the dynamism of totalitarian economies, a communism drawn to the masses, and a heroic anti-capitalist morality. This militarisation of German mythology was resuscitated in the nineteenth century and gave Hitler a huge arsenal of myths to draw on.  3ROLWLFDO P\WKV WKHUHIRUH DUH QR PHUH ¿JPHQWV RI WKH LPDJLQDWLRQ EXW DUH manufactured by what Quentin Skinner termed innovative ideologues. The important point is not the externalisation of a concrete mythical strong story but WRXQGHUVWDQGWKHFRQGLWLRQVXQGHUZKLFKP\WKVEHFRPHÀH[LEOHWUDQVIRUPDEOH and exploitable political tools for the sake of arousing and mobilising human EHLQJV)RU&ODXGH/pYL6WUDXVVP\WKVZRXOGOD\EDUHWKHLQQHUZRUNLQJVDQG raisons d’être of beliefs and help us to discover operational modes of the human PLQG/pYL6WUDXVV 6XFKHOHPHQWDU\µVWUXFWXUHV¶RIWKHKXPDQPLQG DUH FRQVWDQW RYHU FHQWXULHV DQG DUH XQLYHUVDOO\ GHWHFWDEOH ,Q WKLV YHLQ /pYL Strauss forcefully argued that myth and ritual feed back into social discourse and practice, restating and resolving social contradictions as a rational enterprise. His formalism and focus on synchrony, however, downplayed the role of individual QDUUDWLYHVDQGKLVWRULFDOFRQWH[W:LWKUHJDUGWRWKHHYHQWVRI0D\LQ3DULV the following remark sheds light on the problems of his structuralism: ‘structures do not go out in the streets’ (Lincoln 1999: 146). Partly as a result of the dominant structuralist interpretation of myth, many have regarded myth as not operating in historical time and as being ignorant of PDWKHPDWLFDOSK\VLFDO WLPH 8QOLNH KLVWRULFDO WLPH ZKLFK LV EDVHG RQ D ¿[HG chronology and the strict observation of a determinate, unequivocal order in the sequence of the moments of time, many myths elude such divisions of stages of time. Suggesting a high degree of continuity between social and cosmic order, they assign to particular events one and only one position in a rigid system (CasVLUHU± )RU0LUFHD(OLDGHIRULQVWDQFHWKHVWUXFWXUHRIP\WKZDV not one of historical becoming in terms of fabrication and applicability, but was rooted in the religious reality of creation and origin, which would transcend the SODQHRIKLVWRULFDOIRUPV(OLDGH±  While myth as acts of speech and structured narratives are of an ahistorical nature, as social phenomena they have a concrete historical basis, where people need to make sense of extreme experiences. People believe myths not because the historical evidence is compelling but because they are attempts to make sense of uncertainty by ‘structuring’ events. Myths are not ontologically stable, but interpretations that draw on perceptions about people’s social experiences IRUWKHVDNHRIVHWWLQJRXWGH¿QLWLRQVRINQRZOHGJHOR\DOW\DQGEHORQJLQJIRU the political reality to come. They are both a function and an outcome of transformations of consciousness, which are discursively constructed by attaching to VSHFL¿FHYHQWVVRPHPHDQLQJRIRULJLQVDFUHGRUEHJLQQLQJ,QVLGHWKHSROLWLFDO struggle of a revolutionary event, for instance, myths depict antagonistic programmes and ideas for society in the starkest possible terms, accentuating oppositions between two sides. Yet, any extreme opposition of social forces in the

Introduction 9 ÀXLGLW\RIHYHQWVZLOOJLYHZD\WRWKHH[LVWHQWLDOQHHGWRH[SODLQWKHXQFHUWDLQWLHVDULVLQJLQVXVSHQGHGWLPH&ULWLFDOHYHQWVGHPDQGQHZDFWVRIVLJQL¿FDWLRQ which establish new myths and rituals. Thus, myths have a communicative function that responds to such crises in order to externalise inner impulses and tensions and to establish mutual support with others. They are not based on factual accuracy, but on their applicability for creating loyalty, unanimity, and belonging. After the Second World War, the political confrontation between the ‘Eastern bloc’ and the ‘Western world’ during the Cold War required a range of ideological-symbolic markers of certainty, which in the post-war period could RQO\ EH GLVWRUWLQJ PHPRULHV DQG FUHDWLQJ P\WKV -XGW  ±  7KH concept ‘totalitarian’ was established as the polar opposite of a democratic Western-type liberal regime, as a pejorative term that simultaneously designates DQGGLVDSSURYHVRIRQHSDUW\VWDWHVDQGPDVVWHUURU*OHDVRQ  If forms of power in a state are constructed as a social identity against a constitutive outside, the anthropological basis of experience is crucial for understanding the transformative power of myth. In Victor Turner’s terms, myth relates to how one state of affairs becomes another: how an unpeopled world EHFDPHSRSXODWHGKRZFKDRVEHFDPHFRVPRVKRZLPPRUWDOVEHFDPHPRUWDO KRZ WKH VHDVRQV FDPH WR UHSODFH D FOLPDWH ZLWKRXW VHDVRQV KRZ WKH RULJLQDO XQLW\ RI PDQNLQG EHFDPH D SOXUDOLW\ RI WULEHV RU QDWLRQV KRZ DQGURJ\QRXV EHLQJVEHFDPHPHQDQGZRPHQDQGVRRQ0\WKVDUHOLPLQDOSKHQRPHQDWKH\ are frequently told at a time or in a site that is ‘betwixt and between’ (Turner  ,IGXULQJWKH)UHQFK5HYROXWLRQLQ0LFKHOHW¶VZRUGVWLPHGLGQRWH[LVW any more, time had vanished, then this is the social context which is best adapted to myth-making. This is why even historical enquiry cannot escape the need for fabricating strong stories. As Michel de Certeau has argued, historiographical discourse engages with the modalities of what was once a liminal in-between sitXDWLRQ DQ µLQLWLDO ]HUR¶ &HUWHDX    $V WKH EHJLQQLQJ RI WKH KLVWRU\ RI nations, classes, or empires is a lost object, the task of historiography is to represent a scene of violence which is concealed and erased from memory. In other words, the death that made it all possible is maintained alive by historiography in order to play an ‘active’ role in the sense of structuring social relations.  $GLIIHUHQWZD\RIH[SODLQLQJWKHLQLWLDO]HURE\P\WKVLVSURYLGHGE\5HQp Girard’s mimetic anthropology, which suggests that myths were ritualised stories told about concrete events of bloodshed, in which communities resolved an internal crisis by killing a scapegoat victim (Girard 1977). For Girard, the origins of cultural order rely on a double mythical representation of this unique victim. It consists of the belief that the victim was both truly guilty and that its death brought peace to the community. The ritualisation of myth, in Girard’s view, celebrates the foundation of cultural order through violence. If men need strong stories to structure their existence, these rely not only on discourse but on truths that are celebrated by social practices of ritual. Taking the case of communist power, Agnes Horvath’s contribution to this YROXPHLGHQWL¿HVDVSHFL¿FW\SHRIOHDGHUVKLSWKDWWXUQVWKLVH[WUHPHDQWDJRQLVP

10 H. Wydra of forces into a permanent pattern upon which the exercise of power is based. Drawing on comparative mythology, anthropology, and analytical psychology, VKHLQWURGXFHVWKHP\WKRORJLFDO¿JXUHRIWKH7ULFNVWHUDVDQDQDO\WLFDOFDWHJRU\ for understanding the formation of leadership out of liminal situations. This speFL¿FW\SHRIOHDGHUVKLSIRXQGLWVSDUDGLJPDWLFPRGHUQDSSOLFDWLRQLQWKHULVHRI %ROVKHYLVP :KHUHDV D FKDULVPDWLF ¿JXUH JHQHUDWHV XQLW\ D 7ULFNVWHU GLYLGHV not least because of the controversies provoked by his very nature. The Trickster arises as a non-entity but appropriates power by using techniques of domination based on miming, mocking, and sowing disorder. Thomas Grob’s chapter can be seen as an empirical application of the trickster paradigm with regard to Ivan Mazepa, the seventeenth-century Cossack leader who became the mythical ¿JXUH V\PEROLVLQJ WKH 8NUDLQLDQ ZLOO WR IUHHGRP DQG GHPRFUDF\ 7UDFLQJ WKH vicissitudes of mythical narratives throughout three centuries, the chapter outlines the political relevance and the characteristics of the historical Mazepa before turning to analyse important steps in the creation of a mythologised history of Mazepa as the symbol of Ukrainian autonomy. Both contributions suggest for the different cases of communism and UkrainLDQQDWLRQDOLGHQWLW\WKDWLGHQWL¿FDWLRQRIZKDWLVUHDOLW\GHSHQGVRQSURJUDPPHV of chance, where knowledge is the product of power, partisan forces, and the discursive-symbolic dismissal of other views as ‘myths’. As Paul Veyne has forcefully argued, the very distinction of ‘truths’ and ‘myths’ is not based on any PDWHULDO HVVHQFH EXW UDWKHU UHÀHFWV FKDQJLQJ PHWKRGV RI HQTXLU\ DQG SURJUDPPHVRISURGXFLQJWUXWK9H\QH 7KHULVHRIFRQWURYHUV\LQKLVWRULRJraphy as an academic discipline, for instance, made the need for sources pressing, something Greek historiography and early modern writers did not worry about. The major reason why so much importance is attached to chronolRJ\LVWKDWLWLVDVHOIVXI¿FLHQWSURJUDPPHRIWUXWKLQZKLFKWLPHDQGVSDFHDUH LGHQWL¿HGE\WKHNQRZOHGJHRIHYHQWVDQGORFDOLWLHV)RUWKH*UHHNVP\WKZDV not the communication of what one has seen but of what was said of the gods and heroes. The only source of knowledge was ‘they say’, having a mysterious authority to it. The struggle for power, therefore, must take seriously the irrationalist hypothesis according to which the existence of reality is constituted by imagination. Such imagination is not a faculty of individual psychology, but arises in arbitrary frameworks in the interplay of contingent forces that deploy truths, interests, or myths in order to project their own all-inclusive space (Veyne ± 7KHRULVWVRIP\WKVIRULQVWDQFHSXUVXHGSROLWLFDOSURJUDPPHV WKDW ZHUH FUXFLDOO\ LQÀXHQFHG E\ VRFLDO FRQWH[W DQG SROLWLFDO SUHIHUHQFHV IDU EH\RQG WKH OLWHUDU\ EDVLV RI P\WKLFDO VRXUFHV 6WUHQVNL  /LQFROQ   $OWKRXJK /pYL6WUDXVV UHIXWHG DUJXPHQWV DERXW µSULPLWLYH PHQWDOLW\¶ DQG WKH savage mind, so prominent in theories of myth that were developed in the context of a colonial period and distinguished between colonisers and colonial VXEMHFWV KLV ZRUN KDG DQ LGHRORJLFDO WKUXVW +H DFFHSWHG P\WK DV D GH¿QLQJ product of the ‘savage mind’, although it was seen as hardly inferior to the technological rationality of modern man. After all, disruptions of academic careers and their successful re-establishment in the cases of Cassirer, Malinowski,

Introduction 11 (OLDGH DQG /pYL6WUDXVV OHG WR WKH IRXQGDWLRQ RI VFKRROV PDNLQJ SRVVLEOH WKH development and dissemination of concepts of myth associated with their great mentors. It established imperialistic forms of discourses on myth. The role of myth regards the changes of visions and climates of opinion, making radical FKDQJHV¿UVWDSSHDUDVDQHZÀLJKWRIWKHVRFLDOLPDJLQDWLRQ7KHSRLQWLVWRVHH that individual volition needs to engage social groups in a project of the collective imagination, which will legitimise the reality of new power arrangements.

Democracy as ideology in narrative form If myth as ideology in narrative form has been used by interpreters such as the founders of modern political thought, totalitarian movements, or scholars of myth, then why should democrats stand apart? Post-war democratic theory responded to the social and political crises of European states after the First :RUOG:DUZLWKDGH¿QLWLRQRIPRGHUQUHSUHVHQWDWLYHGHPRFUDF\WKDWZDVVXSposed to ward off the mythical and quasi-religious slant of the egalitarian ‘classical doctrine’. Ever since Joseph Schumpeter’s distinction between socialism and democracy, representative democratic government has come to be seen as the empirical study of how accountable democratic elites are selected and HPSRZHUHG6FKXPSHWHU 7KHIRFXVRQGH¿QLQJSRZHUDVWKHFDSDFLW\RI an institutionalised set of rules and norms to control the actions, behaviour, and responses of citizens downplayed the importance of the social and psychological aspects of democracy with the argument that crowds are too sensitive to irraWLRQDO LPSXOVHV DQG SDVVLRQV 4XLWH ULJKWO\ 6FKXPSHWHU LGHQWL¿HG WKH URRWV RI the so-called ‘classical doctrine’ in the age of reason and its belief in the truth of human emancipation, aiming to create a collective image of the ‘people’ as the sovereign in a given territory. His ‘realist’ approach to the democratic method expunged popular sovereignty and the public good as myths, constructed by the religious fervour of the classical doctrine. Indeed, Rousseau’s volonté générale is a formidable product of the constitutive imagination, creating the myth of people’s equality, which would suspend the distinction between dominating and dominated. Yet, this myth is necessary to vindicate beliefs in a social contract and to safeguard the popular basis of democracy, i.e. the ritual of participation in a vote, each of which has to be counted. The story told by transition studies in comparative politics discarded forms of participatory citizenship-based democracy proposed by dissidents, civic forums, or social movements as unrealistic and visionary. Implicitly, transition studies placed the origin of democracy entirely outside the region, assuming that with the collapse of communism democracy would become the politically nonQHJRWLDEOH JRDO IRU WKHVH SROLWLFDO VRFLHWLHV ,QÀXHQWLDO WKHRULHV RI GHPRFUDWLF transition and consolidation have posited some essentials without which no democracy can be established as a constituted political order (Linz and Stepan 1996). They required a range of arenas that should include stateness, a political society, a civil society, or a working bureaucracy. The interaction between this VHW RI DUHQDV ZRXOG WKHQ GH¿QH WKH UXOHV RI WKH JDPH DFFRUGLQJ WR ZKLFK D

12 H. Wydra consolidated democracy becomes the ‘only game in town’. This logical construction emptied a practice of its historically grown web of meanings, memories, and representations, which is in itself an act of constructing strong stories and which sets one particular idea of democracy as the model unbound by time, space, or culture. The story of liberal democracy, therefore, is no less ideology in narrative form than is Rousseau’s classical doctrine. A major argument about WKH µUHDOLVP¶ RI WKH GHPRFUDWLF PHWKRG ZDV WKDW LW UHÀHFWHG WKH VWDWXV TXR RI advanced liberal democracies. However, Schumpeter’s seminal Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy was published in 1943 in the middle of a world war that threatened the existence of political democracy as a constitutional form of government. Faced with the collapse of democracies everywhere except for the United States and the United Kingdom, it was less an empirical description than a normative prescription about the only possible way to avoid the evils of totaliWDULDQLVP,VDDF±  Since the dramatic history of democratisation in the modern world has been marked by incivility, violence, and popular mass mobilisation in revolutions and wars, it needs to be seen as a lengthy process of social construction bound to be open-ended and contingent upon an ongoing process of explaining political transIRUPDWLRQVE\QDUUDWLYHFRQVWUXFWLRQDQGV\PEROLFSROLWLFV0DUNRII:KLWHhead 2002: 36–64). Before the end of the eighteenth century democracy was a term of abuse, regarded not only by conservatives but also by reformers as either irrational or dangerous, or both. Neither the constitution of the United States nor that of the First French Republic use the term ‘democracy’. In order to turn the democratic revolutions in the United States and France into acts of foundation and new beginnings, the real occurrence of violence and hatred had to be distorted by means of strongly structured meta-narratives. The formation of popular self-consciousness KDVWRLQFOXGHWKHSHUIRUPDWLYHQDUUDWLYHDQGLPDJLQDWLYHDFWVRIVLJQL¿FDWLRQWKDW UHO\XSRQWKUHHGLPHQVLRQVRIVRFLDOO\PHGLDWHGDFWVRILQWHUSUHWDWLRQ/HIRUW ± )LUVWWKHUHLVLQVWLWXWLRQDOIRUPDOLVDWLRQmise en forme) as a reaction to the politicisation of existence in liminal situations of major crises, where people’s lives, identities, and representations, are at stake. Second, there is the articulation of meaningful relations (mise en sens), which requires that subordination to political authority is accepted, trusted, and legitimised. Finally, the dramatic quest for power relies upon the performance of leaders (mise en scène). The liminal situation of loss, disorientation, or uncertainty is compensated by the imaginative power – often conveyed in theatrical and expressive terms – of URRWLQJFLWL]HQV¶LGHQWLW\LQDFRPPXQLW\¶VRULJLQVKHURLFVDFUL¿FHRUVLQJXODUity with regard to others. Since Pericles’ speech to the Athenians in 430 BC or $EUDKDP /LQFROQ¶V *HWW\VEXUJ DGGUHVV LQ  WKH WKHDWULFDO GLPHQVLRQ RI democratic politics has been tightly linked to narratives about extreme experiHQFHVDQGWKHVDFUL¿FHRISHRSOHIRUWKHFRPPXQLW\%RWKVSHHFKHVDUHHXORJLHV to honour the war dead in the incipient Peloponnesian War or the Battle in Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Pericles’ speech praised the Athenian people for living a form of government that did not emulate the institutions of its neighbours but was itself a model, a paradigm to be imitated. Lincoln’s Gettysburg

Introduction 13 Address provided the classical synthesis of democracy by identifying it as the ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’. The theatricality of RUDWRU\SHUIRUPDQFHKLJKOLJKWVOLEHUW\E\UHODWLQJWKHVXSUHPHVDFUL¿FHRIJLYLQJ up one’s life for the community to the ‘people’ as the basis, the actor, and the EHQH¿FLDU\RIGHPRFUDWLFJRYHUQPHQW In Athens, the praise for citizens before the assembled city was not the praise of the collective but addressed each citizen qua citizen, not a collective image of the ‘people’. Socrates ironically remarked: When I hear praised those who have just died in battle and, with them, our ancestors, our city, and ourselves, I feel more noble and great . . . the entire civic body comes out of it exalted, and it takes me three days to get over this emotion. 9H\QH $QGLQGHHG3HULFOHV¶VSHHFKZLWKLWVIRFXVRQGHPRFUDF\LVLQUHDOLW\DJORUL¿cation of the individual, not as a part of a population or a people but as the manifestation of being a free citizen. Conversely, Lincoln’s classical synthesis of democracy has to balance individual liberty and a modern conception of the people as a collective, the nation. According to Giovanni Sartori, Lincoln’s formula has ‘stylistic impetus’ rather than logical meaning, constituting an inexplicable proposition (Sartori 1973: 27). The self-presentation of Soviet communism as democratic could perfectly well use Lincoln’s formula. When Stalin in 1936 declared the Soviet Union to be the most democratic country in the world, he drew on the Marxist–Leninist conception of the people as a sociological UHDOLW\P\VWL¿HGLQWKHGRFWULQHRIWKHSUROHWDULDWDVWKH3HRSOHDV2QH)URPD liberal perspective, the claim for representation was based not on the ‘truth’ of individualism and his formal rights but on the ‘myth’ of equating the people with WKH VRFLDO ¿FWLRQ RI WKH µFODVV¶ -DQ,,.D]LPLHU]@)URPKHSUREDEO\VSHQWVRPHWLPHLQ:HVWHUQ(XURSH*HUPDQ\ Italy, France, and the Netherlands) to further his education. The brilliant young Mazepa was soon entrusted with diplomatic assignments – particularly in Cossack matters – until he was forced to leave Poland in 166 for reasons that have remained unclear to this day. In the eighteenth century and particularly in the nineteenth, rumours spread by Voltaire that Mazepa’s departure was due to DQLOOLFLWORYHDIIDLUJDYHULVHWRDQXPEHURI¿FWLRQDODGDSWDWLRQV/HJHQGKDVLW that Mazepa was tied naked to a horse by the husband of a noble lady and driven out of Poland. The proliferation of this story in literature and art, which I will return to below, meant that Mazepa (still written ‘Mazeppa’ in the West) became ZLGHO\NQRZQLQ(XURSHXSXQWLOWKHWZHQWLHWKFHQWXU\7KH¿JXUHVRIWKHZLOG Cossack or of the young man bound naked to the back of a horse, however, often EHDUOLWWOHUHODWLRQWRWKHDFWXDOKLVWRULFDO¿JXUH Mazepa reappears in historical sources in 1669. He serves under the Rightbank Hetman Doroshenko, quickly rising through the ranks to become his deputy, presumably on account of his outstanding education and diplomatic H[SHULHQFH 'XULQJ D PLVVLRQ WR WKH &ULPHD LQ  KH LV FDSWXUHG E\ WKH

82 T. Grob Zaporozhian Cossacks, Doroshenko’s antagonists. Remarkably, his life is not taken, although he was travelling with Christian slaves as gifts for his Crimean hosts, but is handed over to the Left-bank Hetman Samojlovich, Doroshenko’s rival; he becomes Samojlovich’s right-hand man and is put in charge of foreign relations. In Muscovy, Mazepa meets his future sponsor V.V. Golitsyn, a favourite of Sof’ja from the beginning of her regency in 1682. There are legitimate claims that Mazepa played a part in Samojlovich’s downfall. When the latter ZDVGHSRVHGDQGEDQLVKHGLQDW5XVVLDQLQVWLJDWLRQ0D]HSDVXFFHHGVKLP EHQH¿WLQJ IURP 5XVVLDQ SURWHFWLRQ KH KDV 6DPRMORYLFK¶V VRQ EHKHDGHG 7KH new contractual conditions he is obliged to enter into are far less favourable for WKH 8NUDLQLDQ VLGH WKDQ WKRVH RI  ZKLFK QHLWKHU VLGH KDG DELGHG E\  ,Q 1689, Mazepa happened to be in Muscovy during Peter’s rise to power and the disposition of Sof’ja and Golitsyn. Much to the surprise of his later biographers, Mazepa the crafty diplomat once again survived a dramatic change in political circumstance. What is more, a relationship of steadfast and long-standing mutual trust ensued between Peter I and Mazepa, notwithstanding considerable friction. Mazepa, who is reported to have been an enthusiastic reader of Machiavelli and an admirer of Louis XIV, established virtually absolutist power despite corporative Cossack traditions and despite his dependency on Russia, which secured KLV SRZHU +H ZDV XQSRSXODU DPRQJ 8NUDLQLDQ SHDVDQWV DQG WKH ORZHU RUGHUV even the starshina, the upper class he helped strengthen, mistrusted his openly DEVROXWLVW WHQGHQFLHV ZKLFK FRQÀLFWHG ZLWK WUDGLWLRQ 0D]HSD SUHVHQWHG WKH emerging nobility with estates, had himself protected by Russian troops, massively increased the dependency of the peasants (including those not indentured) on the owners of large estates, and levied new taxes – which enabled him (Mazepa also owned latifundia on Russian territory) and the starshina, which had evolved into an increasingly stable upper class, to accumulate immense ZHDOWK 7KH VRFLDO FRQGLWLRQV RI WKH 8NUDLQLDQ SHDVDQWU\ DSSURDFKHG WKRVH LQ Polish and Russian lands and amounted to factual serfdom; Mazepa was said to be one of the richest people in Europe at the time.3 The lower orders suspected him of being a ljach (Pole); some historians have suggested that this supposition ZRXOGH[SODLQKLVPDVVLYHVXSSRUWIRUWKH2UWKRGR[FKXUFK0D]HSDDOVRVSRQsored educational institutions, such as the Kiev Academy. Notwithstanding economic prosperity, growing social discontent led to uprisings which were brutally crushed and entailed increasingly repressive government. The most famous insurgency occurred in 1690–1693 under Petro Ivanenko, known as Petryk, who took action aided by the Sich and the Crimean Khanate.  ,Q0D]HSDWRRNDGYDQWDJHRIWKH5LJKWEDQNLQVXUJHQF\DJDLQVW3RODQG to occupy this territory against the will of Muscovy, thereby uniting the Cossack lands; he exiled Palij, the leader of the uprising (who became a popular heroic IUHHGRP ¿JKWHU DQG WKH VXEMHFW RI PDQ\ VRQJV  WR 0XVFRY\ 'XULQJ WKH *UHDW Northern War, the tsar mounted increasing pressure on the Cossack lands; the Cossacks were dispatched on military campaigns waged in ever more remote places, causing severe losses. There were rumours that Peter wanted to integrate 8NUDLQHHQWLUHO\LQWR5XVVLD7KHGHWDLOVRIWKHQHJRWLDWLRQVZKLFK0D]HSDFRQ-

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy 83 GXFWHGWKURXJKLQWHUPHGLDULHVZLWK.LQJ6WDQLVáDZ/HV]F]\ĔVNLRI3RODQGZKR had been installed by Sweden, remain unclear: to what extent Mazepa would KDYHDOORZHG3RODQGWRLQFRUSRUDWH8NUDLQHWKDWLVZKDWKHZRXOGKDYHJDLQHG from this incorporation, remains unclear (some believe Mazepa would have been granted a small principality of his own). Another episode in this late phase (which in turn is also relevant in literary terms) is that Mazepa ordered the execution of Kochubey, his chief judge, for betraying his secret negotiations with Charles and with Poland, to Peter, even though his daughter had been Mazepa’s lover for some time (Mazepa was her godfather). Peter, accustomed to allegations launched against Mazepa, was not prepared to forfeit his trust in him and turned Kochubey over to Mazepa instead.  :KHQ &KDUOHV ;,, RI 6ZHGHQ HQWHUHG 8NUDLQLDQ WHUULWRU\ XQH[SHFWHGO\ Mazepa, who had hesitated for a long time and had apparently not even informed his inner circle about his plans, turned against Peter and joined the Swedish troops. The tsar’s response was swift and bloody: Russian troops destroyed Baturin, Mazepa’s fortress, and massacred its inhabitants; the previously independent Zaporogian Sich was razed and a loyal, factually powerless Hetman was LQVWDOOHG WKHUH 0D]HSD ZDV H[HFXWHG LQ HI¿J\ DQG KH ZDV DQDWKHPDWLVHG ,Q &KDUOHVZDVGHIHDWHGLQWKH%DWWOHRI3ROWDYD±LQSDUWEHFDXVH0D]HSD despite unexpected support from the Sich, could mobilise only a small number of his troops; Peter’s propaganda had been successful. Following the defeat, 0D]HSDÀHGWRJHWKHUZLWK&KDUOHVDQGDJURXSRI&RVVDFNVWRWKH7XUNLVKIRUWUHVVRI%HQGHU\ZKHUHKHGLHGVKRUWO\DIWHUDUULYLQJWKHUHLQ2FWREHU:LWKWKH DSSRLQWPHQWRI3\O\S2UO\NKLVIROORZHUVFKRVHDµVXFFHVVRU¶ZLWKRXWDQ\LQÀXHQFHZKDWVRHYHU2UO\NGUHZXSDQDOPRVWGHPRFUDWLFSROLWLFDOSURJUDPPHIRUD IXWXUH&RVVDFN8NUDLQHDQGDWWHPSWHGWRVHFXUHPLOLWDU\VXSSRUWLQWKHUHJLRQ DQGDWVHYHUDO(XURSHDQFRXUWVDJDLQVWWKH5XVVLDQµ\RNH¶2UO\N¶VVRQZDVRQH RI9ROWDLUH¶VVRXUFHV7KH8NUDLQLDQWUDGLWLRQRIH[LOHRULJLQDWHVLQWKHVHHYHQWV

The Western European construction of the ‘Mazeppa’ myth 0D]HSD¶V JUHDWHVW KLVWRULFDO DFKLHYHPHQWV DUH WKUHHIROG ¿UVW KH PDQDJHG WR secure the country’s relative stability between the ‘Age of Ruin’ in the midV HYHQWHHQWKFHQWXU\DQGWKHGLVDVWHURIVHFRQGKHVXFFHHGHGLQVDIHJXDUGLQJ LWV DXWRQRP\ XQGHU GLI¿FXOW FLUFXPVWDQFHV DQG WKLUG FXOWXUH ÀRXULVKHG during his time. Western mythologising, however, neglects these achievements. The history of Western Maze(p)pa-images, which touches upon various areas of FXOWXUHLVULFKDQGUDPL¿HGLWFDQRQO\EHVNHWFKHGKHUH4 Notably, the origin of this history of representation is already balanced precariously between historiRJUDSK\DQGWKHSURGXFWLRQRIOLWHUDWXUH,Q0D]HSDDSSHDUVLQ9ROWDLUH¶V account of Charles XII. The brief passage on Mazepa, which mentions the SUREOHP RI 8NUDLQLDQ µQDWLRQKRRG¶ LV OLPLWHG ODUJHO\ WR WKH DQHFGRWH RI WKH young page strapped naked and lashed to the back of a horse. Voltaire is sympaWKHWLFWR0D]HSD¶VFKDQJHRIVLGHVZKLOH8NUDLQHKDGDOZD\VGHVLUHGIUHHGRP its geographical position between three powerful empires called for guardians,

84 T. Grob who had oppressed it in turn; against these odds, Mazepa had aspired to establish DµSRZHUIXO8NUDLQLDQUHDOP¶9ROWDLUH  In 1812, Heinrich Bertuch modelled a play about man’s struggle for freedom on the Mazepa material, very much in Schiller’s spirit (Bertuch 1831). Lord %\URQ¶VQDUUDWLYHSRHPµ0D]HSSD¶KRZHYHUDFFRXQWVIRUWKHSUROL¿FWUHDWPHQW of this material among the Romantics; Byron has the old Mazeppa report his youthful ride across the vast plains to Charles XII following their defeat at Poltava. Subsequent adaptations in French literature and art since the late 1920s are all indebted to Byron. Victor Hugo’s ‘Mazeppa’ (dated May 1828), a poem forming part of the Les Orientales cycle, cites Byron and is dedicated to Louis Boulanger, who rose to prominence with his painting Le supplice de Mazeppa   2WKHU DUWLVWV ZKR DGDSWHG WKH PRWLI LQFOXGH +RUDFH 9HUQHW 7KpRGRUH &KDVVpULDX (XJqQH 'HODFURL[ DQG SDUWLFXODUO\ 7KpRGRUH *pULFDXOW 0DUFLXN   2QO\ LQ H[FHSWLRQDO FDVHV LV 0D]HSS D¶V FDSWLYLW\ GHSLFWHG RQ FDQYDV rather, artists prefer to show him on horseback in scenes adapted from Byron’s poem. The motif was soon popularised, ranging from theatrical circus numbers and trivial graphics to adornments on consumer goods and decorative items. 2IWHQ WKH PRWLI RI WKH µZLOG PDQ¶ ± LW LV KDUGO\ DFFLGHQWDO WKDW µ0D]HSSD¶ DSSHDUVLQWKH8QLWHG6WDWHVLQWKHµ:LOG:HVW¶0RRUH&ROHPDQ – is comELQHG ZLWK WKH DFUREDWLF 7KLV FRQFHSWLRQ DOVR LQÀXHQFHG PXVLFDO DGDSWDWLRQV SDUWLFXODUO\)UDQ]/LV]W¶VHDUOLHUSLDQRpWXGHµ0D]HSSD¶RIZKLFKH[SOLFitly invokes Hugo.  2QHQHHGQRWZDLWXQWLO/LV]WKRZHYHUZKRDOLJQVKLVKRPRQ\PRXVPoème symphonique ZLWKWKHOLNHVRI2USKHXVRU3URPHWKHXVWRLGHQWLI\0D]HSS D¶V emergence into the mythologising process. The Western mythic images and narratives discussed above draw cultural boundaries through narrative means.5 In the eighteenth century, as the concept of a half-civilised Eastern Europe becomes HVWDEOLVKHG0D]HSDUHSUHVHQWV8NUDLQHZKLFK9ROWDLUHFRQFHLYHGDVDFLYLOLVDtional border, or a transit zone; the mythogenic element resides in the fact that Mazeppa was allowed to bridge otherwise insurmountable (cultural) boundaries. Voltaire’s Mazepa becomes a Polish nobleman capable of enlightening the civiOLVDWLRQDOSHULSKHU\EHFDXVHRIKLVH[SXOVLRQWRWKHVDYDJH8NUDLQH&RQYHUVHO\ &RQWDQW G¶2UYLOOH Mémoires d’Azéma   HPSKDVLVHV WKLV ELFXOWXUDO moment but brings the pathos of freedom into a curious association with Mazepa’s subjection of his people to discipline, conceiving civilisation as regimented PLOLWDU\RUJDQLVDWLRQ%RWKZULWHUVIRFXVWKHLPDJHRIWKHµXQFLYLOLVHG¶8NUDLQH on the description of the Zaporogian Sich; for Voltaire, this is the ‘strangest people of the world’, a mixture of peoples with ‘a kind of Christianity’ and predatory customs, which chooses and deposes its own leaders and tolerates no ZRPHQ LQ LWV UDQNV 7KH =DSRURJLDQ &RVVDFNV DUH IHDUOHVV ¿JKW RQO\ IRU WKH sake of looting, and are always drunk (Voltaire 1996: 345). Romantic representations of the westernised Mazepa are closely associated ZLWK DQ LQWHUHVW LQ WKH 2ULHQW KHUH 8NUDLQH RQFH PRUH XQIROGV LWV WKUHVKROG character. These accounts place emphasis on the moment of freedom captured by the oxymoronic image of the bound hero lashed to the wild steed. This

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy 85 becomes increasingly programmatic in aesthetic terms. Byron introduces his Mazepa as an old warrior fused with nature and particularly with his horse, who looks back not without irony to the young, impetuous hero unable to restrain himself at any time and for whom a gallop to the verge of death is an iconic experience. Hugo conceives this ride to the edge of existence as the freedom of the poet’s fantasy. This transformation reveals how the boundary to the cultural 2WKHU DQG LWV LPDJHU\ EHFRPHV D PLUURU LQ ZKLFK WKH (XURSHDQ :HVW PLUURUV itself and its cultural identity. It is hardly accidental, then, that ‘Mazeppa’ soon GHJHQHUDWHV LQWR D KDUPOHVV SRUFHODLQ ¿JXUH D GHFRUDWLYH HWFKLQJ D SLHFH RI decoration on a grandfather clock, or even a cigarette brand.

