Антропология революции

Ekaterina Dmitrieva (Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities). «Re-volutio in Sense and Sensibility (on some peculiarities of Eighteenth-Century French Libertinage)». This paper suggessts that the literature of French libertinage served as one of the ab nihilo triggers of the French Revolution. It analyses the ways in which libertinage, that traditionally has been perceived as a revolution in social expressions of the erotic, might, in fact, have emerged from within the code of honntet itself. It explains how the notion of elevated or refined feeling which, in the vocabularly of eighteenth-century libertinage was used to mask desire, led to a ‘reverse evolution’ (re-volutio), and why the ensuing contrasts between refined language and unrefined behaviour, between form and reality, prompted an interpretation of the senses themselves as derivatives of language in some way.

Elena Mikhailik (Sidney, University of New South Wales). «An Unnoticed Revolution». The idea of the «literature of fact» formed in the late ‘20s by the LEF and the New LEF theorists was from its very conception founded on an irresolvable contradiction. The LEF theorists proclaimed that as of now both the form and the content of a work should be determined not by the author but by the nature of the material in question. However to single out a certain «fact» from the general flow and to arrange and edit those facts (regardless of the organisational principle employed) one needed a point of view that would exist separately from the material itself, i.e. that very authorial view that LEF strived to abolish.

The article is going to demonstrate that Varlam Shalamov who in the 1920s had been active on the periphery of New LEF and later dropped out of the literary process due to reasons beyond his control, used the concept of the «literature of fact» to assign meanings to and to assimilate the prison camp environment which (according to Shalamov) existed outside human experience. Shalamov turned an authorial viewpoint into a part of his material and made reproduction of experience his central organisational principle. The paper also discusses some theoretical and literary consequences of that experiment.

Balázs Trencsényi (Budapest, Central European University). «Revolt Against History: National Characterologies in East Central Europe in the Interwar Period». While conservatives in the nineteenth century advocated a political, social and institutional continuity with the pre-modern structures, after WWI the conservative agenda came to be entrenched in the feeling of rupture and the need of restoring the lost tradition with radical means. Having a powerful impact all over Europe, Conservative Revolution in East Central Europe led to the formation of a new discourse of national characterology, seeking to challenge the hierarchy based on the «superiority» of Western Europe and the «derivative nature» of Eastern European civilization. Following the Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian debates, the study seeks to unveil the relationship of the patterns of historical representation and the growing infatuation with «national essence» that came to dominate East Central Europe in the interwar period.

Laurent Thévenot (Paris, EHESS, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques). «Upside down: French May 68 turning community and personality head over heels». French May 68 was a remarkable occasion to relaunch, experience and learn critical activities. Here, we concentrate on the intense and creative elaboration of words and images which display the significant and emotional core of what was felt as a profound subversive trial. We first consider the critique or reactivation of the different «orders of worth» and bring light on the various notions of hierarchy involved. We then turn to the reappraisal of the different «regimes of engagements» of the person with the world and with others, from the most public ones to the closest ones. The simplistic reduction of May 68 to «individualization» is thus questioned.

Oleksandr Grytsenko (Kyiv, Ukrainian center of cultural research). «Rhetoric of Justice vs. rhetoric of Stability: post-revolutionary changes in value orders and cultural identities (The case of Ukraine)». The article deals with ongoing changes in national and regional cultural identities in contemporary Ukraine as well as political implications of these changes as manifested through current rivalries between Ukraine’s two leading political forces and their leaders, namely, Yulia Tymoshenko’s BYUT and Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.