Lev Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova, 1960s

Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov (Russian: Лев Никола́евич Гумилёв) (October 1, 1912, St. Petersburg–June 15, 1992, St. Petersburg), better known in the West as Lev Gumilev, was one of the most controversial and popular Russian historians of the 20th century. His unorthodox ideas on the birth and death of ethnoses (ethnic groups) have given rise to the political and cultural movement known as "Neo-Eurasianism". Image File history File linksMetadata Gumakh. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Gumakh. ... October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in Leap years). ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... Neo-Eurasianism is a Russian school of thought, initiated by Konstantin Leontyev and developed by Lev Gumilev, that thinks of Russia as culturally and ethnically closer to Central Asia than to Europa. ...

Life

His parents were two prominent poets Nikolay Gumilev and Anna Akhmatova. They divorced when Lev was a baby, and his father was executed when he was just 9. During his mother's persecution in the 1930s, he was expelled from the Leningrad University and deported to gulags, where he would spend most of his youth, from 1938 until 1956. During a brief stint at large, he joined the Red Army and took part in the Battle of Berlin. In order to secure his release, Akhmatova was constrained to publish dithyrambs to Stalin, but this didn't help. Their relations remained strained, as Lev blamed his mother for the misfortunes that had dogged his youth. Nikolai Gumilev during his senior years in gymnasium Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov (Russian: , April 15 NS 1886 - August 1921) was an influential Russian poet who founded the acmeism movement. ... Akhmatova in the 1920s Anna Akhmatova (Russian: , real name А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко) (June 23, 1889 (June 11, Old Style and also St. ... Categories: Russia-related stubs | Universities and colleges in Russia | Saint Petersburg ... Gulag (Russian: ГУЛАГ ▶ (help· info)) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно—Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: Literally, the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The short forms Red Army and RKKA refer to the Workers and Peasants Red Army, (in Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya), the armed forces first organised by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918. ... Combatants Germany Soviet Union, Poland Commanders Gotthard Heinrici Helmuth Weidling Helmuth Reymann Wilhelm Mohnke Georgy Zhukov Ivan Konev Vassili Chuikov Strength 1 million men, 1,500 AFVs, 3,300 aircraft 2. ...

Young Lev with his parents in 1913.

After Stalin's death, Gumilev joined the Hermitage Museum, whose director, Mikhail Artamonov, he would come to appreciate as his mentor. Under Artamonov's guidance, he became interested in Khazar studies and steppe peoples in general. In 1960 he started delivering lectures at the Leningrad University. Two years later, he defended his doctor's thesis on ancient Turks. Since 1960s, he worked in the Geography Institute, where he would defend another doctor's thesis, this time in geography. Image File history File links NandLGumilevs_andAkhmatova1913. ... Image File history File links NandLGumilevs_andAkhmatova1913. ... 1913 (MCMXIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ... The Hermitage Museum (Эрмитаж) in St. ... The site of the Khazar fortress of Sarkel, which was discovered and excavated by Artamonov in the 1930s. ... The Khazars were a Turkic semi-nomadic people from Central Asia who adopted Judaism. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Categories: Russia-related stubs | Universities and colleges in Russia | Saint Petersburg ...

Although his ideas were rejected by the official Soviet doctrine and most of his monographs banned from publication, Gumilev came to attract much publicity, especially in the Perestroika years. As an indication of his popularity, the Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered the Lev Gumilev Eurasian University to be erected just opposite his own palace on the central square of new Kazakh capital, Astana. Poster showing Mikhail Gorbachev Perestroika ▶ (help· info) (Перестро́йка) is the Russian word (which passed into English) for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. ... Kazakh may refer to An ethnic group: the Kazakhs The Kazakh language The Culture of Kazakhstan Suhbat. ... Nursultan Nazarbayev Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (Нұрсұлтан Әбішұлы Назарбаев) (born July 6, 1940 in Chemolgan, Kazakhstan) is the current leader of Kazakhstan. ... Map showing Astanas location in Kazakhstan Composite NASA landsat photo of Astana Astana climate Astana (Kazakh, Russian: Астана), estimated population of 520,000 (2000 and growing fast), has been the capital of Kazakhstan since 1998. ...