5XVVLDQHFKRHVEHWZHHQWKHSDWKRVRIIUHHGRPDQGLPDJHVRI betrayal The development of the Mazepa images in Eastern Europe cannot be understood without reference to the Western context. It is the romantic Western European mythologising of Mazepa, and his thematic representation in the Western imagination, that construct an echo chamber in Eastern Europe, thereby returning him WRWKHOLWHUDU\LPDJLQDWLRQLQ5XVVLD3RODQGDQG8NUDLQH-XVWDVLQQLQHWHHQWK century German literature (Gottschall 1865), the romantic enthusiasm for IUHHGRP KLVWRULFLVHV DQG SROLWLFLVHV WKH PDWHULDO 8QGHU %\URQ¶V LQÀXHQFH Bohdan Zaleski wrote a poem about Mazepa in 1824 which introduced the WKHPH RI D IUHH 8NUDLQH DQG RI WKH ZLOG EHOOLJHUHQW &RVVDFN LQWR 3ROLVK 5RPDQWLFLVPDQGFRIRXQGHGWKHP\WKRI8NUDLQHLQ3RODQG,Q=DOHVNL0D]epa’s ride across the vast plains is likened at once to the dynamism involved in OLEHUDWLQJ WKH RSSUHVVHG 8NUDLQLDQ SHRSOH DV ZHOO DV WR WKH HQJLQH RI SRHWLF expression which appears to override the alienation between Poland and Mazepa again.  -XOLXV]6áRZDFNL¶VGUDPDµ0D]HSD¶RIPDUNVDODWHUHÀH[WRWKH5RPDQtic version in that Mazepa virtually sheds all Romantic features, not to mention SROLWLFDORQHVLQIDYRXURID3URWHDQUROHFKDQJH6áRZDFNL¶VSOD\DOVRWDNHVXS Western motifs but develops into a family drama set in the Polish nobility before Mazepa’s punishment. Here, Mazepa is intangible, changeable, and not caught up in a rigid web of human relations; he causes the action to catalyse, thereby triggering various desires that lie beyond control and ultimately lead to disaster 5LW]   :KLOH 6áRZDFNL¶V SOD\ RFFXSLHV DQ H[FHSWLRQDO SRVLWLRQ LQ WKH canon of Mazepa texts, it does, however, position itself precisely between the various cultural perspectives. The mythologem of the wild Cossack unmasks LWVHOIDVDUHÀH[WRWKHµ:HVWHUQ¶LQWKLVFDVH3ROLVK JD]HZKLFKDOOHJHGO\KDG EURXJKW LW IRUWK LQ WKH ¿UVW LQVWDQFH IRU LW LV QRW WKH DOPRVW SDVVLYH ¿JXUH WKDW UHSUHVHQWVWKHµZLOG¶HOHPHQWEXWWKHIDFWWKDWJD]LQJDWWKHFXOWXUDO2WKHUHYRNHV unrestrainable ‘wildness’, indeed mania, in those looking on.  ,VKRXOGQRZOLNHWRIRFXVRQ5XVVLDQDQG8NUDLQLDQLQWHUSUHWDWLRQV$PRQJ Russian work, Kondraty Ryleev’s verse poem ‘Voinarovskii’ presents the romantic, politicised version. It focuses not on Mazepa, the ambiguous traitor,

86 T. Grob but on his comrade-in-arms Voinarovskii, meanwhile exiled to Siberia. The ODWWHUDQDUGHQW¿JKWHUIRUKLVKRPHODQGDJDLQVW5XVVLDQW\UDQQ\GRXEWVLQUHWrospect whether he was right to betray Russia – after all his betrayal plunged his homeland into destruction (Ryleev 1956: verse 619). Nor is he sure whether Mazepa intended to save his country or simply aspired to seize power (ibid.: YHUVH II  7KURXJK D WUDQVSRVLWLRQ RI WKH P\WKRORJLVHG UROH LW LV 9RLQarovskii rather than Mazepa who loses his way in the vast plains during a military campaign, who sees the wolves under which his horse collapses, and who is subsequently found by a Cossack girl who becomes his wife. The most famous Russian text on Mazepa is Pushkin’s verse poem ‘Poltava’ (1828/29); its semantic complexity should not be gauged under reference to Tchaikovsky’s operatic version of 1884. Pushkin focuses on Mazepa’s seduction of Kochubey’s daughter and on the old man’s relationship with the very young Mariia, who was his god-daughter. Notwithstanding some temporal deferral, the action remains fairly faithful to the historical facts (particulary in the eyes of contemporary historians): infuriated by Mazepa’s breach of trust – after all, it DPRXQWVWRLQFHVWLQ2UWKRGR[WHUPV±.RFKXEH\EHWUD\V0D]HSDWR3HWHUZKR rejects the betrayal and hands Kochubey over to Mazepa. The fact that her beloved Mazepa, for whom she has abandoned her family, orders her father’s execution drives Mariia insane. The Byronic element in this treatment, that Mazepa cannot control his passion, is transposed onto the old, historical Mazepa, fuelling a personal disaster which escalates into a national one – in the shape of a fratricidal war. Although there is no doubt about Mazepa’s treacherous characWHUKHQRQHWKHOHVVUHPDLQVDGD]]OLQJ¿JXUHZKRLVHYHQJLYHQFHUWDLQµURPDQtic’ traits (such as writing poetry, his fervour, and so forth). Mazepa’s P\WKL¿FDWLRQLQWKH%\URQLFDQG5\OHHYHDQVHQVHLVFRQWUDVWHGZLWKKLVWRU\WKDW is, with the historical as such; the tragic nature of the action unfolds in the PRXQWLQJFRQÀLFWEHWZHHQKLVWRU\DQGWKHSULYDWHDVZHOODVWKHµSRHWLF¶  3XVKNLQ E\ QR PHDQV HTXDWHV 8NUDLQH ZLWK 0D]HSD¶V EHWUD\DO EXW XSKROGV KLVIXQGDPHQWDOFRQQRWDWLRQRIORYHIRUIUHHGRP8NUDLQH¶VUHEHOOLRQ±DQGWKLV is the jab against Western interpretations – is aimed at Mazepa himself, not because of his ‘betrayal’ but, on the contrary, because he follows Peter’s orders and rejects Charles for so long. And yet, despite all his sympathy with the 8NUDLQLDQDVSLUDWLRQWRµIUHHGRP¶3XVKNLQQHYHUWKHOHVVDVVXPHVWKDWLWZDVWKH FRXQWU\¶VQDWXUDOIDWHWREHFRPHSDUWRI3HWHU¶V5XVVLD2WKHUVVXFKDV)DGGH\ Bulgarin in his novel Mazepa (1834), made this case much more directly, couching it in explicitly chauvinistic terms, to level the distinctions that literature had LQWURGXFHG LQWR WKH RI¿FLDO LPDJH RI WKH µWUDLWRU¶ (PEHGGHG LQ D FRQVLVWHQWO\ LGHRORJLFDOVWUXJJOHDJDLQVWDOOIRUPVRI8NUDLQLDQµVHSDUDWLVP¶WKLVXWWHUO\QHJative image subsequently persisted throughout Russian and then Soviet Russian KLVWRULRJUDSK\ODUJHO\XQPRGL¿HG

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy  

1DWLRQDOUHZULWLQJ0D]HSDLQWKHFRQWH[WRI8NUDLQLDQ ‘separatism’ Both Mazepa strands, the ‘legendary’ (focused on the episode from Mazepa’s youth) and the ‘historical’ (focused on the events prior to the Battle of Poltava), DUHPXFKPRUHLQWHUWZLQHGWKDQRQHPLJKWH[SHFWDW¿UVWJODQFH$OWKRXJKPRVW texts focus on either one or the other, there are few that employ the motif of the young Mazepa without reference to his older counterpart – and vice versa. The suffering romantic hero assumes his authority by the fact that it is always clear who he will become. Thus, a decisive passage in Hugo’s poem reads: ‘il court, il YROHLOWRPEHHWVHUHOqYHURL¶>KHULVHVKHÀHHVKHIDOOVDQGKHULVHVDJDLQWR EHFRPHNLQJ@+XJR  Voltaire, subsequently cited by Byron, had already described the entire trajecWRU\IURP0D]HSD¶VHDUO\ORYHDIIDLUWRWKHµ3ULQFHGHO¶8NUDLQH¶%\URQVKLIWV the account of the young man’s adventure to a later historical context and connects both situations through the motif of untamed passion, which the young lover and the old warrior have in common. For Pushkin, who depicts old Mazepa as a youth reeling in love, such fervour is perverted; he employs it to fuel historical events. In Rudolf Gottschall’s ‘Mazeppa’ (1860), the youthful episode is integrated into the dominant political action: ‘Der Hetman ist noch, was der Page war,/Den einst gerechter Zorn ans Roß gebunden/Noch lebt die alte Glut in seiner Seele  ¶ >7KH +HWPDQLV ZKDW WKH SDJH ZDV%RXQG E\ MXVW ZUDWK WR WKHKRUVH$QGWKHROGIHUYRXUVWLOOEXUQVLQKLVVRXO  @*RWWVFKDOO   $ JHQXLQH 8NUDLQLDQ LQWHUHVW LQ WKH ¿JXUH RI 0D]HSD HPHUJHV UDWKHU ODWH 7ZHQWLHWKFHQWXU\8NUDLQLDQUHP\WKRORJLVLQJVUHFDOOWKHOHJHQGDU\\RXWKWLPH and again even though they are focused entirely on the old, political Mazepa. The established, implicitly romantic hero is adopted in his Western ‘authority’ DQGWKHQUHLQWHUSUHWHGLQWHUPVRI8NUDLQLDQQDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJ7KLVµ8NUDLQLVDtion’, outlined below, unfolds in the liminal zone between history and literature, and largely from the vantage point of exile; it is rekindled after 1991 within the IUDPHZRUNRIRI¿FLDOVWDWHSROLF\  7KHSUHFXUVRUVRI0D]HSD¶VµQDWLRQDO¶P\WKL¿FDWLRQDVUHÀHFWHGE\WKHWHUP ‘Mazepians’, for instance (ukr. mazepynci, russ. mazepincy),6 go back a long time; the beginnings, however, are inconsistent and not accepted in the entire 8NUDLQLDQ FRPPXQLW\ DQG DUH OLPLWHG WR FRUUHFWLQJ WKH 5XVVLDQ LPDJH RI WKH anathematised traitor. The Istoriia Rusov WKH ¿UVW FRPSDFW SDWULRWLF EXW LQ DFWXDOIDFWXQUHOLDEOHKLVWRU\RI8NUDLQHZULWWHQDURXQGFRSLHVEHJDQWR FLUFXODWHIURPWKHVDQG¿UVWSXEOLFDWLRQIROORZHGLQ FDVWVDFRQWURYHUVLDO OLJKW RQ 0D]HSD ZKR LV VDLG WR EH D 3ROH IROORZLQJ 9ROWDLUH  2Q WKH one hand, it mentions his ‘despicable plan’ to switch sides, stemming from a personal desire for vengeance and failing to serve ‘national interests’; it also mentions the ‘extreme brutality’ Mazepa exercised to eliminate his rivals and his XQSRSXODULW\ZLWKKLVVXEMHFWV2QWKHRWKHUKDQGHQWLUHSDJHVDUHFRPPLWWHGWR µFLWLQJ¶WKHVSHHFKLQZKLFK0D]HSDMXVWL¿HVKLVDOOHJLDQFHZLWK&KDUOHVWRRYHUthrow the ‘despots’ in order to attain the largest possible autonomy; this is

88 T. Grob SDUWLFXODUO\VLJQL¿FDQWLQWKHFRQWH[WRIDERRNWKDWSXWVDXWKRULDORSLQLRQLQWKH PRXWKVRIKLVWRULFDO¿JXUHVWKURXJKRXW  7KHLPDJHVRI0D]HSDGUDZQE\µ8NUDLQRSKLOH¶5XVVLDQDQG8NUDLQLDQKLVWRrians remained largely negative until the late nineteenth century. The most important nineteenth-century work on Mazepa is without doubt a study pubOLVKHGLQE\WKHKLVWRULDQ1.RVWRPDURY± ZKRVHHQWKXVLDVP IRU WKH 8NUDLQLDQ FDXVH LV EH\RQG UHSURDFK %DVHG RQ ULFK VRXUFH PDWHULDO D ‘populist’ historical method, and a position basically loyal to the Russian state, Kostomarov concludes that far from representing ‘any national idea whatsoever’, Mazepa had been an ‘egotist in the true sense of the word’ (Kostomarov 1992:  DQGKDGEHWUD\HGHYHU\RQHKHDVVXPHVWKDWWKH8NUDLQHZRXOGKDYHIDOOHQ to Poland in case of Charles’s victory. Kostomarov bases his conclusion on the ‘people’, whose instinctive dislike of Mazepa bore witness to the dishonesty of his ideology of freedom, opting for Peter as the lesser of two evils. Kostomarov MXGJHV 0D]HSD WR EH QRW D WUDLWRU WR 5XVVLD EXW UDWKHU WR 8NUDLQLDQ VRFLHW\ ZKRVHGHPRFUDWLFVWUXFWXUHKHGHVWUR\HG2QHPDMRUOLQHRIDUJXPHQWLVWKHFULWLFLVP.RVWRPDURYOHYHOVDWWKH5XVVLDQSROLF\RIFKRRVLQJQRWWRUHZDUG8NUDLQian loyalty at this decisive historical juncture. Michajlo Hrushevsky (1866–1934), a historian and politician originally from *DOLFLDZDVWKHORQJVWDQGLQJV\PEROLF¿JXUHRIWKH8NUDLQLDQQDWLRQDOPRYHPHQWKHVHUYHGDV3UHVLGHQWRIWKHVKRUWOLYHG3HRSOH¶V5HSXEOLFRI8NUDLQHLQ 1918. He casts a comparable, albeit more positive light on Mazepa (Hrushevsky 1943). Hrushevsky emphasises Mazepa’s patriotic intentions and reinterprets his personality without straying very far from Kostomarov’s representation of facts, however. He also stresses social imbalance and widespread impoverishment as well as the repressive means deployed during Mazepa’s rule. He takes a critical view of social development under Mazepa and his predecessor, noting that ‘serfdom had been introduced and legalised with the aid of Muscovy’. He states, moreover, that previously democratic structures were abolished under Mazepa: ‘the incompletely developed system of democracy was replaced by an autocracy, which destroyed the last remnants of national freedom’ (ibid.: 352, 348). Furthermore, he argues that Mazepa had purposefully allowed Russian troops to enter the country to keep the people in check, that he eliminated his enemies without fail, and that he supported the Russians in their efforts to crush Cossack uprisings; he is even said to have advised Peter to destroy the Sich. For Hrushevsky, Mazepa’s ‘national’ intentions were inseparable from his claim to absolutist power. Yet, unlike Kostomarov’s, Hrushevsky’s account no longer earmarks Mazepa as a traitor, and aligns him with a continuous history of 8NUDLQLDQHIIRUWVWRVHFXUHDXWRQRP\UHJDUGOHVVRIDQ\DPELYDOHQFH Notwithstanding this new interpretation and the purposeful departure from the overpowering Russian image of the ‘traitor’, Hrushevsky’s Mazepa would hardly have provided the basis for a ‘national’ mythologising process. This state of affairs remained unchanged until the twentieth century. In view of major SROLWLFDOWUDQVIRUPDWLRQVVXFKDV8NUDLQH¶VVHSDUDWLRQDIWHULWVVKRUWOLYHGLQGHpendence from 1918 to 1919 and the disastrous Second World War, where

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy 89 8NUDLQHQRWRQO\VXIIHUHGIURP1D]LWHUURUEXWZDVDOVRWZLFHDQG  invaded and ravaged by Soviet troops, the myth appeared as historical even though literature continued to play a decisive role in interpreting it further. In the VWKH*DOLFLDQZULWHUDQGOLWHUDU\VFKRODU%RKGDQ/HSN\M± SXElished a trilogy of novels entitled Mazepa, punctuated with ample descriptions of the protagonist’s day and age and employing a strong dose of ‘romanticising’ to shape him as a positive historical hero. Concurrently, individual historians sought to justify this new image on the basis of careful historical research; DOWKRXJK QR H[SOLFLW UHIHUHQFH LV PDGH WR 8NUDLQLDQ OLWHUDU\ DGDSWDWLRQV these OHDYH WKHLU PDUN RQ WKH KLVWRULFDO ZRUN eOLH %RUVFKDN¶V ,O¶NR %RUãþDN  DQG 5HQp0DUWHO¶VKLJKO\LQÀXHQWLDOVie de Mazeppa, published in Paris in 1931, is a SDUWLFXODUO\ LQVWUXFWLYH FDVH LQ SRLQW %RUVFKDN DQG 0DUWHO   D 8NUDLQLDQ translation appeared soon thereafter in Kiev and was republished in the 1990s. This book became a milestone in popularising a ‘nationalised’ image of Mazepa. Even though it was written by two historians, it is explicitly literary; Borschak referred to it as a biographie romancéeLQWKHQRWHVWRWKH8NUDLQLDQ edition. Not that Borschak and Martel renounce their claim to history; on the contrary, they attack ‘servile’ Russian historiography, stating that ‘Russian hisWRULDQV DUH DV VHUYLOH WRZDUGV WKRVH LQ SRZHU DV WKH 2UWKRGR[ FKXUFK DQG WKDW WKLV VWDQFH HYHQ LQÀXHQFHG µWKH EHVW 8NUDLQH SDWULRWV¶ LELG   7KHLU approach lies not in presenting new facts or reinterpreting those on hand. Critical aspects established since Kostomarov are mentioned but they are overwritten by narrative. The delineation of Mazepa’s personality thus shifts its ground, in that recurrent reference is made to what he ‘actually’ thought and wanted (ibid.: 32,   %RUVFKDN DQG 0DUWHO HYHQ FODLP WKDW 0D]HSD EDVLFDOO\ VKDUHG 3HWU\N¶V objectives. Following the tendency established by Hrushevsky, negative aspects DUHDWWULEXWHGFKLHÀ\WRWKHZLOORI0XVFRY\ZLWKZKLFK0D]HSDZDVFRPSHOOHG to comply. Borschak and Martel adopt the image of the legendary, exceptional personality from the Western Mazepa myth. Whereas the Western view conceived him in YDULRXVZD\VDVD¿JXUHWUDQVFHQGLQJERUGHUVDWWKHIURQWLHURIFLYLOLVDWLRQ%RUschak and Martel emphasise Mazepa’s education and sophistication, and how this impressed Charles XII of Sweden. While Mazepa represented the civilisational superiority of the Poles over the Cossacks at the outset of his career as a VXEMHFWRIQDUUDWLYHDFFRXQWVDVVHHQPRVWFOHDUO\LQG¶2UYLOOHKHVRRQEHFDPH a representative of the ‘European savage’; Borschak and Martel reverse his role DQGKHFRPHVWRVWDQGIRUWKHFXOWXUDOVXSHULRULW\RI8NUDLQLDQFXOWXUHRYHU0XVcovite ‘barbarism’.87KLVYLHZLVWKHQWUDQVSRVHGRQWRWKHLPDJHRIDOO8NUDLQLDQ FXOWXUHDQGHYHQWKRXJKWKH8NUDLQLDQVDUHUHIHUUHGWRDVDQµLJQRUDQWPDVV¶WKH fact that they failed to follow Mazepa still remains to be accounted for. Just what Borschak’s and Martel’s account is aiming at becomes clear at the last when they discuss the Battle of Poltava, which they characterise as a ‘clash of civilisations’ (ibid.: 40); Charles’s and Mazepa’s defeat amounts to a ‘step backwards WDNHQ E\ ZHVWHUQ FLYLOLVDWLRQ DV UHSUHVHQWHG E\ .LHY DQG WKH 8NUDLQH¶ LELG 183) and a step towards the ‘enslavement’ of Eastern peoples (ibid.: 155). In two

90 T. Grob other passages, Borschak and Martel align these events with the contemporaneous inter-war period in the 1930s, where they identify a comparable scenario. The distortions made out in the Russian image of Mazepa are politically motivated and part of the history of oppression, whereas the positivised image becomes an element of the struggle for freedom. Mazepa’s ideas, as Borschak and Martel note at the end of their book, had survived two centuries of ‘terror DQG SHUVHFXWLRQ¶ DQG KDG SURYHQ WR EH MXVWL¿HG DV D SHRSOH¶V ZLOO WR OLYH LQ freedom. The anti-Russian gesture is not performed without glancing at the West, as Mazepa becomes the advocate of Western culture against Eastern barbarism. This makes him a true representative of his people – against its better judgement, if need be. Whereas his own Cossacks hardly heed his call, the patriotic Zaporogian Sich do (ibid.: 138). Borschak and Martel argue that this allegiance helps VXUPRXQWVRFLDOGLIIHUHQFHVLQWKHQDPHRIWKHVKDUHGFDXVHRI8NUDLQLDQQDWLRQhood; that the Sich are hardly suited to representing European culture is left unmentioned. The higher interest of standing against Muscovy elevates Mazepa WRRQHµHOHFWHGE\WKHQDWLRQE\WKH8NUDLQLDQSHRSOH¶WRDµV\PERO¶RIDXWRQRP\ LELG   ZKRVH VLJQL¿FDQFH LV JDXJHG IURP WKH YDQWDJH SRLQW RI WKH present. The end of the book is steeped in pathos: Borschak and Martel declare 0D]HSDDµV\PERORI8NUDLQLDQLQGHSHQGHQFH¶DQGFRQFOXGHWKDWKHZDVµULJKW¶ after all, thereby having recourse once more to a central myth of Western European romanticism in that poets, painters, and musicians had all perceived the irresistible fascination and ultimate victory of this man’s ideas (ibid.: 183f.).  8NUDLQLDQKLVWRULDQVKDYHVLQFHSRLQWHGRXWWKHODFNRIUHOLDELOLW\LQKHUHQWLQ Borschak and Martel; Borys Krupnyckyj, for instance, refers to their work as a VXFFHVV LQ OLWHUDU\ WHUPV ZKLFK µODFNV VFLHQWL¿F YDOXH¶ .UXSQ\FN\M   Nevertheless, Borschak and Martel, two trained and well-informed historians, IRUPXODWHGZKDWKDYHODUJHO\EHFRPHWKHSDUDGLJPVIRUXQGHUVWDQGLQJWKH¿JXUH RI0D]HSDLQSDUWLFXODUWKHLPDJHVRI0D]HSDGUDZQXSRQE\8NUDLQHLQWKH VKDYHUHFRXUVHWRWKHLUZRUN,WLVVLJQL¿FDQWWKDW%RUVFKDN¶VDQG0DUWHO¶V account was already reprinted several times in the early 1990s, together with Lepkyj’s and Sosiura’s literary adaptations, or Khotkevych’s literarising portrait, whereas the more complex and differentiated large-scale works of exiled historiRJUDSKHUVZKLFKDOVRVXEVFULEHWRDµQDWLRQDO¶8NUDLQLDQSHUVSHFWLYHIROORZHG much later.9 The form of discourse situated in the cracks between literary and historical narration is typical of these texts, which are enjoying widespread reception. Their frequent references to Western mythologising on the one hand, and to a no less mythical Russian ‘demonisation’ on the other, authorises Mazepa for contemporary political discourse and serves as a basis for his positive mythical role as a national hero.

Why Mazepa? :LWKLQ WKH P\WKRORJLVHG KLVWRU\ RI WKH 8NUDLQLDQ VWUXJJOH IRU IUHHGRP ZKLFK elevates ‘the people’ to the yardstick of historical assessment, one must ask how

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy 91 it came about that Palij or Petryk, two heroes already mythologised in popular accounts, were not chosen but instead gave way to their contemporary Mazepa, whose unpopularity was widely acknowledged and whom even nationally PLQGHG 8NUDLQLDQV KDYH UHFXUUHQWO\ EODPHG LQ SDUW IRU WKH ORVV RI GHPRFUDWLF traditions. At least four aspects of this choice need to be mentioned. 1

2

3

Compared to his contemporaries, who both took action in different coalitions and constellations, Mazepa is much more suited to a form of narraWLRQDFFRUGLQJWRZKLFKWKHµ8NUDLQLDQ¶LVVHSDUDWHGIURPZKDW LVH[WHUQDO to the ‘nation’. The historiographical shift that occurs in the early twentieth century homogenises the national interior (by equating Cossacks and 8NUDLQLDQV IRU LQVWDQFH DV PHQWLRQHG DERYH  DV WKH FRQFHSW RI VHSDUDWH 8NUDLQLDQ VWDWHKRRG DVVHUWV LWVHOI WR EHFRPH WKH REMHFWLYH RI D QDWLRQDOLVW movement, the social paradigms operating in historiography are covered LQFUHDVLQJO\ E\ WKRVH RI µQDWLRQKRRG¶ QRZ UHGH¿QHG  /DWH QLQHWHHQWK century and early twentienth-century territorially-bound national thinking QRZUHFRJQLVHVDKLVWRULFDO¿JXUHZKRIRUWKHODVWWLPHVDZDQRSSRUWXQLW\ WR LQFOXGH WKH &RVVDFN 8NUDLQH LQ WKH IRUPDWLRQ RI DEVROXWLVW  WHUULWRULDO states. Another aspect is worth mentioning together with the projection of the PRGHUQ FRQFHSW RI WKH QDWLRQ DV D WHUULWRULDO SRZHU GH¿QHG LQ HWKQLF DQG FXOWXUDOWHUPVRQWRWKHSHULRGDURXQG±DFRQFHSWZKRVHFDWDVWURSKLF impact on Central Europe some astute minds had predicted long beforehand.10 1DWLRQDO 8NUDLQLDQ LGHQWLW\ FRXOG EH HVWDEOLVKHG RQO\ E\ UHMHFWLQJ colonialist models of the ‘big and smaller brother’ – the central ideological concept of Russian imperialism – and by explicit separation from everything ‘Russian’. Given the political-ideological preconditions resulting from the First World War (which were even more pronounced for exiles in the wake RIWKH6HFRQG:RUOG:DU WKHV\PEROLFFRQWHQWVRIDQDWLRQDO¿JXUHKDGWR be directed primarily against ‘Muscovy’; correspondingly, Soviet research ZDVSDUWLFXODUO\NHHQWRJORULI\WKH5XVVLDQ±8NUDLQLDQSDFWHQWHUHGLQWRE\ Hetman Chmel’nyc’kyj in 1654, deployed symbolically against Poland. :KLOHDQDQWL5XVVLDQHOHPHQWFRXOGEHGHWHFWHGLQRWKHU¿JXUHVWKHLQVXUgencies led by Palij and Petryk were aimed also or even predominantly DJDLQVW WKHLU RZQ 8NUDLQLDQ OHDGHUVKLS 7KLV LQWHUHVW HYHQ RYHUWXUQV WKH argument advanced by earlier historians that Mazepa had never prompted Russian complaints – with the exception of his ultimate decision to switch sides – and that he used Russian power purposefully to safeguard his posiWLRQ 7KH MXGJHPHQW PHWHG RXW WR WKLV KLVWRULFDO ¿JXUH LV QRZ GHWHUPLQHG almost exclusively by the action which the old Mazepa takes shortly before his death. Besides the territorial aspect, another begins to emerge in this new national thinking, one that had hardly been of any concern to historians previously: the status of the leader’s personality now rises to prominence and replaces the former emphasis placed on fundamentally democratic Cossack

92 T. Grob



traditions. An increasing focus on the leadership principle becomes apparent in these views of history. The powerful Mazepa lends himself much better to this principle than his unfortunate rivals who were, moreover, less suited to representing Western culture. Mazepa’s education is highlighted in particular in this respect; equally, his pomp and his self-serving Machiavellianism are considered more and more positively. The absolutist leadership principle thus did not become the organisational model of the nationalist exile movement by chance (Subtelny 1994: 442). 2QHODVWSRLQWUHPDLQV,WLVVLJQL¿FDQWWKDWWKHYLHZWDNHQE\%RUVFKDNDQG Martel did not emerge in the Galician milieu, for instance, but among the 3DULVLDQH[LOHFRPPXQLW\0D]HSD¶VP\WKL¿FDWLRQTXLWHSODLQO\LQYRNHVWKH Western ‘Mazeppa’; it builds on his popularity (which was still intact in the early twentieth century) and on the mythologising layers already inscribed in his image by art and literature. Not untypically of Russian and 8NUDLQLDQ FXOWXUDO PRGHOV WKLV VXJJHVWV WKDW WKH VHOIDI¿UPDWLRQ RI WKH 8NUDLQLDQQDWLRQFRQVWLWXWHVLWVHOILQWKHH\HVRIWKRVHLWZLVKHVWREHORQJWR that is, in the presumed gaze of the West.

0\WKQDWLRQDOLGHQWLW\H[LOH All the factors mentioned above are associated with the ideological development RIWKH8NUDLQLDQLQGHSHQGHQFHPRYHPHQWSDUWLFXODUO\DPRQJH[LOHVVHWDJDLQVW the backdrop of the radicalisation of the nationalist exile movement following the defeat against Poland in Galicia, which peaked in its rubbing shoulders with German fascism in the 1930s. Such hopes were disappointed after 1941 when it became increasingly clear that Hitler was by no means suited to protecting an LQGHSHQGHQW 8NUDLQH %RU\V .UXSQLFN\M¶V KLVWRU\ RI WKH 8NUDLQH SXEOLVKHG LQ German in 1939 and 1943 (Krupnyckyj 1943), SRUWUD\V0D]HSDGH¿QLWLYHO\DVD leader who consolidated his realm and whose key objective lay in furnishing his WHUULWRU\ZLWKGH¿QLWLYHERUGHUVE\LQFRUSRUDWLQJWKH(DVWEDQN8NUDLQHDQGWKH Sich); while he promoted the starshina, he did not do so at the expense of other FODVVHV:KHUHDV.UXSQLFN\MGHSLFWV3HWU\NDVDPDUJLQDOHYHQULGLFXORXV¿JXUH (ibid.: 139f.), he argues that Palij was forced to yield to the great master’s tactics LELG   .UXSQLFN\M UHWUDFHV WKH WUDMHFWRU\ RI WKH 8NUDLQLDQ VWUXJJOH IRU freedom up to its ‘provisional outcome’ in the present and commends the 8NUDLQLDQOLEHUDWLRQDUP\DVWKHPRVWUHOLDEOHEXOZDUNDJDLQVW%ROVKHYLVP7KLV LGHRORJLFDOVKLIWLVGHVFULEHGLQDµ¿QDOQRWH¶WRWKH¿UVWHGLWLRQRI A large-scale ideological swing occurred in an age of enhanced nationalist consciousness; while epithets such as liberal, democratic, or even Marxist6RFLDOLVW DSSO\ WR ROGHU 8NUDLQHGRP WKH \RXQJHU JHQHUDWLRQ KDV JURZQ XS XQGHU WKH LQÀXHQFH RI /\S\QVN\M¶V DQG 'RQFRY¶V LGHDV DQG RI WKH authoritarian corporative state and modern nationalism. Today, nationalist ideologies of statehood, which lean towards the traditions of autonomous VWDWHKRRG IURP D SDWULRWLF SDVW SOD\ D FUXFLDO UROH ± XQOLNH WKH 8NUDLQ-

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy 93 ian movement in the nineteenth century whose role was limited to raising QDWLRQDOLVWFRQVFLRXVQHVV7KHLGHRORJLFDOHIIRUWVXQGHUWDNHQE\8NUDLQLDQV in the twentieth century are therefore situated on a higher level, involving the synthesis of the people and the state. Mazepa now serves this synthesis as a mythologem, and this function in turn determines his image. Dmytro Doncov, the militant chief ideologist of an ‘exclusive, aggressive nationalism’ (Kappeler 1994: 210) mentioned here, had already written an essay on Western literary adaptations of Mazepa in 1913. He noted that their poetry perhaps contained more historical truth than a multi-volume hisWRULFDOLQYHVWLJDWLRQ'RQFRY  Doncov’s position and the anti-Russian orientation both experienced a revival LQ SRVW6RYLHW 8NUDLQH ,Q WKH ZDNH RI 8NUDLQLDQ LQGHSHQGHQFH WKH OLWHUDU\ historical and mythologised Mazepa spearheaded, among others, the symbolism now deployed by the state and the media to legitimate the new statehood in historical terms. Much as in the early twentieth century, the current interest taken in 0D]HSDUHVLGHVLQDQWL5XVVLDQVHQWLPHQWVDQGWKHTXHVWIRUSUHFXUVRUVRI8NUDLQLDQVWDWHKRRG$VD¿JXUHV\PEROLVLQJWKHVWDWHRQEDQNQRWHVVSHFLDOLVVXHFRLQV and stamps, or as commemorated by memorials and featuring as the subject of patriotic children’s books, Mazepa serves as a strong face to turn towards the RXWVLGHZRUOGDVZHOODVWKHJOXHRILGHQWL¿FDWLRQIRULQWHUQDODIIDLUV+HGHPDUcates a boundary towards Russia in particular (and hints at the possibility of alliance with the West); his twentieth-century version, moreover, blots out domestic GLIIHUHQFHV WKURXJK LWV HPSKDVLV RQ XQL¿HG VWDWHKRRG WKHUHE\ HIIDFLQJ LQWHUQDO VRFLDO DQG FXOWXUDO GLIIHUHQFHV 'LDPHWULFDOO\ RSSRVHG WR RI¿FLDO 5XVVLDQ DQG 6RYLHWDVVHVVPHQWVWKH8NUDLQLDQLPDJHRI0D]HSDLVFXUUHQWO\HQMR\LQJKLVWRULcal substantiation: the literary and historical texts mentioned above are being reHGLWHGWKHZRUNRIH[LOHG8NUDLQLDQKLVWRULDQVLVEHLQJSXEOLVKHGDQGEURFKXUHV are being written – all in a combined effort to vindicate Mazepa as a national hero. The mythologised image of Mazepa occupies a central position in the national UHDOP RI V\PEROV LQ FRQWHPSRUDU\ 8NUDLQH 7KH WH[WV WKDW KDYH FRQVWUXHG WKLV image over time dominate the current discourse on this historical period. A cursory survey of websites devoted to Mazepa reveals that this discourse is a SROLWLFDOLVVXH RI WKH ¿UVW RUGHU 0D]HSD LV DWWUDFWLQJLQWHUHVW RQ WKH QDWLRQDOLVW 5XVVLDQ VLGH WRR SDUWLFXODUO\ LQ 2UWKRGR[ FLUFOHV WKXV UHNLQGOLQJ WKH LVVXH RI betrayal. As both complementary mythologisations accuse each other of ideoORJLFDO ELDV WKH FRQÀLFW EHWZHHQ WKHP ZLOO QRW EH UHVROYHG E\ D SDLQVWDNLQJ recourse to historical facts on all sides, since this material will never be able to provide uncontroversial answers to the questions being raised today.

