Ab Imperio

“Designing the Future” (the theme of the current issue of Ab Imperio) is possible only by using the “building blocks” of the past. As the articles published in this issue demonstrate, this simple idea in no way implies a deterministic and teleological understanding of the historical process. Real stories do not support the popular assumption about the predestination of the future based on the social structures and ideas of the preceding epoch. To the contrary, despite the differences in their disciplinary and thematic focus, all the articles in this issue underline the decisive role of people and structures preoccupied with resolving everyday problems – with an eye toward the future. The future depends not on the past, but on perceptions of the past proliferated in society and the possibilities for broad discussions of these perceptions. This mechanism is revealed explicitly in the second chapter of the Russian translation of The History Manifesto by Jo Guldi and David Armitage published in the “Methodology and Theory” section of this issue (the Introduction and Chapter 1 were published in the previous issue of AI). Guldi and Armitage argue that the sea change in the perception of the past (from the history of long-term processes to the history of short-term specific cases) that took place in the 1970s immediately resulted in a “recalibration” of the future. Public discussions that reassessed the experience of the previous decade led to the proliferation of a culture of “short-termism,” with forecasts and planning restricted to the immediate future and subordinated to pragmatic goals (e.g., victory in a political cycle, targeting of profits). [End Page 17]

The key role of “cultural-political entrepreneurs” in designing the future based on the past was analyzed and described in the pages of AI many years ago by Jan Kubik, who concluded that “cultural legacies are ‘transmitted,’ not ‘received from.’”¹ The future is decided “today,” not “yesterday.” A good example of a “cultural-political entrepreneur” is the Polish historian of the first half of the twentieth century, Oskar Halecki, discussed in the article by Gennadii Korolov under the “Historiography” rubric of this issue. It was Halecki who called the territory between the German and Russian lands (once dominated by Rzech Pospolita) “East-Central Europe,” and in his historical studies aimed to prove its “Europeanness” and its belonging to Polish rather than Russian civilization. The main goal of that remapping of the past was political transformation in the future: the liberation of the region from Soviet and Russian domination.

Halecki represented the radical “retrospective futurist” – someone who rewrites the past in order to coordinate it with a desirable future (now inevitably predetermined by that past). Yet most contributions to this issue focus on commonly recognized realities, and various aspects of their selective appropriation by designers of the future. As we shall see, even the utter embodiment of “traditionalism” can be recognized as suitable building material for an ideal future (for example, the Russian peasant commune in populist projects), while the main threat to this future would be seen in the most modern project (capitalism, in this example).

The “History” section of this issue features two articles focusing on precisely this dialectic of archaism and futurism, but bringing its analysis to a new level that is far beyond any abstract theorizing. Paolo Sartori and Pavel Shablei tell the story of continuous attempts by the Russian imperial authorities to codify the customary law (adats) of Kazakhs and to insist on differentiating it from the closely linked norms of the Sharia. This story is remarkable for the doctrinaire persistence of authorities who were determined to implement in practice a very recent achievement of nascent Russian jurisprudence (the theoretical differentiation of components of customary law), and for the accomplishment of professional Orientalists collecting [End Page 18] Kazakh legal norms in the steppe, who managed to transcend dogmatism and reconstructed Kazakh customary law as a hybrid phenomenon (merging adat and Sharia) that greatly varied from one region or tribal group to another. The article centers on the case of implicit confrontation between the Orientalist Efim (Iosif) Osmolovskii, who in the early 1850s composed the most fundamental compendium of Kazakh customary law, and his immediate superior, Vasilii Grigoriev, who for ideological reasons suppressed Osmolovskii’s work. This conflict most vividly embodied the mechanism of purposeful construction of the future from the past – specifically, from the most archaic past of Kazakh customary law, which Grigoriev planned to use as a foundation for creating a modern Kazakh nation that was thoroughly Russified and Christianized. Islamic elements within Kazakh culture presented the main threat to this project: if the Osmolovskii collection demonstrated that adat was inseparable from Sharia – so much the worse for the collection. Grigoriev was so conscious about his mission as a “cultural-political entrepreneur” in deciding what part of Kazakh cultural legacy was suitable for designing their future that he dared to commit malfeasance in office. Leaving Orenburg for St. Petersburg, he took with him the manuscript of the collection removed from the official documentation of the Borderland Commission over which he had presided, and apparently destroyed all the preparatory materials that could hurt Russia’s interests “if they got into inexperienced hands.” The collection was not just a piece of scholarship, but an official document commissioned by the government and processed through various government agencies. Under the acting Penal Code of 1845 (Section 4, Chapter 4, Article 330), the minimal punishment possible for Grigoriev’s actions that he be stripped of all civil rights, imprisoned, and then exiled. This episode calls for a reassessment of the image of Grigoriev as an eccentric philanthropist–Kazakhophile, alien to the Saidian orientalist complex (formed under the influence of a classic article by Nathaniel Knight).² Publishing ideological articles on behalf of the fictitious Kazakh Sultan, Mendali Piraliev,³ and “embezzlement or destruction… of documents kept in public office” characterize Grigoriev as a visionary who stopped at nothing, for whom the Kazakh past and present had value only as building material for a future Russified Russia. [End Page 19]

