CC BY
46
Roin METREVELI
Chairman of the National Committee of Historians of Georgia, Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Georgia
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
NATIONAL PROBLEMS IN THE GLOBALIZATION CONTEXT AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
A b s
The author has undertaken the challenging task of tracing the impact of globalization on nation-states, society, national economies, and global relationships, as well as on the fates of very specific ethnic cultures. Much space is given to contradictions among civilizations root-
r a c t
ed in the past and kept alive not only by economic and sociopolitical, but also by psychological factors. The specifics of the last decade of the 20th century were determined by the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union’s disintegration, two factors that accelerated globalization.
I n L i e u o f a n I n t r o d u c t i o n: Civilizational Contradictions
How will globalization affect the nation-state? Will it upset the cohesion of national society? How will globalization affect national economic development? What will happen to traditional centuries-old cultures? Societies are concerned about these and other questions and are waiting for well-substantiated and reasonable answers. It will take some time to formulate them. Real results alone may supply the answers—either positive or negative.
Globalization is not a novel phenomenon. In the past, the West influenced other regions and experienced the counter-influence of other civilizations. Combined, they shaped the future. At one time, British scholar Arnold Toynbee wrote that clashes of civilizations would be inevitable in the course of the development of mankind.1 The Greco-Roman civilization, which spread to a large part of ancient world (India and Britain) and went as far as China and Scandinavia, is of paradigmatic importance. In fact, its scale was very impressive, even by contemporary standards.
Today, academics define civilization as “the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people.”2
Contradictions between civilizations developed into conflicts between Western (European) civilization and the rest of the world. The former, with its high development level, technological innovations, scientific discoveries, and liberal democracy, was of an expressive nature. This became especially obvious when the United States moved into the limelight to transform the European civilization into a Euro-American one. Today, Americanization is forging ahead despite the frantic efforts of the European nations to preserve their traditions and way of life.
Confrontation between the West and the Islamic world dates back to the early Middle Ages when, in 732, the Europeans defeated the Arabs in the Battle of Poitiers. Later there were more military clashes. In the 20th century, the Islamic world embarked on the road of Westernization: it embraces the outward features of Western civilization while preserving or even consolidating their religious and cultural specifics. The Islamic world can master the most advanced Western technologies and accept European patterns, but its essence remains strictly Islamic with its religious egocentrism and unshakable faith in the chosen path. This happened in the past, and it continues to go on in front of our eyes.
The Islamic civilization is obviously displeased with the West’s determination to retain its global domination. On the one hand, the Muslim world tends to oppose this, while on the other, it consolidates their civilization.
When talking about the contraposition of civilizations, we should particularly mention China, a giant country with one of the most ancient civilizations and a huge population. There is a commonly shared opinion that in the 21st century China and the Chinese (Confucian) civilization will come to the fore and dominate the world.
Samuel Huntington has pointed to contraposition of the West and the South American and African civilizations and emphasized that the Western civilization is a modernized civilization. The non-Western countries are trying to achieve a contemporary development level without embracing the Western cultural values—so far, Japan alone has succeeded. A large number of non-Western states is working hard to master the latest technologies, acquire the latest weapons, and train a highly skilled workforce to be able to keep in step with the times; in short, to marry modernization and traditional values and cultures.
The Western world/communism opposition dominated the 20th century. Arnold Toynbee distinguished between Western treatment of the Soviet Union, fascist Germany, and militarist Japan. The latter two were sources of a military threat, while the United States was apprehensive of the ideological (spiritual) impact of a propaganda machine to a much greater extent than Western Europe.3 It was a struggle over the spheres of influence on human minds. Communism was dangerous because it revealed the shortcomings of the Westernized world. The West developed through impressive technological breakthroughs and other novelties. It was technological progress and the
1 See: A. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, Oxford University Press, New York, 1948.
2 S.P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Touchstone Books, New York, 1998, p. 43.
3 See: A. Toynbee, The World and the West, Oxford University Press, London, 1953.
democratic liberalization accompanying it that allowed the West to say that “history has ended.” After World War II, this sounded strange, to say the least. The formula remained shelved and forgotten for a long time. The fact that it was revived in 1989 in the form of the “end of history” formula coined by Francis Fukuyama, an American historian of Japanese descent, should be explained by the specific features of the Western mentality. He believes that liberal democracy and consumer society have conquered the world; that the West and Western ideas have triumphed, while history as a movement has ended. He offered another thought-provoking premise: large-scale conflicts would have inevitably involved big states that would be forced to leave the stage on which they were still prominent.4 We can agree with those who accuse the American historian of an inflated idea of Western (particularly American) liberal democracy and dismiss his idea of the “end of history” as naive.