0\WKHQWUDSSHGE\QDUUDWLRQWKH8NUDLQLDQ0D]HSDP\WK EHWZHHQQDWLRQEXLOGLQJDQGPRGHUQSRVW6RYLHWVRFLHW\ The issue of a historical ‘myth’ does not arise (at least not primarily) as one that FRQFHUQV KLVWRULFDO µWUXWK¶ DQG LWV IDOVL¿FDWLRQ 5DWKHU LW DULVHV DV RQH RI WKH

94 T. Grob inevitable interpretations of the material at hand, as a plugging of gaps so to speak. It would make little sense to make a precise distinction between the emplotment customary in historical accounts and what can be referred to as a historical myth. In our present case, however, various elements come to mind WKDW FRXOG VXJJHVW VXFK D GLVWLQFWLRQ 2QH VXFK HOHPHQW LV LWV IXQFWLRQ LQ WKH laboured process of inventing tradition within the context of the defensive stance RI D 8NUDLQLDQ OLEHUDWLRQ PRYHPHQW DV ZHOO DV WKDW RI WKH QHZ VWDWHKRRG DIWHU  ERWK VWULYLQJ LQ WKH ¿UVW LQVWDQFH IRU KLVWRULFDO OHJLWLPDF\ 0D]HSD WKXV operates as a semantic complex ordered in narrative terms and assuming historical legitimacy, although the shape and form he assumes is ultimately steered by SROLWLFV2QRFFDVLRQKHGRHVDFWXDOO\DSSHDUDVDµP\WK¶LQWKHFODVVLFDOVHQVH VXFKDVLQWKHP\VWLI\LQJDQGVWURQJO\DQWL5XVVLDQ ¿OPA Prayer for Hetman Mazepa ZKHUHWKHKLVWRULFDO0D]HSDLVDQLQÀDWHGQDWLRQDO¿JXUHVHUYLQJ DVDEDFNGURSIRUDP\WKL¿HGGLVFRXUVHRQ8NUDLQLDQKLVWRU\  7KLV UDLVHV WKH TXHVWLRQ RI 0D]HSD¶V UHOHYDQFH LQ QHZ 8NUDLQLDQ VRFLHW\ which can only be answered, however, somewhat speculatively. Although myth DQGUHÀHFWLRQFDQQRWEHVHSDUDWHGDVQHDWO\DQGWLGLO\DVZHPLJKWZLVKVLQFH UHÀHFWLRQXQHQFXPEHUHGE\P\WKLVXQDWWDLQDEOHLQµQDWLRQDO¶GLVFRXUVHVHYHU\ politically tainted myth will efface certain distinctions, that is, it will replace them by clear antinomies. In Mazepa’s case, the process of mythologising coincides with the projective transfer of social criteria and domestic social issues onto the antinomy of national unity and the claims staked by external powers. The structure of these Mazepa narratives is bound up with the ideologems of impeded nation-building, of victimisation, on the dependence of the elite on a ‘foreign’, dominating culture, and of pillaged liberty still to be attained (thereby revealing its romantic origin). It is obvious that the semantic structure of these QDUUDWLYHV LQÀXHQFHG SROLWLFDO VWUXJJOHV GXULQJ WKH V D WLPH RI VRFLDO WHQsions as well as of nationalism promoted by the ruling factions of society. As VXFKDQDQWLGHPRFUDWLFHOHPHQWLQKHUHVLQWKH0D]HSDQDUUDWLYHVDQGLWLVGLI¿cult to assess its impact. Turning the question on its head is more productive: can one step around the myth-making factor? This step is far from easy. Within the framework of narrative, there appears to be no ready ‘solution’ since reconciling narratives about ‘traitors’ with ones about ‘liberators’ is impossible on a structural level. Scholars of narrative within V. Propp’s tradition suggest that no great narrative can exist without preliminary decisions being taken about its main protagonist, his or her REMHFWLYHV DQG WKH YLFWLP 2QO\ GHQDUUDWLYLVDWLRQ ZRXOG DSSHDU WR SUHVHQW D µVROXWLRQ¶'LVSDVVLRQZRXOGKDUGO\VXI¿FHLQWKHSUHVHQWFDVHKRZHYHUZKHUH P\WKRORJLVLQJ RFFXUV OHVV LQ RSSRVLWLRQ WR WKH IDFWV WKDQ ZLWKLQ WKH ¿VVXUHV RI meagre evidence and particularly in the act of overwriting Mazepa’s personality and its intentions, about which we lack reliable knowledge. De-narrativisation would thus have to focus on the contrariness of the ‘facts’. This would mean that one would recognise the history of writing history and narratives about Mazepa, acknowledging its essentially narrative character once again; that is, it is not merely a matter of re-historicising Mazepa but also the narratives shaping him.

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy 95 Mazepa’s historical relevance would not suffer real loss as a result, although he would probably lose his role in contemporary political discourse, and his fascination for its associated imaginary worlds would diminish. De-narrativisation would amount to circumventing the ‘myth’; such efforts might in turn come up DJDLQVWWKHGLI¿FXOWLHVLQYROYHGLQUHPRYLQJWKHFRPPHPRUDWLYHSUDFWLFHVVXUrounding him, many of which are still too current, such as issuing money, erecting statues of him, enshrining him in the mass of textbooks and reprinted literary and historical texts. A great deal appears to suggest, however, that the national component of these historical discourses will level off, if only because they are becoming less UHOHYDQW LQ WKH PRVW UHFHQW SROLWLFDO HYHQWV DQG FRQÀLFWV ZKLFK DUH IRFXVLQJ much more on social issues, questions concerning the distribution of power and goods, and democratic participation. Whether Mazepa lends himself to a ‘democratised’ debate on his own past – Cossack tradition would provide ample PDWHULDOKHUH±UHPDLQVWREHVHHQ,WZRXOGQRWEHWKH¿UVWWLPHKRZHYHUWKDW Mazepa would save himself from what appears to be a hopeless situation.

Notes 1 Translated by Mark Kyburz and John Peck. 2 For instance, see Frindte and Pätzolt (1994); Berding (1996); von Saldern (1996); and Flacke (1998). 3 For one of the best and largely unbiased historical accounts of Mazepa, see Nordmann  2Q0D]HSD¶VODFNRISRSXODULW\DQGKLVSROLWLFDOROLJDUFK\VHHSSII)RUD PXFKPRUHGLIIHUHQWLDWHGYLHZRI0D]HSDWKDQWKDWFRPPRQLQHDUOLHU8NUDLQLDQH[LOH historiography, see Subtelny (1994). 4 For a comprehensive history of Western accounts of Mazeppa, see Grob (2006). 5 I have developed this view in a previous account of the history of the Mazeppa image in the West; it is therefore not reiterated here. In that essay, I have discussed, among others, the various musical and pictorial adaptations, see Grob (2006).   7KHQRWLRQUHIHUVWRWKHOLQHRILPSRUWDQWSROLWLFDO¿JXUHVWKDWFDQEHWUDFHGEDFNWR Mazepa, who all fought for independence and were directly associated with exile folORZLQJWKHGHIHDWDW3ROWDYDVHHIRULQVWDQFH.UHVLQ 2ULJLQDOO\µ0D]HSLDQV¶ ZDVDQRI¿FLDO5XVVLDQWHUPIRU8NUDLQLDQµVHSDUDWLVP¶   7ZR DGDSWDWLRQV ZRUWK PHQWLRQLQJ KHUH DUH 9RORG\P\U 6RVLXUD¶V YHUVH QDUUDWLYH Mazepa (written 1929) and Hnat Khotkevych’s sketch Get’man Ivan Mazepa (Khotkevych 1991). 8 (Ibid.: 39) Later nationalist (exile-) historians will conceive this as the decisive feature RI8NUDLQLDQKLVWRU\DQGOD\H[FOXVLYHFODLPWRWKHROG.LHYHPSLUHIRU8NUDLQLDQWUDdition. Since the nineteenth century, the Russian view has tended in the opposite direction, arguing that there is hardly any continuity from Rus’ to contemporary 8NUDLQH WKRXJK YHU\ PXFK WR WKH 0XVFRYLWH HPSLUH %RWK YLHZV DUH UHODWHG WR WKH largely unresolved question concerning the origin of the Cossacks, particularly the KLVWRU\RIVHWWOHPHQWLQWKH8NUDLQLDQUHJLRQDQGLWVFRQWLQXQLW\   /LNH %RU\V .UXSQ\FN\M¶V VWXG\ 2OHNVDQGHU 2KOREO\Q¶V VXEVWDQWLDO Het’man Ivan Mazepa ta joho doba 2KOREO\Q   ZKLFK DOVR IRUHJURXQGHG 0D]HSD¶V SRVLWLYH QDWLRQEXLOGLQJHIIRUWVZDV¿UVWUHSULQWHGLQ 10 See, for instance, Alfred Döblin’s polemic against national tendencies and the state as a ‘cultural beast’ on his trip to Lemberg in the 1920s (Döblin 1968: 190ff.).

96 T. Grob

%LEOLRJUDSK\ Barthes, R. (1964) Mythen des Alltags, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Behring, E., Richter, L. and Schwarz, W.F. (1999) Geschichtliche Mythen in den Literaturen und Kulturen Ostmittel- und Südosteuropas, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Berding, H. (ed.) (1996) Mythos und Nation: Studien zur Entwicklung des kollektiven Bewusstseins in der Neuzeit, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Bertuch, H. (1831) ‘Alexei Petrowitsch: Ein romantisch-historisches Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen’, Deutsche Schaubühne 19, 159–306. Blumenberg, H. (1986) Arbeit am Mythos, 4th edn, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Borschak, E. and Martel, R. (1931) Vie de Mazeppa3DULV&DOPDQQ/pY\ Certeau, M. de (1988) Kunst des Handelns, Berlin: Merve. Döblin, A. (1968) Reise in Polen2OWHQ)UHLEXUJ:DOWHU Doncov, D. (1994) ‘Hetman Mazepa v zachidnoevropejs’kij literaturi’, in Bondarenkon, L. (ed.) Ivan Mazepa i Moskva. Istorychni rozvidky i statti.LHY5DGDSS± Flacke, M. (ed.) (1998) Mythen der Nationen: Ein europäisches Panorama >([KLELWLRQ FDWDORJXH@%HUOLQ'HXWVFKHV+LVWRULVFKHV0XVHXP Frindte, W. and Pätzolt, H. (eds) (1994) 0\WKHQGHU'HXWVFKHQ'HXWVFKH%H¿QGOLFKNHLten zwischen Geschichte und Geschichte2SODGHQ/HVNHDQG%XGULFK Gehrlich, P., Glass, K. and Serloth, B. (eds) (1996) Mitteleuropäische Mythen, Vienna7RUXĔgVWHUUHLFKLVFKH*HVHOOVFKDIWIU0LWWHOHXURSlLVFKH6WXGLHQ Gottschall, R. (1865) ‘Mazeppa: Geschichtliches Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen’, in Gottschall, R. (ed.) Dramatische Werke: Zweites Bändchen, Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1–189. *URE 7   µ'HU LQQHUH 2ULHQW 0D]HSSDV 5LWW GXUFK GLH 6WHSSH DOV 3DVVDJH ]XP Anderen Europas’, Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 56 (2005), 33–86. Hrushevsky, M. (1943) A History of UkraineHGE\)UHGHULNVHQ2-1HZ+DYHQ0RVFRZ@.LHY']YLQ Kostomarov, N.I. (1992) Mazepa, Moscow: Respublika. Kotte, E. (1999) ‘Die Funktion historischer Mythen bei der Konstituierung europäischer Nationen: Ein Kommentar zur Ausstellung “Mythen der Nationen” des Deutschen Historischen Museums in Berlin’, Orbis Linguarum 12, 1–21. .UHVLQ2 Mazepynci.LHY8QLYHUVLW\RI.LHY Krupnyckyj, B. (1942) Hetman Mazepa und seine Zeit (1687–1709), Leipzig: Harrassowitz. Krupnyckyj, B. (1943) Geschichte der Ukraine, 2nd edn, Berlin: Harrassowitz. Marciuk, C. (1991) Mazeppa: Ein Thema der französischen Romantik: Malerei und Graphik 1823–18270XQLFK3UR¿O Moore Coleman, M. (1966) ‘Mazeppa Americain’, in Moore Coleman, M. (ed.) Mazeppa: Polish and American: A Translation of Slowacki’s “Mazeppa”, Together with a Brief Survey of Mazeppa in the United States&KHVKLUH&1&KHUU\+LOO%RRNV± Münckler, H. (1994) ‘Politische Mythen und nationale Identität: Vorüberlegungen zu einer Theorie politischer Mythen’, in Frindte, W. and Pätzolt, H. (eds) (1994) Mythen GHU 'HXWVFKHQ 'HXWVFKH %H¿QGOLFKNHLWHQ ]ZLVFKHQ *HVFKLFKWH XQG *HVFKLFKWH, 2SODGHQ/HVNHXQG%XGULFK±

‘Mazepa’ as a symbol of Ukrainian autonomy   Nordmann, J. (1958) Charles XII et l’Ukraine de Mazepa, Paris: Pichon & DurandAuzias. 2KOREO\Q2 Het’man Ivan Mazepa ta joho doba, New York, Paris, Toronto: Vyd. 22&68±/LJL9L]YROHQQMD8NUDwQ\ Ritz, G. (2001) ‘Mazepa als romantische Figur des Anderen’, in Kubanov, I. (ed.) Polonica. Rossica. Cyclica. Professoru R. Figutu k 60-letiju, Moscow: Dom Intellektual’noj NQLJL± Ryleev, K. (1956) ‘Voinarovskii’, in Ryleev, K., Stichotvorenija. Stat’i. Ocherki. Dokladnye zapiski. Pis’ma0RVFRZ*RV,]GFKXGOLWHUDWXU\± Saldern, A. von (1996) Mythen in Geschichte und Geschichtsschreibung aus polnischer und deutscher Sicht, Münster: LIT Verlag. 6XEWHOQ\2 Ukraine: A HistoryQGHGQ7RURQWR7RURQWR8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV Voltaire (1996) Histoire de Charles XII, The Complete Works of Voltaire, Vol. 4, ed. by YRQ3URVFKZLW]*2[IRUG9ROWDLUH)RXQGDWLRQ

5

Misoteutonic myths Lopping noses in Hussite nationalism and love’s sweet cure Robert B. Pynsent

Introduction For 200 years, German noses constituted a major motif in Czech literature, espeFLDOO\ OLWHUDWXUH ZLWK SROLWLFDO PHVVDJHV 7KLV PRWLI KDG LWV KH\GD\ LQ WKH ¿UVW WZRWKLUGVRIWKH¿IWHHQWKFHQWXU\DSHULRGZKLFKDFFRUGLQJWRQLQHWHHQWKDQG twentieth-century mythopoets saw a blossoming of the Czechs’ natural urge for GHPRFUDF\,QWKLVFKDSWHU,VKDOOEULHÀ\WUDFHWKHKLVWRU\RI&]HFKPLVRWHXWRQLF rhinectomy and suggest how modern variants of the theme survived in a society passionately wedded to their democracy. Straight away I note that the most successful of all Prague executioners, an early sixteenth-century man who lopped a IXOOKHDGVERUHWKHQDPH-DQ%H]QRVê-RKQ1RVHOHVV ýRUQHM  The trouble began with a thirteenth-century account of the reign of Duke 6REČVODY,,± DPDQZKRPLVWUXVWHGKLVQREOHVDQGPRVWRIDOO*HUPDQ speakers. He refused invitations to attend imperial congresses, attempted to VWDXQFK*HUPDQFRORQLVDWLRQRI%RKHPLDDQG¿QDOO\JRW)UHGHULFN%DUEDURVVD¶V JDOO E\ OHDGLQJ D SDUWLFXODUO\ GHYDVWDWLQJ LQFXUVLRQ LQWR $XVWULD ,Q  %DUEDURVVDUHFRJQLVHG6REČVODY¶VFRXVLQ)UHGHULFN3ĜHP\VOLGDVGXNHWKDWLVGH IDFWR GHSRVHG 6REČVODY 6REČVODY GLG QRW VXUUHQGHU KLV WKURQH HDVLO\ DQG GHIHDWHG)UHGHULFNDWWKH%DWWOHRI/RGČQLFHLQ-DQXDU\VRRQDIWHUZDUGVKH ZDVKLPVHOIGHIHDWHGMXVWRXWVLGH3UDJXHDQGKHGLHGLQH[LOHLQ7KHZKROH rhinectomic literary motif appears to have been born in the brief Latin chronicle of the abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery in Milevsko, Gerlachus (d. c ZKRGHVFULEHVWKH%DWWOHRI/RGČQLFHDVIROORZV an immensely bloody battle ensued. Count Sezema, father of Lord HrozQDWD$KQD DQG PDQ\ RWKHUV IHOO &RXQW9tWHN ZDV FDSWXUHG WRJHWKHU ZLWK OHDGLQJ*HUPDQVIURPDPRQJWKRVHZKRKDGFRPHWRWKHDLGRI)UHGHULFN many of these [Germans] were killed and the rest had their noses cut off [multi quoque excis occisi, residuique nasos praecisi]. +HĜPDQVNê The account of the battle given here is taken to be authentic by the most recent KLVWRULDQRIWZHOIWKFHQWXU\%RKHPLDäHPOLþND DQGWKHUHLVQR

Misoteutonic myths   UHDVRQ IRU D OLWHUDU\ KLVWRULDQ WR GRXEW KLP LQ IDFW WKH VXEVHTXHQW HPEHOOLVKPHQWRIWKHDFFRXQWSURYLGHVD¿UVWUDWHH[DPSOHRIDIDFWWXUQLQJLQWRDPDMRU element of national mythology and, indeed, a source of literary and civic forgery. The Hussites, however, did not learn of traditional Czech rhinectomy from *HUODFKXV EXW IURP WKH DQRQ\PRXV DXWKRU RI WKH ¿UVW YHUQDFXODU FKURQLFOH written in verse, an author who has been known since the seventeenth century as Dalimil. In Dalimil, lopping German noses becomes a patriotic act, part and parcel of the author’s general desire to ‘cleanse’ Bohemia of Germans. Dalimil’s ChronicleZDVFRPSOHWHGLQZDVWKH¿UVW2OG&]HFKWH[WWREHSULQWHGLQD VFKRODUO\ HGLWLRQ LQ   DQG QR GRXEW ¿WWLQJO\ VDZ D UHHGLWLRQ RI D  WUDQVODWLRQLQWR0RGHUQ&]HFKLQVRRQDIWHUWKH&]HFK5HSXEOLF¶VDFFHVsion to the European Union. For all its misoteutonism, the Dalimil Chronicle was translated into German twice, into verse in the fourteenth century, prose in WKH¿IWHHQWKFHQWXU\DIUDJPHQWRID/DWLQWUDQVODWLRQKDVDOVRVXUYLYHG1XPHUous Czech fragments and (more or less) complete manuscripts survive, the oldest of which is held in the Wren Library at Cambridge. There is no doubt whatsoever that, apart from basic liturgical texts, it was the most widely read work in 2OG&]HFKOLWHUDWXUH,WLVWKHQQRWVXUSULVLQJWKDW'DOLPLO¶VH[SDQVLRQRI*HUODFKXV¶V DFFRXQW RI WKH %DWWOH RI /RGČQLFH LQWR WKH VWDWHPHQW RI D IXQGDPHQWDO WHQHW RI 6REČVODY¶V IRUHLJQ SROLF\ KDG VXFK DQ LPSDFW LQ WKH +XVVLWH SHULRG 6REČVODY,, ordered anyone who saw a German to bring him to him and then he cut off his nose. . . . When others saw Germans walking along, copying the ruler’s behaviour, they called out at them as if they were wolves and cut off their HDUV DQG QRVHV >6REČVODY@ LPPHGLDWHO\ JDYH  WDOHQWV WR DQ\RQH ZKR brought him a shield full of German noses. 'DĖKHONDet al. And that is by no means the only passage in the Chronicle lauding misoteutonic UKLQHFWRP\3\QVHQW 

Hussite calls for rhinectomy ,VKDOOQRZORRNEULHÀ\DWIRXUZRUNVIURPWKH+XVVLWHSHULRGWKDWDUHLQGLUHFWO\ or directly associable with Dalimil’s somewhat brutal form of nationalism. The ¿UVWWKUHHZHUHZULWWHQVRPHWLPHEHWZHHQDQGWKHODVWLQ7KH ¿UVWLVZULWWHQLQ/DWLQWKRXJKLQPDQXVFULSWLWEHDUVD&]HFKWLWOHZápis AlexDQGUD9HOLNpKRVORYHQVNpPXMD]\NXDþHVNpPXQDEXG~FLHþDV\ (The Privilege of $OH[DQGHUWKH*UHDWIRUWKH6ODYDQG>"@%RKHPLDQQDWLRQLQWKHIXWXUHKHQFHforth The Privilege). It is just possible that this forgery was completed as early DVWKHVRUHYHQHDUOLHUEXWâPDKHOFDXWLRXVO\DQG*UDXVPRUHFRQ¿GHQWO\ SODFH LWV RULJLQV LQ WKH +XVVLWH SHULRG âPDKHO   *UDXV    Given the terminology employed and the brand of xenophobia expressed, it is

  R.B. Pynsent pretty certain that The Privilege FRPHV IURP WKH V RU HDUO\ V 7KDW depends on when the second work was written, a work with which, incidentally, the earliest manuscript of The Privilege was bound. That is the lengthy pamphlet arguing for the election of a king of Czech blood, the Krátké sebránie z kronik þHVNêFK N YêVWUD]Č YČUQêFK ýHFKyY (Brief epitome of the Bohemian chronicles DV D ZDUQLQJ WR WUXHEHOLHYHU %RKHPLDQV KHQFHIRUWK Brief Epitome). The third work is the forged 3UiYD 6REČVODYVNi 6REČVODY¶V ODZV  WKH HDUOLHVW RI ZKRVH ¿IWHHQ YHUVLRQV LV IURP  7KH IRXUWK LV WKH %UHVODX 06 UHGDFWLRQ RI WKH FKURQLFOH FRPSLODWLRQ WKDW KDV EHHQ NQRZQ VLQFH WKH 5RPDQWLF QDWLRQDOLVW )UDQWLãHN)UDQ]3DODFNê± ¿UVWHGLWHGVHYHUDOYHUVLRQVDV6WDĜtOHWRSLVRYpþHãWt2OG&]HFKDQQDOV WKLVFRPSLODWLRQZDVFRPSOHWHGLQWKRXJK VXEVHTXHQWO\HGLWHGLQWKHHDUO\V From a literary historical point of view The Privilege had a probably unique IDWHGXULQJWKH1DWLRQDO5HYLYDOFRQYHQWLRQDOO\± LWVHOIDIRUJHU\LW ZDVVRWRVSHDNUHIRUJHGE\9iFODY+DQND± +HWUDQVODWHGLWLQWR Middle Czech, passed it off as the original, and attached it to the Brief Epitome as an appendix to his edition of the Dalimil Chronicle+DQND $OWKRXJK The Privilege displays no rhinectomy, it does rationalise misoteutonism. It UHÀHFWVWKHQDWLRQDOSULGHHQJHQGHUHGE\+XVVLWHV¶YLFWRULHVRYHUWKHFUXVDGHUV VHQW WR TXHOO WKHLU KHUHV\ DQG E\ WKH IDFW WKDW DW OHDVW DIWHU  PDQ\ ULFK EXUJKHUV PRVW RI WKHP *HUPDQ KDG ÀHG 3UDJXH ,Q The Privilege Alexander bequeaths all lands from the north of Europe to the southern border of Italy WRWDPSODJDPWHUUHDEDTXLORQHDG¿QR,WDOLHPHULGLRQDOLV WRWKH6ODYVLQSHUSHtuity. The text continues by declaring that no one should dare remain [in that territory], settle there, or look for somewhere to live there except your [Slav] peoples. And if someone different [non-Slav] should be found there, let him be your servant and his descendents servants of your descendents. +DQND) Although The Privilege manifests strong Slav consciousness, it is unsafe to translate the words of the Czech title, slovenskému . . .DþHVNpPX, as ‘Slav and Bohemian’ because the conjunction a very often stands for a comma (in English convention) and this phrase was used to mean ‘Bohemian Slavs’. It does not QHFHVVDULO\GRVRKHUHEXWRQHUHPHPEHUVWKDWWKHSRSXODUSURVHFKURQLFOH RI3ĜLEtN3XONDYD]5DGHQtQDGEHWZHHQDQG VDZ%RKHPLDDVWKH VRXUFHRI6ODYGRPBoh (God) was alleged to be the root of the Latin ‘Bohemia’ and ‘slovo’ (word) the origin of the label ‘Slav’. Thus, the word was with God in Bohemia, in the beginning.2 Dalimil manifests little Slav consciousness except an awareness that all Slavs (‘Serbs’) ultimately originated in the confusion of WRQJXHVDURXQGWKH7RZHURI%DEHO±DQGWKDW3RODQGKDGEHHQIRXQGHGE\6ODYV ZKRKDGRULJLQDOO\FRPHWR%RKHPLDZLWKIRUHIDWKHUýHFK&]HFK 0RUHLPSRUtant than Slav consciousness or the meaning of the labels in the title is the implicit message of The Privilege. For the Czech audience a non-Slav threatening to settle

Misoteutonic myths   on Slav land was German, and so one might suggest that claiming that the destiny of such Germans was to be slaves makes for a humiliation akin if not identical to nose-lopping. Furthermore, The Privilege may well constitute the ¿UVW&]HFKDWWHPSWDWDUHIXWDWLRQRIWKHQRWLRQWKDWWKHWHUPSclavus indicated that Slavs were destined to be slaves. Michael McCormick has pointed out that the use of the old word for slave, servus, gradually died out with the spread of Christianity and consequent phrases like ‘servant of God’, let alone ‘servus servorum’. It had been replaced by mancipia for slaves belonging by descent and agrarian activity to the land and captivi (caitiffs) for slaves who has been ‘subjugated by violence’. McCormick considers that sclavus had become the standard, generic term for slaves in the tenth century, although others had found the word LQWKDWPHDQLQJLQGRFXPHQWVIURPDVHDUO\DV0F&RUPLFN±  The Arabic 6DTƗOLEDDOVRPHDQV6ODYDQGVODYH0LVKLQ  The author of the Brief Epitome knew and used The Privilege, but he gives us no hint that he used it to refute the slave notion. It is more likely that The Privilege VLPSO\ VHUYHG WR VXSSRUW KLV FHQWUDO DUJXPHQW WKDW WKH *HUPDQV DUH WRR base and too dangerous to be allowed onto the throne of Bohemia. The Brief Epitome draws together ample direct quotation as well as paraphrase from 'DOLPLO DQ XQLGHQWL¿HG ODWHU FKURQLFOH The Privilege DQG D V SROLWLFDO pamphlet, De Theutonicis bonum dictamen. In this pamphlet the cowardly and IDOVH *HUPDQV KDG TXLWH DSDUW IURP EHLQJ ZROYHV DPRQJ VKHHS DOVR LQÀLFWHG WKHYLFLRXVLQVWLWXWLRQRIJXLOGVRQRWKHUV*UDXV :KHQWKHDXWKRURI the Brief Epitome quotes Dalimil, he normally re-arranges the order of lines, sometimes rather ineptly, in order to strengthen his message. Dating the Brief EpitomeDFFXUDWHO\LVGLI¿FXOWEHFDXVHLQWKHRQHH[WDQWPDQXVFULSWQRSHUVRQDO names are used and because the only clue to dating is the version of Dalimil in the same codex. Before the Second World War, one of the most erudite scholars RI+XVVLWLVP5XGROI8UEiQHNFRQVLGHUHGWKDWWKHSDPSKOHWFRQFHUQHGWKHHOHFWLRQRI$OEHUW+DEVEXUJDVNLQJLQ'HFHPEHUZKHQWKHULYDOFDQGLGDWHSXW XS E\ QREOHV DQG EXUJKHUV LQ 0D\  ZDV &DVLPLU -DJLHOORQ QRQH WKH OHVV $OEHUWZDVFURZQHGLQ-XQH7KHBrief Epitome refers to the possibility of the Bohemians taking a Slav king even if he were not rich, and Casimir was QRWRULRXVIRUKLV¿QDQFLDOGLI¿FXOWLHV$IWHUWKHZDU8UEiQHNFKDQJHGKLVPLQG GHFLGHG WKDW WKH SDPSKOHW FRQFHUQHG WKH HOHFWLRQ RI *HRUJH RI 3RGČEUDG\ HOHFWHG0DUFK +HIRXQGWKHPHQWLRQRIDµPLJKWLHVW¶%RKHPLDQFRQYLQFLQJHYLGHQFHWKDWWKHZULWHUZDVDVXSSRUWHURI*HRUJH8UEiQHN±  All critics have noticed that in the Brief Epitome, nouns and adjectives for ‘Bohemian’ and ‘Slav’ always have initial capital letters, whereas the ‘N’ in German (1ČPHF) is always lower case. That device also goes for 6REČVODY¶V Laws DQG ZRXOG EHFRPH IDVKLRQDEOH DJDLQ LQ  DQG  QRW RQO\ LQ WKH 5RPDQ &DWKROLF GDLO\ EXW DOVR LQ SRHWV OLNH 9ODGLPtU +RODQ ±  DQG 9tWČ]VODY 1H]YDO ±  DQG HYHQ WKH SUROL¿F PLQRU ZULWHU 4XLGR 0DULD 9\VNRþLO± 7KLVRUWKRJUDSKLFQRUPLQWKHBrief EpitomeUHÀHFWVWKH fury of the author’s misoteutonism. The most frequent word/concept with which he characterises Germans is lest (deceit, deviousness), which echoes Dalimil’s

