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In 1997 the Oficyna Literacka of Cracow brought out the slim book which Gumilyov intended to be the final recapitulation of his scholarly findings and theories. He wrote it in an engaging style intelligible for the layman and unburdened by any excessive reference apparatus. This made the work into a veritable page-turner which can only rarely be said of a scholarly synthesis. And this one bases on Gumilyov's 8 extensive monographs and 150 articles he wrote between 1930 and 1989 (p. 9).
It is most curious that the first publication of this book should be only after the author's death and in a Polish translation, but sadly enough it was symptomatic of Gumilyov's life and his oeuvre. He was born to the couple of the renowned Russian poets: Anna Akhmatova and Nikolay Gumilyov who belonged to the Acmeist movement of which the founder and the leading theorist was Leo's father. The marriage ended in a divorce in the year of 1918 marked by the outbreak of the Russian Civil War and the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (the core of the USSR formed in 1922). Lenin's communist legacy was to cast a long shadow over Leo Gumilyov's whole life.
His father who never bothered to hide his antipathy toward the Bolsheviks, was arrested in 1921 and shot for `counterrevolutionary activities' (he was rehabilitated in 1986). The subsequent ostracism of Leo's mother condemned her to almost complete poetic silence until several years after the death of Stalin (1953) (1).
As a son of an “enemy of people”, Leo Gumilyov could participate only in relatively insignificant expeditions to Tajikistan, doing research on the potential spread of malaria. The secret forces closely observed him and in 1938 Gumilyov was sentenced to five years in a reeducation camp. Released in 1944, he had to volunteer to join the Red Army struggling against the German forces in the Eastern European front of World War II. Having graduated after the war he began to do research on the Old Turks, when in 1949, once again, he was exiled to Siberia; this time for ten years, in the wake of violent propaganda attacks unleashed in the second half of the 1940s against his mother and the satirist Mikhail Mikhaylovich Zoshchenko. Wishing to win the freedom of her son, Anna Akhmatova even went against her believes, and wrote and published a number of poems eulogizing Joseph Stalin and Soviet communism, but to no avail. Gumilyov was released only in 1958. Two years later he was allowed to publish his first monograph on the Huns which he had written on scraps of paper while in the camp.
His works on history and the peoples of the “Great Steppe” of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, went against the policy of Russification - the very core on which the Soviet identity of the “new man” hailed by communism, was to be based. Re-evaluation of the traditionally negative view of the “Tatar and Mongolian savages” clashed with the dogmatic elevation of the “Holy Rus'', so Gumilyov accused of "reactionary behaviorism and biologism” as well as of the “anti-Marxian attitude”, was not permitted to publish his works until the 1970s. That decade was the most seminal in his scholarly career, but the print runs of his books were limited and the sustained propaganda criticism of his opinions and findings definitively banned him from the scholarly discourse until the second half of the 1980s (p. 104-106).
One can only wonder why his final synthesis could not be published in Russia, now, after the fall of communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union. Perhaps, it would not generate profit enough for a potential publisher or, more probably, the decisive factor was that it does not conform with the main line of Russian nationalism which defines Russiandom in the context of the Other who is epitomized by the stereotype of “primitive, uncivilized Asiatic”(2).
If so, it is quite ironic that Poland which used to be the relatively “freest member” of the Soviet bloc and where some Western fiction and poetry were brought out which would be unthinkable in other states of the bloc (even to the point that the late Nobel laureate Iosip Brodsky and other renowned authors from the Soviet Union learned Polish to be able to read Polish translations of significant literary works available on sale in the communist system-supported “international bookstores” catering exclusively in publications produced within the bloc), should continue its role in relation to those thinkers whose books cannot be brought out due to various reasons in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine.
In his final work Gumilyov presents his somewhat mystical theory of ethnogenesis which brings together geography and history in a global perspective. Although the presented views are quite controversial one cannot brush them aside too easily bearing in mind the long decades of research and field trips on which the author rests his statements. On the other hand, his voice appends the current discussion on ethnicity and nationalism carried out mainly among Western/Western-based scholars influenced by the fads of postmodernism and postcolonial studies.
Gumilyov defines ethnogenesis, from the “point of view of natural sciences”, as an energy explosion or fluctuation coupled with the subsequent entropic process which brings about the flattening of the energetic bulge to the level of the overall equilibrium current in the biosphere at a given moment. In other words, this process is a set of natural phenomena which thrive on the biochemical matter of the biosphere (pp. 100-1). The produce of ethnogenesis is various ethnoses. What is more, ethnogenesis is the manner of life for the species of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which continuously takes place in the biosphere of the Earth (p. 46).
