Опубликовано в журнале Неприкосновенный запас, номер 5, 2002
DEBATES ON POLITICS AND CULTURE
NZ № 5(25) presents a variety of points of view on migrations and migrants. The Liberal Heritage section features an article by the German Christian Democratic politician Heiner Geissler, entitled Citizens, Nation, Republic — Europe and the Multicultural Society. Geissler uses the example of Germany to contend that the age of the classical nation-state is over, and argues that since the countries of the European Union will continue to face the need for large numbers of immigrants, these newcomers’ cultures should be respected wherever they do not clash with the constitutional principles of the host countries. In an introduction headed Multiculturalism or Integration?, philosopher Vladimir Malakhov, who has pioneered the discussion on multiculturalism in Russia, takes Geissler to task for using a superficial concept of multiculturalism to evade discussion about the integration of foreigners and the socially constructed nature of ethnic identity.
In a take on Morals and Mores that may be read as another rejoinder to Geissler’s candid optimism, Lyubov Gurova, editor at Germany’s main Russian-language newspaper, Russky Berlin, provides a colourful description of her own route to integration into German society, and presents cases of fellow Russian-speakers and others as examples of the difficulties besetting those trying (or not trying) to adapt to conditions in a new country (The Gruesome Middle Ground). La╢szlo╢ Ve╢gel draws a more lyrical though no more blissful picture of emigration and exile in his story about a Hungarian architect from Serbian Vojvodina who returns home to die after a life spent abroad (Wind Rose).
Our first thematic section looks at the issue of migrations in the Russian context. Vladimir Malakhov opens it with an incisive article about Racism and Migrants, where he criticises the cliche╢s Russian officials and media use when talking about immigrants. Instead of working out policies to respond to migrants’ and especially refugees’ real-life problems, Malakhov argues, the Russian authorities prefer to utter general phrases about the “problem of migration” and lump people together by ethnic origin rather than consider their actual social position and ties. Political scientist Konstantin Dmitriev gives a general overview of incoming, outgoing, and internal migration in Russia in the 1990s, and discusses the legislation governing the state’s attitude towards migrants. Dmitriev is especially critical of Russian policies towards refugees, and concludes that wide-spread racism and the absence of policies designed to attract Third World immigrants will make it difficult for Russia to overcome its current demographic crisis (Migrations, New Diasporas, and Russian Policy). In a similarly cautious vein, Sergey Laptev, a specialist on South-East Asia, provides detailed data on the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other East and South East Asian communities in Russia, and demonstrates that far from threatening to swamp the country’s thinly populated East, as is often alleged in the Russian media, East Asian immigrants are not keen on settling in Russia, and their numbers actually seem to be on the wane due to economic insecurity and xenophobic violence (Demographic Threat or Lost Chance? East and South East Asians in Russia).
Remaining in the same thematic field, our columnist Alexei Levinson takes a sociologist’s look at The Demography of Terror. Analysing the global tensions between rich and poor, of which the 11th of September was but one expression, Levinson claims that in many respects they are due to a demographic rift between populations with different attitudes towards procreation and children, which in turn correspond to different visions of death and individuals’ sacrifice for the sake of their community. Russia, he maintains, is currently mid-way between East and West, demographically speaking: while the militarization of society continues to perpetrate a disregard for individual life, mothers’ new role as protectors of their only sons may be the driving force that will help overcome this antiquated and destructive mind-set.
This issue’s second focus is entitled Enlightenment as a Social Project and presents different views on how academics and intellectuals should use their knowledge in society at large, and how they can interact with other members of society. The section starts with the text of a lecture on Knowledge Society and Forms of Communication by French philosopher Yves Michaud, given in May at NZ’s invitation. Michaud reflects upon the increasing specialisation of contemporary science, whose impact continues to grow while at the same time it tends to escape citizens’ grasp, creating serious problems for democratic accountability. He then presents the titanic cycle of public lectures which he organised in France in the framework of the Universite╢ de tous les savoirs, and shows how abandoning obsolete divisions between university faculties may make modern research more dynamic, but also more accessible to the general public. Philosopher Grigory Gutner, the title of whose article gives its name to the whole section, discusses the rationales behind Russian and West European mass education projects past and present, and concludes that it may be time to revert to the older logic of knowledge for its own sake. This is certainly not the opinion of the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who, in his last public lecture called For a Militant Knowledge, makes a case for social scientists and other researchers to team up with trade unions and other movements to resist the ravages of free-marketeer globalisation policies. Finally, Andrei Rodin, another philosopher, links up two of this issue’s topics in his article on Multiculturalism and the New Enlightenment. Rodin analyses the implications of multiculturalism’s rhetoric of preserving cultural differences, and argues that a New Enlightenment aimed at internationalising academic and other research institutions would be more useful for preventing the global domination of a single culture than are attempts at a museum-like preservation of minority cultures.
In a somewhat different view of what some prefer to call globalisation, political scientist Svyatoslav Kaspe takes the 11th of September attacks as a point of departure for a portrayal of today’s Western-dominated world as an empire similar in its structure to classical empires such as Rome. Stressing the universalistic aspirations that must of necessity underlie such an empire and arguing that it doesn’t all boil down to a globe ruled by the United States, Kaspe insists that despite the negative connotations the word “empire” carries for many Russian liberals, Russia has no choice but to join this new world order if it wants to avoid the futile status of a latter-day barbarian (The Empire Under Attack: No More Debates on Politics and Culture, published in the Culture of Politics section).
Our next big topic is architecture. It is introduced by literary historian Andrei Zorin, who entitles his column on Myths and Symbols The Sculptural Myth of Russian Democracy and devotes it to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s recent proposal to put the statue of Bolshevik butcher Felix Dzerzhinsky back in place in front of the secret services’ headquarters.
There follows a section entitled Architecture as the Art of Forgetting, which opens with an article by German architectural journalist Gerrit Confurius (What Architectural Magazines Don’t Write About), discussing the fact that in order to provide a framework for everyday life, architecture must be experienced as unobtrusive, while architectural journals and tourist guides, on the contrary, tend to pull buildings out of their living urban context to present them as works of art. Next comes an interview with Rem Koolhaas, professor of architecture at the Harvard School of Design, who explains why and how contemporary architects should write about their craft, and discusses how shopping transforms construction all over the world (Architecture and Writing). Philosopher Elena Petrovskaya, in a short piece called The City and Memory, discusses the link between Stalinist monumentalism and the contemporary experience of architecture, while Grigory Revzin, editor of a Russian architectural magazine, illustrates the schizophrenia of Moscow’s 1990s architecture, which he believes stems from the coexistence of an attempt to resist late Soviet modernism and a post-modern revival of authoritarian symbolism (Moscow: Ten Years After the USSR). Finally, Yegor Larichev, in An Architecture of Disregard, shows how Luzhkov and his architect-in-chief Tsereteli, through the “fake art” with which they have filled the Russian capital, have wrestled power over the symbolic significance of architecture from the federal authorities. Lastly, in the Politics of Culture section, US writer George Blecher reflects upon why modern architecture isn’t nice to live in (On Skyscrapers and Caves: A Layman’s View).
The issue concludes with our usual rubrics. The New Institutions section presents a new foundation aiming to improve cultural management, called The Pragmatics of Culture. Our Review of Journals examines Russian intellectual journals in the 1990s, and features a detailed article by Balazs Trencsenyi on Hungarian periodicals in the 1990s. Finally, the New Books section presents an overview of the historical literature on repressive forced migrations in the USSR, and a number of reviews of recent books on migrations.