Kazakh writer Oljas Suleymenov disagrees with Fukuyama. He says that for a definite period of time history was assessed from the Euro-centrist viewpoint and that European politicians and academics contemplated the past in the political and cultural context of the 20th century. Here is his highly imaginative description: “Young and blossoming Europe is looking with distaste through the window of a railway carriage at Asia, a lame and bent old woman. At that moment they both regarded their respective states as eternal. The self-centered young girl found it hard to believe that the wrinkled witch had at one time been a lively and audacious beauty and that the heavy jewelry she offers the train passengers for a mere pittance had hung around her graceful neck, bobbed up and down on her high bosom, and glimmered in the sun as she rode. Her voice reached Ancient Greece and the wise men of Egypt.”5
Culture, the Main Source of Conflicts
The last decades of the 20th century were marked by the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union, as well as by accelerated globalization.
Samuel Huntington does not doubt that in the future neither ideologies nor economies will be the main source of conflicts in the world. Culture will come to the fore as the dividing line and a conflicting factor. While nationality will remain the major factor of international relations, conflicts in global politics will unfold between groups and members of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will come to the fore as the dominant factor of world politics.6
The academic community believes that Russia of Peter the Great offered an interesting example of West-East relations. The Russian czar is described as an autocratic Western-type reformer who imposed a technical revolution on his country and initiated grandiose social shifts. It was Peter the Great who involved Russia in technological competition with the West. Significantly, Peter the Great responded to the Western challenge in kind, even though the Russian Empire never blended with the West European civilization: Russia acquired new tools to oppose the West and used them for dealing retaliatory blows.7
Russian historians have their own ideas about the Russian (Orthodox) civilization and stress its cultural rather than social aspects (G. Vernadskiy). There were attempts to regard it as a social
4 See: F. Fukuyama, “Polemika o stat’e ‘Konets istorii’,” Dialog—SShA, No. 45, 1990, p. 12.
5 O. Suleymenov, Az i Ya, Alma-Ata, 1975, p. 20 (for more detail, see: R. Metreveli, “About a Book ,” Mtsire Gu-lani, Kutaisi, 1979, pp. 76-91, in Georgian).
6 See: S. Huntington, op. cit., pp. 42-43.
7 See: A. Toynbee, op. cit.
system and go back into the past in search of the sources of Russian history as the civilizational processes.8 Prominent Russian historians (B. Grekov,9 M. Tikhomirov,10 B. Rybakov,11 I. Dani-levskiy,12 L. Cherepnin,13 A. Novoseltsev,14 and others) dealt with individual aspects of the Russian civilization.
The new methods of the Annales School added even more weight to the socioeconomic studies of civilizations (“global” history, history of “civilization,” “structural” history, “human” history, to be more exact). This approach served as the main factor of the renovation of Russian historical science; the process is still going on.15
Progress or the Disappearance of a Diverse Universe?
What is globalization? Does it mean progress or the disappearance of a diverse Universe? Everyone seems to be aware of globalization on the march, the processes conditioned by the unhampered movement of culture and of human and economic resources. These are natural processes that cannot be likened to the ideology of globalization imposed from the outside.16
The United States is seeking control over globalization; it has already launched mechanisms of financial, political, and military influence on the world as a whole and on the world community’s individual members. The Americans proclaimed themselves a “nation of saviors” and justify their interventionist strategy with lofty civilizational values. Back in 1918, after World War I, American President Woodrow Wilson, in an attempt to openly impose his country’s hegemony in the world, submitted his Fourteen Points program and announced for everyone to hear that America was entrusted with the honor of fulfilling its predestinated mission and saving the world. The high-flown words are still not forgotten: the Americans are sparing no effort to live up to the bombastic statement. The United States has identified the globalization program and, consequently, its own interests with the moral and ethical norms of the universe, which means that those who oppose globalization are viewed as America’s foes.
