Authors: Christopher I. Beckwith
Tags: #History, #General, #Asia, #Europe, #Eastern, #Central Asia
Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (62 page)
When popular artists first began to fill the void created by Modern anti-artists, they were mostly not recognized as artists at all. It was only when the equation of market value with art value became firmly established that popular artists—mainly musicians and dancers—began using the term artist.
104
Yet, however one may judge their actual works, they at least thought of themselves as artists in the full original sense of the word—someone devoted to making beautiful things—unlike most Modern “artists,” who rejected all definitions of the words art,
beauty,
and even
artist.
Life undoubtedly has always been difficult for creative people, but it used to be that there was a fairly fixed socioeconomic slot for artists and artisans, because the aristocrats needed them. The aristocrats, bad as they sometimes might have been in reality or in practice, represented an ideal, not only something people could look up to but something the aristocrats expected of themselves, too. Looking upward, they demanded perfection, or as close to it as they could get, so they hired the best artists and artisans to produce it, and those working for them tried their best to achieve it. If artists were not looking up and doing their best to serve God, they were doing their best to serve men they
thought
were “better"; it had nothing to do with whether the church or the aristocrats really were somehow better. Trying to upend things, to set the basest type of man above the others, cannot actually replace the old order—no one can look up to someone who is by definition as low as can be—so the result is the elimination of order itself. Today, the artist/artisan socioeconomic slot no longer really exists (one need only ask a young artist), and nothing has really replaced it. But the entire purpose or goal of art is largely gone anyway. The total victory of Modernism meant the conscious rejection of the traditional values of Reason, artistic order, and Beauty.
Because Modernism was not so much a philosophy or movement as a total world-view, it was applied to all aspects of life. The victory of radical political Modernism—specifically, Marxist-Leninist socialism—in Russia (from 1917) and China (from 1949) led to implementation of its totalitarian agenda all across Central Eurasia. The destruction of almost all aspects of traditional culture, including material artifacts, by the despotic Russian and Chinese communist rulers, though resisted by Central Eurasian peoples, was ultimately successful.
The difference between the history of Modernism in Central Eurasia and in Western Europe is striking. In Europe, despite the Second World War and the occasional Modern building, Paris is still characterized by its beautiful old traditional architecture, and the libraries and museums are full. Modernism mainly prevented the creation of new works of art. Very little of the inherited cultural tradition was destroyed. In Central Eurasia, by contrast, only a few famous monuments were
not
destroyed, and only a tiny percentage of the once vast number of old books was preserved. By the end of the twentieth century, the evil done in the name of Modernism and “progress” left Central Eurasians bereft of much of their past.
1
Eliot’s work in many ways best characterizes twentieth-century Modernism and the triumph of populism. Rossa (2006) notes, “The poem had great impact from the moment of its publication; the critic Lawrence Rainey has said, ‘the publication of The Waste Land marked the crucial moment in
the transition of modernism from a minority culture to one supported by an important institutional and financial apparatus’.”
Quoted from
http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/pound/wasteland.htm
; emphasis added.
2
When the Soviet and Chinese communists turned against each other, the resulting Sino-Soviet cold war turned hot, briefly, in the Ussuri River Incident of 1969.
3
Study of Central Eurasia was even referred to as “border studies” by some scholars who had no knowledge of Central Eurasian languages and took their views almost entirely from writers of the peripheral states in which they specialized, particularly China and Russia.
4
On sources used for the present treatment of the Modern period, see endnote
91
.
5
Part of the reason for this was populist politicians’ need for a scapegoat; the monarchs, and monarchy itself, were unjustly blamed for the war.
6
Dillon (1998: 302).
7
Millward (2004: 4).
8
After Peking (Beijing ‘Northern Capital’) was captured by Chiang Kai-shek’s armies (on June 8, 1928), its name was changed to Peiping (Beiping ‘Northern Peace’) to signify its demotion from capital status and its replacement by the new capital, Nanking (Nanjing ‘Southern Capital’).
9
Dillon (1998: 160). The Chinese Nationalist government was declared in Nanking on April 18, 1927 (Eastman 1986: 116).
10
Teed (1992: 506).
11
On World War I and the largely unchanged Eurocentric view of world history, see endnote
92
.
12
The last emperor, Nicholas II, abdicated in February 1917. He and all members of his family in Russia, including distant relatives, were murdered by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918 (Millar 2004: 1298).
13
Because the Julian calendar was then still in use in Russia, the event has traditionally been called the October Revolution.