The notion of “ethnos” worked out by Soviet anthropology spearheaded by Yulian Bromley (3) corresponds to the terms “ethnic group” or “ethnie” (4). Gumilyov uses the words “nation” and “tribe” as synonyms for “ethnos” exclusively for stylistic reasons because it is obvious from the text that, according to him, “ethnos” (as “ethnic group” for Western researchers) denotes any group whose main binding element is ethnicity, be it a nation or pre-national grouping (5).
Ethnogenesis and ethnos are the subject of the “science of ethnogenesis” which deals with the emergence, splintering and disappearance of ethnoses within the framework of one “formation” (p. 40). Gumilyov's “formation” unlike that of marxism-leninism's (i.e. the economic relations, which correspond to stages in the development of human societies from the primitive society/communism, through slavery, the Asiatic formation, feudalism, capitalism and socialism to really existing communism), reminds one of Arnold Toynbee's “civilizations” to which the eminent British scholar devoted a lifetime of research in order to chart their births, development and disappearance throughout history (6). Recently Toynbee's concept resurfaced under the name of “civilization/culture” in Samuel P. Huntington's attempt at the explanation of the underlaying pattern of the post-Cold-War world (7).
Gumilyov's synonyms for the concept of “formation” are “ecumene”, “culture” and “superethnos”. Here is some terminological confusion. He bases his overall argument on the ethnoses of the Great Steppe as contrasted against the neighbor Sinic and European ecumenes/cultures. On the other hand, while speaking on superethnoses (i.e. entities composed from more than one, intertwined to a varying degree, ethnoses), Gumilyov applies this term to the Sinic culture but not the cultures of the Great Steppe or Europe where he distinguishes such superethnoses as the Huns and the French, respectively (p. 44) (8). In a very mystical vain, he also adds that art as static traces left by various ethnoses in the course of their inherently dynamic processes of ethnogenesis, is the crystalline form of ethnogenesis per se, and, by extension, of the biosphere (p. 101). This train of thought lets him equalize the individual with a given piece of art, the ethnos with a specific kind of art (culture in its narrow meaning), and the superethnos with a religion, i.e. ecumene or civilization as defined by Toynbee and Huntington (p. 102).
Gumilyov likens making and unmaking of ethnoses to the emergence and extinction of species (p. 100). In accordance with his definition of ethnogenesis, the emergence of an ethnos is caused by a shock which creates a bump of energy in the biosphere reverting the homogeneous flow of part of the system toward ever greater entropy. Such a shock may be constituted by a severe draught or profusion of humidity in the longue duree perspective over large expanses of land (p. 69). Then the emergent ethnos may undergo a development of the five phases:
- the initial phase of the sudden impulse responsible for the coming into being of an ethnos, is marked by the unusually dynamic (in comparison to ethnoses in later phases) exploits of the new ethnos in warfare, economy, territorial expansion etc.;
- in the “acmeic” (9) (pinnacle) phase, the ethnos “overheats” reaching the highest point of its achievements;
- and through the phase of collapse;
- reaches the plateau of energetical equilibrium marking the phase of inertia, when the previous successes of the ethnos carry it through the spacetime of the biosphere;
- toward the slump into oblivion and disappearance during the phase of “obscurantism” (i.e. obliqueness) which can be survived only by the crystaline energy of art of an extinct ethnos.
Although big historical events and significant decisions taken by influential leaders cannot divert the course of ethnogenesis, when they crop up during the transition period between phases, the “natural” development of an ethnos can be stunted or it can even vanish.
In the terms of natural sciences, these phases chart the development of an ethnos from the starting point of the highest energy and lowest entropy to the final point of its extniction when the ethnos's energy and entropy plummet to the average ones of the system of the biosphere.
Coming back to historiography, Gumilyov is against the synchronic comparison of ethnoses, and favors the diachronic comparison of them in the very same phases of their ethnogenses. For instance, the acmeic phase commenced for the Huns, Romans and French in 93AD, 210BC and 1142-47, respectively (pp. 44-5). So comparisons among the ethnoses at these dates are justified. If one compares the Huns and the Hans (Chinese) of the 3rd century BC, the explanation of the successes of the 300 thousand of the former over the 50 million of the latter, Gumilyov ascribes to the fact that the Huns were in the acmeic phase whereas the Hans in the phase of inertia (pp. 37-8).