  R.B. Pynsent mythopoeic rhyme þHVW lest, where þHVW (honour) is associated with Bohemians and deceit with Germans. The second sentence of the Brief Epitome prepares the UHDGHUIRUWKHFRQWHQWVRIWKHZKROHZRUNµ$VWKH%RKHPLDQFKURQLFOHVDWWHVW >WKH*HUPDQ@QDWLRQLV¿HUFHVWLQLWVDWWHPSWVWRYDQTXLVKWKH%RKHPLDQDQG>"@ 6ODY QDWLRQ¶ .ROiU    7KH DXWKRU WKHQ JRHV RQ WR IXVH 'DOLPLO The Privilege and De Theutonicis LQ KLV YHUVLRQ RI WKH FRQIXVLRQ RI WRQJXHV HDFK nation had been given a leader, a king or duke or prince or margrave, or even just a common-or-garden lord, who would take them to the lands they had been allotted. The Germans, however, had been given Teucades as their leader, but no land for him to lead them to. In a manner that foreshadows portrayals of Gipsies and Jews in later centuries, the author declares that the Germans were a nomadic people (národ . . . VYČWREČåQê), normally called PDQQê, that is, a nation created at Babel to serve other nations. New to Czech nationalism is the fact that the author KDVQRWLPHIRUWKH/X[HPERXUJG\QDVW\DWDOO±WKRXJKKHRPLWV:HQFHVODV,9 ±  SUHVXPDEO\ EHFDXVH KH KDG WR D GHJUHH VRPHWLPHV EHHQ RQ WKH right (Church reform) side and had been despised and humiliated by the papists. :HQFHVODV¶V JUDQGIDWKHU -RKQ RI /X[HPERXUJ ±  KDG QHJOHFWHG Bohemia, but had milked the country in order to support his campaigns in the 5KLQHDUHDLQGHHGKHKDGKDGVROLWWOHUHVSHFWIRU%RKHPLDWKDWKHKDGZDQWHG WRH[FKDQJHLWIRUWKH5KLQHODQG3DODWLQDWH7KHDXWKRU¶VDWWLWXGHWR&KDUOHV,9 ±  LV SHUKDSV PRUH VXUSULVLQJ JLYHQ WKH H[WHQW WR ZKLFK KH KDG EHHQ JORUL¿HGHDUOLHURQWKHRWKHUKDQG&KDUOHVKDGVWRRGIRUPXFKQR+XVVLWHFRXOG endure. He had done some good, like building the Prague New Town and founding Prague University, but in his desire to enrich Bohemia he had ‘multiplied *HUPDQVDOORYHUWKHODQG¶.ROiU )XUWKHUPRUHWKHDXWKRULQGXOJHVLQ something like the haematic nationalism of an Ernst Moritz Arndt or a Jahn, in peremptorily declaring that because Charles was of German stock (plemene) he had wanted to populate Bohemia with Germans and be rid of Czechs. The author also exhibits much of the mentality of 6REČVODY¶V Laws when describing the SUHYDOHQFHRI*HUPDQVLQSRVLWLRQVRIDXWKRULW\GXULQJ&KDUOHV¶VUHLJQ Who were the mayors and aldermen of almost all royal boroughs in Bohemia? Germans. Who were the justices? Germans. Where did the Germans hear sermons in their own language? In the main churches. And where Czechs? In graveyards or private houses. (ibid.) All these things threaten the Czechs now if a German king is elected. Largely OLQNHG WR TXRWDWLRQV IURP 'DOLPLO WKH DXWKRU SUDLVHV 6REČVODY ,, DQG OLNH 'DOLPLO HUURQHRXVO\ PDNHV KLP VRQ RI 9ODGLVODY ,, %HFDXVH 6REČVODY µORYHG the Czech nation so much that, together with the Bohemian lords, he drove his RZQIDWKHU9ODGLVODY,,.LQJRI%RKHPLDRXWRIWKHODQGDQGWKHQFXWRIIWKH *HUPDQV¶QRVHV¶LELG  Most important for this author’s nationalism is, however, that a German king would threaten the Czechs’ right to take Communion in both kinds. Here we

Misoteutonic myths   have something that became a mythic topos of Czech literature and politics in WKH QLQHWHHQWK DQG WZHQWLHWK FHQWXULHV WKDW IRUHLJQ UXOHUV WKH µ*HUPDQ¶ Habsburgs, had removed the Czechs’ ancient democratic right to the Chalice and WKDW WKH &RXQWHU5HIRUPDWLRQ KDG WKXV HPERGLHG DQ DWWHPSW WR DQQLKLODWH WKH Czech nation. The author of the Brief Epitome asserts that the Czechs had to defend their love for the Blood of Christ, which they love more than all other SHRSOHV WKH *HUPDQV DUH WKH ¿HUFHVW HQHPLHV RI XWUDTXLVP LELG ±  +H FOLQFKHVKLVDUJXPHQWZLWKDVOLJKWO\DEULGJHGYHUVLRQRI'HXWHURQRP\ 7KRX VKDOW LQ DQ\ ZLVH VHW KLP NLQJ RYHU WKHH ZKRP WKH /25' WK\ *RG VKDOO FKRRVH RQH IURP DPRQJ WK\ EUHWKUHQ VKDOW WKRX VHW NLQJ RYHU WKHH thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. The Brief Epitome ends with another biblical quotation, this time concerning KHUHWLFV WKDW LV 3DSLVWV  D SDUDSKUDVH RI -RKQ ,, µ,I WKHUH FRPH DQ\ XQWR you, and bring not this doctrine [in the Bible primarily the doctrine of the Incarnation], receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed.’ If you let Germans into your house, the author comments, they will soon take it over and drive you out of it. That constitutes an echo of the fourteenth-century rhymed Aesop. The extent to which the third Hussite work, 6REČVODY¶V /DZV, constitutes a IRUJHU\LVFRPSOH[7KH¿UVWVL[DUWLFOHVWKRVHWKDWUHYHDOWKH'DOLPLOVSLULWPRVW clearly, are forged through and through. That goes for the preamble to the subseTXHQW PRUH WKDQ  DUWLFOHV WRR 7KH PDMRULW\ RI WKH DUWLFOHV LV KRZHYHU DXWKHQWLFLQWKDWRUVRRIWKHPDSSUR[LPDWHDUWLFOHVLQDEULHIERRNRIDOGHUPHQ¶VODZIURPDQGVXSSOHPHQWDU\DUWLFOHVIURPDQG6FKUDQLO ± VRPHDUWLFOHVFRQVWLWXWHUHFRUGVRIFXVWRPDU\ODZDQGVRPHSDUWLFXODUO\WKRVHFRQFHUQLQJWKH3UDJXH2OG7RZQ¶VUHODWLRQVKLSZLWKWKHPRQDUFK and with other Bohemian royal boroughs are based on wishful thinking rather than on the author’s desire to deceive, wishful thinking that arose from the fact that the royal boroughs were illicitly excluded from the diet that elected Albert +DEVEXUJNLQJLQ6REČVODY¶V/DZV also appeared in print, most notably in 9iFODY +iMHN¶V G  Kronika þHVNi %RKHPLDQ FKURQLFOH   DQG LQGHHGDUHLQFOXGLQJWKH¿UVW¿YHDUWLFOHVUHFRUGHGDVJHQXLQHDVODWHDV LQWKH¿UVWHGLWLRQRI-RVHI-XQJPDQQ¶V± KLVWRU\RI&]HFKOLWHUDWXUH The late Enlightenment scholar Josef Dobrovský/Joseph Dobrowsky ±  ULGLFXOHG -XQJPDQQ IRU WKLV LQ KLV UHYLHZ :KHQ .DUHO -DURPtU (UEHQ ±  LQFOXGHG 6REČVODY¶V /DZV LQ KLV  DQWKRORJ\ RI PDLQO\ Middle Czech literature, he omitted the offending articles. Whatever the extent RIWKHLUIRUJHU\WKHWKLUGUHGDFWLRQRI6REČVODY¶V/DZV, was accepted as YDOLGE\2OG7RZQEXUJKHUVDQGDSSHDUHGLQDOPRVWDOO&]HFKOHJDOPDQXVFULSWV EHWZHHQ  DQG  LELG   ,Q DSSUR[LPDWHO\ WKDW \HDU 6REČVODY¶V /DZV EHJDQWREHSXVKHGLQWRWKHEDFNJURXQGE\%ULNFt]/LFND¶V"± DQG .ULVWLiQ].ROGtQD¶V"± ERRNVRIWRZQODZV No one appears to have taken 6REČVODY¶V/DZVVHULRXVO\IURPWKHSXEOLFDWLRQRI.ULVWLiQ¶VERRNXQWLOWKH

  R.B. Pynsent  LG1DWLRQDO5HYLYDOZKHQWKH\FRXOGVHUYHWRDXWKHQWLFDWHWKHJURZLQJPLVRP teutonism of the national movement. The writing of 6REČVODY¶V /DZV was LQVSLUHG ¿UVW E\ WKH (PSHURU 6LJLVPXQG¶V SULYLOHJH RI  WKDW JUDQWHG WKH 2OG 7RZQ VHQLRULW\ RYHU DOO RWKHU UR\DO ERURXJKV LQ %RKHPLD VHFRQG E\ WKH IDFW WKDW LQ WKH FRXUVH RI WKH +XVVLWH :DUV WKH 2OG 7RZQ KDG DFTXLUHG WKDW status anyway, indeed had become the only more or less stable centre of Bohemian life, and, third, by the fact that after the defeat of the radical Hussites at the %DWWOHRI/LSDQ\0D\ WKH+XVVLWHDQGSDSLVWHVWDWHV¶DFFHSWDQFHRIWKH Compacts of Basle, and the Hussites’ recognition of Sigismund as King of %RKHPLD-XQH±$XJXVW WKH2OG7RZQKDGWRHQGHDYRXUWRUHVWRUHRUGHU to burgher life. The preamble to 6REČVODY¶V/DZV is even more historically confused than the DFFRXQWRI6REČVODY,,¶VSXUVXLWRIUKLQHFWRP\LQWKHBrief Epitome,QKLV µFKURQLFOH¶+iMHNZDVHYLGHQWO\GLVWXUEHGE\WKDWDQGVRGDWHGWKHODZV WKDWLVGXULQJWKHUHLJQRI6REČVODY,7KHWRZQFOHUNDXWKRURI6REČVODY¶V/DZV KDV 6REČVODY ,, SURFODLP WKHVH UHJXODWLRQV DIWHU WKH EDWWOH QHDU 3UDJXH WKDW KH KDGORVWUDWKHUWKDQDIWHUWKHEDWWOHWKDWKHKDGZRQ/RGČQLFH)XUWKHUPRUHZH learn that after the Prague battle he had imprisoned his brother (that is, cousin) )UHGHULFN EHFDXVH WKH ODWWHU KDG JLYHQ *HUPDQV KLJK RI¿FHV 7KH ¿UVW DUWLFOH of the law book appears to distinguish between a foreign and a Bohemian German (although I believe that the term QČPHF cizozemec might not mean a ‘foreign German’, but that the cizozemec (foreigner) might simply function as DQDXJPHQWDWLYH LQ P\ WUDQVODWLRQ IRU DUJXPHQW¶V VDNH , SURYLGH ZKDW PD\ amount to the conventional understanding of the phrase, but may be a comproPLVHµ1R*HUPDQIRUHLJQHUPD\WDNHRI¿FHVHFXODURUVSLULWXDOLQWKHFLW\RI Prague or the regnum RI %RKHPLD XQGHU SDLQ RI KDYLQJ KLV QRVH FXW RII WKH\ must be treated as foreigners [hosty@¶ 6FKUDQLO    +iMHN XQGHUVWDQGV QČPHF cizozemec differently, neither as a ‘foreign German’ nor as ‘a German DQG  IRUHLJQHU¶ ZKLFK VXJJHVWV WKDW WKH SKUDVH ZDV LQGHHG DPELJXRXV µQR *HUPDQ RU DQ\ RWKHU IRUHLJQHU¶ +iMHN ] /LERþDQ    $IWHU WKH VL[WK article, the author of 6REČVODY¶V /DZV provides a commentary (reduced to one EULHI VHQWHQFH E\ +iMHN  WKDW FRPSULVHV FKLHÀ\ D OLVW RI %RKHPLDQ UXOHUV ZKR KDGFRQ¿UPHGWKHSULYLOHJHVJUDQWHGWRWKH2OG7RZQE\6REČVODY,,KHLQFOXGHV the names of three dukes or kings who never existed, Jaroslav, Domaslav and Nadslav. Here once again I am reminded of the nineteenth-century forger Hanka, IRU KH LQYHQWHG DQFLHQW &]HFK QDPHV WZR RI WKHVH KDYH EHFRPH PRUH RU OHVV QRUPDO /XERU DQG /XPtU D WKLUG =iERM UHPDLQV D FRGH QDPH IRU YDOLDQW misoteutonists.  $SDUWIURPWKHFULPHRIEHLQJD*HUPDQDQGDVVXPLQJDQRI¿FHDUWLFOH  no crime is punished by rhinectomy in 6REČVODY¶V/DZV/LNHWKH¿UVWVRPHDUWLcles manifest misoteutonism, but also probably demographic change in Hussite %RKHPLD7KRXJKWKDW¿UVWDUWLFOHHPERGLHGUDEEOHURXVLQJRIWKHW\SHHYLGHQW in the Brief Epitome, other articles are more realistic. For example, in treating the composition of the town council, in the oldest version there should be twelve &]HFKDOGHUPHQDQGVL[RWKHUVµZKRDUHDEOHWRVSHDN*HUPDQ¶LQODWHUYHUVLRQV

Misoteutonic myths   WKDW UHDGV µVL[ *HUPDQV ZKR DUH DEOH WR VSHDN &]HFK¶ 6FKUDQLO    $QRWKHU DUWLFOH KRZHYHU LV SRVLWLYHO\ OLEHUDO µ1R *HUPDQ IRUHLJQHU >QČPHF cizozemec@ZKRGRHVQRWNQRZ&]HFKPD\EHFRPHPD\RU¶LELG *HUPDQV ZHUHWREHFRQ¿QHGWRDJKHWWRDURXQG6W%HQHGLFW¶VFKXUFKWRGD\¶V1D3RĜtþt LELG   LQ RWKHU ZRUGV PXVW QRW EH DOORZHG WR FRQWDPLQDWH &]HFKV 7ZR RWKHUDUWLFOHVFRQ¿UPWKDW*HUPDQVDUHWKHHQHP\WKH2OG7RZQVKRXOGQHYHU pay taxes directly into the royal treasury unless the king is conducting a camSDLJQDJDLQVWWKH*HUPDQVLELG DQGWKH2OG7RZQKDVDGXW\WRSURYLGH soldiers only when a war is being waged against the Germans or to protect the IURQWLHULELG  6REČVODY¶V/DZV, like the Brief Epitome, concerns itself only with Bohemia, but the fourth Hussite work, the Breslau MS redaction of the Old Czech Annals, FRYHUV %RKHPLDQ DQG 0RUDYLDQ KLVWRU\ IURP  WR  DOEHLW EHFDXVH RI the domicile of a large proportion of its mostly eye-witness authors, and because it was the royal seat, Prague remains the work’s primary focus. The Annals survives in over twenty different manuscripts, some of which take Czech history up WRDQGDWOHDVWWZRRIZKLFKZHUHUHHGLWHGDWWKHEHJLQQLQJRIWKHVHYHQWHHQWKFHQWXU\2QHFDQQRWVSHDNRIDQ\IRUJHU\LQWKHHDUO\HGLWLQJRIWKHZRUN but the various editors have clearly made a reasonable attempt at ensuring chronological and, to some degree, stylistic and linguistic consistency. Forgery of a VRUWGRHVHQWHUWKHVFHQHKRZHYHULQWKH1DWLRQDO5HYLYDO:KHQ3DODFNêFRPpiled his variorum edition based on the seventeen versions he knew, he changed WKH ODQJXDJH RI WKH ODWHU PDQXVFULSWV LQWR ZKDW KH FRQVLGHUHG ODWH ¿IWHHQWK FHQWXU\ &]HFK ýRUQHM  ±    , VKDOO ORRN DW WKH Old Czech AnnalsRQO\YHU\EULHÀ\PHQWLRQRQO\WZRSDVVDJHVOLQNHGZLWKPLVRWHXWRQLVP DQGUKLQHFWRP\2QHSDVVDJHLQSDUWLFXODUPLJKWKDYHVHUYHGWKHGDWLQJRIWKH Brief Epitome, since the pamphlet’s content is paraphrased in the chapter treatLQJWKHGHDWKRI6LJLVPXQGDQGWKHHOHFWLRQRI$OEHUW+DEVEXUJ the other side were working to have the Polish King Casimir king of Bohemia, for they did not like the idea of being subject to German power, which could lead to great evil now and in the future. Furthermore, it would bring harm and shame to the whole Slav nation, for it has always been and can be found in all old chronicles that Germans have been and do not cease to be the chief enemies of Bohemians, Poles and the whole Slav nation. âLPHN± Especially towards the end, the misoteutonism of the Old Czech Annals is intense. For the purposes of this chapter, the most useful passage comes when WKHODVWVHYHQWKDXWKRUDGGUHVVHV.LQJ*HRUJHRI3RGČEUDG\ZKRKDGPDUULHG PRVWRIKLVFKLOGUHQWR*HUPDQVDQGVRORVWWHUULWRULHVJDLQHGFKLHÀ\E\&KDUOHV ,9 $W WKLV SRLQW WKH DXWKRU GRHV QRW PHQWLRQ WKDW *HRUJH KDG DOVR PDUULHG D daughter, Kunka, into Hungary, to Matthias Corvinus, who subsequently requisiWLRQHG0RUDYLD+HUHWKHDXWKRULVGLUHFWO\XQGHUWKHLQÀXHQFHRI'DOLPLOUDWKHU than of the Brief EpitomeVLQFHKHPHQWLRQVRWHFWRP\DVZHOODVUKLQHFWRP\

  R.B. Pynsent 2K GHDU .LQJ *HRUJH \RXU *HUPDQ LQODZV WKRVH \RX WRRN LQWR \RXU family, really did behave in a friendly manner! If only you had remembered WKH¿UVWGXNHVDQGNLQJVRI%RKHPLDDQGKRZWKH\GHDOWZLWK*HUPDQVZKR SLFNHGDTXDUUHOZLWKWKHPWKH\FXWRII*HUPDQV¶QRVHVDQGHDUVDQGGURYH them out of the country back to their own lands so that they could avoid any close relationship with them. For they well knew that the Germans had never done anything good for them and, whenever they could, they had tried to subjugate the Czechs, just as they do today. LELG

Why noses? It is now high time for me to suggest a reason for so many medieval Czech writers’ advocacy of misoteutonic rhinectomy. I have found two little clues. )LUVW*HUODFKXVJDYHDPRWLYHWR6REČVODYWKH*HUPDQVKDGµWKHLUQRVHVFXWRII VRWKDWWKHUHVWRIWKHZRUOGFRXOGPRFNWKHP¶+HĜPDQVNê 6HFRQG ZH¿QGLQ3XONDYD¶VSURVHFKURQLFOHZKLFKLVQRWLQWKHVOLJKWHVWPLVRWHXWRQLFD SLFWXUHRI&]HFKV0RUDYLDQV KDYLQJWKHLUQRVHVORSSHGE\$XVWULDQVµWKH\FXW off the noses and ears of many of them so that they could thenceforth do no KDUPWRWKH$XVWULDQV¶*HEDXHU 7KH¿UVWSRVVLELOLW\RILQWHUSUHWDtion is medical. Cutting off a man’s nose not only made him look hideous or worthy of mockery, but could easily bring about untimely death from, for H[DPSOHVHSWLFWKURPERVLVPHQLQJLWLVDFHUHEUDODEVFHVVRUHQGRFDUGLWLV9iOND    'HDG WKRVH 0RUDYLDQV ZRXOG FHUWDLQO\ QRW EH FDSDEOH RI KDUPLQJ Austrians, but this interpretation appears inadequate. A second possible interpreWDWLRQ ZRXOG EH EDVHG RQ WKH OLVW RI VHPLRXWFDVWV LQ /HYLWLFXV  ZKLFK UHDGVµ)RUZKDWVRHYHUPDQKHEHWKDWKDWKDEOHPLVKKHVKDOOQRWDSSURDFK>WR RIIHUWKHEUHDGRIKLV*RG@DEOLQGPDQRUDODPHRUKHWKDWKDWKDÀDWQRVHRU DQ\WKLQJVXSHUÀXRXV¶7KHWHUPµÀDWQRVH¶LVGHULYHGIURPDSUREOHPIRUWUDQVODWRUV 7KH HDUOLHVW H[WDQW YHUVLRQ RI WKH SKUDVH LQ &]HFK LQ WKH  2ORPRXF %LEOHLVµZLWKDVPDOORUODUJHQRVH¶.\DV 0RGHUQWUDQVODWLRQVKDYH D µPXWLODWHG IDFH¶ 0DU\ 'RXJODV SRLQWV RXW WKDW /HYLWLFXV ± HTXDWHV SK\VLFDOEOHPLVKZLWKµEOHPLVKHGMXGJHPHQW¶'RXJODV 7RPHGLHYDO man the passage would suggest primarily that sacred duties are forbidden to someone with a physical blemish, but that would have been extended to any duty WKDW EHVWRZHG KRQRXU RU UHSUHVHQWHG D PDUN RI KRQRXU /HYLWLFXV  FRXOG account for Gerlachus’s statement that being noseless made men a laughingstock, but not with the Pulkava statement unless the soldiers described are meant to be knights. In any case, the un-nosed German bore a mark of shame indicating that he had behaved shamefully. The third possible interpretation is sexual, and PRUHFRQYLQFLQJWKDQWKH¿UVWWZRWKRXJKLWPD\RYHUODSZLWKWKH/HYLWLFXVEDQ on blemishes. We do not have to consider back-to-back mountain-top courtship in the East Indies, let alone Krafft-Ebing’s association of the erectile hairs in the nose with genitalia or the late twentieth-century discovery of Jacobson’s organ LQWKHQRVHWKHRUJDQWKDWVHUYHVWRUHFHLYHSKHURPRQHV2QHPLJKWKRZHYHU

Misoteutonic myths   think of the Czech proverb ‘SRGOHQRVDSR]QiãNRVD’ (You can tell the blackbird by its nose), or, as Malcolm Jones informs us, a precept of the most respected medieval medical school, the Salernian, ‘It is known by his nose how big a man’s “spear” is.’ In the Middle Ages the Latin nasutus, (big-)nosed, meant µJHQLWDOO\ZHOOHQGRZHG¶-RQHV ,WLVWKHQSUREDEOHWKDWUKLQHFWRP\ was a euphemism for castration, or penial abscission, that is an unmanning, which could explain both Gerlachus’s and Pulkava’s comments. Furthermore, IRU WKH PHGLHYDO QDWLRQDOLVW FDVWUDWLRQ ZRXOG EH DQ HI¿FLHQW ZD\ WR SUHYHQW Czech women copulating with Germans and thus threatening that purity of Czech blood that Dalimil and the author(s) of the Brief Epitome so desired. Naturally, one cannot be entirely sure that all those who wrote about rhinectomy knew this genital meaning, but the majority surely did. This third interpretation gives a whole new dimension to the pan-European idiom ‘to lead someone by the nose’.

Misoteutonism from the Revival onwards, particularly since 1945 ,VXVSHFWWKDWZKHQLQÀXHQWLDO5HYLYDOLVWVOLNH'REURYVNêDQG3DODFNêH[SUHVVHG their disapproval of Dalimil, they had not registered the genital meaning of rhinectomy, and as intellectuals simply disapproved of his brutally misoteutonic message. In fact, it will seem to any reader that Dalimil’s national stance, as well DVWKDWRIWKH+XVVLWHVZKRIROORZHGLQKLVIRRWVWHSVKDGDFRQVLGHUDEOHLQÀXHQFH on Palacký’s conception of Czech history, although his standard history of the Czechs tends to be read as more anti-German than it actually is. Certainly, misoWHXWRQLVPUHJUHZLQ5HYLYDOOLWHUDWXUHSDUWLFXODUO\IURPWKHPLGVRQZDUGV DQGLWLVE\QRPHDQVTXLWHGHDG\HWLQWKHPLGV,QGHHGWKH5HYLYDORQO\ partly because of the Josephine reforms that introduced German as the language of instruction and administration, turned to medieval misoteutonism as an inspiration for what the national programme should be. Hanka’s forged medieval manXVFULSWV FKLHÀ\ WKH QDUUDWLYH SRHPV LQVSLUHG ODUJHO\ E\ 'DOLPLO DQG RWKHU 2OG Czech works, express earnest misoteutonism, and in one case misopolonism of the Pulkava brand. In their blind condemnation of virtually everything written on &]HFK VRLO GXULQJ WKH &RXQWHU5HIRUPDWLRQ SHULRG FRQFHLYHG RI E\ WKHP DV D SHULRG RI GHFD\  WKH 5HYLYDOLVWV ZHUH DOVR UHMHFWLQJ %DURTXH FRVPRSROLWDQLVP In this context it is safe to assert that when the leading vernacular Czech Baroque KLVWRULDQ-DQ)UDQWLãHN%HFNRYVNê± UHSHDWHG+iMHN¶VYHUVLRQRIWKH ¿UVW DUWLFOH RI 6REČVODY¶V Laws (‘no German nor any other foreigner’) (BeckoYVNê WKLVLVVXHGIURPSDWULRWLFDQWLTXDULDQLVPUDWKHUWKDQ[HQRSKRELD let alone a desire to applaud Czechs’ misoteutonic violence.  $VODWHDVWKHVGXULQJWKHSHULRGRIQHRDEVROXWLVPYLOODLQVLQ&]HFK literature tended to be Italians or Jews. In fact, anti-Semitism, replacing anti-XGDLVPEHJDQWREXUJHRQLQWKHV,QGHHGVLQFHDWWKHWLPHWKHYDVWPDMRUity of urban Jews were German-speaking, writers all too frequently exploited ingrained anti-Jewish prejudice as a weapon of misoteutonism. Although it was

  R.B. Pynsent strictly speaking anti-Habsburg feeling that burst forth with new energy after the Hungarians’ success and the Czechs’ failure to achieve autonomy or more in LWEHFDPHWKHUHDIWHUHYHUPRUHGLI¿FXOWWRGLVWLQJXLVKDQWL+DEVEXUJIURP DQWL*HUPDQVHQWLPHQWV9HU\EURDGO\VSHDNLQJWKHOLWHUDU\H[SUHVVLRQRIPLVRteutonism came in three main waves, that following the failure of Casimir BadeQL¶V ODQJXDJH RUGLQDQFHV WR EH LPSOHPHQWHG LQ WKH PLGV DQG WKH SHULRGV immediately following the First and Second World Wars. The intention of this part of this chapter is selectively to examine the development of literary misoWHXWRQLVPIURPWKH3UDJXH8SULVLQJRI0D\WRWKH6RYLHWHVWDEOLVKPHQWRI WKH*'5DQGWKHPRGL¿FDWLRQRIQDWLRQDOLVWLGHRORJ\WKDWFDPHVRRQDIWHUWKH deaths of Stalin and his Czechoslovak counterpart, Klement Gottwald (both   7KH \HDU  GLG PDUN D WXUQLQJ SRLQW IRU PLVRWHXWRQLVP WRR /LNH *HUPDQ KLVWRULDQV &]HFK GLVVLGHQWV DQG SRVW H[LOHV KDG EHJXQ VHULously writing about the post-war expulsion of Germans beforehand, but it was only after the fall of the Communist Party regime that historians and some writers began publicly to reconsider not only the expulsion but also the Prague Uprising. It was as if (only as if) Czech intellectuals had suddenly become aware WKDW DW WKH HQG RI WKH 6HFRQG :RUOG :DU WKH\ KDG IXO¿OOHG 'DOLPLO¶V LGHDO RI UKLQHFWRP\ $IWHU  D SHULRG RI H[SLDWLRQ EHJDQ LW UHPDLQV WR EH VHHQ whether the intellectuals involved will have had a lasting impact on the populace with their broadcasts, articles and books.  $PDQWUDRIWKH¿UVWWZRRUWKUHH\HDUVIROORZLQJWKHIDOORI&RPPXQLVPZDV WKH SRVVLELOLW\ QRZ WR SLFN XS WKH GHPRFUDWLF WUDGLWLRQV RI WKH )LUVW 5HSXEOLF ±  7KDW µGHPRFUDF\¶ LWVHOI KDG VRXJKW LWV µWUDGLWLRQ¶ LQ WKH +XVVLWH period and in the ‘natural democraticality’ of the Czechs, an essential element of QDWLRQDOP\WKRORJ\DWOHDVWIURPWKHODWHVRQZDUGV,IWKDWHOHPHQWKDVQRZ EHHQGHOHWHGDWOHDVWIURPRI¿FLDOSROLWLFDOZULWLQJVWKHQWKDWKDVKDSSHQHGRQO\ VLQFH9iFODY.ODXV¶VDFFHVVLRQWRWKHSUHVLGHQWLDOWKURQH Klaus is an avowed 7KDWFKHULWHWKDWLVDFULWLFRIWKHµGHPRFUDWLFGH¿FLW¶RIWKH(XURSHDQ8QLRQDQG an anti-intellectualist believer in the ‘classless society’. Before the Second World :DUWKHVLQJOHPDMRUFULWLFRIERWKWKHQRWLRQRI)LUVW5HSXEOLFGHPRFUDF\DQG of Dalimilian and Hussite misoteutonism was the biologist and thinker Emanuel 5iGO ±  ,Q KLV 9iOND ýHFKĤ V 1ČPFL (The Czechs’ war with the *HUPDQV KHUHPLQGVWKHUHDGHUWKDWKHKDGµIUHTXHQWO\H[SUHVVHGKLVGLVDJUHHPHQWZLWKWKHDQWL*HUPDQSROLWLFVRIWKH&]HFKRVORYDNVWDWH¶5iGO   DQG KH EODPHV 3DODFNê¶V FRQFHSWLRQ RI KLVWRU\ IRU PXFK &]HFK±*HUPDQ DQWDJRQLVP,QWKH0LGGOH$JHVKHPDLQWDLQVDIRUPRIUDFLVPSUHYDLOHGµ,Q Bohemia, racial antipathies, i.e. essentially biological forces, became the driving force of history, while the common people were meant to follow the ideal¶LELG  ,Q'DOLPLODQGZULWHUVRIWKH+XVVLWHSHULRGKHVHHVDSULPLWLYHQDWLRQDOLVP their ‘instinct of belonging also gives rise to an antipathy towards anything “foreign” whether by blood, by appearance, custom or by originality. At this WLPH IULHQGVKLS DQG KRVWLOLW\ DUH IRXQGHG RQ LQVWLQFW QRW RQ WKH LGHDO¶ LELG  5iGOFRQVLGHUVWKDWWKHSUHVHQWODFNRIOR\DOW\WRWKHQHZVWDWHRI&]HFKRVORYDNLDLVVXHVIURPWKLVVDPH&]HFKWULEDOLVPLELG 7KRXJK&]HFKVQRZ

Misoteutonic myths   speak and write of Communism and Fascism as the greatest threats to democUDF\ KH GRXEWV ZKHWKHU WKH SROLWLFDO WKLQNLQJ RI ODWH V &]HFKRVORYDNV LV µYHU\GLIIHUHQWIURP&RPPXQLVPDQG)DVFLVP¶LELG 5iGOXQGHUVWDQGVWKH root cause of the lack of democracy in the new state to lie in the tribalist, organicist conception of the new state. Inter-war Central Europe was, he writes, IRXQGHGRQWKLVFRQFHSWLRQ According to it, the nation is a mystical force that has prevailed through WKHDJHVWKHQDWLRQLVDQDXWKRULW\WRZKLFKHYHU\WKLQJHOVHLVVXEMHFWWKH state is the climax of the national idea and religion, scholarship, industry, WKHVRFLDOV\VWHPKDYHRQO\RQHVLJQL¿FDQFHWRJLYHWKHQDWLRQWKHPHDQVWR assert itself. This tribal nationalism, like Fascism, demands that everyone uncritically submit WRWKHP\VWLFDODXWKRULW\RIWKHµQDWLRQ¶LELG± %\IDUWKHPRVWVRSKLVWLcated inter-war Czech political novel levels this same criticism at the state and institutional anti-semitism, indeed suggests that Fascist-minded state bureaucrats and industrialists held an unassailable position amongst the Czechoslovak elite. 7KLVQRYHO%HQMDPLQ.OLþND¶V± 1DYLQLFL3iQČ (In the Lord’s vine\DUG ZULWWHQIURPDOLEHUDOE\QRPHDQVVRFLDOLVWSRVLWLRQZDVFRQ¿Vcated by the Czechoslovak authorities after the Munich Agreement, and has QHYHUEHHQUHSXEOLVKHG±WKRXJK.OLþNDZDVQRWRQHRIWKRVHLQWHUZDUZULWHUV the Communists proscribed.  7KHWUXQFDWLRQRIWKH&]HFKRVORYDNVWDWHLQ2FWREHUDQGWKHVXEVHTXHQW RFFXSDWLRQRI%RKHPLDDQG0RUDYLDLQ0DUFKIROORZHGLPPHGLDWHO\DIWHU the war by the public revelation of Hitler’s intention to expel most Czechs to the East and to liquidate or germanise the rest, led to increased misoteutonism, and, amongst politicians and many intellectuals, to the conviction that Dalimil had EHHQ ULJKW HWKQLF FOHDQVLQJ ZDV WKH RQO\ DQVZHU WR µDQFLHQW¶ &]HFK±*HUPDQ hostility. Indeed, ethnic cleansing constituted the only means to re-establish Czech ‘natural democraticality’. Together with expelling the Germans, however many hundreds of years their families had been living there, came the need to SXQLVKFROODERUDWRUVWKH&]HFKQDWLRQLWVHOIQHHGHGSXUJLQJ2QHPD\FRPSDUH that with Dalimil’s assertion that nasty foreign (which means German) habits like tourneying and keeping dogs in the house had brought general military ZHDNQHVV DQG D SUROLIHUDWLRQ RI JDPH OHJV WR WKH &]HFKV 5HWULEXWLRQ EHJDQ GXULQJWKH3UDJXH8SULVLQJ±0D\ DQGLQWHQVL¿HGLQLWVDIWHUPDWK/DZ GHFODUHGOHJDODOODFWVRIUHWULEXWLRQSHUSHWUDWHGEHIRUH2FWREHU Although this law did not in fact offer general impunity for all the raping, torturing and brutal killing of innocents that had taken place, it did de facto declare EUXWDOLW\ SDWULRWLF ,W PXVW KRZHYHU EH VDLG WKDW LQ  WKH &]HFKRVORYDN authorities did start investigations into one of the most blatant crimes attending WKHH[SXOVLRQWKHPDVVDFUHRI*HUPDQVQHDU3RVWRORSUW\DQGDOVRLQWRWKH brutality committed at one of the notorious internment camps for Germans and DOOHJHGFROODERUDWRUVWKDWVLWXDWHGLQ.ROtQ)URPPHU 7KH8SULVLQJ