14
Stearns (2002), Florinsky (1961). There is a considerable literature on Stalin’s terror (the Purges) and the Great Famine; see, inter alia, Conquest (1968, 1986, 1990).
15
However, it did not actually go into production before the Second World War began.
16
Albert Einstein and a number of other leading scientists who escaped put their knowledge and talents to work in the Second World War to help the Allied Powers defeat Germany and its Axis allies Italy and Japan.
17
Weiss (2000). The Nazis also targeted members of other ethnolinguistic groups they especially disliked, notably the Romani (Gypsies), as well as homosexuals, crippled or otherwise disabled people, and others.
18
On the etymology of the name Istanbul, see endnote
93
.
19
The British foreign minister Jack Straw has publicly admitted his government made “quite serious mistakes” in Palestine and in India, among many other countries of Southwest and South Asia (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2481371.stm
).
20
"The most far-reaching consequence of European intervention [in the Middle East] was
the destruction of the Ottoman Empire
after World War I. In lands that had formerly been unified, the Europeans laid the foundation for an entirely
novel system of states
that, in spite of its artificiality, persisted into the late 20th century with few modifications” (Stearns 2002: 751; emphasis in the original). “Novel” and “artificial” hardly seem sufficient here.
21
Despite its name, which could also be translated as ‘modernism’, and what could be called its “modernizing” aims, this movement had almost nothing to do with the twentieth-century Western movement described here as Modernism. Jadidism is essentially another name for Westernization or Europeanization in a liberal Islamic context.
22
Kazan, the capital of modern Tatarstan, was one of the leading intellectual centers of Russia and Europe in general in the late nineteenth century. Some of the great minds of the age taught in its university.
23
Khalid (2007).
24
Millward (2004: 4–5).
25
Although the exact sequence of events has not yet been clarified, it is certain that many millions died during the severe famine of 1932–1933, which was aggravated, if not actually caused, by government policies.
26
Florinsky (1961).
27
The Great Depression also affected North America and Australia unusually severely, for unknown reasons. The causes of the Great Depression are still hotly debated in general.
28
Harrison (1966).
29
Unlike Pound, Wyndham Lewis stopped supporting fascism before the war because “he saw the mass-hysteria which fascism aroused,” and he realized that the Nazi Regime, in particular, “had certain characteristics in common with what he called democracy” (Harrison 1966: 93–94, 103).
30
Their rhetoric on this issue can politely be described as nauseating.
31
The United States was already aiding the Nationalist Chinese government against the Japanese and had sent a clandestine air squadron and planes to Asia to fight the Japanese under the Nationalist Chinese flag. Though these units did not actually enter combat in China until after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were hardly unaware of much, if not all, of this activity.
32
Dunnigan and Nofi (1998: 164–165).
33
An American coup d’état overthrew Queen Liliuokalani on January 17, 1893. On July 4, 1894, the American leader in Hawaii declared a “republic,” and in 1898 the U.S. “annexed” Hawaii (Brune 2003).
34
On the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory, the known background of the attack (or
an
attack), and whether or not it could have been a surprise to the American leadership, see endnote
94
.
35
Although the invasion began on December 8 Philippine time, it was December 7 Hawaiian time. The Philippines had been ceded to the United States in 1898 by Spain, the former colonial ruler of the islands, following the American victory in the Spanish-American War (Brune 2003).
36
Whitman (2001).
37
Dunnigan and Nofi (1998: 387–388).
38
Dunnigan and Nofi (1998: 120–121).
39
Dear and Foot (1995).
40
Brune (2003).
41
However, it must be recognized that the Soviet Union suffered more than any other country. An estimated twenty million Soviet citizens died in the war.
42
Layton (1999: 1193).
43
Brune (2003).
44
Stearns (2002: 781).
45
Atwood (2004: 302).
46
Atwood (2004: 291–292). The inmates were prohibited from going more than five kilometers from their
spetsposelenie
‘special settlement’.
47
On the brutal Soviet treatment of the Tatars, see Lazzerini (1996). Other nationalities, especially the Volga Germans, were also treated savagely (Hyman 1996). On American internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during the Second World War, and the subsequent application of similar Modern racist “solutions” to the American Indians, modeled in part directly on the Japanese American “solution,” see Drinnon (1987). Other studies suggest American business and government involvement in foreign racist programs; careful study by historians is needed.
48
Millward (2004: 5).
49
Shih, per. comm., Taipei, 1974.
50
Buck (2002), Buell (2002).
