Return To the Middle Ages
D URING the First World War it was usual for the Allies to represent their cause as that of democracy, which was defined as the free and spontaneous movement of the human spirit, unfettered by logic. Germany, on the other hand, stood for machine-like regularity and cold, calculating rationality. Henri Bergson and Gustav LeBon grew quite eloquent on this theme. During the Second War, the roles were reversed. This time Germany was the country of blind instinct and wild emotional surges, moving in a kind of somnambulism and thinking with its blood. The West stood for reason and logic, for an ordered view of life in conformity with permanent rational values. In defiance of all respectable historiography, the United Nations were made the heirs of the cool and tranquil culture of Rome, with Christian universalism added, whereas Germany represented the survival of the frenetic barbarism of the Nordic pagans. Even the boundary line was supplied: it was the Wall of Limes in southern Germany, which marked the farthest outpost of permanent Roman settlement. Now that the Third War is in the offing, the boundary line has been changed, but the protagonists remain much the same. The Wall of Limes has moved to the Elbe, a shift which makes naturalized democrats of the Germans, who a short time ago were regarded as the mortal foes of democracy. On the west bank of the Elbe today stands Christian democracy, a sort of Joan of Arc, the champion of reason and natural law, while atheistic Bolshevism, foe of this two-millenial culture, glowers from the east bank. The reader can document this picture from his daily paper. There is nothing new or out of the way about this. The Incas, before conquering an adjoining people, used always to spread the story that their enemies were cannibals and deserved what they were about to get. What the Incas said may or may not have been true, but it is certain that the current representation of the East-West dispute is false. The idea of a unified Christendom with a common heritage was always a myth, and the myth itself was shattered at the Reformation. Democracy, again, is the product of the spiritual individualism and the secular rationalism which replaced the theocratic conception of a law of nature of the middle ages, and is altogether inconsistent with that conception. Ten years ago no one would have had the face to talk the kind of history that is now current.
Spectacular Heritage: ‘Total Restoration’ at the Site of Carcassonne
This article discusses the rise of the heritage site as spectacular theme park through a case study of Carcassonne in southern France, which has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site and includes all the trappings of mass European tourism. This medieval town is a meta-site of changing practices in architectural conservation, as it was first subjected to extensive restorations under the direction of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the mid-1800s. It is this history of conservation which assists in making the argument that the phenomenon of the heritage site as spectacle is not only a contemporary transformation, but also has roots in nineteenth century practices.
PLEASURE, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOVIET YOUTH AND STATE-SPONSORED POPULAR CULTURE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR, 1945-1968
art, with certain students accused of “showing political immaturity, failing to understand the Party’s positions on art.” This episode constituted part of a broader crackdown on abstract art by the Khrushchev administration from late 1962, precipitated the the Soviet leader’s derision of such art forms in December 1962 at the Manege exhibit. Such instances demonstrate the limitations of the top-level promotion of youth grassroots initiative, as the Khrushchev leadership reigned in youth autonomy when it threatened to go beyond the boundaries of the permissible. The dates cited above have particular resonance, since both 1957-58 and 1962-63 represent two periods when those at the top of the Party hierarchy moved away from pursuing a more pluralistic, tolerant policy course, due to anxiety inspired by both sharpening Cold War hostilities and domestic developments. In these periods, official rhetoric censured what it labeled as 639 TsAOPIM, f. 635, op. 13, d. 546, ll. 56-57. This is likely related to criticism of the Party associated with the fallout from the Secret Speech and the Hungary invasion. For more, see Polly Jones, “From the Secret Speech to the Burial of Stalin: Real and Ideal Responses to De-Stalinization,” in Jones ed., The Dilemmas, 41-63. 640 TsAOPIM, f. 6083, op. 1, d. 52, ll. 166-67. 641 Susan E. Reid, “In the Name of the People: The Manege Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6.4 (Fall 2005): 673716. 642 On these anxieties, see Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer, 156-88.