David Brooks on Vladimir Putin

David Brooks
New York Times

David Brooks, in "Putin Can't Stop" (New York Times, March 3, 2014), proposes some incalculable factors in Russian nationalism, as shaped by Russian messianism:

To enter into the world of Putin's favorite philosophers [i.e., Nikolai Berdyaev's The Philosophy of Inequality, Vladimir Solovyov's Justification of the Good, and Ivan Ilyin's Our Tasks] is to enter a world full of melodrama, mysticism and grandiose eschatological visions. [For example:] "We trust and are confident that the hour will come when Russia will rise from disintegration and humiliation and begin an epoch of new development and greatness," Ilyin wrote.

Three great ideas run through this work. The first is Russian exceptionalism: the idea that Russia has its own unique spiritual status and purpose. The second is devotion to the Orthodox faith. The third is belief in autocracy. Mashed together, these philosophers point to a Russia that is a quasi-theocratic nationalist autocracy destined to play a culminating role on the world stage.

These philosophers often argued that the rationalistic, materialistic West was corrupting the organic spiritual purity of Russia. "The West exported this anti-Christian virus to Russia," Ilyin wrote, "Having lost our bond with God and the Christian tradition, mankind has been morally blinded, gripped by materialism, irrationalism and nihilism."

Brooks declines to think that Putin takes these views so seriously, but worries that Putin might be unable to contain the nationalist forces he's using against the West for its support of Ukraine's rebellion. Keep in mind that quasi-religious urgings of this sort are "incalculable."

But . . . although Brooks is reminding us of some actual ideas with a long history among Russians, I wonder if he's being fair to the complexity of Berdyaev and Solovyov (Ilyin is perhaps a different matter). Or does Brooks mean that Putin has deformed the thought of these thinkers to support Russian nationalism's messianic bent?

Any experts out there among my readers who can better inform us?

Marie-Hélène Congourdeau: On Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus

Changing Fortunes of the Byzantine Empire

(Image from Wikipedia)

Over at the MideastWeb Middle East Web Log, Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, a scholar on the Byzantine Empire, offers her views on Pope Benedict XVI's quote from the writings of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. Interestingly, her rendering of the quote partly confirms my own:

Show me that Mohammed brought anything new: you will find nothing, but bad and inhuman, for instance what he states by ordering his faith to be imposed by sword.

I don't know if Congourdeau is translating or quoting a translation, but her quote uses the term "bad" rather than "evil" -- and she'd certainly know what the Greek stated, for she informs us:

I happen to know about Manuel II and to have studied this text.

For those interested in checking sources, she supplies some:

The controversial statement ... is taken from the 7th chapter of a book which is composed of 26 chapters.

This 7th book was edited in 1966 by Th. Khoury in Sources Chretiennes 115, and, it seems, it is from this edition that Pope took this statement, since he quotes Th. Khoury. The entire Greek text was edited by E. Trapp in 1966 in the Wiener Byzantinische Studien. A revised edition is being done by K. Förstel in the le Corpus islamo-christianum, series graeca. A German translation of chapters 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 has been published by R. Senoner in 2003 in Wien.

If anyone has a chance to check the Greek, I'd be interested in seeing the original quote.

Congourdeau also tells us some interesting points about this text:

Contrary to many treatises of anti-Muslim polemics, which we find in Western Christendom as well as in the Byzantine Empire, this text is the written record of a discussion that really took place. Manuel presents his Muslim partner in a positive way, as an host respectful and curious to know the religion of his host. The discussion is as cordial as frank, since neither of the two hesitates to expose what he doesn't like in the religion of the other. The relations between both men are not altered by it. This text is one of the first interreligious dialogues, where each people displays his own truth and looks for dialogue without disavowing anything of what he believes.

Nevertheless, the emperor seems to have altered the text in writing down the conversation some years later:

The editor, Th. Khoury, writes in his introduction: "The immoderate expressions, relatively rare, which we can read in the text come mostly from the liberties that Manuel took when finally writing his text". The fact that Bayezid was besieging Constantinople when Manuel was writing can explain the hardening of his language.

Congourdeau implies, but does not explicitly state, that the now infamous quote -- "Mohammed brought ... nothing, but bad and inhuman" -- stems from this later period.

Congourdeau also notes that "[a]t the time of Manuel, when Byzantines objected to the idea of a holy war, they have as a line of sight, in the same time, Muslim Jihad and western crusade ... [especially] the trauma of 4th Crusade and all the expeditions when they saw Christian soldiers with a cross ... handling a sword ... [in] the name of Christ." I don't blame them for thinking this way. The later Crusades were as often directed against the Byzantines as against the Muslims -- and probably hastened the fall of the Christian Byzantine Empire to the Muslim Ottoman Turks.

But who is Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, aside from being a scholar on the Byzantine Empire? She's a member of the Comité Français des Études Byzantines, an association dedicated to scholarship on Byzantium, and you can find her CV and even a photograph by clicking her name on the member list. An even better photograph, as well as one of her articles online, can be found at the website Clio, which appears to be a French organization that organizes conferences, publishes books, and generally informs people about history and the world.

Tall order.