Ideas

Gumilev attempted to explain the waves of nomadic migration that rocked the great steppe of Eurasia for centuries by geographical factors such as annual vacillations in solar radiation, which determine the area of grasslands that could be used for grazing livestock. According to this idea, when the steppe areas shrank drastically, the nomads of Central Asia began moving to the fertile pastures of Europe or China. African-Eurasian aspect of Earth Eurasia is the landmass composed of the continents of Europe and Asia. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... World map showing Europe Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiogeographic one. ...

To describe his ideas on the genesis and evolution of ethnoses, Gumilev introduced the concept of "passionarity", which may be explained as the level of vital energy and power characteristic of any given ethnic group. Gumilev argued that they pass through stages of rise, development, climax, inertial, convolution, and memorial. It is during the "acmatic" phases, when the national passionarity reaches its maximum heat, that the great conquests are made. The current state of Europe he described as deep inertia, or "introduction to obscuration", to use his own term. The passionarity of the Arabic world, on the other hand, is still high. Development has meaning in several contexts: Science and Engineering Biological development of embryos in the context of developmental biology Child development or post-natal human development (pediatrics, etc) Software engineering, the methodology and process of development of computer software Technology development in industry, as in Software development New product development... Look up Climax in Wiktionary, the free dictionary In general, a climax is a point of greatest intensity or force in an ascending series; i. ... In psychology, social inertia describes a persons resistance to change. ... For the computer science usage see convolution (computer science) . In mathematics and in particular, functional analysis, convolution is a mathematical operator which takes two functions f and g and produces a third function that in a sense represents the amount of overlap between f and a reversed and translated version... Acme (Greek ακμή, the peak, zenith, prime) denotes the best of something. ...

Drawing inspiration from the works of Konstantin Leontyev and Nikolay Danilevsky, Gumilev regarded Russians as a "super-ethnos" which is kindred to Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe. Those periods when Russia has been said to conflict with the steppe peoples, Gumilev reinterpreted as the periods of consolidation of Russian power with that of steppe in order to oppose destructive influences from Catholic Europe, that posed a potential threat to integrity of the Russian ethnic group. Konstantin Nikolayevich Leontyev (1831-1891) was a maverick Russian philosopher who advocated closer cultural ties of Russia with the East in order to oppose catastrophic egalitarian and revolutionary influences from the West. ... Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (December 10, 1822, Obertse, Russia — November 19, 1865, Tiflis, Georgia) was a Russian ethnologist who pioneered the use of biological and morphological metaphors in the comparison of cultures. ...

In accordance with his pan-Asiatic theories, he supported the national movements of Tatars, Kazakhs, Mongols, and other Turkic peoples. Unsurprisingly, Gumilev's teachings have enjoyed immense popularity in Central Asian countries. In Kazan, for example, a monument to him was opened in August 2005. Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar/Татарлар) is a collective name applied to the Turkic people of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. ... The Kazakhs (also spelled Kazak or Qazaq), (in Kazakh: Қазақ [qÉ‘zÉ‘q]; in Russian: Казах; English term is the transliteration from Russian) are a Turkic-Mongol people of the northern parts of Central Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also found in parts of Russia and China). ... The Mongols are an ethnic group that originated in what is now Mongolia, Russia, and China, particularly Inner Mongolia. ... Kazan (Tatar Qazan, Казан, Russian Казань) is the capital city of Tatarstan and one of Russias largest cities. ... 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in August August 31: Michael Sheard August 26: Lord Fitt August 24: Jack Slipper August 24: Maurice Cowling August 24: Dr. Tom Pashby August 23: Brock Peters August 22: Lord Lane August 21: Robert Moog August...

Accusations of anti-Semitism

Gumilev did not extend this ethnological ecumenism, however, to the medieval Jews, who he regarded as a parasitic, international urban class that had dominated the Khazars who in turn had subjected the early East Slavs to the "Khazar Yoke". This last phrase he adapted from the traditional term "Tatar Yoke" for the Mongol domination of medieval Russia, a term Gumilev rejected for he did not regard the Mongol conquest as a necessarily negative event. In particular, and with virtually no support from primary sources, he asserted that the Radhanites had been instrumental in the exploitation of East Slavic people and had exerted undue influence on the sociopolitical and economic landscape of the early Middle Ages. Gumilev maintained that the Jewish culture was by nature mercantile and existed outside and in opposition to its environment.[1][2][3]. These ideas, which bears parallels to both classic anti-Semitism and elements of Nazi geopolitical theory, have led many scholars to label Gumilev antisemitic.^[4] The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ... The East Slavs are the ethnic group that evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples. ... Honorary guard of Mongolia. ... Radhanites (also Radanites, Arabic al-Radhaniyya) The Radhanites were a medieval group or guild of Jewish merchants. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Nazism. ...