On 23 November, 2002, George W. Bush, another American president, said the following in Vilnius: “We knew that the arbitrary lines drawn by the dictators would be erased, and those lines are now gone. No more Munich. No more Yalta.” A charged statement indeed.
We should always bear in mind that contemporary civilization with its powerful information, political, ideological, and psychological impact on the masses and individuals, as well as computer programming, has become dangerous. People should be aware of their individuality, they should re-
8 See: A.N. Poliakov, “Obrazovanie drevnerusskoy tsivilizatsii,” Voprosy istorii, No. 3, 2005, pp. 72-87; L.V. Cherepnin, Novgorodskie berestianye gramoty iz novgorodskikh raskopok, Moscow, 1969; A.P. Novoseltsev, V.G. Pashuto, L.V. Cherepnin, Puti razvitia feodalizma, Moscow, 1972.
9 See: B.D. Grekov, Kievskaia Rus, Moscow, 1953.
10 See: M.N. Tikhomirov, Drevnerusskie goroda, Moscow, 1956.
11 See: B.A. Rybakov, “Gorod Kiya,” Voprosy istorii, No. 5, 1980.
12 See: I.N. Danilevskiy, Drevniaia Rus glazami sovremennikov i potomkov (IX-XH vv.), Moscow, 2001.
13 See: L.V. Cherepnin, op. cit.
14 See: A.P. Novoseltsev, “Obrazovanie drevnerusskogo gosudarstva i pervyy ego pravitel,” Voprosy istorii, No. 2/3,
1991.
15 See: N.A. Khachaturian, “Sovremennaia medievistika Rossii v kontekste mirovoy istoricheskoy nauki,” in: Sred-nie veka, Collection of articles, Moscow, No. 62, 2001, pp. 195-212.
16 About the relationships between globalization and science and education, see: A. Arabuli, Time Has Come to Defend History, Tbilisi, 2005 (in Georgian).
main free to think and to be masters of their lives and creators of history, which concentrates on man and his mentality.
History is a very special science; it has no practical applications, but its essence makes it an applied science. We should never forget that at any time and in any society, the study or cognition of history, as any other type of social activity for that matter, develops according to the trends dominating at any given moment of time and in any given place.17 History looks at human society as a single law-governed process complete with contradictions and diversity. At one time, Ilia Chavchavadze asked: “What is history?” and answered: “It tells us about what we were in the past, what we are now, and what we shall probably be in future.” Alexander Pushkin insisted that we should respect our past: “Respect of the past distinguishes educated societies from savages.”
Historical thinking is the product of a long process—progress needs a vast body of empirical data. This alone makes it possible to create genuine history. Vakhrushi Bagrationi built his unique definitive work, Description of the Kingdom of Georgia, on a vast historiographical base that included the historical works of his predecessors, a huge amount of information on the customs and rites of the Caucasian peoples (mainly Georgians), and geographic and ethnographic data. Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) left us The History of Rome, a veritable masterpiece of historical thinking that appeared in 1854-1856; he compiled a complete body of Latin inscriptions and published an encyclopedic collection on Roman constitutional law. Ivane Javakhishvili is another unique phenomenon: he created from scratch nearly all scientific disciplines related to the history of Georgia (the history of Georgia, history of economics, law, music, numismatic, paleography, etc.).
Today, history in the Soviet successor states is undergoing a crisis for obvious reasons: for many decades Soviet historians were kept under strict control; studies were allowed within fairly narrow ideological limits; the latest historical works by foreign colleagues were practically inaccessible, while scholarly works and fiction were translated into the languages of the Union republics only after they appeared in Russian. Georgian historians, and their Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and other colleagues were divorced from what was going on in historical science abroad. The narrow pragmatic approaches of Soviet times scarred historical thinking and all other humanities for that matter. Lack of historical knowledge disoriented contemporaries and made it impossible to plan the future.18 The sphere of social sciences lost its autonomy and its important and traditional ability to freely seek the truth. Freedom of scientific creative efforts was sacrificed to the primitively interpreted social order dispensed by the command administrative system. The optimal correlations were lost, the dividing line between ideology and the social sciences (history included) disappeared. The traces of this treatment of science and history typical mainly of the 1930s-1950s were still felt in the 1970s.