  R.B. Pynsent LWVHOI LQYROYHG H[WUHPHO\ ¿HUFH ¿JKWLQJ PXFK RI LW LQ WKH FHQWUH RI 3UDJXH 1HDUO\  &]HFKV ZHUH NLOOHG FKLHÀ\ PHPEHUV RI WKH ORZHU PLGGOH FODVV (shopkeepers, tradesmen, clerks and so forth), not of the working class (Soukup    WKRXJK LW DSSHDUV WKDW D ODUJH QXPEHU RI ZRUNHUV GLG MRLQ LQ DV µEHODWHG UHYROXWLRQDULHV¶ RQ  0D\ WKDW LV DIWHU WKH *HUPDQ FDSLWXODWLRQ RQ  0D\ RIWHQ PHPEHUV RI WKH 5HYROXWLRQDU\ *XDUG XQLWV VHW XS E\ WKH &]HFK National Council in accordance with pre-Uprising plans. The expulsion of *HUPDQV DQG VRPH +XQJDULDQV  EHJDQ VRRQ DIWHUZDUGV ,Q %UQR RQ  0D\ %HQHãGHFODUHGRI*HUPDQVµ,QWKHFRXUVHRIWKLVZDUWKLVQDWLRQFHDVHGWREH human at all, ceased to be humanly tolerable and appears to us to be one single KXPDQPRQVWHU¶0O\QiULN %HQHã¶VVHFUHWDU\WKHIXWXUH0LQLVWHURI -XVWLFH 3URNRS 'UWLQD GHFODUHG LQ 3UDJXH DOVR LQ PLG0D\ µ:H VKDOO VWDUW GULYLQJ RXW WKH *HUPDQV VWUDLJKW DZD\ ZH VKDOO XVH DOO PHDQV VKDOO VWRS DW QRWKLQJ¶ LELG   6XFK VWDWHPHQWV E\ OHDGLQJ SROLWLFLDQV ERWK UHÀHFWHG DQG encouraged Czech atrocities. During the Uprising the Germans, particularly the Waffen-SS, perpetrated atrocities as well, and way beyond their most frequently recorded practice of using human shields for their tanks as they attacked barricades (the Czechs had HUHFWHG RYHU   7KH HQWKXVLDVP ZLWK ZKLFK WKH &]HFKV KDG HUHFWHG WKHVH barricades and the courage with which they had defended them, combined with the limited amount of arms and ammunition they had at their disposal, led to the minting of a cliché for belles-lettres about the uprising, ‘holejma rukama’ (with [our] bare hands). As far as Czech brutality is concerned, the Dalimilian rhinecWRP\ KDV D PRGHUQ UHSODFHPHQW WKRXJK RQH QRWHV WKDW IURP /0 3DĜt]HN ± ZHGRKHDURI66PHQFXWWLQJRIIWKHQRVHVDQGJRXJLQJRXWWKHH\HV RI&]HFKSULVRQHUVEHIRUHNLOOLQJWKHP3DĜt]HN 7KHPRGHUQIRUPRI rhinectomy consisted in suspending Germans (normally SS, Gestapo or judges) by their legs, dousing them in petrol and setting light to their hair. These ‘living WRUFKHV¶ EHFDPH D VWDQGDUG PRWLI LQ ¿FWLRQ ZULWWHQ E\ &]HFKV LQ &]HFK RU German, abroad or during the Thaw, when criticism of Czech brutality became admissible.7KDWWKLVLVQR¿FWLRQEXWEDVHGDVPXFKRQUHDOLW\DVWKHPHGLHYDO FDVWUDWLRQRI*HUPDQVDWWKH%DWWOHRI/RGČQLFHLVFOHDUIURPDUHSRUWRIDQ62( agent, Colonel Harold Perkins, who witnessed this atrocity and others immediDWHO\DIWHUWKH8SULVLQJ±DQGZDVGLVJXVWHGUHPDUNLQJWKDWKHKDGEHHQ¿JKWLQJ DZDUDJDLQVWSUHFLVHO\VXFKEHKDYLRXU6PHWDQD 7KHVFHQHLVSDUWLFXODUO\ IUHTXHQW LQ WKH ZULWLQJ ¿FWLRQ DQG PHPRLUV RI $UQRãW /XVWLJ ERUQ  DQG2OJDYRQ%DUpQ\LERUQXQWLOµ2OJD%DUpQ\LRYi¶LQERWK &]HFKDQG*HUPDQZRUNVµ2OJD%DUpQ\L¶XQWLOc. ,QKHUVRPHZKDWPHORdramatic German novels concerning the Uprising and its aftermath, Prager Totentanz 3UDJXH GDQVH PDFDEUH   DQG Das tote Geleise (The siding,  VKHGHVFULEHVRWKHU&]HFKDWURFLWLHVWKDWFRPSRUWZLWK3HUNLQV¶VDFFRXQW though I have not met one of them, one that comes closer to rhinectomy, elseZKHUH&]HFKVTXHXLQJIRUDFDQDSpFRQVLVWLQJRIDVPDOOFKXQNRIÀHVKFXWRXW of a young German soldier while he was still alive. However taboo writing about Czech brutality may have been at the time, one is still surprised to read in a

Misoteutonic myths   Social Democratic Party electioneering pamphlet seeking to instruct the reader on the topicality of T.G. Masaryk’s conception of democracy that the Uprising KDGEHHQµEHDXWLIXO¶*|UOLFK  Although neither the novel concerning the Czechs’ defence of Masaryk 6WDWLRQLQ3UDJXH%UDQDOG¶VERUQ /D]DUHWQtYODN (Hospital train), one of WKHVWDUVRI8SULVLQJOLWHUDWXUHLQVRFLDOLVWPLQGVQRU6YDWi¶V± JHQHUally ‘parteitreu’3ČWGQĤ(Five days) spends anything but a brief paragraph on it, WKH3DUW\JUDGXDOO\UHSODFHGWKHJORUL¿FDWLRQRIWKH3UDJXH8SULVLQJDQGLQGHHG RIWKHH[SXOVLRQRIWKH*HUPDQVE\WKHJORUL¿FDWLRQRIWKH6RYLHWOLEHUDWLRQ7KH KLVWRULFDOIDFWRIWKHPDWWHULVWKDWZKHQWKH6RYLHWVDUULYHGLQ3UDJXHRQ0D\ the Germans had capitulated, the Czechs won the battle for control of Prague and all that was left to the Soviets was to mop up the few remaining pockets of 66WURRSVZKRLWPXVWEHVDLGZHUHVWLOORIIHULQJ¿HUFHUHVLVWDQFH7KHUHDOLW\ WKDW WKH $PHULFDQV KDG QRW DUULYHG LQ 3UDJXH ¿UVW WKDQNV WR DQ DJUHHPHQW between the Soviets and the Western Allies, and that they had liberated western Bohemia soon disappeared from the history books and political writings. As far as I know, it was never treated in belles-lettres, apart from in odd references in novels concerning the resettlement of the former Sudetenland, where nasty Germans or collaborators sometimes succeeded in escaping into the American ]RQH2QHRIWKHDXWKRUVRIWKHRI¿FLDODFFRXQWRIWKH$PHULFDQRFFXSDWLRQZDV later to become the Czech editor of The Black Book of Communism, Karel Bartošek. In this repetitious work the Americans are not much better than the *HUPDQVLQFRQWUDVWWRWKH6RYLHWVWKHRQO\FXOWXUHWKH$PHULFDQVFDQRIIHUWKH Czechs is that epitomised by the depraved King Kong$PHULFDQVROGLHUVDSSHDU to gang-rape Czech girls, to buy others with chocolate and, apparently worst of DOO SURWHFW *HUPDQV IURP &]HFK PREV %DUWRãHN DQG 3LFKOtN   ±  $IWHUDOOWKH$PHULFDQVKDGDOUHDG\VKRZQLQ.RUHDWKDWWKH\ZHUHµ+XQV RIWKHPRGHUQDJH¶LELG ,QVWHDGRIWKH$PHULFDQFXOWXUHRISRUQRJUDSK\ and night-clubs, the Czechs had been blessed with fraternally Slav socialist culture. The Slav consciousness of Pulkava’s chronicle and of The Privilege and the Brief Epitome WKDW KDG EHHQ LGHRORJLVHG DV 6ODY 5HFLSURFLW\ RU SDQVODYLVP LQ WKHHDUO\QLQHWHHQWKFHQWXU\HVSHFLDOO\E\-DQ.ROOiU± KDGUHPDLQHG a part of nationalist ideology with varying degrees of intensity up to the First :RUOG:DUDQGKDGWKHQEHHQUHLGHRORJLVHGE\(GYDUG%HQHãGXULQJWKHZDU KHFRQFHLYHGRIWKH*UHDW:DUDVDZDUEHWZHHQWKH6ODYVDQG*HUPDQV±DQG 0DJ\DUV%HQHã ,Q/RQGRQGXULQJWKHQH[WZDUKHEHJDQDJDLQWRGHYRWH himself to things Slav while the Soviets had set up a Slav Committee, for Stalin KDGGHFLGHGWKDWSDQVODYLVPZRXOGEHDXVHIXOSURSDJDQGLVWLFVWUDWHJ\2QFHWKH ZDUZDVRYHUPXWXDOIULHQGVKLSVRFLHWLHVZHUHVHWXSIRUH[DPSOHWKH%XOJDULDQ± &]HFKRVORYDN 7KLV QHZ SDQVODYLVP IRUPHG SDUW RI WKH QHR5HYLYDOLVP WKDW DVVDLOHG&]HFKFXOWXUHGXULQJWKHVDQGVDQGQHYHUFRPSOHWHO\GLVDSSHDUHGEHIRUHWKHIDOORI&RPPXQLVP±WKRXJKLWZDVE\QRPHDQVPDLQVWUHDP IURP WKH EHJLQQLQJ RI WKH V RQZDUGV ,W LV KRZHYHU VRPHWLPHV IRUJRWWHQ WKDW WKH 6RYLHW RFFXSDWLRQ RI &]HFKRVORYDNLD WKDW EHJDQ LQ $XJXVW  ZDV

  R.B. Pynsent ‘fraternal’ in a racial and political sense. Slav consciousness did not die emotionDOO\LQRQHWKLQNVRIVRPH&]HFKLQWHOOHFWXDOV¶6ODYUHDFWLRQVWRWKH1$72 ERPELQJ RI 6HUELD  EXW LW FHUWDLQO\ GLHG SROLWLFDOO\ 3UHVLGHQW 9iFODY .ODXV made a point of that in the speech he gave on the occasion of the opening of a new building for the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London in 2FWREHU+HFODLPHGWKDWLQDOOWKHVSHHFKHVKHKDGHYHUJLYHQKHKDGSUDFtically never employed the term ‘Slav(onic)’.  7KDW LV PRUH RU OHVV WUXH RI KLV SUHGHFHVVRU 9iFODY +DYHO DV ZHOO :KLOH Havel was still a dissident he had written to President Weiszäcker of West Germany to apologise for the Czech treatment of Germans during the expulsion DQG KLV ¿UVW SUHVLGHQWLDO WULS DEURDG KDG EHHQ WR *HUPDQ\ .ODXV¶V DWWLWXGH WR Germany is slightly more complex, though I doubt that is why he used the SVHXGRQ\P µ'DOLPLO¶ LQ D OLWHUDU\ ZHHNO\ LQ WKH ODWH V %\ WKH V Dalimil’s ChronicleVWRRGIRU&]HFKQHVVDQGLQGHSHQGHQW&]HFKWKLQNLQJPLVRWHXWRQLVPZDVQRORQJHUWKHFHQWUDOWKHPHH[FHSWLQVRIDUDV0DU[LVW±/HQLQLVW critics associated it with Dalimil’s hatred of the rising economic and political SRZHURIWKHEXUJKHUV,QIDFW'DOLPLODWQRSRLQWOLQNVWKHEXUJKHUV±ZKRPKH KDWHV EHFDXVH RI WKHLU PRQH\PLQGHG EDQNPDQDJHU EHKDYLRXU ± ZLWK WKH *HUPDQV7KHHFRQRPLVW.ODXVKDGSUHVXPDEO\QRWQRWLFHGWKDWHLWKHU,Q however, Dalimil was revived as a guide for the Czechs. The widely respected SURIHVVRURI&]HFKDQG6ORYDNOLWHUDWXUH$OEHUW3UDåiN± ZKRKDG been president of the Czech National Council that strove to administer the 3UDJXH8SULVLQJHYLGHQWO\VDZLQWKH8SULVLQJDQGWKHH[SXOVLRQDIXO¿OPHQWRI the policy of ethnic cleansing advocated by Dalimil. He concludes his monumental work on Czech literary resistance against Germany and the Germans with WKHZRUGV Strong against the enemy without and within and capable of overcoming ERWKWKHHQHP\DQGRXURZQQHJDWLYHFKDUDFWHULVWLFVZHFRQ¿GHQWO\JUHHW our future in our secured frontiers and believe in our ever increasing pioneering development, particularly once our ancient enemy is no longer in RXUFRXQWU\DQGZKHQDIWHUFHQWXULHVZHDUH¿QDOO\our own masters in our borderlands, too. 3UDåiN 3UDåiNOLNHWKHYDVWPDMRULW\RI1DWLRQDO&RXQFLOSUHVLGLXPPHPEHUVEHFDPHD political nonentity within a few weeks of the liberation. Unlike other members ZKR ZHUH WHPSRUDULO\ VDWLV¿HG ZLWK EHLQJ NLFNHG XSVWDLUV 3UDåiN OHIW WKH Council as soon as he realised that not the Czechoslovaks, but the Soviets, were PDNLQJ DOO LPSRUWDQW GHFLVLRQV LQ  :KHQ DQRWKHU D¿FLRQDGR RI 'DOLPLO =GHQČN1HMHGOê± WKH0LQLVWHURI&XOWXUHSURXGO\DSRORJLVHGE\WKH JUDYHVLGHRI%HGĜLFK6PHWDQDWKDWKLVPXVLFKDGEHHQSOD\HGGXULQJWKH3URWHFWRUDWH3UDåiNREMHFWHGHTXDOO\SXEOLFO\IRU6PHWDQD¶VPXVLFKDGEHHQDVRXUFH RISDWULRWLFUHVLVWDQFHGXULQJWKHZDU3UDåiNZDVULJKW1HMHGOêDGLVWLQJXLVKHG PXVLFRORJLVWWXUQHGSRZHUIXOLGHRORJLVWZDVRQHRIWKHZULWHUV5iGOKDGODEHOOHG

Misoteutonic myths   DP\VWLFDOQDWLRQDOLVWUHYHUHURIWKHVWDWH5iGO $FFRUGLQJWR1HMHGOê the common people (lidové vrstvy) had been the bearers of the national tradition DQG LQ SUH+XVVLWH WLPHV WKH ORZHU QRELOLW\ KDG SHUIRUPHG WKLV IXQFWLRQ WKH upper nobility had even germanised their names. He labels Dalimil a ‘poor knight’, as if that were actually known, and extols him for having ‘written one of the most zealously anti-German works ever to have come out of this country, but he also directed his chronicle against the upper nobility as an unnational IRUFH DOLHQ WR WKH QDWLRQ¶ 1HMHGOê  ±  ,W PD\ EH VKHHU FRLQFLGHQFH WKDWRQH¿QGVLQ8SULVLQJOLWHUDWXUHDFHUWDLQFRQFHQWUDWLRQRQWKDWGHYLRXVQHVV (lest) that Dalimil had mythologised. For example, the whole narrative tension of Branald’s /D]DUHWQtYODN depends on the deviousness of the commandant of the German hospital train. It is explicitly mentioned as a national or racial charDFWHULVWLFRQO\RQFHDQGWKDWLQDÀDVKEDFNFRQFHUQLQJDSDUWLVDQJURXSKHUHWKH answer to lest is not Dalimil’s þHVW (honour), but counter-lestµ³,I\RXZDQWWR get the better of Nordic deviousness,” Broum used to say, “you have to have TXLWHDIHZWULFNVXS\RXUVOHHYH´¶%UDQDOG $QH[DPSOHIURP6YDWi unconsciously echoes the fourteenth-century Aesop even more clearly than it echoes Dalimil and the Brief Epitome. It concerns a Prague German in a house of patriotic Czechs, who is discovered to have been a sniper with no compuncWLRQDWNLOOLQJD&]HFKFKLOGµ2KKRZKLVPLOGIDFHKDGDFWXDOO\PDQDJHGYHU\ deviously, very circumspectly to deceive the whole block, the whole street, and WKH FRXQWU\ WKDW KDG JLYHQ KLP D KRPH¶ 6YDWi    7KLV VHQWLPHQW UH emerges in those who were frightened by the post-communist internationalisaWLRQ RI 3UDJXH 7KH EHVW NQRZQ RI WKH GLVVLGHQWV DSDUW IURP +DYHO /XGYtN 9DFXOtN ERUQ   ZULWHV VRPHZKDW K\VWHULFDOO\ LQ KLV LQWURGXFWLRQ WR D volume concerning the idyllic Bohemia represented in the Czech national DQWKHPµ2QO\WHPSRUDU\WDFWLFDOUHDVRQVFRXOGPDNHPHYRWHIRUDJRYHUQPHQW that allows or tolerates, for example, native homeless and selling land with pinewoods nestling on crags to Germans as if it were cement.’ And exhibiting sheer [HQRSKRELD For whom is today’s newly liberated Prague opening herself up, to whom is she giving precedence? The historical Prager is pushed out into the peripheries, even though it would be just and progressive if, on the contrary, the foreigner were stopped on the edge of the city, housed there, and once he had started paying rates, he could enter the centre in the same way as an ordinary Prager. 9DFXOtN± 9DFXOtNLVQRWSDUWLFXODUO\IRQGRIWKH(XURSHDQ8QLRQDQGKHLVVRPHWKLQJRID royalist, but, like the author(s) of the Brief Epitome, he declares, ‘I am strongly DJDLQVW D IRUHLJQHU DFFHGLQJ WR WKH WKURQH RI %RKHPLD¶ 9DFXOtN    7KHQRWHQWLUHO\LOOLEHUDO.ODXVDOVRHFKRHVWKH'DOLPLO±$HVRSOLQHZKHQZULWLQJ about uncontrolled immigration in response to the linguist and journalist 'RPLQLN/XNHãERUQ 

  R.B. Pynsent '/XNHãDFFXVHVPHRIµIHDURIWKH2WKHU¶  It is not a matter of fear of the Other for me, but only, solely a matter of putting the Other where s/he belongs. Does he acknowledge the right of any entity to be itself and leave µ2WKHUQHVV¶ QH[W GRRU" ,V IRU H[DPSOH D IDPLO\ VXFK DQ HQWLW\" 6KRXOG they move their neighbours into their home? Get rid of locks and doors and permit free passage into their home? Does the same go for the nation, the land, the state? .ODXV± 2QHGRXEWV.ODXVLVZULWLQJRI*HUPDQVKHUH  %HWZHHQ  DQG WKH HVWDEOLVKPHQW RI WKH *'5 *HUPDQV DUH QRUPDOO\ referred to as Germans/germans. The term Nazi referred just to the Party and its LGHRORJ\$IWHULWJUDGXDOO\EHFDPHWKHQRUPWRGLVWLQJXLVKEHWZHHQ(DVW and West Germans, where the latter were ‘revanchists’, and war-time Germans ‘Fascists’. Gradually the war-time occupation also acquired an ideologised interpretation, became known as the Nazi occupation. That result of the Marxist ideologisation of history soon became the norm among at least left-wing intellectuals in the West. Even in the writing of Klaus, who has otherwise abandoned most of the mechanical nationalist rhetoric of previous presidents of &]HFKRVORYDNLDWKH &]HFK 5HSXEOLF RFFDVLRQDOO\ ZULWHV µ1D]L¶ RFFXSDWLRQ rather than ‘German’.8 It is as if the Guardian began writing of the Conservative war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands. After the death of Stalin, most PDUNHGO\LQ.DUHO3WiþQtN¶VERUQ ¿UVWQRYHO5RþQtNMHGHQDGYDFHW (Born LQ¶ WKHZDULWVHOIUDWKHUWKDQWKH*HUPDQVEHFDPHWKHFKLHIHQHP\ and the Western Allies’ bombing of German cities more of an atrocity even than the concentration camps. The ‘peace’ movement, the Cold War and the H[LVWHQFHRIWKHJRRGVRFLDOLVW*'5KDGUHVXOWHGLQDFHUWDLQRI¿FLDOUHYLVLRQRI &]HFK±*HUPDQ UHODWLRQV 1DWXUDOO\ WKDW GLG QRW PHDQ WKDW SROLWLFDO UKHWRULF DJDLQVW *HUPDQ µ)DVFLVWV¶ FHDVHG LQGHHG LW FRQWLQXHG LQ YDU\LQJ GHJUHHV throughout the communist period. It did, however, become impossible to make the propagandistic distinction between Germans and human beings that occurs in Branald’s /D]DUHWQt YODN and constituted an uncomfortable echo of the 1D]LV¶GLVWLQFWLRQ EHWZHHQ $U\DQV DQG -HZV %\ DQDORJ\ ZH ¿QG LQ D VSHHFK E\9iFODY +DYHO D VRPHZKDW FRQGHVFHQGLQJ GLVWLQFWLRQ EHWZHHQ WKH %XQGHVUHSXEOLNDQGWKH*'5LQWZRVHQWHQFHVZKHUHZHPLJKWDOVRKHDUDGLPHFKR RI 'DOLPLOLDQ PLVRWHXWRQLVP µ)LIW\ \HDUV DJR WKH $OOLHV FRQTXHUHG *HUPDQ\ and today one could say that Germany has conquered Germany. That is, democratic, liberal Germany has conquered nationalist, Communist Germany’ (Havel  Havel, an outspoken critic of the Czechoslovak expulsion of the Germans, makes a point that remains valid today, except possibly among the younger genHUDWLRQRIDGXOW&]HFKVKHUHRQHQRWLFHVKLVROGORYHIRUWKHFROOHFWLYLVWQRWLRQ of ‘identity’, a notion and term that continues to bedevil serious political thinking all over the world, one that Klaus also exploits. The relationship between Czechs and Germans constitutes

Misoteutonic myths   a component of our fate, indeed, of our very identity. Germany is our inspiration and our pain, the source of understandable traumas, and of much prejudice and error, just as of standards by which we measure ourselves. Some consider Germany our chief hope, others the chief danger to us. It is possiEOHWRVD\WKDW&]HFKVGH¿QHWKHPVHOYHVSROLWLFDOO\EXWDOVRSKLORVRSKLFDOO\ by their attitude to Germany and the Germans, and that by the type of that DWWLWXGHWKH\GH¿QHQRWRQO\WKHLUUHODWLRQVKLSWRWKHLURZQKLVWRU\EXWDOVR the type of their national and state self-understanding. LELG± However much he regrets the brutal expulsion of the Germans, he writes that no RQH FDQ EODPH WKH HQG RI QRUPDO &]HFK±*HUPDQ UHODWLRQV LQ WKH %RKHPLDQ /DQGVVROHO\RQWKDWWKHIDFWUHPDLQVWKDWµDODUJHSURSRUWLRQRIRXUFLWL]HQVRI German nationality had demonstrated a preference for dictatorship, confrontation and violence as embodied in Hitler’s National Socialism over democracy, GLDORJXHDQGWROHUDQFH¶LELG ,QDVSHHFKGHOLYHUHGWRWKH%XQGHVWDJWKUHH PRQWKVDIWHUWKHSULPHPLQLVWHU9iFODY.ODXVDQGWKHFKDQFHOORU+HOPXW.RKO KDGRQ-DQXDU\VLJQHGWKH&]HFK±*HUPDQ'HFODUDWLRQRQ0XWXDO5HODtions, Havel maintained that this Declaration had liberated both nations, given them the chance to be entirely free because they ‘can and may know the truth about their own histories’ and ‘empathise with each other’s situations’ (Havel  +HPHDQVWKDWZHOOEXWLVSUHVXPDEO\VSHDNLQJPRUHDERXWKLVIHOORZ countrymen than the Germans, given the extent to which Germans had indeed been writing the truth and the fact that, given the necessity of research into archives only recently opened and forty years’ indoctrination, the Czechs had RQO\MXVWEHJXQWREHDEOHWRZULWHWKHWUXWK2QFHDJDLQZHKDYHVRPHWKLQJWKDW looks like well-meaning condescension.

Conclusion: love’s sweet cure For all his courageous analyses of the debilitating dishonesty of Communist Party ideology and practice while he was a dissident, Havel actually not only embodies a rejection of misoteutonic rhinectomy mythology, but also comes close to abiding by a mythology that centred on the notion of the Czechs as a dove-like nation and its later emanation as a doctrine of love. The origin of the GRYHOLNHQDWLRQP\WKHPHOLHVLQ$GDP+DUWPDQ¶VGLHGEHIRUH Historia o >IURPWČåNêFK] SURWLYHQVWYtFKFtUNYHþHVNp (History of the [grievous] tribuODWLRQVRIWKH%RKHPLDQ&KXUFK/DWLQHGLWLRQ(QJOLVKDQG*HUPDQHGLWLRQV&]HFKH[LOHHGLWLRQSRVWK¿UVWSXEOLVKHGLQ%RKHPLD  ZKHUHZHOHDUQRIWKHµVLPSOLFLW\RIRXUGRYHOLNHQDWLRQ¶+DUWPDQ  Generally the origin of the notion has been wrongly associated with Herder, with his portrayal of the peace-loving, singing agrarians constantly threatened by the Germans in his Ideen 6R IRU H[DPSOH 5DN ZULWHV WKDW µ+HUGHU FRQVLGHUHG ³D dove-like character” a special character trait of the Czechs, from which he derived his belief in the universal vocation of Slavdom as the bearer of

  R.B. Pynsent Humanität¶ 5DN    +HUH 5DN LV SHUSHWXDWLQJ D OHJHQG WKDW VHUYHG WR VXSSRUW QRW RQO\ WKH 5HYLYDO PRYHPHQW EXW DOVR WKH SDQVODY LQWHUSUHWDWLRQ RI the historical justice of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. Herder actually wrote that the Slavs would be able to celebrate their former ‘industriousness and trade’, if only they would ‘cultivate all their land and on that basis develop trade’, and that then they would further ‘peaceful industriousness and the undisWXUEHGLQWHUFRXUVHRIQDWLRQV¶QRPHQWLRQRIHLWKHUHumanität or doves (Herder  7KHSRLQWKHUHLVQRWWKDW\HWDJDLQDQKLVWRULDQKDVJRWLWZURQJ but that a legend about Herder and the Slavs has become so embedded in the Czechs, partly because of Jungmann’s deliberately inaccurate translation from -XQJPDQQ± 7KLVHPEHGGHGQHVVLVHYLGHQWLQDZRUNE\WKH SK\VLFDO DQWKURSRORJLVW -LQGĜLFK 0DWLHJND ±  ZKRVH DLP LV DFWXDOO\ to ‘prove’ by statistics and skull measurements that the Czechs are the brainiest, most valorous and healthiest (least suffering from tuberculosis and venereal disease) Austro-Hungarian soldiers. Matiegka lists as Czech characteristics an RQO\VOLJKWO\PRGL¿HGYHUVLRQRIWKRVH+HUGHUKDGDWWULEXWHGWRWKH6ODYV Morally, the Czechs are generally religious, often almost to the point of superstition, devoted to the religion of their fathers, to the ancient monarchic V\VWHP DQG WKHLU ROG PRUHV DQG FXVWRPV WKH\ DUH LQGXVWULRXV WHQDFLRXV overcome all, including military, obstacles, and yet they are peace-loving, merry, amenable, charitable and loyal. 0DWLHJND *HQHUDOO\VSHDNLQJDWOHDVWIURPWKHVRQZDUGVHVSHFLDOO\ZLWKWKHLQWHQVL¿FDWLRQ RI WKH -RKQ +XVV DQG +XVVLWH FXOW &]HFK QDWLRQDOLVWV GLVOLNHG EHLQJ FDOOHG D GRYHOLNH QDWLRQ (GXDUG /HGHUHU ±  SURYLGHV D W\SLFDO example of that and falsely berates the philologist and historian Pavel Josef âDIDĜtN± IRUWKHVOXU 2XU ROG OHDGLQJ LQWHOOHFWV    PLQWHG D FRLQ ZLWK WKH REYHUVH *HUPDQ expansionism, and reverse, the Slavs’ dove-like nature, and believed they KDGWKXVGHDOWZLWKWKHFRQXQGUXP,WKLQNâDIDĜtNZDVWKHPLQWPDQRIWKLV motto. But the devil take this false coin. /HGD 6WLOOVRPHWKLQJRIWKHWRSRVUHPDLQVLQ.ODXV 7KH &]HFK QDWLRQ KDV QHYHU EHHQ D W\SLFDO QDWLRQ RI ¿JKWHUV ZDUULRUV ,W secured its place in Europe much more by means of its skill, inventiveness, wit and pertinacity. Perhaps that is why there appear to be few heroes in Czech history. .ODXV Dalimil gives a different picture.

