Does an Ethnos Possess Independent Being? Reflections on Disagreement with Lev Gumilyov. Column for Computerra #125

← Dmytro Shabanov → How can we bring our innate propensity for xenophobia under rational control? Does an Ethnos Possess Independent Being? Reflections on Disagreement with Lev Gumilyov Once More on the Nature of the Ethnos, and on the Diversity of Supersystems Column for Computerra #124 Column for Computerra #125 Column for Computerra #126 In three columns (here they are: the first, the second, and the third), written in August of this year, I ventured onto territory where I do not feel entirely confident. The attempt to characterise the diversity of ecological niches occupied by representatives of our species in traditional societies held for me not merely academic interest. It seems to me that the character of the ecological niche (the specific features of a community’s relationship with its habitat) determines a great many of the distinctive traits of its culture and, in a certain sense, its very destiny. Of course, this factor is far from the only one influencing culture; there are others — probably even more important ones. Yet this factor is nonetheless special, if only because it is catastrophically underestimated. When I began developing this theme in my columns, I anticipated receiving a rebuke pointing out my insufficient level of competence and the fact that I was merely distorting the conclusions of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov. Strangely enough, readers of Computerra complain about my incompetence more often when I write on matters related to ecology (a field in which I hold, after all, an academic degree, a certain number of works devoted to population ecology, and more than two decades of experience teaching general ecology). The columns about the cultural characteristics in question were, for some reason, not criticised in that manner… Yet a comparison of what I wrote with Gumilyov’s views is necessary in any case. Depending on whether we agree with Gumilyov or not, we will answer differently the pressing questions of the present day — among them the problem of the attitude toward migrants who represent other ethnoses. Some of the critics of the previous column expressed judgements that fit quite well within the logic of Lev Gumilyov. I disagree with them, and I wish to explain why. First of all, it must be said that Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov was a man of exceptional destiny. The son of Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova, he was born in 1912, and very soon afterwards relations between his parents deteriorated. In 1921 Nikolai Gumilyov was shot. A heavy millstone passed over the life of Lev Gumilyov: arrest, brief release, another arrest, a sentence, civil disenfranchisement, war, a short peaceful interval and the defence of his kandidat dissertation, yet another arrest, more camps… This sequence of events occupied the period from 1935 to 1956. Then came the defence of doctoral dissertations in history and geography (the geographical one was not approved). Scholarly work conducted against a background of disapproval of his ideas by a significant part of the academic community, an unsuccessful election to the Academy of Sciences, retirement in 1986, and death in 1992. Gumilyov regards the history of humanity as a consequence of the development and interaction of ethnoses. The concept of ethnos is highly complex, and different scholarly schools interpret it in different ways. The concept is closest in meaning to the well-known word “people” or “nation.” Ethnoses are characterised by a certain commonality from the standpoint of their culture (including language and religion), origin (the notorious kinship by “blood”), and self-identification (the conceptions of communality characteristic of the people who constitute the ethnoses). Some scholars attach particular significance precisely to self-identification, while others (like Gumilyov) emphasise origin. Gumilyov pays particular attention to the formation of an ethnos, in the course of which it becomes bound to one or another landscape (a territorial complex characterised by a certain unity from the standpoint of relief, climate, geological structure, and biological communities). As a result of some unknown interaction with the landscape, the representatives of an ethnos may acquire a certain social energy called passionarity. It is the passionate individuals (passionaries) who, according to Gumilyov, make history… In characterising his approach, Gumilyov writes things that gladden my soul. He declares that he wishes to examine the cultural evolution of humanity using the systems approach, acting in the manner that is customary in the natural sciences. Incidentally, it pleases me greatly that, in characterising landscapes, Gumilyov employs the term “anthropofauna.” Another question is whether Lev Nikolaevich actually succeeds in applying the natural-scientific approach — or whether it all reduces to mere decoration. “‘But this is biologism!’ So cry those who do not reflect on the essence of natural phenomena. <…> This is a supplement to social evolution, not a replacement for it, for progress is a process of development of the social whole, and the ethnos may be compared with the smaller taxonomic units within the species Homo sapiens, the genus Hominides, the order Primates, the family Mammalia (mammals), and the class Animalia (animals). We are a product of the terrestrial biosphere to the same degree that we are bearers of social progress. Natural scientists accepted the systems approach with delight, while humanities scholars ignored it. And this is no accident: philologists and historians draw their primary knowledge from written sources, and in those sources there is not a word about systemic connections. From their point of view, systems are a fiction, and moreover a useless one. But what are we to do with ethnoses? Very simply: one must distinguish them by their names; and those names must be learned from the ethnoses themselves, as in a passport office of the militia. No, this is not a joke, but, alas, a scholarly attitude that persists to this day.” Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov. “Ethnosphere: The History of Peoples and the History of Nature” At this point certain questions arise for me. One of them is connected with the fact that a doctor of sciences — a humanist who appeals to natural-scientific knowledge — does not take the trouble to familiarise himself with that knowledge. The name of our species is Homo sapiens, and it follows from this with complete inevitability that we belong to the genus Homo. Alas, an enormous number of writers do not understand the essence of binomial nomenclature. In zoology, the Latin name of a species (and only that name is a true one; the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature do not extend to other languages) consists of two words. The first word is the generic name (always written with a capital letter), and the second is the specific epithet (always written in lower case). Could it be that Gumilyov confused the genus with the family? The name of the family to which we belong resembles what he wrote, but is nonetheless different — Hominidae. As for mammals being a class rather than a family, and animals a kingdom rather than a class — these are, generally speaking, elementary truths, the foundations of the school curriculum. Will you say I am quibbling over trifles? They seem to me highly significant. In any case, the central problem is as follows. Is an ethnos a system that must be studied by natural-scientific methods, or is it something about which one should simply ask its representatives (and yes — one must ask the representatives of ethnoses, not the ethnoses themselves, as Gumilyov writes)? Does an ethnos possess independent being, existing as other systems investigated by the natural sciences exist, or is it simply the result of the self-identification of individual human beings? This key problem can also be formulated thus: is an ethnos a phenomenon or an epiphenomenon? A phenomenon is something that manifests itself; an epiphenomenon is that which possesses only apparent being. If the key cause forming ethnoses (or, more precisely, conceptions of them) is the self-identification of the people who compose them, ethnoses may be regarded as epiphenomena. Viewed “from the outside,” the Russian people does not exist, nor does the Chechen people, nor the Jewish people — there exist only people who perceive themselves as part of the Russian people, the Chechen people, or the Jewish people. If, as Gumilyov believed, the ethnos is something integral, bound by a common origin to a particular landscape, receiving and redistributing the energies that nourish its passionarity, then it is, of course, a phenomenon. In the language of ethnologists, the choice I have just characterised can be presented as a choice between primordialism (the ethnos is something primary) and constructivism (the ethnos is that which is constructed within the culture of the people who constitute it). Could it be that the problem I have just characterised is of purely academic interest? If only it were! The ideology of nationalism regards the nation (something akin to the ethnos in Gumilyov’s interpretation, with the emphasis on “blood”) as something possessing an intrinsic value surpassing the value of individual persons. Both Gumilyov and many nationalists justify their conclusions by appeals to biology. And at this point I feel that these arguments touch on a sphere that represents for me professional interest. Well then, there is something to examine. Of course, the first reaction of a biologist who sees humanists propping up their arguments with appeals to biology is indignation. Why do they not attempt to understand that to which they appeal? Do you think the confusion of classes and families is the only example? “What remained unclear was only how the passionaries themselves arise and wherein they differ from their fellow tribespeople. A friend who was a biologist, also a student, suggested the word: ‘mutation.’ And indeed! Only this is a micro-mutation, changing something in the hormonal system of the organism and thereby creating a new behavioural trait. The person remains himself, but behaves differently.” “Passionarity is a hereditary trait — apparently recessive, since it is transmitted skipping over children and grandchildren, to great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.” L. N. Gumilyov That the son of two poets, who spent a significant portion of his life in the labour camps, should not know the school curriculum in biology is entirely forgivable. That a doctor of sciences, who justifies his concepts using terms from an area of knowledge largely unfamiliar to him, should not even have taken the trouble to understand them is, in my view, entirely inadmissible. Alas, the quoted passage shows that Gumilyov does not understand how behavioural traits arise (and, incidentally, what role culture plays in their emergence), does not understand how hormones work, what role hereditary traits play in the regulation of behaviour, and does not understand the meaning of the words “mutation,” “micro-mutation,” or “recessive.” Regrettable… As a biologist, I find the theme of the relationship between an ethnos and landscape to be of particular interest. Gumilyov speaks of proposing a classification of cultures according to the principle of their interaction with nature, and offers a very simple division of ethnoses into two groups — those integrated into the landscape and those that transform it (ethnoses in a persistent or historical state). He regarded persistent ethnoses as part of the landscape (as its anthropofauna), ignoring the transformations of biocoenoses that result from the presence of human beings within them. Ethnoses in the historical state do, after all, alter landscapes, but… It is simply vexing to read! Gumilyov writes of the alteration of the landscape by the ethnos, rather than of the character of the ethnos’s relationship with the landscape — which is, in my opinion, to confuse consequence with cause. The alteration of the landscape, if it occurs, is a consequence of the character of the relationship with it. For example, if a certain people clears forests by practising slash-and-burn agriculture, a geographer will click his tongue observing the change in the landscape, while its cause (the specific exploitation of resources, determined by the character of the agriculture) will be perceived first and foremost by an ecologist. And it will be clear to the ecologist that within one and the same landscape there may live peoples who interact with their environment in quite different ways. In forest and steppe one may live by hunting, or one may take up pastoralism (predominantly in the steppe) or agriculture (on territory wrested from the forest). A great many of the cultural characteristics of the ethnoses inhabiting these regions will be determined precisely by their way of life and will, moreover, be restructured if the relationship with the environment changes. Now as for the appeals to biology. I see in them nothing but strained analogies. The only “evidence” of the biological nature of passionarity that I found in Gumilyov is an analogy with the migrations of locusts. Following the works of Sir Boris Uvarov (a Russian entomologist who moved to Britain), published in the early twentieth century, the mystical aura has been stripped from locust migrations. There are no grounds whatsoever for suspecting that human beings possess a mechanism switching individual development between the solitary and gregarious phases. The analogy does not hold. Generally speaking, the bane of many people who reason about quasi-biological topics is an incomprehension of the specific nature of different levels of biosystems. Yes, living systems are organised hierarchically. Yes, there is a certain analogy in the fact that cells form an organism, and organisms form a population. But it does not follow at all from this that an organism and a population function in a similar manner. An organism is a system bounded from its environment that survives and reproduces as a single whole and possesses specific regulatory systems (nervous, humoral, immune). A population may have no boundaries other than purely statistical ones, functions by virtue of the reproduction, development, and death of the organisms composing it (which stand in the most varied of relationships to one another, including competition), and is devoid of regulatory structures. I am in complete agreement with Gumilyov that we are a product of the terrestrial biosphere, but this does not prevent me from seeing the cardinal difference between taxonomic groups and ethnoses. Such analogies only impede understanding. The conception of the independent being of ethnoses — of the “objectivity” of individual persons’ belonging to them (primordialism) — has no biological foundation (nor, I presume, any other kind). Pure mythology. Biology (and ecology as a part of it) can assist ethnology in a different way — in understanding the interconnections with the environment of individual human beings and their dynamically arising and restructuring groups. There is much here to think about and to investigate… And so, it has become clear to me. The ethnos is an epiphenomenon. ← Dmytro Shabanov → How can we bring our innate propensity for xenophobia under rational control? Does an Ethnos Possess Independent Being? Reflections on Disagreement with Lev Gumilyov Once More on the Nature of the Ethnos, and on the Diversity of Supersystems Column for Computerra #124 Column for Computerra #125 Column for Computerra #126