Great Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev wrote with a lot of anguish: “Scientific advance was interpreted as administering justice and dispensing punishment on those who disagreed with the only and a priori correct trends. Accusations and denunciations replaced scientific polemics; at best people were driven away from science, but many were arrested, exiled, imprisoned, or even destroyed... This all developed into total politics.”19
Famous poet and public figure Rasul Gamzatov warned the nation that a pistol shot into the past might reverberate as a salvo. These words deserve attention. In the last ten to fifteen years, the task of delivering science from obsolete stereotypes was formulated; it was recognized that the gnosiological problems of history require fresh investigation, that methods should be freely discussed and analyzed, and that the latest achievements of world historiography should be mastered together with the most valuable results of historical studies.
17 See: A. Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. I, Oxford University Press, New York, London, I947.
18 See: Repressirovannaia nauka, Collection of articles, ed. by Prof. M.G. Yaroshevskiy, Leningrad, 1991.
19 D.S. Likhachev, Introduction to Repressirovannaia nauka, pp. 5-6.
Interest in Man
The new methods applied to medieval history have become part and parcel of 20th century historical science. This particularly relates to social and economic studies of the Annales.20 The quantitative methods used by medieval history, history of cities, and gender studies can be described as a movement “from structures and systems to people and places.” On top of this, they started in-depth cultural studies.
Contemporary medieval studies demonstrate a lot of interest in man, medieval man in particular, which has been amply testified by recent publications,21 conferences, and discussions22 going on in different countries. The World Congresses of Historians23 paid much attention to this issue as well. Historical-anthropological studies with their obvious bias toward man, his personality, family, and related issues are living through a period of mounting interest. The name of the individual is a form of identification in society; it is a meaningful social sign that allows the individual to join a certain social group, on the one hand, and to detach himself from the other members of the same group by finding his and only his place among them, on the other.24
We all know that any culture rests on certain key elements that include the conception of man per se, as well as his attitude toward the social sphere and nature, his ideas about time, power, labor, and economic activities. Cultural differences are caused by different basic elements; to a certain extent they determine the specific features of man’s lifestyle, his attitude toward the world, society, and himself. The “individualist” cultures are dominated by the ethics of “autonomy,” which means that individuals should rely on themselves. They cherish individual values (freedom being one of them) much more than their social ones; human rights are placed above social responsibilities; society protects the rights of the individual, morals and laws are formulated for people, while individual values are placed high above the social in any conflicting situation.
“Collectivist” ethical norms dominate in “collectivist” cultures in which all members are mutually dependent. The social responsibilities of the individual are placed higher than human rights; morals and the law are designed to preserve social stability; social values are preferred in any conflict between the individual and the social.
Medieval man was mainly a member of a group (collective) and a corporation.25 He could find his bearings in the world thanks to his knowledge and skills, the way other members of his group (collective) treated him and their mental attitudes (individual mentality was rooted in the group tradi-tions).26 He was an obvious conformist with a corporate or “communal” mentality (in some cases the individual could act on his own free will—he still possessed the right of choice).27 To a certain extent this channeled his personal (private) life, which brimmed with problems calling for prompt decisions.
20 Since the early 20th century, British historians have remained under the spell of German historiography. Max Weber’s sociological studies became widely popular. This prominent representative of the British school of urban studies showed a considerable interest in the cities’ economic and commercial development.
21 See: Chelovek v krugu sem’i: ocherki po istorii chastnoy zhizni v Evrope do nachala novogo vremeni, ed. by Iu.L. Bessmertny, Moscow, 1996; N.L. Pushkareva, Chastnaia zhizn russkoy zhenshchiny: nevesta, zhena, luibovnitsa (X-nachalo XIX v.), Moscow, 1997.
22 See: Obshchnosti i chelovek v srednevekovom mire. Materialy Mezhrespublikanskoy conferentsii, Moskva, 30 sen-tiabria-2 oktiabria 1991, Saratov, 1992.
23 This was especially obvious in 1990 at the XVII World Congress of Historians in Madrid and in 2000 at the XIX World Congress in Oslo.