Misoteutonic myths    $IWHU  D QHZ WRSRV LQYROYLQJ D VWULYLQJ IRU ORYH LQVWLJDWHG E\ +DYHO with his, unfortunately rather sickly, little red-heart logo, emerged. The message of love was to counteract not merely the old misoteutonism embodied in the H[SXOVLRQDQGWKHDIWHUPDWKRIWKH3UDJXH8SULVLQJEXWFKLHÀ\KDWUHGDVD6WDOLQLVWYLUWXHDQGWKHPRGL¿FDWLRQRIWKDWKDWUHGWKDWIROORZHGWKH7KDZ7KHUHG KHDUWDOVRVLJQL¿HG&]HFKRVORYDNLD3UDJXHRUWKH&]HFK5HSXEOLFDVWKHKHDUW of Europe, and endeavoured to lend this old cliché new meaning. How old the cliché is I do not know, but in a Latin poem in praise of the Czech language IURP  2QGĜHM )UDQWLãHN GH :DOGW ±  ZURWH RI *HUPDQ\ DV WKH KHDUWRI(XURSHDQG%RKHPLDWKHKHDUWRI*HUPDQ\3UDåiN ,QKLV XQSXEOLVKHG DFFRXQW RI ± Böhmische Chronik unter der Regierung des römischen Kaisers und Königs von Böhmen Josephus II (Bohemian chronicle XQGHUWKHUHLJQRIWKH+RO\5RPDQ(PSHURUDQG.LQJRI%RKHPLD-RVHSK,,  )UDQ] 0DUWLQ 3HO]HO)UDQWLãHN 0 3HOFHO ±  ODEHOOHG %RKHPLD µWKH KHDUWRIWKH>+RO\5RPDQ@(PSLUH¶3HOFO 7KHFOLFKpWKDWVXUYLYHVLV probably derived from the opening chapter of Palacký’s history of the Czechs *HUP  &]   µWKH ODQG RI %RKHPLD LWVHOI LV VLWXDWHG LQ WKH YHU\ middle, the heart of Europe’ (Palacký c. 7KHPHDQLQJKDVH[SDQGHGE\ WKHWLPH0LORã0DUWHQ± ZURWHKLVLQÀXHQWLDOGLDORJXHRQWKHQDWXUH RI&]HFKQHVVµ,VDZRQDPDSDKHDUWVKDSHGFRXQWU\DWWKHFHQWUHRI(XURSH¶ 0DUWHQ    %\  WKH HVVD\LVW DQG MRXUQDOLVW )HUGLQDQG 3HURXWND ± ZDVLURQLVLQJWKHFOLFKpLQKLVVWXG\RQWKH&]HFKFKDUDFWHUµ+RZ could we, of whom it is said that we are in the heart of Europe, resist the attracWLRQ RI >:HVWHUQ (XURSH@ LI WKH -DSDQHVH KDG QRW"¶ 3HURXWND    7KDW LURQ\GLGQRWKHOSVRWKHOHDGLQJ&]HFK1D]L(PDQXHO0RUDYHF±  claims that the Czechs formed ‘a small nation in the heart of Central Europe’ 0RUDYHF DQGVR3UDåiNZULWHVWKDWEHFDXVHWKH&]HFKVZHUHVHWWOHG ‘in the heart of Europe on the crossroads of the nations, our existence was DOZD\V DW ULVN¶ 3UDåiN    ,Q WKH VDPH SHULRG RWKHU ZULWHUV ZHUH VWLOO PRUHRUOHVVFRS\LQJ3DODFNê¶VZRUGVIRUH[DPSOHµDVPDOOQDWLRQSODFHGLQWKH PLGGOH LQGHHG ULJKW LQ WKH KHDUW RI (XURSH¶ .OLPHQW    RU µD FRXQWU\ O\LQJVRWRVSHDNLQWKHKHDUWRI(XURSH¶6NXWLO $QGLWVWLOOSHUVLVWV WKH&DUROLQH8QLYHUVLW\FKDSODLQ+DOtNERUQ ZULWHVRIµ&]HFKR*HUPDQ FRH[LVWHQFHLQWKHKHDUWRI(XURSH¶-DQGRXUHN DQGHYHQ3UHVLGHQW .ODXVFDQQRWJHWLWRXWRIKLVV\VWHP.ODXV   ,W WDNHVQR LPDJLQDWLRQWR DVVRFLDWHWKHKHDUWZLWK ORYHVHH 0RUDYHF   EXW WKH &]HFK JRVSHO RI ORYH PLJKW XOWLPDWHO\ EH GHULYHG IURP E\ IDU WKH PRVW IUHTXHQWO\ UHSULQWHG QRYHO LQ &]HFK %RåHQD 1ČPFRYi¶V "±  %DELþND *UDQGPRWKHU   $Q LQNOLQJ RI WKH +DYHO YHUVLRQ LQ ZKLFK ORYH will vanquish Communist hatred is to be found in a patriots’ vade-mecum from  In matters concerning personalities and causes, the most repulsive partisan weaponry often reached for is slander, suspicion, lies! We would be a thousand leagues closer to the happiness of our nation if there were more

  R.B. Pynsent sincerity, more truth, more love in our lives! Let us love one another – we are of one blood. (Štech c. DQGWKLVLVWZHQW\\HDUVEHIRUHµ9HULWDVYLQFLW¶KDVEHHQWDNHQXSE\0DVDU\NIRU WKHSUHVLGHQWLDOVWDQGDUG)RUWKHQRYHOLVW+DQD.OHQNRYi± ZKHQKHU XQFOH(GYDUG%HQHãZDVHOHFWHGSUHVLGHQWLQµ8QLW\WULXPSKHGRYHUKDWUHG DQGWUXWKRYHUIDOVHKRRG¶.OHQNRYi ,QFRQQHFWLRQZLWKWKLVORYHRQH UHFDOOV WKH ZRUGV RI -RVHI IURP  &DUGLQDO %HUDQ ZKR KDG VSHQW KDOI WKH war in Theresienstadt and Dachau and whose internment by the communists EHWZHHQDQGOHGWRWKHIRXQGLQJRI$PQHVW\,QWHUQDWLRQDO%HIRUHWKH takeover he wrote that he was not surprised that the Slavs had been called a ‘dove-like nation’, for ‘Terror and violence do not comport with the Slav spirit. . . . The Slav can love, love with a love no non-Slav is capable of’ (Beran  3HUKDSVPRUHWRWKHSRLQWDQGFHUWDLQO\FORVHUWR+DYHODUHWKHZRUGV RIWKHEUDYHSUHODWH%RKXPLO6WDãHN± LQDSDWULRWLFVHUPRQDWWHQGHG E\ZHOORYHU&]HFKVIURPDOORYHUWKH3URWHFWRUDWHRQ$XJXVW a sermon as a result of which he spent the whole war in prison and a concentraWLRQ FDPS µ, EHOLHYHG WKDW WUXWK ZRXOG WULXPSK RYHU IDOVHKRRG ODZ RYHU ODZOHVVQHVV ORYH DQG FRPSDVVLRQ RYHU YLROHQFH¶ 6WDãHN    6WDãHN LV alluding to the Nazis, but Havel’s oft-repeated words are not. I cite just the bestknown version of them, uttered when he knew his audience had by now probably heard them too frequently, and while he was recovering from a major operation. The gentle self-parody does not detract from his sincerity in this, his New Year’s PHVVDJH IURP  µHYHU\ GD\ , EHFRPH PRUH FRQYLQFHG WKDW LW ZRXOG GR QR harm at all if we did something to make sure that truth really did triumph over IDOVHKRRG DQG ORYH RYHU KDWUHG¶ +DYHO    :LWK WKH SRVWFRPPXQLVW call for love, the Communists’ cult of radical Hussite violence disappeared.

Notes  7KH +XVVLWH SHULRG LV QRUPDOO\ XQGHUVWRRG DV WKH ¿UVW WKUHHTXDUWHUV RI WKH ¿IWHHQWK century. What the ‘Hussite tradition’ represents depends on a writer’s politics. Sometimes it refers to a golden age when the Czechs laid the foundation for the Lutheran UHIRUPDWLRQ2IWHQKRZHYHULWUHIHUVSDUWLFXODUO\WRWKHUDGLFDOZLQJRIWKH+XVVLWHV WKH7DERULWHVDQGWKHVXFFHVVRIWKHLUDUPLHVWKHQRWLRQRIµ+XVVLWHGHPRFUDWLFDOLW\¶ was based on a legend that all distinctions of estate were abolished by the Taborites âPDKHO   ,KDYHZULWWHQLQGHWDLODERXWWKLVLQ3\QVHQW   %ULNFt ] /LFND 3UiYD PČVWVNi   DQG 3DYHO .ULVWLiQ ] .ROGtQD 3UiYD PČVWVNi .UiORYVWYtþHVNpKR 6HH6FKUDQLO   ,XVHWKHWHUPVµDFFHVVLRQ¶DQGµWKURQH¶DGYLVHGO\8QOLNHSUHVLGHQWVRIRWKHUFRXQWULHV the Czechoslovak/Czech president ‘abdicates’, does not resign.  )RUGHWDLOVRIWKHWKUHHGUDIWVRIWKLVODZVHH)URPPHU± )RUDQDFFRXQW RIVRPH&]HFKEUXWDOLW\GXULQJRXWVLGHLQWHUQPHQWFDPSVVHH6WDQČN   6HH IRU H[DPSOH +UXEtQ  ±  3DĜt]HN    %UDQDOG     'UGD 6YDWi +RĜHF   %XWVHHEHIRUHWKH7KDZ-RVHI0KOEHUJHU 

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  W. Koschmal (XURSHIURP$VLDZKHUHDV3RODQGVHHVLWVHOIDVDZDOOSURWHFWLQJ(XURSHIURP 5XVVLD6HUELDIRULWVSDUWIHHOVPLVWUHDWHGE\(XURSHEHFDXVHLWSURWHFWHG(XURSH IURPWKH7XUNVDQGVRRQ$W\SRORJ\RIFRQFUHWHP\WKVFRXOGUHYHDOWKHPLQDOO their contradictoriness.  $FRQWLQXDOSURFHVVRIP\WKL¿FDWLRQFKDUDFWHULVHGE\WKHSDWKRVRIWUDQVIRU mation, raises the transition to the level of a unit of time in Russian culture. The FRQWLQXDO QHZ EHJLQQLQJ DQG SURYLVLRQ DUH DQ LQWHJUDO SDUW RI WUDQVLWLRQ ,Q :HVWHUQ(XURSHWKLVWUDQVLWLRQKDVDZRNHQERWKLQWKHSDVWDQGSUHVHQWWKHVXV SLFLRQ RI LQVWDELOLW\ LQ 5XVVLD 7KLV LQVWDELOLW\ FRQFHUQV RQFH DJDLQ WKH PRVW diverse types of discourse, interpersonal communication as much as political and economic discourse. At the same time European myths about Russia are in many UHVSHFWV D FDXVH IRU WKLV LQVWDELOLW\ 7ZR WKLQJV FRXOG KHOS WR HVFDSH IURP WKLV P\WKLFDOFLUFOH)LUVWDGHP\WKL¿FDWLRQRIWKH(XURSHDQLPDJHRI5XVVLDFRXOG OHDGWRWKHGHP\WKL¿FDWLRQRI5XVVLD¶VFRQFHSWLRQRI(XURSH6HFRQGZHVKRXOG QRORQJHUSRSXODWH5XVVLDZLWKRXURZQLPDJHVRI5XVVLD%RWKRIWKHVHVWHSV WRZDUGVGHPRFUDF\LQ5XVVLDPXVW¿UVWEHPDGHLQ:HVWHUQ(XURSH

Notes 1 European myths about Russia and Russian myths about Europe are in a constant dia ORJXH LQ ZKLFK HDFK UHIHUV WR WKH RWKHU 7KLV GLDORJXH EHWZHHQ P\WKV LV LWVHOI D VXEMHFWRIP\WKL¿FDWLRQ$FFRUGLQJWR(0HOHWLQVNLL¶VWKHRU\RIP\WKVDVXEMHFWLQ RXUFDVH5XVVLDLVLQD¿UVWVWHSUHPRYHGIURPLWVFRQWH[W,QWKHVHFRQGVWHSWKLVLVR ODWLRQPHDQVWKHGDPDJHRUGHVWUXFWLRQRIWKHVXEMHFW7KHVXEMHFWLVKRZHYHUWUDQV IRUPHGDQGWKHUHIRUHVDYHGLQWKHP\WK¶VWKLUGVWHS7KHVXEMHFWUHWXUQVZLWKDKLJKHU VWDWXVLQWKHIRXUWKVWHSRIWKLVSURFHVVRIP\WKL¿FDWLRQLQZKLFKWKHFRVPRVGHIHDWV FKDRV 7KH GLDORJXH RI P\WKV EHWZHHQ 5XVVLD DQG (XURSH DOVR WDNHV SODFH LQ WKHVH four steps.   ,WLVLQWHUHVWLQJWKDWDFFRUGLQJWR/HPEHUJLWLVHVSHFLDOO\WUDYHOOLWHUDWXUHZKLFKFRQ ¿UPVWKHFRQFHSWLRQRIWKH1RUWKEHFDXVH:ROIIDOVREDVHVKLVVWXG\DERYHDOORQWKLV JHQUH   +HUPDQQ +HVVH ZULWHV LQ  /W]HOHU   LQ µ7KH %URWKHU .DUDPDVRY >sic@ RU 7KH'HPLVHRI(XURSH¶WKDW.DUDPD]RY¶VLGHDOLVDQµ$VLDQRFFXOWLGHDO¶,WLVEHJLQ QLQJWRµFRQVXPHWKHVSLULWRI(XURSH¶)RUKLPWKH$VLDQLVµWKHFKDRWLFZLOGGDQ JHURXVDPRUDO¶   7KHSODFHRI5XVVLDWKH(DVW LVJHQHUDOO\WKHSODFHRIGHPRQLVDWLRQZKLOHWKHLGHDO LVHG$VLDH[WHQGVWRRWKHUFXOWXUHVH[FHSWLRQVDUH%DDGHU++HVVH VXFKDV,QGLDRU DVSLULWXDO&KLQD/W]HOHU 7KLV$VLDDSSHDUVDVDUHDODOWHUQDWLYHWRDGHF adent Europe.   ,W LV LQWHUHVWLQJ WR QRWH WKDW 'DQLOHYVNLL ERUURZV WKH WHUP µFXOWXUDO KLVWRULFDO W\SH¶ IURP*HUPDQ\IURP+HLQULFK5FNHUW/W]HOHU    7KHUHLVHYHQDKLQWRIWKHEHDULQ'DQLOHYVNLL ZKHQKHDOOXGHVWR5XVVLD LQWHUPVRIWKHEHDU¶VµHQRUPRXVQHVV¶µnedorosl’ v gromadnych razmerach¶    7KLVWZRIROGLQWHUPHGLDU\IXQFWLRQLVQRWPHQWLRQHGE\0%DVVLQRURWKHUV   ,QFRQWUDVWWRWKLVVHH*HRIIUH\+RVNLQJ¶VWKHVLVNation und Imperium; 1552–1917. %HUOLQ6LHGOHUSDVVLP   7KH µ*HUPDQ P\WK RI WKH (DVW¶ /HPEHUJ    RVFLOODWHV EHWZHHQ WKUHDWHQLQJ EDUEDULDQLVPDQGD\RXWKZLWKDSURPLVLQJIXWXUH7KRPDV0DQQLQ/W]HOHU  FDOOV7ROVWR\¶Vµ$VLDQLVP¶µDQWL3HWULQHXU5XVVLDQ±KRVWLOHWRFLYLOLVDWLRQLQ VKRUWEHDUOLNH¶LELG 

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Bibliography %DVVLQ 0   µ5XVVLD EHWZHHQ (XURSH DQG $VLD 7KH ,GHRORJLFDO &RQVWUXFWLRQ RI *HRJUDSKLFDO6SDFH¶Slavic Review± %DVVLQ0 µ$VLD¶LQ5]KHYVN\1HG  The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture&DPEULGJH&DPEULGJH8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV± %DVVLQ 0   µ0\VOLW¶ SURVWUDQVWYRP (XUDVLD DQG (WKQR7HUULWRULDOLW\ 3RVW6RYLHW 0DSV¶Wiener Slawistischer Almanach± 'DQLOHYVNLL1 Rossiia i Evropa6W3HWHUVEXUJ,]GDW*ODJRO¶>XD@ *UHHQIHOG /   Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity &DPEULGJH 0$ +DUYDUG 8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV *XUD$9 Simvolika zhivotnych v slavianskoi narodnoi traditsii0RVFRZ,QGULN +DUW 35   µ7KH :HVW¶ LQ 5]KHYVN\ 1 HG  The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture&DPEULGJH&DPEULGJH8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV± +RVNLQJ* µ7KH5XVVLDQ1DWLRQDO0\WK5HSXGLDWHG¶LQ+RVNLQJ*DQG6FK|S ÀLQ*HGV Myths and Nationhood/RQGRQ5RXWOHGJH± .DQWRU9 ‘. . .Est’ evropeiskaia derzhava, Rossiia: trudnyj put’ k civilizacii; istoriosofskie ocherki0RVFRZ5RVVSơQ .LUHHYVN\,9 Izbrannye stat’i0RVFRZ6RYUHPHQQLN .OMXFKHYVN\92 Polnoe sobranie sochinenii9RO0RVFRZ0\VO¶ .OXJ( µ'DV³DVLDWLVFKH´5XVVODQGhEHUGLH(QWVWHKXQJHLQHVHXURSlLVFKHQ9RU XUWHLOV¶Historische Zeitschrift± /HPEHUJ+ µ=XU(QWVWHKXQJGHV2VWHXURSDEHJULIIVLP-K9RP³1RUGHQ´]XP ³2VWHQ´(XURSDV¶Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas ± /RWPDQ -0   µ=HLFKHQ XQG =HLFKHQV\VWHP LQ %H]XJ DXI GLH 7\SRORJLH GHU UXV VLVFKHQ .XOWXU  ELV -DKUKXQGHUW ¶ LQ /RWPDQ -0 HG  Kunst als Sprache, /HLS]LJ5HFODP± /W]HOHU 30   Die Schriftsteller und Europa: Von der Romantik bis zur Gegenwart0XQLFKDQG=ULFK3LSHU 0HOHWLQVNLL(0 Poetika mifa0RVND9RVWRFKQDMD/LWHUDWXUD5$1 0F'DQLHO7 The Agony of the Russian Idea3ULQFHWRQ1-3ULQFHWRQ8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV 3XWL(YUD]LL Russkaia intelligenciia i sud’by Rossii0RVFRZ5XVVNDLD.QLJD 6FKOHJHO )ULHGULFK  Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde; nebst metrischen Uebersetzungen indischer Gedichte+HLGHOEHUJ0RKUXQG=LPPHU 6FK|SÀLQ* µ7KH)XQFWLRQVRI0\WKDQG7D[RQRP\RI0\WKV¶LQ+RVNLQJ* DQG6FK|SÀLQ*HGV Myths and Nationhood/RQGRQ+XUVW± 6FK|SÀLQ * DQG:RRG 1 HGV    In Search for Central Europe 2[IRUG 3ROLW\ 3UHVV 6FKXO]H:HVVHO0 µ=XP2N]LGHQWYHUVWlQGQLVGHUUXVVLVFKHQ6WDDWVHOLWHXQGGHV UXVVLVFKHQ$GHOVLQGHU=HLW3HWHUV,¶LQ'LHWULFK8DQG:LQNOHU0 HGV Okzidentbilder, Konstruktionen und Wahrnehmungen /HLS]LJ /HLS]LJHU 8QLYHUVLWlWVYHUODJ ±

  W. Koschmal 7UXEHW]NR\16 Russland – Europa – Asien: Ausgewählte Schriften zur Kulturwissenschaft9LHQQD9HUODJGHUgVWHUUHLFKLVFKHQ$NDGHPLHGHU:LVVHQVFKDIWHQ :ROII/ Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment6WDQIRUG6WDQIRUG8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV :RUWPDQ 56   From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in the Russian MonarchyYRO,,1HZ+DYHQ3ULQFHWRQ 8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV

7

Myths and democratic attitudes in Poland and Russia An intermedial comparison Alexander Wöll

7KHQDPHVRIKXQGUHGVRIULYHUVDUHZRYHQLQWRWKHWH[W,WKLQNLWÀRZV James Joyce to Harriet Shaw Weaver1 Poetry – the short-circuiting of meanings between words, the sudden regeneration of original myths. Bruno Schulz, Mythologisation of reality2

Among Slavic countries, Russia and Poland are usually regarded as the two cultures in which mythologization and stereotyping are particularly prevalent.3 While stereotypes are clearly structured along sharply delineated axiological lines (black-and-white, good-and-evil), myths are more complex: they conceal the causal origins of those people and actions that are key to a nation’s selfGH¿QLWLRQ DQG LGHQWLW\ 8QOLNH topoi ZKLFK DUH ¿[HG DQG XQLYHUVDO LPDJHV RI KXPDQFXOWXUHP\WKVDUHWLHGWRVSHFL¿FFXOWXUHV4 Thomas Grob’s contribution to the present volume shows that a clear distinction should be made between elementary or religious myths (“primary myths”) and narrative myths (“secondary myths”).5 This essay does not focus on histories of creation or of gods; rather, it brings into view a “secondary level” in which archetypes afford opportunities IRU LGHQWL¿FDWLRQ WR LQWHUSUHW H[LVWHQFH RQ D OLWHUDU\ RU QDUUDWLYH OHYHO 6XFK RSSRUWXQLWLHVIRULGHQWL¿FDWLRQFDQXOWLPDWHO\DPRXQWWRFROOHFWLYHworldviews and philosophies of life. It is thus very important not to amalgamate the concept of myth with groupVSHFL¿F LGHRORJHPV >  SDUWLDO LGHRORJLHV@ 7KH FRQFHSW RI ³LGHRORJ\´ IURP Greek eidos, appearance or form or type, and logos ZRUG >FDQ DOVR PHDQ WKRXJKW VSHHFK UHDVRQ SULQFLSOH RU ORJLF@  HPHUJHG GXULQJ WKH FRXUVH RI WKH period of Enlightenment, which aimed at overcoming superstitions, fallacies, prejudices, and myths that all served medieval rulers to legitimize their power. Placing itself in the service of enlightenment, a critique of ideology attempts to demonstrate that ideology strives to elevate to general interest that which in actual fact only serves one part of society which is either dominant or aims at dominance.6 Liberating ideologies from intrinsic contradictoriness becomes possible in part by blanking out opposing notions, points of view, and experiences.

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For the most part, ideologies claim the truthfulness of their premises; hence they posit certain theses, dogmas, or basic ideas in axiomatic terms. Totalitarian political ideologies, laying all-encompassing claims to the truth, often reveal elements of mythologization, historical misrepresentation, disavowals of the truth, DQG GLVFULPLQDWLRQ DJDLQVW FRPSHWLQJ QRWLRQV 8QOLNH LGHRORJLHV KRZHYHU P\WKVHPERG\DIIHFWLYHVWDWHVWKDWVXEVHTXHQWO\UHPDLQXQWRXFKHGE\UHÀHFWLRQ and commentary. Modern myths as such assume importance for the present to the extent that they confer an irrational-supernatural aura upon the mytholoJL]HG REMHFW WKH\ UHSUHVHQW WKHUHE\ ³GHLI\LQJ´ LW LQ D ¿JXUDWLYH VHQVH 9HUEDO myths should be set apart as narrative myths in analysing the other, related modes (pictorial, ritual, musical, cinematic) of human expression and communiFDWLRQ%\GH¿QLWLRQsagas are short narratives of objectively untrue, extrasensory, fantastic events, meant as accounts of the truth that presuppose their audience’s faith. In almost all cases, however, they lack the constitutive element of a myth, namely the intervention of a supernatural, metaphysical force in everyday, secular human affairs. Moreover, they are mostly conceived and handed GRZQIRUDVSHFL¿FSROLWLFDOSV\FKRORJLFDORUVRFLDOSXUSRVH  7KLVFKDSWHUMX[WDSRVHVD3ROLVKSRHPZLWKD5XVVLDQ¿OP7KHIRUPHURSHUDWHV ZLWK ZRUGV WKH ODWWHU FKLHÀ\ ZLWK LPDJHV DQG JHVWXUHV ,Q D VHQVH WKHVH pictorial and linguistic levels are co-dependent. Harmut Heuermann notes that myths render in language (make poetic) that which rites celebrate (through gestures, dance, pantomimic dramatization), and vice-versa. For magicalmythical consciousness, the linguistic gesture is the natural counterpart of ritual gesture, just as the sacral act requires sacred narrative to explain and legitimize itself. The act of safeguarding both the natural and social orders presupposes that what the gods or ancestors originally created is renewed through both ritual action and the myth as word. Rites would remain ineffective if they were not based on the explanations conferred upon them by myth, just as myths would remain “theory” if they were not associated with ritual action.7 +DQV %OXPHQEHUJ KDV REVHUYHG WKDW WKH FUHDWLRQ RI P\WKLFDO VLJQL¿FDQFH involves a desire to develop a “structure against the insufferableness of time and space”.8 “Mythogenesis” VLJQL¿HVWKHWUDQVFHQGLQJRIWKHH[SHULHQFHRIQHJDWLYity to attain such structuring. For Blumenberg, the opportunity for UHP\WKL¿FDtion depends precisely on the absence of history, and on a hostility towards it, since the loss or suppression of the historical consciousness of time favours the validity claim of myth.97KXVP\WKV¿UVWRIDOORSSRVHinnovation and renewal, two popular concepts these days.10 Below, I shall examine how myth and innovation are related in selected works of Polish and Russian culture in order to frame a comparison of Poland and Russia. This cultural-typological comparison aims to reveal how Poland valorizes innovation and Russia valorizes renewal, and how these cultures differ in their perceptions and evaluation of the new. Such analysis will afford insight into the different notions of democracy and

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 143 myth that live on in both cultures, particularly since Russia’s mythological pictorial traditions are fundamentally distinct from Poland’s.  $VD¿UVWVWHS,VKDOORIIHUDFORVHUHDGLQJRIWZRWH[WVD3ROLVKSRHPDQG then a Russian one, before conducting two media analyses. Then I shall draw certain conclusions about culture, based on a Polish comparison of a text with an DUWLQVWDOODWLRQDQGDFRQWUDVWLQJ5XVVLDQFRPSDULVRQRIDWH[WZLWKD¿OP

0LURQ%LDáRV]HZVNLKaruzela z madonnami (Carousel with madonnas) The following section examines Karuzela z madonnami, a poem by the Polish ZULWHU 0LURQ %LDáRV]HZVNL ±  7KH ³FDURXVHO´ FDQ EH YLHZHG DV DQ image of the democratic exchange between high and popular culture, between the elite and the masses.11 7KH¿JXUHULGLQJRQWKHFDURXVHOLVLQDUHVWLQJSRVLtion. It moves while sitting. Subject to the intoxication induced by rotation, what WKH¿JXUHEHKROGVUHFXUVLQVKRUWLQWHUYDOV0RGHUQLW\KDVEHHQGH¿QHGWKXVWLPH and again – we should not ride on the carousel, but set out for new shores. Riding on a carousel, and thus experiencing the never-ending recurrence of the same, which can be associated with “myth” and its circular structure, never became unfashionable despite or precisely because of this ideology, which doubtlessly dominated the twentieth century. What value does a mid-twentieth century Polish poem attach to repetition and renewal? Karuzela z madonnami Wsiadajcie, madonny madonny 'REU\NV]HĞFLRNRQQ\FK    ĞFLRNRQQ\FK .RQLHZLV]ąNRS\WDPL  QDG]LHPLą One w brykach na postoju  MXĪGU]HPLą .DĪGDEU\NDPDORZDQD w trzy ogniste farbki ,WU]\VąNRĔVNLHPDĞFL  RGVX¿WX  RGGĊEX od marchwi. 'UJQĊá\PDGRQQ\ I orszak konny 5XV]\á]NRS\WD /DWDGRNRáD Gramofonowa 3á\WD Taka  Sá\WD

Carousel with madonnas Come aboard, madonnas, Madonnas $ERDUGWKHFDUULDJHVGUDZQE\VL[KRUVHV    UVHV 7KHKRUVHVKDQJZLWKWKHLUKRRIV  DERYHWKHJURXQG In those carriages that stand still  WKH\DUHDOUHDG\VOXPEHULQJ (DFKFDUULDJHEHDUV three blazing colours $QGWKHKLGHVFRPHLQWKUHHFRORXUV  IURPWKH\HOORZHGFDURXVHOFHLOLQJ  IURPWKHRDNWUHH from the carrot. 7KHPDGRQQDVWUHPEOH And the harnessed team %XUVWVVXGGHQO\LQWRDWURW 7KHJUDPRSKRQH record WXUQV What a  UHFRUG

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0LJDMąZNUąJDQJOH]\JU]\Z ,ODPEUHNLQ\VLRGHá ,JRUHMąFHZ]RU\EU\N Kwiecisto-laurkowe. $ZNDĪGHMEU\FHYLVjYLV Madonna i madonna W nieodmienionej pozie tkwi Od dziecka odchylona ±ELDáHNRQLH – bryka – czarne konie – bryka – rude konie – bryka 0DJQL¿NDW

7KHWUHVVHVRIPDQHVÀDVKLQWKHGDQFH circle $QGVRGRWKHSRPPHOVRIWKHVDGGOHV $QGVRGRWKHEOD]LQJSDWWHUQVRQWKH carts Floral felicitations. $QGLQHDFKFDUVLWYLVjYLV Madonna beside madonna Poised unchanged Turned askance from the child ±ZKLWHKRUVHV – carriages – black horses – carriages – red horses – carriages 0DJQL¿FDW

A one w Leonardach min, In Leonardo’s miens, W obrotach Rafaela, In Raphael’s gyrations, :RNUąJá\FKRJQLDFKZNODWNDFKOLQ ,QURXQGFLUFOHVRI¿UHLQFDJHVPDGHRI rope, :SU]HGPLHĞFLDFKLQLHG]LHODFK ,QVXEXUEVDQGRQ6XQGD\V ,ZNDĪGHMEU\FHYLVjYLV $QGLQHDFKFDUVLWYLVjYLV Madonna i madonna. Madonna beside madonna. ,QLHZLDGRPRNWyUDĞSL $QGQRRQHNQRZVZKLFKLVDVOHHS A która jest natchniona And which ecstatic – szóstka koni – six horses – one – they – szóstka koni – six horses – one – they – szóstka koni – six horses – one – they =DNUĊFRQH 7XUQLQJURXQGDQGURXQG I coraz wolniej karuzela Puszcza refren I peryfe rafa elickie madonny przed  PLHĞFLD Z\PLHQLDMą  NRQQHSLĊWUR

And the carousel turns ever more slowly The refrain runs And periph rapha elite Madonnas On  KDQG 0RYH  WRDQRWKHUWLHURIKRUVHV

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 145 –––––– Wsiadajcie  ZV]HĞFLR   “Obroty rzeczy 1956”

––––––– Aboard,  JHWRQQXPEHUVL[   “Turns of Things 1956”

The poem’s sound and rhythm affords the reader the experience of riding on a FDURXVHOLQDVPDOOSURYLQFLDO3ROLVKWRZQ7KH¿UVWVWDQ]DFORVHVE\FRPSDULQJ the turning carousel with a gramophone record. Zygmunt Konieczny’s chanson YHUVLRQ RPLWV WKHVH ¿YH OLQHV RU WR SXW LW GLIIHUHQWO\ WKH VRQJ FRQYH\V WKLV accompanying music directly to the human ear and so does not require the lyrics.  7KHFDURXVHOULGHLVRQHH[DPSOHRIKRZ%LDáRV]HZVNLFUHDWHVHYHUQHZFRQtexts for words and groups of words: “Puszcza refren” (thus the refrain), it says in the poem. Sentence structures, words, and images are repeated refrain-like: ±ELDáHNRQLH – bryka – czarne konie – bryka – rude konie – bryka

±ZKLWHKRUVHV – carriages – black horses – carriages – red horses – carriages

The alternation of white-, black-, and red-painted horses with the carriages is repeated like a refrain. The colours become blurred as the carousel picks up speed. The yellowed carousel ceiling, the bronze oak tree, and the fox-coloured carrot all blend into one colour during the ride. While this colour remains undescribed, it gradually emerges through representation: the madonnas appear to be ÀRDWLQJ RQ D KLJKHU SODQH ZKLFK H[SODLQV WKH DEVHQFH RI FRORXUV DV WKH SRHP continues: – szóstka koni – one – szóstka koni – one – szóstka koni – one =DNUĊFRQH

– six horses – they – six horses – they – six horses – they 7XUQLQJURXQGDQGURXQG

Rereading the poem’s rhythms and repetitions aloud several times recalls the chanting customary of rap and hip hop music, which plays an important role in FRQWHPSRUDU\3ROLVKOLWHUDWXUHVXFKDVLQ'RURWD0DVáRZVND¶VZRUN7KHVPDOO FRORXUHGZRRGHQFDURXVHOKRUVHVDUHPRXQWHGRQSLYRWV7KHLUKRRIVÀRDWDERYH the ground, the horses being attached to the carousel ceiling. Madonnas carved in the style of Leonardo and Raphael stand facing each other in the three carriages, each drawn by three teams of horses.  %LDáRV]HZVNLRIIHUVXVDQHSLJRQLFLPLWDWLRQRIKLJKDUW±PDGRQQDVÀRDWLQJ

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above the ground on a small-town merry-go-round. Raphael’s and Leonardo’s madonnas have given way to the craft madonnas of everyday culture. And so has WKH 0DJQL¿FDW RULJLQDOO\ LW ZDV VXQJ LQ FKXUFK OLWXUJ\ DQG \HW LW DOVR IRUPV part of the high musical culture of Bach, Penderecki, and other composers. Here, WKH 0DJQL¿FDW KDV EHFRPH PXVLF SOD\HG E\ D JUDPRSKRQH UHFRUG IRU 6XQGD\ entertainment. The echo in the third and fourth lines refers to this echoing of high culture in its everyday counterpart: 'REU\NV]HĞFLRNRQQ\FK     ĞFLRNRQQ\FK

$ERDUGWKHFDUULDJHVGUDZQE\VL[KRUVHV     UVHV

The Polish echo fails to make sense on the poem’s verbal surface, but just as in painting it introduces semantic polysemy: on the one hand, the poem describes DVSHFL¿FFDURXVHOULGHHQMR\HGE\DPRWKHUDQGKHUFKLOGRQD6XQGD\RXWLQJ but on the other, the madonnas simply become beautiful women. Without any children, these damsels and the carousel proprietor put the horses through their paces. Such erotic variants have been taken up by the bestselling Polish writer Tomasz Raczek – and also by pop culture. Contrary to these concrete meanings of a young woman with or without child, WKH PDGRQQDV LQ WKH SRHP FRXOG DOVR EH GHSLFWLRQV RI WKH 9LUJLQ 0DU\ 5DShael’s Sistine Madonna plays with combining various different movements to afford perception of the new, which transcends the depicted. Raphael’s painting consists of several planes. This procedure resembles the positioning of horses on several planes in the fourth line from the bottom in %LDáRV]HZVNL¶V SRHP 7KH KRUVHV DSSHDU WR KDYH EHHQ PRXQWHG DW GLIIHUHQW heights, and the riders are able to hold on to the fastening rods of the carousel’s structure. In Raphael, the boundaries between the different imaginary spaces are cleverly blurred. The viewer beholds at the top what looks like a real curtain together with an entirely unheavenly twisted curtain rail. The claim to reality ODLGE\WKHFXUWDLQFRQIHUVLWVHOIXSRQWKH¿JXUHVSRVLWLRQHGRQWKHVDPHSODQH This produces a reality effect similar to that induced by the gracious females riding on their horses on different planes.12  ,QVLPSOLVWLFWHUPV5DSKDHO¶V9LUJLQLVSRVLWLRQHGQRWLQWKHZRUOGEHKLQGWKH window but rather in the window itself. She appears to descend from a heavenly space, through the picture plane, out into the real space in which the painting is hung. She can no longer be viewed through the window of the painting. She steps out of the picture plane to enter into communication with the viewer. Such revalorization comes from securalizing and making her profane. The painting limits itself not merely to static thematic representation, but EHFRPHVDFWLYHDQGÀH[LEOHZLWKLQLWVUDQJHRISRVVLELOLWLHVDVDWZRGLPHQVLRQDO SDQHO%LDáRV]HZVNL¶VSRHPDSSHDUVLQDFROOHFWLRQHQWLWOHGObroty rzeczy – Turns of Things7KHFROOHFWLRQDOVRSUHVHQWVDQXPEHURISHWUL¿HG3ROLVKVD\LQJVZKLFK %LDáRV]HZVNL GLVVRFLDWHV IURP WKHLU FRQYHQWLRQDO PHDQLQJ DQG UHFRQWH[WXDOL]HV them. Painting and literary techniques are applied alongside each other.13

Figure 7.1 Tomasz Raczek: .DUX]HOD ] 0DGRQQDPL  EDUG]R ]DNUĊFRQ\FK NRELHW LOOXVWU 0DUFLQ 6]F]\JLHOVNL  1LHSRUĊW ,QVW\WXW :\GDZQLF]\ ³/DWDUQLN´ 2003. Book cover.