51
The number of soldiers in the invading army is estimated to have equaled or surpassed that of the entire adult male population of Tibet.
52
Shakya (1999: 512 n. 24).
53
Van Walt van Praag (1987: 169, 195–196).
54
Millward (2004: 6).
55
Anonymous.
http://buddhism.2be.net/Image:Destroy_old_world.jpg
.
56
Shakya (1999: 320–323). See the widely published photograph (e.g. in Shakya 1999: plate 15) of the ruins of most of Ganden Monastery, once one of the largest in Tibet, after the Cultural Revolution.
57
Hambly (1991: 114 et seq.).
58
For example, Zamzam, the company that before the revolution had bottled Pepsi, an American soft drink, soon came under the control of “the Foundation of the Dispossessed, a powerful bonyad, one of many religious charities Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used to quasi-nationalize Iran’s economy…. the bonyads have become gold mines for the powerful. In the case of Zamzam, it answers to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei” (Ellis 2007).
59
Calmard (1993: 300).
60
Austria was similarly divided but regained full independence in 1955.
61
Brune (2003).
62
Atwood (2004: 291–292).
63
The Crimea was transferred to Ukrainian territory by Khrushchev, who took power after the death of Stalin, thus making the Tatars’ political status in their homeland even more difficult. Many Crimean Tatars have since returned anyway, braving official and unofficial opposition and severe deprivation (Lazzerini 1996). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Volga Germans have mostly given up in despair and migrated to Germany (Hyman 1996). Neither people’s autonomous republic has been restored.
64
The successive French and American attempts to keep communism out of Vietnam were followed by its victory there.
65
As a form of government, this was not and is not the “democratic” form properly speaking, but rather the “republican” form. The fact that these two terms are also the names of the two major political parties in the United States is a coincidence; they are names only. The United States is nominally a republic, but the practical policies of the two parties have little to do with actual democratic or republican ideas about government. The Americans’ attempts to force their Modern system onto the rest of the world were (and are) eerily similar to the communists’ attempts to do the same thing with their own system.
66
The Nepalese monarchy lost a power struggle in 2006 due to a combination of factors, by far the most important of which was the blatant, undisguised spread of populist “democratic” propaganda by the international mass media on the scene in Kathmandu, who were so obviously brainwashed by Modernism they probably had no idea what they were doing. Monarchy is bad, Modern “democracy” is good.
67
On Modernism in contemporary historiography, see endnote
95
.
68
Even after the worst of the terror was over, Modernism in the arts continued to spread across Central Eurasia, especially via architecture, because the foreign rulers tore down traditional Central Eurasian–style buildings and replaced them with Modern buildings. The physical appearance of Central Eurasian cities changed drastically, and the cultural heritage of the region was impoverished accordingly.
69
The term populism has been used in different senses. My usage of it should be clear from the discussion here. The spread into the Middle East and some other regions of religious-political fundamentalism, a particularly pernicious form of Modern populism, does not bode well for the future.
70
By the end of the twentieth century, the populists had completely replaced all other forms of government. Except for a few countries, most of them small and isolated, every country in the world now claims to be a Modern democracy. In fact, none of them are true democracies, and most are not even true republics, but dictatorships or, at best, oligarchies.
71
It also destroyed very much in China itself.
72
Walters (1993: 16). Many were converted to other uses, such as barns and warehouses.
73
Rothenberg (1978: 190). According to a government source, “between 1917 and 1927, 23 percent of synagogues (366 out of 1,400) and churches had been closed, but these figures are much too low. Some cities had over one hundred synagogues and the total number as well as the confiscations were greater.” The figure of 1,400 evidently referred only to Ukraine, where the number of synagogues was “reduced to 1,034 by 1927” (Levin 1988: 82). By 1980, despite de-Stalinization, there were only 92 synagogues in the entire Soviet Union (Levin 1988: 774).
74
Ramet (1993: 40).
75
Shakya (1999: 512). “In China, monasteries in Inner Mongolia were generally closed down in the Great Leap Forward, 1958–1960. I would guess that by 1960 there were no surviving functioning monasteries” (Christopher Atwood, per. comm., 2007). In the Soviet Union, “In Buriatia, the move to eliminate Buddhism began around 1932 and by around 1937 there were no functioning monasteries. Ivolga Datsang was reopened after the Second World War. In Kalmykia the chronology was similar, but no monasteries were ever reopened until the late 1980s” (Christopher Atwood, per. comm., 2007).