24 See: P.Sh. Gabdrakhmanov, “Imia, sem’ia i Familia vo Flandrii XII-XIII vekov: k voprosu o sotsial’nykh ramka-kh chastnoy zhizni srednevekovogo prostoliudia,” in: Srednie veka, No. 62, 2001, pp. 120-131.
25 See: A.Ia. Gurevich, Kategorii srendnevekovoy kul’tury, Moscow, 1984, p. 200.
26 See: A.Ia. Gurevich, Problemy srendnevekovoy narodnoy kul’tury, Moscow, 1981, p. 98.
27 See: A.A. Svanidze, “Zhivye obshchnosti, obshchestvo i chelovek v srendevekovom mire Evropy,” in: Obshchnosti i chelovek v srednevekovom mire, pp. 11, 16 (see also: “Dialektika obshchnosti i lichnosti v Srednie veka,” in: Obsh-
chnosti i chelovek v srednevekovom mire, p. 30).
In the Middle Ages, medieval groups (family, clan, tribe, parish, etc.) influenced individuals. The poor source base makes it hard to study the problem in depth; this is especially true of the Georgian sources that offer little information about the peasantry, the largest social group of the Middle Ages. It is not by accident that in July 1872 Ilia Chavchavadze wrote to David Eristani: “...our history... is a history of wars and kings, there are no people in it. I am not particularly interested in kings and wars... People are the most important, while they are nowhere to be seen in our history.”28
People had their own ideas about the universe; they were not always perspicacious or wise, but they acted according to their thoughts. The “new science of history,” which busied itself with mentality, added a new dimension to history and showed the way toward revealing the very essence of the largest social group, which, in fact, formed the cornerstone of society. In Europe, this issue has been more or less carefully studied; Georgian history, too, turned its attention to the problem of mentality. I have written about this.29 Much has to be done, however, to achieve serious results. On the other hand, studies of mentality (started in the 1930s-1940s by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre and developed in the 1960s by Georges Duby, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Jacques Le Goff, and others) offered much greater possibilities for immeasurably more profound historical studies. The principles of his-toricism obviously triumphed.
In the Middle Ages, most of the population had to survive in hard economic conditions. This bred uncertainty and diffidence in people’s minds and souls and determined their acts. In an effort to overcome these negative sentiments, the Church called people to solidarity in each of the social groups and instructed them to overcome the contradictions between these groups. The people blamed the devil for their misfortunes and were never sure of salvation. Fear triumphed over hope. Jacques Le Goff30 quotes Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg, who said that only one out of 100,000 had the chance of salvation. The correlation between the saved and those doomed to eternal punishment was illustrated by Noah’s Arc and the number of those who perished in the Flood. It was in natural calamities that medieval man expressed spiritual reality and his assessments. Mentality, emotions, and acts were obviously suggested by a craving for inner balance.
Interaction of Societies in Time
The chronicler of David the Builder showed a very special and highly interesting attitude toward natural calamities and the connection between them and the misfortunes that befell Georgia of that time. In 1088 an earthquake ruined the fortress of Tmogvi killing Kakhaber, Niania’s son, and his family. The loss of life was catastrophic, the earthquake destroyed many towns and villages. The people interpreted this as a divine scourge for the sins of the royal court and Czar George II.
The historian described the drama with passion: “It was a time of troubles in the country. No prosperity was possible because of people’s unseemly deeds. People of all ages and every man sinned and abandoned the righteous way as they saw fit. This angered God, whose nature was benevolent and merciful; it was people who passed a harsh sentence on themselves that the Prophet
28 For more detail, see: R. Metreveli, Historicism in the Works of Georgian Writers, Tbilisi, 1999, pp. 3-21 (in Georgian).
29 Studies were mainly conducted at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi University, Department of the History of Georgia.
30 See: J. Le Goff, “Mental’nost, mir emotsiy, formy povedenia (X-XIII vv.),” in: Tsivilizatsia srednevekovogo Za-pada, Ekaterinburg, 2005, pp. 393-438.