Figure 7.2 Pop Madonna. Photo and model: Brigitta Erdödy, Munich, 2007.

Figure 7.3 Raffaello Sanzio o Santi: La Madonna Sistina (1512/13), Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden. Permission: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden.

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Figure 7.4 Jakob Sztaba: Raffael. Die Sixtinische Madonna. Eine gemalte himmlische Vision. Seminar paper submitted at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe.

5REHUW5XPDV0DWND%RVND±RU]HFKMDVQ\ĞUHGQLFLHPQ\ (Virgin Mary – ZDOQXWOLJKWPHGLXPGDUN It is a small step from such close readings to interpreting visual art. This section shifts from the medium of writing to the image and its iconographic message. 7KHZRUNEHORZ)LJXUH IHDWXUHGLQWKHH[KLELWLRQ³2JOąGU]HF]\6LFKW der Dinge” at the Regensburg Ostdeutsche Galerie14DQGLQ/DV9HJDVRYHUOHDI Figure 7.6).  ,PDJHV DQG VWDWXHV RI WKH 9LUJLQ 0DU\ DUH XELTXLWRXV LQ 3RODQG :RRGHQ ¿JXUHVLQSDUWLFXODUVHUYHWRWUDQVSRUWV\PEROLFDQGHPRWLRQDOPHDQLQJWKDWKDV JURZQRYHUWLPH7KH¿JXUHVRI0DU\E\WKH'DQ]LJYLVXDODUWLVW5REHUW5XPDV are no longer made of wood, but of plaster (which is more apt to break). While 5XPDVFLWHVDIDPLOLDUIRUPDQGSRVWXUHRIWKHEHDXWLIXOKH¿OOVWKHLQVLGHVRIKLV ¿JXUHVZLWKDGLIIHUHQWPDWHULDO7KHVHPRXOGVDUHVXEMHFWHGWREUXWDOWUHDWPHQW Rumas immerses them in water, douses them with industrial paint, showers them with coins, and explodes them from within using plastic. And yet whatever he GRHVWRWKHVH¿JXUHVWKH\DUHQRWGHSULYHGRIWKHLUFKDUPDQGPHVVDJH7KHUDZ alienated materials that Rumas applies are themselves timeless. Rumas’s repreVHQWDWLRQVRIWKH9LUJLQ0DU\KRZHYHUDUHHPEOHPVRIWKHHIIHFWRIWLPH±KHQFH DOVRRIIRUJHWWLQJDQGUHQHZDO$VLQ%LDáRV]HZVNL¶VSRHPWKH\DUHSXOOHGEDFN LQWR WLPH 6R UDWKHU WKDQ GHVWUR\LQJ ZKDW DUH FRQYHQWLRQDOL]HG ¿JXUHV RI WKH 9LUJLQ0DU\5XPDVUHVXVFLWDWHVWKHPIURPWKHLUSHWUL¿HGVWDWH

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 151

Figure 7.5 Robert Rumas: 0DWND %RVND ± RU]HFK MDVQ\ĞUHGQLFLHPQ\ 9LUJLQ 0DU\ ± EULJKWQXW9LUJLQ0DU\±PHGLXPQXW9LUJLQ0DU\±GDUNQXWWKUHH objects, each 220  50 FPDUWL¿FLDOPDUEOHVWDWXHVHOHFWULFLQVWDOODWLRQ RLOSDLQWFDQV>RLOSDLQWVXVHGLQ3ROLVKLQVWLWXWLRQVSULYDWHKRXVHVLQRUGHUWR FRYHU DQG UHQRYDWH ZDOOV ÀRRUV GRRUV ZLQGRZ IUDPHV FKXUFK EHQFKHV HWF@  3KRWR .U]\V]WRI ,]GHEVNL FROOHFWLRQ RI WKH 1DWLRQDO 0XVHXP LQ Poznan. In: 2JOąGU]HF]\6LFKWGHU'LQJH. Miscellany published by the Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg 2005, p. 49. Permission: Robert Rumas.

2VLS0DQGHO¶VKWDPɍɦɵɜɚɥɫɹɧɨɱɶɸɧɚɞɜɨɪɟ(I was ZDVKLQJRXWVLGHLQWKHGDUNQHVV The effect of time and oblivion lets us take up works of Russian culture where WKH LPDJH RI WKH 9LUJLQ 0DU\ DSSHDUV WR SOD\ D OHVV SURPLQHQW UROH WKDQ LQ Poland. And yet Russian culture is imbued with profoundly religious sentiment, although other traditions are called upon as well. I should like to illustrate this point with a poem by Osip Mandel’shtam from 1921:15 ɍɦɵɜɚɥɫɹɧɨɱɶɸɧɚɞɜɨɪɟ± Ɍɜɟɪɞɶɫɢɹɥɚɝɪɭɛɵɦɢɡɜɟɡɞɚɦɢ Ɂɜsɡɞɧɵɣɥɭɱ±ɤɚɤɫɨɥɶɧɚɬɨɩɨɪɟ ɋɬɵɧɟɬɛɨɱɤɚɫɩɨɥɧɵɦɢɤɪɚɹɦɢ

,ZDVZDVKLQJRXWVLGHLQWKHGDUNQHVV WKHVN\EXUQLQJZLWKURXJKVWDUV DQGWKHVWDUOLJKWVDOWRQDQD[HEODGH 7KHFROGRYHUÀRZVWKHEDUUHO

Figure 7.6 Robert Rumas: MadonnaIURPWKHF\FOHHQWLWOHG³/DV9HJDV´LQZKLFK WKH¿JXUHRI0DGRQQDLV³FU\LQJZLWKJROGHQFRLQV´PL[HGWHFKQLTXHSRO\ester, coins, laminatem board, electric installation, plexi box). Photo: Maciej Kosycarz, private collection. Permission: Robert Rumas.

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 153 ɇɚɡɚɦɨɤɡɚɤɪɵɬɵɜɨɪɨɬɚ ɂɡɟɦɥɹɩɨɫɨɜɟɫɬɢɫɭɪɨɜɚ± ɑɢɳɟɩɪɚɜɞɵɫɜɟɠɟɝɨɯɨɥɫɬɚ ȼɪɹɞɥɢɝɞɟɨɬɵɳɟɬɫɹɨɫɧɨɜɚ

7KHJDWH¶VORFNHG 7KHODQG¶VJULPDVLWVFRQVFLHQFH ,GRQ¶WWKLQNWKH\¶OO¿QGWKHQHZ weaving, ¿QHUWKDQWUXWKDQ\ZKHUH

Ɍɚɟɬɜɛɨɱɤɟɫɥɨɜɧɨɫɨɥɶɡɜɟɡɞɚ ɂɜɨɞɚɫɬɭɞsɧɚɹɱɟɪɧɟɟ ɑɢɳɟɫɦɟɪɬɶɫɨɥsɧɟɟɛɟɞɚ ɂɡɟɦɥɹɩɪɚɜɞɢɜɟɣɢɫɬɪɚɲɧɟɟ

6WDUVDOWLVPHOWLQJLQWKHEDUUHO LF\ZDWHULVWXUQLQJEODFNHU GHDWK¶VJURZLQJSXUHUZDWHUVDOWLHU WKHHDUWK¶VPRYLQJQHDUHUWRWUXWKDQGWR dread

ɈɫɢɩɆɚɧɞɟɥɶɲɬɚɦ

7UDQVE\:60HUZLQDQG&ODUHQFH Brown, 1974)

The poem initially appears to develop what is a concrete image of a farmyard: the bolted gate denies access to the domestic sphere; night has fallen and a sheet shines brightly in the moonlight; the water blackens ever more, sadness prevails, and all is heavy and entrapped . . .  7KHD[HHYRNHVWKH5XVVLDQLGLRP³ɦɭɠɢɤɜɡɚɥɫɹɡɚɬɨɩɨɪ´³7KHSHDVDQW picks up the axe”). This idiom also refers to political, pogrom-like revolts in the FRXQWU\7KHD[HPRUHRYHUUHFDOOVERWKWKHSXEOLFH[HFXWLRQRI3XJDFKsY±WKH peasant leader and bogus tsar – and Raskol’nikov’s slaying of an old woman with an axe in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.  7KH SRHP FRQMRLQV WKLV V\PERO RI HYLO IURP 'RVWRHYVN\¶V ¿FWLRQDO PLFURcosm with the sublimity abiding in the macrocosm. The salt on the axe commingles with the twinkling stars. Salt symbolizes old Russian customs of hospitality applying to the house and farm. In Russia, strangers are welcomed with bread and salt. In popular belief salt tossed by the right hand over the left shoulder is deemed to ward off the devil. In Mandel’shtam, the small butt standing in the yard mirrors the great macrocosm. Water freezes in the butt, and the stars mirrored therein become small, icy saline crystals. As the speaker washes himself in what constitutes an instance of obliteration and cleansing, he destroys the mirror image on the surface. The more powerfully the past is obliterated, the worse poverty becomes and the more VDOW\WHDUVDUHVKHGVHH³ɫɨɥsɧɟɟɛɟɞɚ´LQWKHSHQXOWLPDWHOLQH $VWKHVDOWGLVsolves, the domestic sphere and its old customs lose their protective function. In Slovo i kul’tura (“Word and Culture”), an essay he wrote in 1920, one year before ɍɦɵɜɚɥɫɹɧɨɱɶɸɧɚɞɜɨɪɟ, Mandel’shtam develops his notion of culture. On the linear axis of time, every culture is itself history. Mandel’shtam, however, discards such chronological notions of time.16 Identifying it with a destructive and devouring principle, he refers to it as “hungry time”. Irrespective of the nature of time, from which humankind can never escape in ontological terms, he is concerned with the elimination of history, that is, linear time. The change that WLPHHIIHFWVRQREMHFWVDQGZRUGVLVUHSUHVVHG8QOLNH5DSKDHO¶V9LUJLQ0DU\

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Mandel’shtam’s stars denote a static symbol that lies beyond the window in the UHPRWHGLVWDQFH±UDWKHUWKDQQHDUE\RQWKHEDOXVWUDGH7KHZRUOGLVEXWDUHÀHFtion of absolute values.17 Mandel’shtam draws upon the tradition in Russian philosophy established by Chaadaev. In his famous philosophical letters of 1829, Chaadaev developed the ideal of spatial synchronicity: This is an old truth, I know; and yet it still appears to be quite new for the most part in our fatherland. One of the saddest traits of our strange civilization is that we discover truths that have long become truisms in other places and even amongst those peoples that lag behind us in many respects. Rather this has to do with the fact that we have never proceeded hand in hand with other peoples; we belong to none of the large families of the human species; we belong neither to the West nor the East; and we dispose of nothing that has been handed down by either culture. Existing beyond time as it were, we KDYHUHPDLQHGXQWRXFKHGE\WKHXQLYHUVDOHGL¿FDWLRQRIWKHKXPDQVSHFLHV18 Culture is inhabited “beyond time”, as a constructed place. Meanings from different periods and eras converge in the habitable space of the word. In this context another aspect can be seen in Mandel’shtam’s poem: whereas he refers to Greek and Roman antiquity in his earlier poetry, the door to extra-Russian cultures is now bolted shut. The poem contains not one single foreign word and dwells entirely on a Russian theme.19  :KLFK FXOWXUDO GLIIHUHQFHV H[LVW EHWZHHQ 0DQGHO¶VKWDP DQG %LDáRV]HZVNL¶V carousel ride? Both awaken and remodify universal topoi. The Polish example emphasizes peripheral locations and their varicoloured, kitschy everyday life. In %LDáRV]HZVNL¶VWUDQVQDWLRQDOFDURXVHOULGHGLDFKURQLFLW\LVQRWREOLWHUDWHG)RUHLJQ words, such as “Anglaise” and “Lambrequin”, suggest an opening up of cultural space. While art brings forth existence in the childlike-playful carousel ride, motion gives rise to perception. Time as dynamic change generates meaning. Starting out from cubo-futurist art, the Russian formalists referred to this phenomenon as “sdvig”. Sdvig denotes in the broadest sense any interleaving or interlocking of two or more orders or their elements. In a more restricted sense, “sdvig” refers to the shifting of word boundaries.20  %LDáRV]HZVNLFORVHVKLVFDURXVHOSRHPZLWKQHDUSHUIHFWHQMDPEPHQWWRHIIHFW line breaks. Such graphic shifting of syllable breaks in the fourth and last stanza induces semantic shifts:21 Puszcza refren I peryfe rafa elickie madonny przed  PLHĞFLD

The refrain runs And periph rapha elite Madonnas On  KDQG

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 155 :\PLHQLDMą  NRQQHSLĊWUR

0RYH  WRDQRWKHUWLHURIKRUVHV

The ending of “peripheral” is absent in the Polish original. Enjambment abbreviates both “Raphael” and “peripheral”, which gives an impression of graphic and semantic rotation. Time is accelerated to such an extent that the reader only recognizes scraps of words, which are combined with new matter. 7KH PDGRQQDV QR ORQJHU KDYH D ¿[HG SODFH WKH\ QRZ H[LVW RQO\ LQ SHUSHWXDO motion. The re- and devalorization of horses riding either high or low becomes DQLQGLVWLQJXLVKDEOHÀRDWLQJ22 By contrast, “faktura” dominates Mandel’shtam’s poem as that which is made DQGVWDQGVXSULJKW7KLVLVKRZWKHIRUPDOLVWVGH¿QHGWKHWDQJLEOHTXDOLW\RIDZRUN of art as a spatial object.23:KLOH%LDáRV]HZVNLHPSKDVL]HVWKHWLPHERXQGQDWXUH of the carousel ride, Mandel’shtam broaches the timeless surface of the water butt ZKRVH VPRRWK VXUIDFH LV GHVWUR\HG E\ WKH ¿JXUH¶V DEOXWLRQ  7KH D[H LV RQH example of faktura. Like the stars, the axe is rendered timeless and made absolute. Whereas “sdvig” prevents anything from establishing itself as a symbol, faktura protects the symbols and their meanings. Old symbols stemming from another, dehistoricized time invade the world of readers and manipulate their ideologies.  $Q\ DWWHPSW WR ¿QG %LDáRV]HZVNL¶V OLJKWIRRWHG DQG FKHHUIXO WRQH LQ Mandel’shtam is to no avail. Mandel’shtam’s ɍɦɵɜɚɥɫɹɧɨɱɶɸɧɚɞɜɨɪɟsubstantiates Chaadaev’s claim that the concept of Russia is untranslatable and that Russia, moreover, can only be translated into its own images. Notably, this view is still held today.

Andrei Zviagintsev: Vozvrashchenie (The Return) /HW PH FORVH E\ WUDQVSRVLQJ WKH ¿QGLQJV RI WKH SUHYLRXV FORVH UHDGLQJV RQWR D FLQHPDWLF H[DPSOH WKH \RXQJ 5XVVLDQ ¿OPPDNHU $QGUHL =YLDJLQWVHY¶V ¿UVW ¿OPVozvrashchenie (The Return, 2003), whose characters – father, mother, and WZRVRQV±DUHDOOP\WKRORJLFDOO\LQÀDWHG¿JXUHV=YLDJLQWVHYLQWURGXFHVRFFLdental triadic thinking as a theme from the outset, though not with reference to the family alone, but as having a more profound mythical provenance: . . . simply the old trinity, taken over from the Christian theology, as the Christians had taken it from Plato. It was the mythical and magical triangle which from the time of Pythagoras and before had stood as a symbol of certainty and power. . . . Certainly the one-in-three, three-in-one of the Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis has had upon Marxists a compelling effect which it would be impossible to justify through reason.24 Vozvrashchenie takes up such mythological trinities and dualities, and examines the Russian cultural myth.25 It is the story of a father who returns to his family after twelve years. He emerges from the darkness of an aeonic time to enter his sons’ lives (who know him only from a single black-and-white photograph).

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Notably, the boys are looking for this very photograph in the attic on the day of their father’s homecoming. In doing so, they come across a Bible and open it WR D SDJH IHDWXULQJ D FRSSHU HQJUDYLQJ GHSLFWLQJ $EUDKDP¶V VDFUL¿FH RI ,VDDF This mythological theme – of unconditional obedience – subsequently runs WKURXJKWKHHQWLUH¿OP26  :KHQRQHJOLPSVHVWKHIDWKHUIRUWKH¿UVWWLPHXSRQKLVUHWXUQLWLVWKHLPDJH of a man lying on a bed with his feet projecting out towards the viewer. Zviagintsev has explained that the scene orients itself on the unusual perspective chosen by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna for his painting The Lamentation over the Dead Christ. Through such images Zviagintsev introduces the religious theme, and a preRFFXSDWLRQ ZLWK :HVWHUQ FXOWXUH LQWR WKH KHDUW RI KLV ¿OP27 Similarly to %LDáRV]HZVNLWKH¿OPKDVDWRQFHDQDOOHJRULFDODQGUHDOHIIHFWLQDOOLWVGHFLVLYH moments. The father introduces historical time into the world, or as Mircea Eliade observed: We may note that, just as modern man considers himself to be constituted by History, the man of the archaic societies declares that he is the result of a

Figure 7.7 Andrea Mantegna: Cristo Morto e tre dolenti/The Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c.1490; Tempera on canvas, 68  81 cm Pinacoteca di Brera, Milano). Permission: Pinacoteca di Brera.

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 157

Figure 7.8 Andrei Zviagintsev’s: Vozvrashchenie (The Return, 2003), movie picture.

certain number of mythical events. . . . While a modern man, though regardLQJ KLPVHOI DV WKH UHVXOW RI WKH FRXUVH RI 8QLYHUVDO +LVWRU\ GRHV QRW IHHO obliged to know the whole of it, the man in the archaic societies is not only obliged to remember mythical history but also to re-enact a large part of it SHULRGLFDOO\,WLVKHUHWKDWZH¿QGWKHJUHDWHVWGLIIHUHQFHEHWZHHQWKHPDQ of the archaic societies and modern man: the irreversibility of events, which is the characteristic trait of History for the latter, is not a fact to the former.28  $JDLQVWWKHEDFNGURSRIWKHIDWKHU¶VP\WKLFDOUHWXUQWKH¿OPRSHQVZLWKDWHVW of courage among adolescents, which Ivan, the youngest, fails. Only the vertiginous Ivan fails to jump into the water off the towering structure of a coastal dike.29 Quivering with cold and shame, he remains at the top of the structure until KLVPRWKHUFDOOVRXW³9DQMDP\VRQ´DUULYLQJWRVDYHKLPIURPKLVSUHGLFDPHQW She consoles him, soothes him with words and wraps him – as Raphael’s 0DGRQQD GRHV KHU FKLOG ± LQ KHU HPEUDFH ,YDQ KRZHYHU UHPDLQV PRUWL¿HG

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WKXV QXUWXULQJ D UHEHOOLRXV GH¿DQFH ZKLFK FU\VWDOOL]HV LQ KLV UHVSRQVH WR KLV IDWKHU 7LPH DQG DJDLQ ,YDQ PXVW PDNH KLV PRUWL¿FDWLRQ IRUJRWWHQ WKURXJK GH¿DQWJHVWXUHVVLJQDOOLQJKLVVHOIDVVHUWLYHQHVV+HUHWKHIDWKHUFDQEHVHHQWR HPERG\WKH:HVWKHHQWHUVWKHIDPLO\DVWKHQHZH[WUDQHRXVHOHPHQW+LV¿UVW appearance is a cinematic copy of Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ. The children cannot live up to their father’s new and harsh rules and demands. This might be understood as a new illustration of the struggle of Russian culture against the allegedly more aggressive West.30 The father’s wristwatch symbolizes the strictures of Western-rational time PDQDJHPHQW DQG GLVFLSOLQH 2Q RQH RFFDVLRQ ZKHQ WKH\ DUH RXW ¿VKLQJ WKH children, who cannot keep up with their adult father, are oblivious to time and UHWXUQKRPHWRRODWH7KLVHSLVRGHOHDGVWRWKHFDWDVWURSKLFFOLPD[RIWKH¿OP after having been brutally punished by his father, Ivan tries to kill him with an axe, but cannot muster the courage to do so. Instead he runs away, climbing the lighthouse. In an attempt to rescue his son, who suffers from vertigo, from this dangerous situation, the father falls off the lighthouse and dies. This event thus VLJQL¿HVWKDWWKHIDWKHU¶VUHWXUQLVFRPSOHWHGDQGDVLQ0DQGHO¶VKWDPWKHJDWH is bolted to prevent the father from leaving again under any circumstances. Following the father’s death, we see a three-minute sequence of the children’s return home. Vozvrashchenie closes with a shot of the children looking at the photographs they took on family trips and outings. In this sequence, these blackand-white photographs are faded in in a very calm and steady rhythm. Initially, YLHZHUVDSSHDUWRH[SHULHQFHDGpMjYXRIVRUWVDQG\HWQRWHIIHFWLYHO\VLQFHDOO

Figure 7.9 Andrei Zviagintsev: Vozvrashchenie (The Return, 2003), movie picture.

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 159 SLFWXUHV DUH PDUNHG E\ WKH IDWKHU¶V DEVHQFH 7KH ¿OP¶V ODVW VKRW KRZHYHU explodes diachronicity in a surprising – and startling – manner. It ushers in another period, one when Ivan was still a baby. This photograph shows the young father balancing Ivan on his arm.

Figure 7.10 Madonna Hodigitria (Madonna, showing the way). Painted by Brother Christopher, icon in the Church of the Studits Monastery. Photo and permission: Josef Schmitz.

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In iconographic terms, the father assumes the position and role of the “protecWLYHPRWKHU´$VVXFKWKLVFDQEHUHDGDVD¿QDOHPSKDVLVRIDQGFRXQWHULPDJH to, his merciless hardness. Echoing the story of Abraham and Isaac, Ivan calls out in his response to his father’s ultimate demand for obedience: “I could love \RX LI \RX ZHUH GLIIHUHQW´ 7KLV DUWLFXODWHV WKH QHHG IRU D QHZ ZD\ 7KH ¿OP IDLOVWRDI¿UPWKH5XVVLDQPRGHOEXWLQVWHDGUHYHDOVLWDVDSUREOHP,YDQKDG GHQLHGKLVIDWKHUDFFHVVWRWKHWRZHUE\EROWLQJWKHGRRU8QOLNHWKHPRWKHUDW the outset, the father cannot embrace his son; he falls to his death from the WRZHU¶VXSSHUGHFNZKLOHWU\LQJWRSUHYHQW,YDQIURPMXPSLQJ 7KH¿OP¶V¿QDO VKRWEUHDFKHVWKHP\WKRORJLFDOFLUFOHRIWKHLQLWLDODQG¿QDOWRZHUV,WSRLQWVWR another way. The icon shows a type of Madonna very widespread in Russia: the 9LUJLQDVD³VLJQSRVW´31 The icon indicates a linear path leading beyond mythical circles.32 At the end RI =YLDJLQWVHY¶V ¿OP WKH VWDWLF FRSSHU HQJUDYLQJ RI $EUDKDP DQG ,VDDF OHDGV over into a linear photographic sequence where each picture strives to establish itself in a timeless, absolute manner. The sequence of images, however, prevents this.33 Only one single paradigm of action abides: “hero” or “coward”. The fundamental trauma of Russian culture resides in such oppositions, that is, in its preoccupation with the vertiginous heights of the West. Russia’s authoritarian and hierarchical tradition is pitted against Poland’s dynamic democratic tradition. The icon breaks through the mythical circles drawn from tower to tower, bringing into view a linear path.34 Only at this point does a conscious exchange of roles become possible. The bolt securing the Raphaelite window between heaven and earth, between high and everyday culture, between West and East, is prized open.

Conclusions The above typological analysis of Polish and Russian culture has revealed a characteristic distinction: in Russia, elitist high culture is mostly strictly separated from everyday culture. Popular Russian folklore is also divorced from high culture – on account of Russia’s orientation to the West, which results in a traumatic state of feeling overwhelmed because the West tends to be quicker on its toes as regards most cultural innovations. Orientating itself towards the presumed “height” of Western culture, Russia constantly threatens to suffer a mythological relapse into this traumatic state and thereby into sealing itself off from the West. In its concept of the Eurasian, Russia appears to make a virtue of necessity (i.e. its alleged backwardness). In Russian culture, space rules over diachronic time, which is considered Western. The axe symbolizes the different shapes this break has assumed. The Polish examples examined here, however, endorse a different notion of culture: old art trails off into everyday culture. As time passes, what constitutes defamiliarized old art can be resuscitated as new work. The new thus upgrades and gives new value to what was previously considered worthless. Artistic inno-

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 161 YDWLRQWKXVFRQVLVWVRIWKHRQJRLQJUHGH¿QLWLRQRIWKHERXQGDU\OLQHEHWZHHQWKH “profane” – which has no value apparently – and “culture” – which is awarded value.35 The madonna symbolizes such renewal, which proceeds from revalorizing the everyday by making it profane and then attaching new meaning to it. $QGUHL =YLDJLQWVHY¶V ¿OP Vozvrashchenie is an instance of “mythopoeisis” in that it implicitly assimilates affective and collective experiences of culture.36 In %LDáRV]HZVNLE\FRQWUDVWDHVWKHWLFL]DWLRQLVVRIDUDGYDQFHGWKDWLWFURVVHVIURP the “terror” of basic mythical experience into the “play” of poetic composition.37 It is precisely this dynamic capability of changing hierarchical structures that enables democratic culture.

Notes 1 See Blumenberg, Hans: Arbeit am Mythos. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1979, 40.   ³3RH]MD±WRVąNUyWNLHVSLĊFLDVHQVXPLĊG]\VáRZDPLUDSWRZQDUHJHQHUDFMDSLHUZRWQ\FK PLWyZ´ 6FKXO] %UXQR ³0LW\]DFMD U]HF]\ZLVWRĞFL´ ,Q 6FKXO] % DQG -DU]ĊEVNL-Opowiadania wybór esejów i listów:URFáDZ2VVROLQHXP 3 See Schultze, Brigitte: “Mythen, Topoi, Kulturthemen und andere sinntragende Ordnungen in neueren Identitätsdebatten. Am Beispiel der russischen, polnischen und tschechischen Kultur”. In: Turk, Horst, Schultze, Brigitte and Simanowski, Roberto (eds): Kulturelle Grenzziehungen im Spiegel der Literaturen. Nationalismus, Regionalimus, Fundamentalismus. Göttingen: Wallstein 1998, 220–238. 4 Even more subtle distinctions apply here: Cultural themes are currently the subject of comprehensive discussion, such as the ongoing debate on “Eurasianism” (Evraziistvo) in Russia. Keywords have steered behaviour for centuries, such as the “sobornost’ ” principle, which is rooted in Orthodox religious beliefs. Key concepts, however, such as the notion of Moscow as a “Third Rome”, provide less scope for interpretation and development. Key scenarios are instances of historical decisions and turning points, such as the procedure involved in religious choice in “Nestor’s Chronicle”. Cultural terms DUH XVHG WR GHQRWH WKH VPDOOHVW FODVVL¿FDWRU\ RUGHUV among others, these include “dusha” (soul), “sud’ba” (fate), “toska” (desire, longing) or “poshlost’´ WULYLDOLW\ EDQDOLW\  DQG WKHLU VSHFL¿FDOO\ 5XVVLDQ FRQQRWDWLRQV 6HH 6FKXOW]H%ULJLWWH³6FKOVVHONRQ]HSWH7RSRL.XOWXUWKHPHQXQGDQGHUHNODVVL¿NDWRUische Ordnungen in der Russland-Debatte seit den achtziger Jahren”. In: Behring, Eva, Richter, Ludwig and Schwarz, Wolfgang (eds): Geschichtliche Mythen in den Literaturen und Kulturen Ostmittel- und Südosteuropas. Stuttgart: Steiner 1999, 33–52. 5 See Kolakowski, Leszek: Die Gegenwärtigkeit des Mythos. Trans. from Polish by P. Lachmann. Munich: Piper 1984, 3. edn, 7f. See also Strenski, Ivan: Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History. Cassirer, Eliade, Lévi-Strauss and Malinowski. London: Macmillan 1987. 6 Heuermann, Hartmut: Mythos, Literatur, Gesellschaft. Mythokritische Analysen zur Geschichte des amerikanischen Romans. Munich: Fink 1988, 47. 7 Heuermann, Hartmut: Mythos, Literatur, Gesellschaft. Mythokritische Analysen zur Geschichte des amerikanischen Romans. Munich: Fink 1988, 30. 8 Blumenberg, Hans: Arbeit am Mythos. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1979, 110. 9 Blumenberg, Hans: Arbeit am Mythos. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1979, 113. 10 Boris Groys offers an original discussion of the fact that in the context of postmodern UHP\WKL¿FDWLRQ³LQQRYDWLRQ´WHQGVWRFDUU\SHMRUDWLYHFRQQRWDWLRQV6HH*UR\V%RULV Über das Neue. Versuch einer Kulturökonomie 0XQLFK DQG 9LHQQD +DQVHU  9–51.

