- Lev Gumilev
Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov ( _ru. Лев Никола́евич Гумилёв) (
October 1 ,1912 , St. Petersburg–June 15 ,1992 , St. Petersburg), also known as Lev Gumilev, was a Russianhistorian . His unorthodox ideas on the birth and death of ethnoi have given rise to the political and cultural movement known as "Neo-Eurasianism ".Life
His parents were two prominent poets
Nikolay Gumilev andAnna Akhmatova . They divorced when Lev was 7 years old, and his father was executed because of his anti-bolshevik sympathies when Lev was just 9. During his mother's persecution in the 1930s, he was expelled from theLeningrad University and deported toGULAG s camps, where he would spend most of his youth, from 1938 until 1956. During a brief stint at large, he joined theRed Army and took part in theBattle of Berlin . In order to secure his release, Akhmatova was forced to publishdithyramb s toStalin , but this didn't help. Their relations remained strained, as Lev blamed his mother for the misfortunes that had dogged his youth.After
Stalin 's death, Gumilev joined theHermitage Museum , whose director,Mikhail Artamonov , he would come to appreciate as his mentor. Under Artamonov's guidance, he became interested inKhazar studies and steppe peoples in general. In 1950s-1960s he participated in several expeditions to theVolga Delta andNorth Caucasus . He proposed a archeological site for Samandar as well as the theory of theCaspian transgression in collaboration with geologistAleksandr Alyoksin as one of the reasons for Khazar decline. [ru icon Лев Гумилёв. Открытие хазарии. Москва. Айр Пресс, 2006.] In 1960 he started delivering lectures at theLeningrad University . Two years later, he defended his doctor's thesis on ancient Turks. From the 1960s, he worked in the Geography Institute, where he would defend another doctor's thesis, this time in geography.Although his ideas were rejected by the official Soviet doctrine and most of his monographs banned from publication, Gumilev came to attract much publicity, especially in the
Perestroika years. As an indication of his popularity, the Kazakh presidentNursultan Nazarbayev ordered theLev Gumilev Eurasian University to be erected just opposite his own palace on the central square of new Kazakh capital,Astana .Ideas
Gumilev attempted to explain the waves of nomadic migration that rocked the great steppe of
Eurasia for centuries by geographical factors such as annual vacillations in solar radiation, which determine the area of grasslands that could be used for grazing livestock. According to this idea, when the steppe areas shrank drastically, the nomads ofCentral Asia began moving to the fertile pastures ofEurope orChina .To describe his ideas on the genesis and evolution of ethnoses, Gumilev introduced the concept of "passionarity", which may be explained as the level of vital energy and power characteristic of any given ethnic group. Gumilev argued that they pass through stages of rise, development,
climax ,inertia l,convolution , and memorial. It is during the "acmatic" phases, when the national passionarity reaches its maximum heat, that the great conquests are made. The current state of Europe he described as deep inertia, or "introduction to obscuration", to use his own term. The passionarity of the Arabic world, on the other hand, is still high.Drawing inspiration from the works of
Konstantin Leontyev andNikolay Danilevsky , Gumilev regarded Russians as a "super-ethnos" which is kindred to Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe. Those periods when Russia has been said to conflict with the steppe peoples, Gumilev reinterpreted as the periods of consolidation of Russian power with that of steppe in order to oppose destructive influences from Catholic Europe, that posed a potential threat to integrity of the Russian ethnic group.In accordance with his pan-Asiatic theories, he supported the national movements of
Tatars ,Kazakhs , and other Turkic peoples, in addition to those of theMongolians and other East Asians. Unsurprisingly, Gumilev's teachings have enjoyed immense popularity in Central Asian countries. InKazan , for example, a monument to him was opened in August 2005.Accusations of anti-Semitism
Gumilev did not extend this ethnological ecumenism, however, to the medieval
Jew s, who he regarded as a parasitic, international urban class that had dominated the Khazars who in turn had subjected the earlyEast Slavs to the "Khazar Yoke". This last phrase he adapted from the traditional term "Tatar Yoke " for theMongol domination of medieval Russia, a term Gumilev rejected for he did not regard the Mongol conquest as a necessarily negative event. In particular, and with virtually no support from primary sources, he asserted that theRadhanites had been instrumental in the exploitation of East Slavic people and had exerted undue influence on the sociopolitical and economic landscape of the earlyMiddle Ages . Gumilev maintained that theJewish culture was by nature mercantile and existed outside and in opposition to its environment. According to this view, the Jews are not anation , but a specific way of thinking by a certain group of people having Jewish genetic heritage and/or sharing themoral norms ofJudaism . According to Gumilev, the Jews also do not bear arms themselves, but wage wars by proxies or mercenaries. [ [http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/articles/Article42.htm Выбор веры] ru icon] [Tripolsky, Mihail. [http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/debate/Article10.htm ОБ ИЗВРАЩЕНИИ ИСТОРИИ: Хазарский каганат, евреи и судьба России] ] [Rossman, Vadim. " [http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/02Articles.htm The Ethnic Community and Its Enemies: Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post-Communist Era] "] These ideas have led scholars such as Vadim Rossman, John Klier, Victor Yasmann, Victor Shnirelman, and Mikhail Tripolsky to label Gumilevantisemitic .Shnirelman, Victor A. "The Story of a Euphamism: The Khazars in Russian Nationalist Literature." "The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives." Brill, 2007. p. 353-372; Rossman, Vadim, et al. "Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post Communist Era "(Studies in Antisemitism Series). Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2005; Malakhov, Vladimir. "Racism and Migrants". (Trans. Mischa Gabowitsch.) "Neprikosnovennij Zapas", 2003; Klier, John. "The Myth of the Khazars and Intellectual Antisemitism in Russia, 1970s–1990s". "The Slavonic and East European Review ", Volume 83, Number 4, 1 October 2005, pp. 779-781(3). "See also, e.g.", [http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:zokQkmv24asJ:www.fsumonitor.com/russiabook2001/Russia_Book_2001_Main_v2_pt7.pdf+Gumilev+semitic&hl=en&client=firefox-a FSU Monitor Russia Regional Report 2001] ; Yasmann, Victor. "The Rise of the Eurasians". The Eurasian Politician Issue 4 (August 2001) Radio Free Europe, 1992; Yasmann, Victor. "Red Religion:An Ideology of Neo-Messianic Russian Fundamentalism" Demoktratizat: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. Volume 1, No. 2. p. 26.]Works
*"The Hsiung-nu" (1960) — on the
Xiongnu
*"Ancient Turks" (1964)
*"Searching for an Imaginary Kingdom : The Legend of the Kingdom ofPrester John " (1970)
*"The Hsiung-nu in China" (1974)
*"Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of Earth" (1978)
*"Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe" (1989)
*"An End and a New Beginning" (1989)
*"From the Rus to Russia" (1992)References
ee also
*
Igor Diakonov External links
* [http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/english.html Gumilevica: All about Gumilev]
* [http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/2003/galya.htm "The criticism towards the West and the future of Russia-Eurasia"] by Galya Andreyeva Krasteva at [http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/index.htm "The Eurasian Politician"]
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