Isaiah intended for the sinful nation.”31 Here the historian quotes the Prophet: “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, ... they are gone away backward. your land is desolated, your cities are burned with fire; your fields—strangers are devouring them in your presence, it is desolation, as overthrown by strangers” (Isaiah, Chapter 1: 4, 7).
They obviously knew the Old Testament well; it determined the mentality and behavior of that time. The problem of sin and mercy was especially important: people believed that sins would be punished. The Church and the “holy books” were highly respected; people frequently turned to the Old Testament. The Church Fathers explained the texts to the people. The historian of David the Builder frequently referred to the Old Testament and went into detail about punishment: “For this reason God’s anger was not assuaged, because we never repented and never heeded, and we did not act as we should have before God.”32 He obviously believed that catastrophes were punishments for the unrepentant, those who refused to listen to divine admonitions and misbehaved, and added: “This was because other awful things were added to the evil that was already present in the country. God sent people suffering so that the sinner could not say: ‘These earthquakes were not caused by our sins and were not sent by God. They coincided with the change of times.’”33 The historian went on to explain: “God brought down his anger on the country and caused devastating earthquakes.”34 There are many more examples of the same in other sources.
Earthquakes and solar eclipses were exciting events that medieval man took for miracles. He was attracted by them as by everything else that looked supernatural or anomalous. Miracles were used to confirm sanctity—the examples of this are numerous. Folk prejudices and religious doctrines were blended into one.35 Here is an example. In the late 12th century, popes claimed the right of canonization that belonged to voxpopuli. Miracles were absolutely indispensable for canonization. According to popular belief, miracles did not necessarily happen through the offices of saints—they could happen in the lives of ordinary people. The so-called Justice of Heaven confirmed the truth through miracles. Here it is important to identify the position of science and religion: will they coexist and demonstrate mutual tolerance? Will the spheres of knowledge be delimited? Science should study and develop knowledge of the material world; religion is supposed to promote knowledge about man’s spiritual and moral principles found in the Holy Books. The conception of dualism that recognized two—spiritual and material—principles of the world formulated in the Middle Ages has come to the fore. Historically, the philosophic relations between religion and science differed from one period to another and vacillated between confrontation and mutual understanding. Today, religion plays the main role when it comes to spiritual and moral education (I have in mind the post-Soviet expanse) because science is gradually shedding its ideological garments. Science (including history) should be relieved from any political and narrow social influences. Objectivity should become its main feature.
Historiography of the 21st century (like sociology and philosophy) inherited the task of presenting man as an integral whole. Freudism has long dissipated the idea of the spirit’s supremacy over the flesh. The famous “I think, therefore I am” that dominated philosophy for a long time was finally dropped. It was Nietzsche who created a philosophy permeated with the physical-Dianic message and who believed that he wrote his books with “body and life.”36 The philosophers, he argued, had no reason to separate the spirit from the body. Freud developed this teaching into the theory of the uncon-
31 Historian of David the Builder, The Life of David, the King of Kings. The Life of Kartli, Vol. I, Tbilisi, 1955, p. 322 (in Georgian).
32 Ibid., p. 323.
33 Ibidem.
34 Ibidem.
35 See: J. Le Goff, op. cit., p. 398.
36 Nietzsche, Sochinenia, in two volumes, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1990, p. 23.
scious. Later, the academic community agreed that the “soul and the body” should be viewed as inseparable and the rational and physical in man should not be separated.