For example, Victor Yasmann notes:

[..] Gumilev shows his colors both as a crude and sophisticated anti-Semite. He labels the Jews as a parasite ethnos, which has ceased to exist as a separate ethnos. In fact, according to this view, the Jews are not a nation at all, but a specific way of thinking by a certain group of people having Jewish genetic heritage and/or sharing the moral norms of Judaism. In Gumilev's view, every time a parasite ethnos dominated an indigenous ethnos, revolution, civil war, and the creation of what he calls a "chimera" statehood, followed. So it happened with French rationalists, who unleashed the Great French Revolution, and with British Puritans, who created a "chimera" state—the United States. He labels the U.S. a "parasite" state, established by dissidents and "drop outs" from the dying Anglo-Saxonian ethnos. In his view, this state can exist only by the exploitation of foreign mental, biological, and energy resources. Gumilev links the French and American states to Jews, with the explicit statement that both of their intellectual and spiritual foundations come from the Old Testament.^[5]

For the rare minieral, see Parisite. ... An ideology is a collection of ideas. ... Genetics (from the Greek genno γεννώ= give birth) is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. ... A moral is a one sentence remark made at the end of many childrens stories that expresses the intended meaning, or the moral message, of the tale. ... Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. ... It has been suggested that Revolutionary be merged into this article or section. ... A civil war is a war in which the competing parties within the same country or empire struggle for national control of state power. ... In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a monstrous creature made of the parts of multiple animals. ... The Anglo-Saxons refers collectively to the groups of Germanic tribes who achieved dominance in southern Britain from the mid-5th century, forming the basis for the modern English nation. ... Note: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh, but not Old Testament, because it does not recognize the concept of a New Testament. ...

Works

• The Hsiung-nu (1960)
• Ancient Turks (1964)
• Searching for an Imaginary Kingdom : The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John (1970)
• The Hsiung-nu in China (1974)
• Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of Earth (1978)
• Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe (1989)
• An end and a new begining (1989)
• From the Rus to Russia (1992)

Xiongnu (匈奴; meaning Xiongs slaves, Xiong being a Chinese transliteration of a national name but also meaning savage/raucous/ferocious, however some argued that the two words are both transliteration, in this case the sense of slaves does not exist) was the term given by the Chinese to nomadic... Prester John The legend of Prester John (also Presbyter John), popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, told of a mythical Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. ... The origins of the Rus (Rus , Русь) are controversial. ...

References

1. ^  Gumilev's anti-semitism has been noted by a number of commentors and scholars. E.g., Rossman, Vadim, et al. Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post Communist Era (Studies in Antisemitism Series). Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2005; Malakhov, Vladimir. "Racism and Migrants". (Trans. Mischa Gabowitsch.) Neprikosnovennij Zapas, 2003; Klier, John. " The Myth of the Khazars and Intellectual Antisemitism in Russia, 1970s–1990s". The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 83, Number 4, 1 October 2005, pp. 779-781(3). See also, e.g., FSU Moniter Russia Regional Report 2001; Yasmann, Victor. "The Rise of the Eurasians". The Eurasian Politician - Issue 4 (August 2001) Radio Free Europe, 1992.
2. ^  Yasmann, Victor. "Red Religion:An Ideology of Neo-Messianic Russian Fundamentalism." Demoktratizat: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. Volume 1, No. 2. p. 26.

See also

• Nikolai Danilevsky
• Konstantin Leontyev
• Mikhail Artamonov
• Igor Diakonov

Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (December 10, 1822, Obertse, Russia — November 19, 1865, Tiflis, Georgia) was a Russian ethnologist who pioneered the use of biological and morphological metaphors in the comparison of cultures. ... Konstantin Nikolayevich Leontyev (1831-1891) was a maverick Russian philosopher who advocated closer cultural ties of Russia with the East in order to oppose catastrophic egalitarian and revolutionary influences from the West. ... The site of the Khazar fortress of Sarkel, which was discovered and excavated by Artamonov in the 1930s. ... Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov (Russian: ) (born December 30, 1914 in Petrograd) is a Russian historian who should be ranked among the greatest authorities on Ancient East and its languages. ...

External links

• Gumilevica: All about Gumilev
• The criticism towards the West and the future of Russia-Eurasia by Galya Andreyeva Krasteva at The Eurasian Politician