In her article, Diliara Usmanova studies a mirror situation, in which the Russian imperial authorities imposed over the Muslim populations a system of parish registers that was formed within the centralized hierarchy of Christian Churches, and therefore completely alien to Islamic traditions. Nevertheless, Muslims under the jurisdiction of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Administration (mostly Volga Tatars) not only embraced the new institution, but came to regard it as one of the fundamental factors sustaining their community, almost a custom sanctified by tradition. As it turns out, it does not matter how old the past is in determining its chances for “becoming a future.” Population vital statistics and control through registers administered by religious authorities was perceived everywhere as an anachronism by the turn of the twentieth century, but Russian Muslims viewed this system as a guarantee of the future stability of their community, and even a foundation of modern Tatar nation-building. The imperial authorities also did not hasten to transfer population registration to the civic administration, not least because for the Tatar-speaking population this would have implied either the radical Russification of the paperwork on the ground or the training of an army of officials proficient in Tatar (recorded then in Arabic script). The former scenario promised an escalation of social tensions, and the latter was unrealistic in the observable future. Usmanova’s article complicates the model of “confessional state” (as developed in the works of Robert Crews and Paul Werth), compromising its fundamental thesis about Russia’s undermodernity and the underdevelopment of its state apparatus. The theme of modernity brings us back to the problem of designing the future: was the regime of the Third Republic in France (idealized by contemporaries and latter-day historians) that imposed standardized French-language culture and paperwork at the expense of suppressing local traditions and cultures from Catalonia to Alsace a more advanced and sophisticated “future” than the hybrid regime of legal pluralism that allowed the integration of populations into the state institutions without giving up their language and traditions? The story told by Usmanova illustrates the deficiency of any one-dimensional theorizing of late imperial institutions in Russia – be it “confessional state” or “governmentalization of confession.” Muslim parish registers (just as Kazakh customary law) was a hybrid phenomenon, a common space for interaction of different actors and agencies that allowed the design of a common future from various separate pasts. This is not to say that this interaction was harmonious – to the contrary, it was marked by structural conflicts and competition about differing visions of the future. The imperial situation presents a specific kind of unity underscored by complexity and hybridity of the social space. [End Page 20]

In the “Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science” section, the theme of designing the future is discussed in the context of our time. Guest editor Neringa Klumbytė put together a thematic forum dedicated to producing new social forms in Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Central to the forum are the categories of sovereignty and justice – the basic values giving a society a sense of separate existence and legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. The three articles of the forum present not only three different strategies of using the past as “construction material” for the future but also profoundly diverse versions of the emerging future. Maria Sidorkina reviews a case of public mobilization in Novosibirsk in response to the open violation of the popular sense of justice by people in power. This could have been viewed as an optimistic story (at least in the context of a single incident that stirred broad resonance), if not for the essentially secondary, reactive nature of public mobilization described in the article. The article suggests that solidarity in regard to socially meaningful action is still possible in Russia, but shows that it can be triggered only by an external provocation – people themselves lack a sense of common values and motivation to unite against the structural roots of injustice (rather than its isolated scandalous manifestations). Though relying on a historical tradition and rhetoric of social justice, Russians are unable to develop a stable scenario of the future on that basis.