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11 See Cudak, Romual: &]\WDMąF%LDáRV]HZVNLHJR.DWRZLFHĝOąVN± 12 Sztaba, Jakob: Raffael. Die Sixtinische Madonna. Eine gemalte himmliche Vision. Seminar paper submitted at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Karlsruhe): http://www. binaryblood.com/biblio/raffael.pdf.  6HH *RáąE 0DULXV] -Ċ]\N L U]HF]\ZLVWRĞü Z WZyUF]RĞFL 0LURQD %LDáRV]HZVNLHJR. àyGå:\GDZQLFWZR8QLZHUV\WHWXàyG]NLHJR 14 2JOąG U]HF]\6LFKW GHU 'LQJH. Miscellany published by the Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg 2005, 49 and 51, 46 and 48. 15 Mandel’shtam, Osip: Sobranie sochinenii v dvukh tomakh. Pod red. G.P. Struve and %$ )LOLSSRYD 9RO  6WLNKRWYRUHQLLD :DVKLQJWRQ ,QWHUODQJXDJH OLWHUDU\ DVVRFLDWHV  VWU  >5D]GHO ³±´@ 6HH 0DQGHOVWDP 2VVLS +XIHLVHQ¿QGHU Gedichte. Russisch–Deutsch. Leipzig: Reclam 1993, 6. edn, 54–57. For the English translation, see Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems, trans. Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin. New York: Athenaeum 1974, 40. 16 Mandel’shtam: Slovo i kul’tura. See also Mandelstam: The Complete Critical Prose and Letters. Ed. by Jane Gray Harris, trans. Jane Gray Harris and Constance Link. Ardis: Ann Arbor 1979, 112–116. 17 Nivat, Georges: 9HUVOD¿QGXP\WKHUXVVH(VVDLVVXUODFXOWXUHUXVVHGH*RJROjQRV jours. Lausanne: Ed. L’Age d’Homme 1982, 362–370.  &KDDGDHY 3HWU FRPSRVHG  SXEOLVKHG @ ,Q Schriften und Briefe. Translation and introduction by Dr Elias +XUZLF]0XQLFK'UHL0DVNHQ±7KHRULJLQDOUHDGV³əɡɧɚɸɱɬɨɷɬɨ ɫɬɚɪɚɹ ɢɫɬɢɧɚ ɧɨ ɭ ɧɚɫ ɨɧɚ ɤɚɠɟɬɫɹ ɢɦɟɟɬ ɜɫɸ ɰɟɧɧɨɫɬɶ ɧɨɜɢɡɧɵ Ɉɞɧɚ ɢɡ ɫɚɦɵɯɩɪɢɫɤɨɪɛɧɵɯɨɫɨɛɟɧɧɨɫɬɟɣɧɚɲɟɣɫɜɨɟɨɛɪɚɡɧɨɣɰɢɜɢɥɢɡɚɰɢɢɫɨɫɬɨɢɬɜ ɬɨɦɱɬɨɦɵɜɫɟɟɳɟɨɬɤɪɵɜɚɟɦɢɫɬɢɧɵɫɬɚɜɲɢɟɢɡɛɢɬɵɦɢɜɞɪɭɝɢɯɫɬɪɚɧɚɯɢ ɞɚɠɟɭɧɚɪɨɞɨɜɝɨɪɚɡɞɨɛɨɥɟɟɧɚɫɨɬɫɬɚɥɵɯȾɟɥɨɜɬɨɦɱɬɨɦɵɧɢɤɨɝɞɚɧɟɲɥɢ ɜɦɟɫɬɟ ɫ ɞɪɭɝɢɦɢ ɧɚɪɨɞɚɦɢ ɦɵ ɧɟ ɩɪɢɧɚɞɥɟɠɢɦ ɧɢ ɤ ɨɞɧɨɦɭ ɢɡ ɢɡɜɟɫɬɧɵɯ ɫɟɦɟɣɫɬɱɟɥɨɜɟɱɟɫɤɨɝɨɪɨɞɚɧɢɞɪɭɝɨɝɨɆɵɫɬɨɢɦɤɚɤɛɵɜɧɟɜɪɟɦɟɧɢɜɫɟɦɢɪɧɨɟɜɨɫɩɢɬɚɧɢɟɱɟɥɨɜɟɱɟɫɤɨɝɨɪɨɞɚɧɚɧɚɫɧɟɪɚɫɩɪɨɫɬɪɚɧɢɥɨɫɶ´&KDDGDHY3HWU Yakovlevich: Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i izbrannye pis’ma. Tom 1, Moscow: Nauka 1991, 323. 19 For a discussion of such cultural stonewalling, see also Lachmann, Renate: “Remarks on the Foreign (Strange) as a Figure of Cultural Ambivalence”. In: Russian Literature 36 (1994), 335–346. For a discussion of myths in Russia in this respect, see the section “Russia’s Destruction” in Walter Koschmal’s contribution to the present volume. 20 See Hansen-Löve, Aage: Der russische Formalismus. Methodologische Rekonstruktion seiner Entwicklung aus dem Prinzip der Verfremdung9LHQQD9HUODJGHUgVWHUreichischen Akadmie der Wissenschaften 1978, 90–93. 21 Sadowski, Witold: 7H[WJUD¿F]Q\%LDáRV]HZVNLHJR:DUVDZ8QLZHUV\WHW:DUVDZVNL 1999.  1R¿NRZ(ZD0HWD¿]\F]QHJRVSRGDUVWZR0LURQD%LDá\VWRN7RZDU]\VWZR/LWHUDckie, Adama Mickiewicza 2001. 23 See Hansen-Löve, Aage: Der russische Formalismus. Methodologische Rekonstruktion seiner Entwicklung aus dem Prinzip der Verfremdung9LHQQD9HUODJGHUgVWHUreichischen Akadmie der Wissenschaften 1978, 93–96. 24 Wilson, Edmund: “The Myth of the Dialectic”. In: To the Finland Station. Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1953, 190.  2Q FRQVWUXLQJ QDWLRQDO FKDUDFWHUV VHH '|ULQJ 6DELQH $ ³9RP µQDWLRQEXLOGLQJ¶ ]XP,GHQWL¿NDWLRQVIHOG=XU,QWHJUDWLRQVIXQNWLRQQDWLRQDOHU0\WKHQLQGHU/LWHUDWXU´ In: Turk, Horst et al. (ed.): Kulturelle Grenzziehungen im Spiegel der Literaturen. Nationalismus, Regionalismus, Fundamentalismus. Göttingen: Wallstein 1998, 63–83, here 75ff. 26 Writing about the effect of myth as an unconditional truth, Panikkar notes:

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 163 A living myth does not allow for interpretation because it needs no intermediary. The hermeneutic of a myth is no longer the myth, but its logos. Myth is precisely the horizon over against which any hermeneutic is possible. Myth is that which we take for granted, that which we do not question; and it is unquestioned because de facto it is not seen as questionable. The myth is transparent like the light, and the mythical story – mytholegomenon – is only the form, the garment in which the myth happens to be expressed, enwrapped, illumined. Panikkar, Raimundo: Myth, Faith, and Hermeneutics. Cross-Cultural Studies. New York: Paulist Press 1979, 7 27 For a discussion of such “everyday myths”, see also Boym, Svetlana: Common Places. Mythology of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard 8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV 28 Eliade, Mircea: Myth and Reality. New York: Harper & Row 1963, 12f. 29 Zviagintsev here opts for a phallic symbol of power; as regards the father, this can be read as a symbol of the power the state has over the individual. See also Arvidsson, Claes and Blomqvist, Lars Erik (eds): Symbols of Power. The Esthetics of Political Legitimation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1987. 30 See Groys, Boris: 'LH (U¿QGXQJ 5XVVODQGV 0XQLFK DQG 9LHQQD +DQVHU  19–36. 31 While Zviagintsev cites some of Andrei Tarkovsky’s numerous mythical arrangements of space, at the end he breaks with the latter’s conception; as Detlef Kremer has argued, the crossing of the swimming pool with a burning candle in “Nostalghia” H[HPSOL¿HVWKLVFRQFHSWLRQ >7DUNRYVN\@ OHWV WKLV FURVVLQJ XQIROG LQ D VHTXHQFH ODVWLQJ URXJKO\ VHYHQ minutes, without any cuts whatsoever, as a kind of cinematic allegory of the PHGLWDWLYH UHWUDFWLRQ RI PRWLRQ DQG RI H[WHUQDO OLIH DQG DV DQ HPEOHP RI ¿OP aesthetics, whose exposed slowness pits the hermetic and resistent statics of culture, myth, and mystic self-obliteration against the void time of civilization and industry. See Kremer, Detlef: Zeit-Räume. “Kultische Choreographien in Andrej 7DUNRZVN\¶V )LOP µ1RVWDOJKLD¶´ ,Q *ULPPLQJHU 5ROI and Hermann, Iris (eds): Mythos im Text. Zur Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 1998, 173–193, here 179. 32 One of these mythical circles is the topos of Russia’s alleged cultural and historical singularity. On this, see Wachtel, Andrew Baruch: An Obsession with History. Russian Writers Confront the Past 6WDQIRUG &DOLIRUQLD 6WDQIRUG 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV 1994, passim.  2Q WKH IDWKHU±VRQ FRQÀLFW VHH %UXQR 6FKXO]¶V FROOHFWLRQ RI VWRULHV Sklepy cynamonowe (Cinnamon Shops), published in 1933. In Schulz, as Dorothee Gelhard has noted, the fantastic plays a remythifying role, keeping images in motion: Schulz attributes to poetry, that is to the mythopoetic discourse of the fantastic, a particular function, that of a mnemonic conservation of images which, since it is able to bring forth ever new combinations, prevents torpor. Tzvetan Todorov has made clear that the fantastic involves a particular use of images. Freud explained this by arguing that fantasy and childhood memories belong together and are the continuation of child’s play, the child’s correction of reality. See Gelhard, Dorothee: Spuren des Sagens. Studien zur jüdischen Hermeneutik in der Literatur. Frankfurt/Main: Lang 2004, 67.  )RU.RáDNRZVNLUHWUHDWLQJLQWRP\WKSUHVXSSRVHVWKHVKRUWIDOORIKLVWRU\,Q=YLDJintsev, history returns with its linear-timebound path and breaks through the

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P\WK 6HH .RáDNRZVNL /HV]HN Die Gegenwärtigkeit des Mythos. Munich: Piper 1972, 94f. 35 This can be also be interpreted in terms of the concept of “hybridity”. On this, see :lJHQEDXU7KRPDV³+\EULGH+\EULGLWlW'HU.XOWXUNRQÀLNWLP7H[WGHU.XOWXUWKHorie”. In: Arcadia 31 (1996), 27–38. See also Bhabha, Homi K.: The Location of Culture. London, New York: Routledge 1994. 36 See Heuermann, Hartmut: Mythos, Literatur, Gesellschaft. Mythokritische Analysen zur Geschichte des amerikanischen Romans. Munich: Fink 1988, 72. 37 See Nieraad, Jürgen: “Literatur und Gewalt”. In Nieraad, Jürgen: Die Spur der Gewalt. Zur Geschichte des Schrecklichen in der Literatur und ihrer Theorie. Lüneburg: zu Klampen 1994, 18–25.

Bibliography Arvidsson, C. and Blomqvist, L.E. (eds) (1987) Symbols of Power. The Esthetics of Political Legitimation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Bhabha, H.K. (1994) The Location of Culture, London and New York: Routledge. Blumenberg, H. (1979) Arbeit am Mythos, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Boym, S. (1994) Common Places. Mythology of Everyday Life in Russia, Cambridge, 0$+DUYDUG8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV &KDDGDHY 3   3KLORVRSKLFDO /HWWHU ¿UVW  >³(UVWHU SKLORVRSKLVFKHU %ULHI´@ FRPposed 1829, published 1836), in Schriften und Briefe, translation and introduction by Dr Elias Hurwicz, Munich: Drei Masken, 35–36. Cudak, R. (1999) &]\WDMąF%LDáRV]HZVNLHJR.DWRZLFHĝOąVN±%LEOLRWHNDLQWHUpretacji; 3). '|ULQJ 6$   ³9RP µQDWLRQEXLOGLQJ¶ ]XP ,GHQWL¿NDWLRQVIHOG =XU ,QWHJUDWLRQVfunktion nationaler Mythen in der Literatur”, in: Turk, Horst, Schultze, B. and Simanowski, R. (eds): Kulturelle Grenzziehungen im Spiegel der Literaturen. Nationalismus, Regionalismus, Fundamentalismus, Göttingen: Wallstein, 63–83. Eliade, M. (1963) Myth and Reality, New York: Harper & Row. Gelhard, D. (2004) Spuren des Sagens. Studien zur jüdischen Hermeneutik in der Literatur. Frankfurt/M.: Lang. *RáąE 0   -Ċ]\N L U]HF]\ZLVWRĞü Z WZyUF]RĞFL 0LURQD %LDáRV]HZVNLHJR àyGå :\GDZQLFWZR8QLZHUV\WHWXàyG]NLHJR Groys, B. (1992) Über das Neue. Versuch einer Kulturökonomie 0XQLFK DQG 9LHQQD Hanser. Groys, B. (1995) 'LH(U¿QGXQJ5XVVODQGV0XQLFKDQG9LHQQD+DQVHU Hansen-Löve, A. (1978) Der russische Formalismus. Methodologische Rekonstruktion seiner Entwicklung aus dem Prinzip der Verfremdung9LHQQD9HUODJGHUgVWHUUHLFKLschen Akadmie der Wissenschaften, 90–93. Heuermann, H. (1988) Mythos, Literatur, Gesellschaft. Mythokritische Analysen zur Geschichte des amerikanischen Romans, Munich: Fink. .RáDNRZVNL /   Die Gegenwärtigkeit des Mythos, trans. P. Lachmann, 3rd edn, Munich: Piper. Kremer, D. (1998) “Zeit-Räume. Kultische Choreographien in Andrej Tarkowskijs Film µ1RVWDOJKLD¶´LQ*ULPPLQJHU5ROIDQG+HUPDQQ,ULVHGV Mythos im Text. Zur Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 173–193. Lachmann, R. (1994) “Remarks on the Foreign (Strange) as a Figure of Cultural Ambivalence”. In: Russian Literature 36, 335–346.

Myths and democracy in Poland and Russia 165 Mandel’shtam, O. (1964) Sobranie sochinenii v dvukh tomakh, Pod red, G.P. Struve i B.A. Filippova, T.1; Stikhotvoreniia, Washington: Inter-language literary associates. Mandel’shtam, O. (1974) Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems, trans. Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin. New York: Athenaeum. Mandel’shtam, O. (1979) “Slovo i kul’tura”, in Gray Harris, J. (ed.) Mandelstam: The Complete Critical Prose and Letters, trans. Jane Gray Harris and Constance Link, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 112–116. Mandel’shtam, O. (1993) +XIHLVHQ¿QGHU*HGLFKWH5XVVLVFK±'HXWVFK, 6th edn, Leipzig: Reclam. Nieraad, J. (1994) “Literatur und Gewalt”, in Nieraad, Jürgen (ed.) Die Spur der Gewalt. Zur Geschichte des Schrecklichen in der Literatur und ihrer Theorie, Lüneburg: zu Klampen, 18–25. Nivat, G. (1982) 9HUVOD¿QGXP\WKHUXVVH(VVDLVVXUODFXOWXUHUXVVHGH*RJROjQRV jours, Lausanne: Ed. L’Age d’Homme, 362–370. 1R¿NRZ( 0HWD¿]\F]QHJRVSRGDUVWZR0LURQD, %LDá\VWRN7RZDU]\VWZR/LWHUDFkie, Adama Mickiewicza. 2JOąG U]HF]\6LFKW GHU 'LQJH (2005), miscellany published by the Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg. Panikkar, R. (1979) Myth, Faith, and Hermeneutics. Cross-Cultural Studies, New York: Paulist Press. Sadowski, W. (1999) 7H[WJUD¿F]Q\%LDáRV]HZVNLHJR:DUV]DZD8QLZHUV\WHW:DUVDZVNL 6FKXO]% ³0LW\]DFMDU]HF]\ZLVWRĞFL´LQ6FKXO]%DQG-DU]ĊEVNL-Opowiadania wybór esejów i listów:URFáDZ2VVROLQHXP%LEOLRWHNDQDURGRZD6HULD  Schultze, B. (1998) “Mythen, Topoi, Kulturthemen und andere sinntragende Ordnungen in neueren Identitätsdebatten. Am Beispiel der russischen, polnischen und tschechischen Kultur”, in Turk, H., Schultze, B. and Simanowski, R. (eds) Kulturelle Grenzziehungen im Spiegel der Literaturen. Nationalismus, Regionalimus, Fundamentalismus, Göttingen: Wallstein, 220–238. 6FKXOW]H %   ³6FKOVVHONRQ]HSWH7RSRL .XOWXUWKHPHQ XQG DQGHUH NODVVL¿NDWRULsche Ordnungen in der Russland-Debatte seit den achtziger Jahren”, in Behring, E., Richter, L. and Schwarz, W. (eds) Geschichtliche Mythen in den Literaturen und Kulturen Ostmittel- und Südosteuropas, Stuttgart: Steiner, 33–52. Sztaba, Jakob, Raffael. Die Sixtinische Madonna. Eine gemalte himmliche Vision. Seminar paper submitted at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Karlsruhe). Online: http:// www.binaryblood.com/biblio/raffael.pdf. Wachtel, A.B. (1994) An Obsession with History. Russian Writers Confront the Past, 6WDQIRUG6WDQIRUG8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV :lJHQEDXU 7   ³+\EULGH +\EULGLWlW 'HU .XOWXUNRQÀLNW LP 7H[W GHU .XOWXUWKHRrie”, Arcadia 31, 27–38. Wilson, E. (1953) “The Myth of the Dialectic”, in Wilson, E. To the Finland Station, Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Part III

Myths, legitimacy, and civic identity in post-communist democracies

8

Contested traditions? The usage of three national holidays in contemporary Hungary Heino Nyyssönen

Introduction 1DWLRQDO KROLGD\V DUH SRSXODU DQQLYHUVDULHV WKDW UHSUHVHQW DQ RI¿FLDO VHOI understanding of the state and political elites. They can be found, except for VRPH FDVHV LQ HYHU\ VWDWH ,Q WKH ¿UVW SDUDJUDSK RI WKH )UHQFK &RQVWLWXWLRQ RI 1791, revolutionaries declared that ‘national celebrations will be established to SUHVHUYHWKHPHPRU\RIWKH)UHQFK5HYROXWLRQ¶/H*RII± ,Q /pRQ *DPEHWWD ZURWH WKDW D IUHH QDWLRQ QHHGV QDWLRQDO FHOHEUDWLRQV LELG  ,Q  D ELOO ZDV LQWURGXFHG E\ ZKLFK WKH )UHQFK 3DUOLDPHQW GHFODUHG WKDW WKH organisation of a series of national celebrations to remind people of memories linked to the existing political institution is a necessity that all governments have UHFRJQLVHGDQGSXWLQWRSUDFWLFH/H*RII±$PDOYL±  The aim of this chapter is to study national holidays and their relation to GHPRFUDF\DQGGHPRFUDWLVDWLRQVLQFHWKHODWHV7KHFDVHRI+XQJDU\SUR YLGHVDQH[FHOOHQWH[DPSOHDVLWKDVWKUHHRI¿FLDOQDWLRQDOKROLGD\V7KHIRFXVRQ WKHDQQLYHUVDULHVDQGIHVWLYDOVVLQFHRSHQVXSWKHTXHVWLRQRIZKDWNLQGRI political traditions Hungary likes to maintain and how they are celebrated. What is their relation to the historical emergence of democratic consciousness before  DQG WKH LQVWLWXWLRQDOLVDWLRQ RI GHPRFUDWLF JRYHUQPHQW DIWHU WKH IDOO RI communism?  7KHWKHVLVRIWKLVFKDSWHULVWKDWWKHGHEDWHVRQKLVWRULFDODQQLYHUVDULHVUHÀHFW different mythical accounts of Hungarian history that had been neglected and distorted by the communist regime. On the one hand, these traditions referred to independent statehood, popular control of government and national liberation. On the other hand, they also connect to traditions that prevailed before the com munist regime. In this sense holidays represented a struggle for the appropriation RI PHDQLQJV RI WKH SDVW 6LQFH WKH V WKHVH GD\V KDYH RIIHUHG D SROLWLFDO UHSHDWLQJ 7LPH6SDFH ± FRQQHFWLQJ WLPH DQG VSDFH LQ WKH VDPH GLPHQVLRQ RI experience – in which these traditions are not only celebrated but also contested and politicised. However, myths also limit democratic politics. National holidays with rigid FRPPHPRUDWLRQ ± SDUWLFXODUO\ E\ SROLWLFLDQV ± PLJKW QRW EH WKH EHVW ZD\ RI teaching critical history. It is striking to note that in the third republic of Hungary

  H. Nyyssönen there are three national holidays, but none of them refers to earlier republican forms of government. Instead, all of these days commemorate great historical events and political traditions. Here we argue that, in the strict sense of the word, parliamentary democracy LQ +XQJDU\ EHIRUH  LV D P\WK $OWKRXJK WKH ¿UVW +XQJDULDQ JRYHUQPHQW DFFRXQWDEOHWRDSDUOLDPHQWZDVQRPLQDWHGDVHDUO\DVVWLOOQRPRUHWKDQ around 7 per cent of the population had the right to vote. Between the two World Wars open ballots were customary in rural areas, where the majority of the pop XODWLRQOLYHG1HYHUWKHOHVVLQDGGLWLRQWRWKHUHZHUHVHYHUDOVKRUWDWWHPSWV WR GHPRFUDWLVH +XQJDU\ LQ   DQG  ZKLFK ZHUH DOO VXSSUHVVHG sooner or later.  ,QD¿UVWVWHSZHVKDOOIRFXVRQWKHUHODWLRQEHWZHHQP\WKGHPRFUDF\DQG KLVWRULFDODQQLYHUVDULHV,QDVHFRQGVWHSZHZLOOWXUQWRWKHGHEDWHVLQ3DUOLD ment throughout 1991, when the law concerning national holidays was enacted. )LQDOO\DOOWKUHHQDWLRQDOKROLGD\VZLOOEHLQYHVWLJDWHGVHSDUDWHO\E\ORRNLQJDW their recent history and political meaning. We will concentrate on the narratives by which they have been remembered and mythologised, but also conduct a FORVHHQTXLU\LQWRKRZSXEOLFGHEDWHKDVLQWHUSUHWHGDQGV\PEROLVHGWKHVHDQQL YHUVDULHVVLQFH

Myth, historical anniversary and democracy 2XUVWDUWLQJSRLQWLQWKLVFKDSWHULVWRIRFXVRQKLVWRU\DQGPHPRU\$FFRUGLQJ to Bo Stråth, myth and memory are already history, but in ceaseless transforma tion and reconstruction. In this sense history is an image of the past, which is FRQWLQXRXVO\UHFRQVLGHUHGLQWKHOLJKWRIDQHYHUFKDQJLQJSUHVHQW+LVWRU\FRQ sists of images, translations and representation as well as of myths, memory and REOLYLRQ)URPWKLVSRLQWRIYLHZWKHNH\TXHVWLRQLV:KDWLVWKHUROHWKDWP\WK DQGPHPRU\SOD\LQWKHFRQVWUXFWLRQRIFRPPXQLWLHV6WUnWK " The term history has many different meanings, and even in a traditional sense KLVWRU\LVPRUHWKDQMXVWDQDFDGHPLFGLVFLSOLQH%HVLGHVWKHVFLHQWL¿FGLPHQVLRQ RI KLVWRU\ D +XQJDULDQ GLFWLRQDU\ IURP WKH FRPPXQLVW SHULRG SXEOLVKHG LQ   GH¿QHV WKH ZRUG KLVWRU\ DV D VXFFHVVLYH VHULHV RI WKH PRVW LPSRUWDQW events, but also refers to history as local stories, to facts, school subjects and also WRWKHIXWXUHLQZKLFKKLVWRU\ZLOODFWDVDWULEXQDO1\\VV|QHQ +LV torical anniversaries as events can be studied by historical methods, but when we GHDOZLWKWKHLPSDFWWKH\PDNHRQSROLWLFDOWKRXJKWZHDUHDOUHDG\LQWKH¿HOG of myths, politics and political science.  )URPDPRGHUQLVWVWDQGSRLQWP\WKLVGHHPHGDKLVWRULFDOXQVFLHQWL¿FLOORJL FDOLUUDWLRQDODQGV\QRQ\PRXVZLWKµXQFLYLOLVHG¶)RU/pYL6WUDXVVWKHTXHVWLRQ was not whether a myth is true or false but why people have believed and will believe it. Myth was something which gave order and meaning to the universe, SURGXFLQJ D FHUWDLQ LOOXVLRQ WKDW ZH XQGHUVWDQG LW /pYL6WUDXVV  ± :KLWH 7KXVP\WKRUJDQLVHVNQRZOHGJHSURYLGHVDPDWUL[RUDSORW IUDPLQJ DQG HYHQ OLPLWV WKRXJKW DQG XQGHUVWDQGLQJ 3DUWLFXODUO\ LQ SROLWLFV

Contested traditions? 171 HDUOLHUH[SHULHQFHV±SHUVRQDOO\P\WKLFLVHGRUPHGLDWHG±SOD\DUROHLQH[SHFWD WLRQVDQGYLVLRQVRIWKHIXWXUH.RVHOOHFN :ULWLQJKLVWRULHVHYHQVFLHQ WL¿F KLVWRULHV LV QRW LQGHSHQGHQW IURP P\WKRORJLVDWLRQ HLWKHU +LVWRULDQV ± DV ZHOODVVRFLDOVFLHQWLVWV±SOD\DUROHLQWKHSURFHVVRIUHPHPEHULQJDQGIRUJHW ting, in other words in the politics of memory. When we study commemoration and memory, we cannot underestimate the TXHVWLRQDERXWWKHXVDJHRIPHPRU\LQWKHFRQVWUXFWLRQRIFROOHFWLYHVDQGFRO OHFWLYH LGHQWLWLHV 7KH TXHVWLRQ RI who UHPHPEHUV UHPLQGV XV RI +DOEZDFKV¶ LGHD RI JURXSV ZKR UHPHPEHU DQG FRPPHPRUDWH LQ WKH SUHVHQW +DOEZDFKV  +DOEZDFKV¶DQVZHULPSOLHVWKDWVRFLDOPHFKDQLVPVRIWUDGLWLRQIRUPDWLRQ DQG µFROOHFWLYH PHPRU\¶ GR QRW GHQ\ WKH LGHD RI LQQHU SHUVRQDO PHPRU\ EXW stress the idea of a collective. However, we argue that the existence of ‘collec WLYHPHPRU\¶LVLWVHOIDP\WKEXWLVPHGLDWHGPDLQWDLQHGDQGXVHGE\GLIIHUHQW collectives. Therefore, we further problematise the idea of inner memory and ask KRZSHUVRQDOH[SHULHQFHVPDWFKSXEOLFDQGµFROOHFWLYHPHPRU\¶,QZKLFKVHQVH DUHWKH\DGDSWHGRULQWHUWZLQHGWKURXJKWKHSURFHVVRILGHQWL¿FDWLRQ"7KXVWKH TXHVWLRQRIKRZSHRSOHJDWKHUXQGHUGLIIHUHQWÀDJVLQWKHQDPHRIFRPPHPRUD WLRQKDVWRGRZLWKLGHQWL¿FDWLRQDQGJURXSEHORQJLQJZKLFKZHVXSSRVHWREHD political process. Hence, the concept of collective memory presupposes a con crete group who commemorates. The concept of the nation is too vague for this SXUSRVHDVLWUDLVHVWKHTXHVWLRQRIZKRKDVWKHULJKWWRVSHDNLQWKHQDPHRIWKH nation and which tradition should then represent the nation or national holiday. Hayden White distinguishes two kinds of information upon which ‘communal PHPRU\¶LVEDVHG2QWKHRQHKDQGWKHUHLVWUDGLWLRQDOLVHGPHPRU\FRQVLVWLQJ RILQIRUPDWLRQODWHQWO\VWRUHGLQWUDGLWLRQDOORUHIDEOHVIRONWDOHVJQRPLFFRP PRQSODFHVMRNHVSUHMXGLFHVHWF 0\WKVWKHQSURYLGHWKHRUJDQLVLQJSULQFLSOHV of its traditional lore. On the other hand, rationalised memory contains informa WLRQDERXWDQGDFFRXQWVRIDFRPPXQLW\¶VSDVWDYDLODEOHLQLWVDUFKLYHVDQGFDWD ORJXHG LQ WKH IRUP RI ZULWWHQ RU YLVXDOLVHG µKLVWRULHV¶ µDFFHVVHG¶ RQ GHPDQG :KLWH± ,QWKHFDVHRI+XQJDU\¶VQDWLRQDOKROLGD\VWKHUHDUHHOH ments from both traditionalised and rationalised memory. These elements could then be commemorated in particular lieux de mémoire, realms of memory by SDUWLFXODUJURXSVRUWKHµQDWLRQ¶  1DWLRQDO KROLGD\V DUH V\PEROLF UHVRXUFHV RI WKH VWDWH PXFK DV D ÀDJ RU D national anthem. In general, they are representations of memory which com PHPRUDWHKLVWRULFDOHYHQWVDWDIDLUO\RI¿FLDOOHYHO:HLQWHUSUHWWKHVHDV7LPH Spaces as they connect time and space in the same unit, repeat memories DQQXDOO\ KLJKOLJKW KLVWRULFDO HYHQWV DQG OHDYH RWKHUV LQ WKHLU VKDGRZ %R\DULQ ± $VDVWDUWLQJSRLQWZHFDQGLYLGHQDWLRQDOKROLGD\VLQWRWKUHHFDWH JRULHV LQGHSHQGHQFH GD\ GD\V FRQQHFWHG WR RWKHU KLVWRULFDO HYHQWV DQG D GD\ FRQQHFWHGWRWKHUXOHU±ZKHWKHUFXUUHQWRUDV\PEROLFIRXQGHURIWKHQDWLRQ,Q approximately half the countries of the world, the main national holiday refers to VWDWHLQGHSHQGHQFH1\\VV|QHQ 7KLVW\SHRIQDWLRQDOKROLGD\LVPRVW FRPPRQ LQ $IULFD ZKHUH WKH PDMRULW\ RI FRXQWULHV JDLQHG LQGHSHQGHQFH DIWHU 7KHUHDUHVHYHUDOH[DPSOHVLQWKH$PHULFDVVLQFHWKHQLQHWHHQWKFHQWXU\

  H. Nyyssönen as well. The day itself, however, is rather based on agreements, as some coun tries celebrate the gaining of independence, while others commemorate declara tions or even the beginning of the independence movement. In the second group WKHUH DUH GD\V ZKLFK UHIHU WR WKH FRQVWLWXWLRQ RU WKH UHSXEOLF LWVHOI )LQDOO\ LQ VHYHUDOµROGHUQDWLRQV¶±DVLQ(XURSHDQG$VLD±QDWLRQDOKROLGD\VDUHIUHTXHQWO\ FRQQHFWHGWRWKHELUWKGD\RIWKHUXOHURUWKHPRQDUFKVHHIRUH[DPSOHWKH1HWK HUODQGVRU7KDLODQG   $WERWWRPQDWLRQDOKROLGD\VGRQRWRIWHQPDNHUHIHUHQFHWRWKHGHPRFUDWLF IRUP RI JRYHUQPHQW LQ D FRXQWU\ EXW IUHTXHQWO\ H[SUHVV QDWLRQDO VHQWLPHQW related to the founding events of state independence. In a paradoxical way GHPRFUDF\KDVQRWEHHQFRQVLGHUHGZRUWKFHOHEUDWLQJ1RWHYHQLQ*UHHFHPD\ ZH ¿QG D 'D\ RI 'HPRFUDF\ DV WKH PRVW LPSRUWDQW VWDWH KROLGD\ UHIHUV WR JDLQLQJLQGHSHQGHQFHLQWKHV,Q)LQODQGWKHUHZDVDQDWWHPSWWRFHOHEUDWH WKH'D\RI'HPRFUDF\LQWKHVEXWLWGLGQRWEHFRPHSRSXODUDQGZDVDERO ished from calendars.  ,Q DGGLWLRQ WR RI¿FLDO PHPRU\ DQG FRPPHPRUDWLRQ QDWLRQDO KROLGD\V however, could represent folk traditions, folklore and narratives such as carni vals and features of traditionalised memory. In Hungary, for instance, the tradi tion of new bread is connected to the most important national holiday. On the whole, Hungary differs from many other countries because, rather than com memorating a day of independence or constitution, the focus here is on the memory of revolutionary events and social upheavals. $V ZLOO ODWHU EHFRPH FOHDUWKHPHPRU\RIWKHVHPRYHPHQWVDQGµPDVWHUQDUUDWLYHV¶OLNH RUSOD\HGDUROHGXULQJWKHFRPPXQLVWHUDDQGLQWKHV\VWHPLFFKDQJHDIWHU DVZHOO,QWKHVWKHSROLWLFDOVWUXJJOHRYHUQDWLRQDOKROLGD\VGHDOWZLWK WKHTXHVWLRQRIZKLFKRIWKHVHWUDGLWLRQVVKRXOGEHIROORZHGDQGPDLQWDLQHGLQ the new democracy.

National holidays and the Parliament ,QWKHQHZ+XQJDULDQ3DUOLDPHQWWKHGLVFXVVLRQRIQDWLRQDOKROLGD\VWRRNSODFH LQ 0DUFK  $ WRWDO RI WKUHH DOWHUQDWLYHV  0DUFK  $XJXVW DQG  2FWREHUZHUHVXJJHVWHG7KH3DUOLDPHQWZDVIRUFHGWRGHFLGHZKLFKRQHRIWKH three would be made the state állami  KROLGD\ DQG ZKLFK WZR ZRXOG UHPDLQ nationalnemzeti KROLGD\V,QWKH¿QDOYRWHWKHZLQQHU$XJXVWUHIHUULQJWR 6W6WHSKHQWKH¿UVWPHGLHYDONLQJRI+XQJDU\ ZDVVXSSRUWHGLQWKHUDQNVRIWKH FHQWUHULJKW JRYHUQPHQW DQG  0DUFK UHIHUULQJ WR   E\ WKH RSSRVLWLRQ $XJXVW  IRU  DJDLQVW  DEVWHQWLRQV 0DUFK ±± 2FWREHU ±±   5HSUHVHQWDWLYHVRIWKHOHDGLQJSDUW\LQWKHJRYHUQPHQWWKH+XQJDULDQ'HPR FUDWLF )RUXP 0')  DUJXHG WKDW 6W 6WHSKHQ¶V 'D\ EHVW H[SUHVVHG WKH LGHDV RI WKH+XQJDULDQVWDWHDQGFRQVWLWXWLRQ0RUHRYHU&KULVWLDQ'HPRFUDWVSRLQWHGWR WKH &KULVWLDQ FKDUDFWHU RI WKH GD\ ,PUH .yQ\D 0')  UHIXVHG UDQNLQJ WKHVH WKUHHEXWVXJJHVWHGWKDW$XJXVWUHSUHVHQWVEHVWWKHLGHDRI+XQJDULDQVWDWH KRRG3DUWLHVLQWKHRSSRVLWLRQWKH/HDJXHRIWKH)UHH'HPRFUDWV6='6= DQG

Contested traditions?