Gumilyov's theory is quite elastic. It escapes the trap of geographical determinism by stating that elements and climatic changes do not influence culture or ethnogenesis but only economy which is responsible for the political/military power of an ethnos and not its overall shape (p. 14). Due to renewed shocks ethnoses can also jump back to the beginning of the process of ethnogenesis with a new load of biospheric energy instead following the linear path of disappearing. It is especially true of the Hans who, intermittently, the reader finds in the acmeic phase and in the one of inertia throughout Gumilyov's narrative.
In the case of the individual, it seems that people are quite strongly connected to the ethnos within the contains of which they were born. But by no means this bond is “natural”. As whole ethnoses can merge with others (usually superethnoses) with or without losing their initial specificities, also individuals and groups of people can move from one ethnos to another. And should an ethnos disappear, its populace become members of another ethnos(es) (p. 97).
I decided to present the gist of Gumilyov's theory of ethnogenesis and his methodology because he did not explicitly do so in his book (which, perhaps, would not have been so readable then). What is more, I guess, that his discourse contextualizing ethnoses against an interdisciplinary background broader than those ones used by Western researchers of ethnicity and nationalism, may be worth in-depth analysis and his method -- some experimental application despite being quite controversial. Such an approach could contribute to intellectual cross-fertilization, and even result in a breakthrough in the increasingly tail-chasing study of nationalism and ethnicity. On the other hand, one can only wonder how much original research in various fields may go unpublished in the successor states of the erstwhile Soviet Union due to economic troubles and suppression of original thinking in oppressive political systems and in the stultifying academias used for beefing up the statuses of university top administrative personnel instead of promoting and facilitating independent research.
Therefore, I sincerely hope that this review may prove interesting enough to entice some publisher to commission an English translation of Gumilyov's work in which he summed up the findings of the long decades of persistent research he had carried out in the face of the baffling odds.
It is curious though what happened during all these years that filled Gumilyov with so much of anti-Sinic feeling. Striving to win the reader for his opinion on the basic equality of all ethnoses and superethnoses, also those of the Great Steppe which used to be stigmatized as the stereotypical epitome of underdevelopment and “culturalessness”, the author glorifies the peoples of the steppe repeatedly stating that their most significant merit for the sake of the whole Humankind was limiting the westward and northward expansion of the Hans (p. 95).
Did the author subscribe to the perception of the Chinese as “yellow peril” so popular in the interwar Europe and in the postwar Soviet Union during the continual border skirmishes with China after Moscow's fall out with Beijing? I cannot say, but maybe due to the fact that Gumilyov considered the Russians the most recent dominant superethnos of the Great Steppe rather than a member of the European ecumene (10), it was pleasant for him to grant his nation with the function of the antemurale of global significance, previously reserved merely for the border Catholic states of Europe?
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[1] On Leo Gumilyov's parents see: Kathleen Kuiper, ed. Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature.
Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995, pp. 25, 501.
[2] Ironically, this is also the negative stereotype of the Russians/East Slavs current in Central and Western Europe after it got reinforced by the unruly behavior of the Red Army in Germany at the end of World War II.
[3] Yulian Bromley. The Term Ethnos and Its Definition. In: Yulian Bromley, ed. Soviet Ethnology and Anthropology Today. The Hague: Mouton, 1974.
[4] Anthony D. Smith. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
[5] On this meaning of the concept of “ethnic group” see: Thomas Hyland Eriksen. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto, 1994, pp. 11-12.
[6] Arnold Toynbee. A Study of History (The One-Volume Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press and London: Thames and Hudson, 1972.
[7] Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
[8] Maybe the source of this discrepancy is Gumilyov's implicit belief that the Sinic culture is coextensive with the Han (Chinese) superethnos unlike the French and Hun superethnoses with the European and Great Steppe cultures?
[9] One wonders if Gumilyov came up with this neologism in the memory of his father -- an acmeist.
[10] Hence, Gumilyov's book also contributes to the more than a century long quarrel between the zapadnikyi (occidentalists) and vostochnikyi (anti-occidentalists). They, respectively, perceive the Russian nation (still in-making?) as part of the Western (European) civilization or define it as a distinctively Eurasian civilization on its own. The latter is Gumilyov's stance and, in general, conincides with Huntington's argument on the Orthodox civilization as equalized with the East Slavs spearheaded by the Russians.
Copyright © 2002 Center for Regional and Transboundary Studies at Volgograd State University
Copyright © 2002 Tomasz Kamusella
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