Austin Cowley, Caitlin Micaela Ryan, and Elizabeth Cullen Dunn present a much more successful case of societal self-organization: the powerful Mafia structure in Kyrgyzstan. Governed by vory v zakone (“thieves in law” – syndicated criminals), the criminal hierarchy functions as a state within the state that enjoys a degree of sovereignty of its own and offers an alternative regime of justice, and even of welfare. In this case, a marginal phenomenon of the past (probably assisted by its “anti-Soviet” reputation) assumes a disproportionately high public role because all other social institutions failed to come forward with a more stable and competitive “future.”

Amanda Swain writes about what seems to be the most successful version of the post-Soviet future – in Lithuania, where they implemented “instantly ready” modern institutions in the course of integration into the European Union. The article analyzes public debates regarding the commemoration of Romas Kalanta, who committed public self-immolation in Kaunas in 1972. The character of the discussion and the decision that resulted from it to designate the anniversary of Kalanta’s death as Civil Resistance Day underscores the “Europeanness” of Lithuanian society and its openness to the future. Yet, the figure of Kalanta that encouraged Lithuanians to negotiate a certain type of future provokes some additional considerations. The [End Page 21] silent protest of a Lithuanian student (Kalanta did not leave any elaborated statement) through self-immolation cannot but provoke parallels with the Indian ritual of Sati – or, rather, with its analysis in the classical article by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak “Can the Subaltern Speak?”⁴ The special significance that has been ascribed to Kalanta’s suicide implies the presence of some deeper meaning behind it that is inexpressible in words – and it is the precise purpose of contemporary debates in Lithuanian society to explicate this hidden meaning. Paradoxically, a modern young man, Romas Kalanta acquires the role of an Indian subaltern, isolated from the discursive reality of the public sphere and incapable of expressing his inner self in a way other than demonstrative suicide. The future of Lithuanian society is formed (inter alia) through the conceptualization of Kalanta’s, in principle, unconceptualizing gesture, and had there not been a borrowing of European institutions and ready interpretative schemes by Lithuania – what would that subaltern future look like?

The paradox of constructing the future from what seems to be a completely inappropriate past is discussed in other sections of the issue. In the “Newest Mythologies” section, Irina Sandomirskaia points out that parallel with the wholesale destruction of the old culture, the Bolshevik regime elaborated its own politics of preserving cultural heritage. This is all the more remarkable because Russian Orthodox icons were recognized as the centerpiece of that heritage, turned into objects of aestheticization, commodification, and internationalization thanks to exceptional marketing skills of Igor Grabar and his restoration project. In the “ABC” section, the next chapter of the history course “A New Imperial History of Northern Eurasia” focuses on the first half of the nineteenth century. The main theme of the chapter – the efforts of the imperial rulers (starting with Alexander I) to accommodate the emerging phenomenon of modern nation, in its various renderings, toward the needs of the reforming empire. Traditionally viewed as an “empire-killer,” nationalism was used purposefully from the very beginning in an attempt to design a future imperial regime – one that was more dynamic and competitive.

There is one more thematic bloc in the issue that was put together at the very last moment: it is dedicated to the memory of Boris Vasil’evich Anan’ich: a distinguished historian and member of the Editorial Board of Ab Imperio, who passed away in July. Contributions to the forum also [End Page 22] remind us that the plasticity and adaptability of the historical process notwithstanding, some circumstances of the past cannot be manipulated to fit into a desired future. First of all, this applies to human life that belongs to its own time and, once terminated, leaves the future unalterably different, forever deprived of its presence.