History is called upon to show society its face and body. It does not merely demonstrate them, but also supplies a moral and emotional message, assessment scale, and food for thought about people and “man as the central element of society and history. Historiography of the 20th century admitted that man was the main postulate of history.”37 The human essence in the moral sphere of the past is best seen in the gap that separates the unavoidable circumstances and vicissitudes of life, that is, the space in which man is free to use his will and to choose.38
History writing is a very responsible task because society needs a genuine history. In 1904, Ivane Javakhishvili wrote: “Each educated nation endowed with self-cognition should know the history of its past social life; it should know its true, genuine history, not an inflated and false one.”39 Civil society should know its history. To supply it with this knowledge we should have teachers, textbooks, and reference literature. Enlightenment and the entire body of its semantic or stylistic knowledge and shades cannot adequately reveal its primordial universal nature. It can be understood as development of an inborn creative potential and individuality through the study of cultural heritage and the past. The science of history hails any methodological novelty, but we should never forget past achievements. The historian of David the Builder, for example, knew quite well that a chronicler should have materials (sources) related to the described object and be a past master of the “art of rhetoric.” The author of The Life of David, the King of Kings wrote: “Having decided to tell a story about David’s deeds I was bold enough to mention Homer and Hellene Aristobulus, a Jew Joseph, the great and famous writers, one of whom told us about the Trojans and Achaeans and about the hand-to-hand fighting between Odysseus and Orestes and showed us the winner. Another described Alexander’s victorious wars, his courage and his triumphs; the third, Jew Joseph told us about Caesar Vespasian.”40
The historian believed that these chroniclers did not have enough information and that they “used their high art to write an expansive history.” The Georgian historian was convinced that a high-level historical work requires a lot of professional skill and the ability to make a good story out of even a minor event.41
The methodological comments of the chronicler, who lived some eight centuries ago, are still valid. Other historians, too, were of the same opinion: history developed along with society and accepted new methods of study. The new century has widened that range of novelties. We should always bear in mind that our past should not be forgotten (here I have in mind methodology); history teaches us that. Historical memory is needed to inherit culture, it is needed for the very existence of society and its evolution, as well as for personal and national identification. History, like life, should be regarded as a permanently unfolding chain. Continuity is the interconnection between consecutive periods and phases of history of the same society and, at the same time, it is the interconnection among societies in time.
C o n c l u s i o n
An investigation of national problems in the context of globalization confirms that globalization is an objective process that cannot be stopped. It is conditioned by the movement of cultures and
37 In 2004, the St. Petersburg and Ivane Javakhishvili universities set up a joint center for the study of man. It has already published several collections of articles (see: Chelovek, gosudarstvo, globalizatsia, St. Petersburg-Tbilisi, 2005).
38 See: M.A. Iusim, “Neskol’ko shtrikhov k portretu istorii,” in: Srednie veka, No. 64, 2003, p. 347.
39 Iv. Javakhishvili, Patriotism and Science, Tiflis, 1904, p. 5 (in Georgian) (see also: R. Metreveli, Patriotism and Science. Jubilee Collection to Mark 100th Birth Anniversary of Iv. Javakhishvili, Tbilisi, 1976, pp. 22-28, in Georgian).
40 Historian of David the Builder, The Life of David, the King of Kings, p. 322.
41 See: Ibidem.
human and economic resources. Contemporary civilization armed with powerful tools of information, political, ideological, and psychological influence on the individual and the masses, as well as computer programming, has acquired dangerous dimensions. Under its pressure, man could lose his ability to think and act freely; his awareness of his “Self,” and his free will as an architect of his life and history. Meanwhile, man and his mentality are a central subject of history.
Parvin DARABADI
D.Sc. (Hist.), professor at Baku State University (Baku, Azerbaijan).
CENTRAL EURASIA IN THE “BIG GEOPOLITICAL GAME” OF THE LATE 19TH-EARLY 20TH CENTURIES
(Pages of Geohistory)
Abstract
The author offers a glimpse of one of the most dramatic episodes of geopolitical rivalry between the Russian and British empires that unfolded in the Central Eurasian mega-region in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He presents an in-depth analysis of the geostrategic aims pursued by both empires,
the role of the Caucasian factor in the Crimean War, and the main stages of the empires’ confrontation in Central Asia. Prof. Darabadi pays a lot of attention to the so-called railway policy Russia and Britain pursued in Persia, as well as to the oil factor of the geopolitical games in the Caspian.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
In the first half of the 19th century, Russia turned its attention to the Caucasus and the Caspian once more and revived its military-political involvement to complete the struggle for Russia’s absolute hegemony there started by Peter the Great and continued by Catherine the Great. Iran and Turkey likewise turned their gaze to the same region while Russia, Britain, and France found themselves competing for the Middle East and the Caspian region in particular.
Military assistance from Napoleon’s France and Britain did not save Iran and Turkey from crippling defeats in three wars with Russia (the Russo-Iranian wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829). The Southern Caucasus and the eastern Black Sea coast, as well as the exclusive right to keep its navy in the Caspian, were Russia’s main strategic prizes.
