The Lesser Evil

2004 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 187-201
Author(s):  
Avishai Margalit
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Stuart Hampshire ◽  
Lesser Evil ◽  
The French Revolution

‘The Russian Revolution and the National Socialist ascendancy in Germany are the two most important sources of evidence of moral philosophy in our time, as the French Revolution was for Hegel and Marx, and later to Tocqueville and for Mill. Although both revolutions produced, both in intention and in effect, a triumph on a gigantic scale, there are often remarked differences between the evil effects planned and achieved.’ This is an observation made by Stuart Hampshire, a keen philosophical connoisseur of the 20th century.

scholarly journals France and the French in “Okayannye dni” by I. A. Bunin

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-222
Author(s):  
D. D. Nikolaev
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
French History ◽  
Historical Responsibility ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City ◽  
The French Revolution

One of the main motives in “Odessa” part of I. A. Bunin’s “Okayannye dni” is connected with France. For the first time “Okayannye dni” was published in 1925 on the pages of Paris émigré newspaper “Vozrozhdenie”, and Bunin's text was addressed not only to Russian, but also to foreign audience, primarily French. The editorial circumstances of the first publication should be taken into account when explaining the significance of the “French” motives, but journalistic logic of 1925 follows the specific circumstances of life in Odessa and related author’s experience of 1919. “The French” appear in the first fragment of the “Okayannye dni”, published in the first issue of “Renaissance” on June 3, 1925. In the newspaper publication the starting point is the decision of the French troops to leave Odessa. Bunin does not directly accuse France of abandoning the city and its inhabitants, but then constantly returns to the motive of unfulfilled hopes associated with the French. The French navy destroyer becomes a symbol of the hopes and their collapse. Two other lines connecting Russia and France are also pointed in the first fragment of the “Okayannye dni”. Bunin writes about modern political events and about French history. Bunin constantly reminds the French of their historical responsibility for committing and canonizing their “great” revolution, thus setting an example of the Russian revolution. Among the semantic centers of the “Okayannye dni” in the newspaper publication are fragments about the leaders of the French revolution, in which Bunin refers to the book “Vielles maisons, vieux papiers” by G. Lenotre. References to Lenotr’s book help to avoid a negative assessment of the French revolution as a view of the Russian “from the outside”. Significant changes in the text of the “Okayannye dni” in the book edition in Berlin in 1935 also relate to French motives. Their significance is reduced both by removing fragments and by the restoration of the natural chronological structure, in which the “Okayannye dni” now begin in Moscow on January 1, 1918, not by departure of the French troops from Odessa in 1919.

scholarly journals Die Rezeption der Werke Johann Georg Zimmermanns in Montpellier

Gesnerus ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 174-187
Author(s):  
Brigitte Lohff
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Medical Experience ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Medical Concepts ◽  
The French Revolution

At the end of the 18th century the French physicians discussed Johann Georg Zimmermann's medical concepts (i.e. medical experience, the influence of the soul on health and disease). In contrast to the German scientists, the French, especially those from the School of Montpellier, accepted Zimmermann's medical views as a confirmation of vitalism and neohippocratic medicine. In Germany, Zimmermann's medical works fell into oblivion after his death until the middle of 20th century. This may be a concequence of his intimate contacts to the European high nobility and of his polemic attacks against friends and enemies as well as his contempt for all forms of democracy and the French Revolution.

The Anatomy of The Saudi Revolution

1974 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Edens
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Common Features ◽  
The French Revolution

In his classic study of revolution, Crane Brinton succeeds in uncovering certain common features, or uniformities, which are present in all four of the great Western revolutions. In analysing the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the more recent Russian Revolution, he employs ‘the fever of revolution’ as a conceptual measure of social disequilibrium. This pathological analogy provides a means of focusing attention upon the key uniformities of revolution.

scholarly journals What is conservatism? History, ideology and party

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Karl Mannheim ◽  
Conservative Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
The French Revolution

Is there a political philosophy of conservatism? A history of the phenomenon written along sceptical lines casts doubt on the existence of a transhistorical doctrine, or even an enduring conservative outlook. The main typologies of conservatism uniformly trace its origins to opposition to the French Revolution. Accordingly, Edmund Burke is standardly singled out as the ‘father’ of this style of politics. Yet Burke was de facto an opposition Whig who devoted his career to assorted programmes of reform. In restoring Burke to his original milieu, the argument presented here takes issue with 20th-century accounts of conservative ideology developed by such figures as Karl Mannheim, Klaus Epstein and Samuel Huntington. It argues that the idea of a conservative tradition is best seen as a belated construction, and that the notion of a univocal philosophy of conservatism is basically misconceived.

5. What it started

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
William Doyle
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Western World ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Popular Power ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

The Revolution began as an assertion of national sovereignty. Nations were the new supreme source of authority in human affairs. ‘What it started’ considers the effects of the French Revolution over the 19th century. A new principle of political legitimacy began, and the sovereignty of nations achieved successful acceptance throughout the Western world. In the 20th century, it would be used to expel Europeans from overseas colonies. What part did the Revolution play in defining a ‘nation’ in 19th-century terms? What significance did popular power have? Can there ever be a true revolution without terror? The legacy of the French Revolution in the 19th century was momentous, yet always partial and often paradoxical.

Six Views of the Russian Revolution

1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Billington
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Democratic Revolution ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

IF a central problem for any nineteenth-century thinker was that of defining his attitude toward the French Revolution, a central one for contemporary man is his appraisal of the Russian Revolution. The latter problem is even more critical, for nearly one billion people explicitly claim to be heirs and defenders of the Russian Revolution. Forces called into being by the upheaval of 1917 are even more forcefully mobilized and tangibly powerful than those called into being by the French Revolution of 1789 and the “age of the democratic revolution.” Thus, as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution of 1917 and the volume of writings threatens to reach avalanche proportions, it might be well to take a critical look at the historical studies and reflections that have been called forth in what might well be called the age of the totalitarian revolution.

scholarly journals The “Vendee” of the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907? The Western Provinces and the Black Hundreds

2021 ◽  
pp. 30-34
Author(s):  
T. Rocchi
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Equal Sign ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The French Revolution

The western French department of the Vendee has acquired a certain regional identity in the politics of historical memory not only of the French Revolution but also of the Russian Revolution of 1917-1922. The royalist rebellion of the Vendee peasants between 1793-1796 has become a synonym for a region of mass lower-class counter-revolution. Not surprisingly, both supporters and opponents of the Bolsheviks tried to find parallels with the French Revolution to explain the massiveness of anti-Bolshevik opposition in certain regions of the former Russian Empire. Often both Reds and Whites called the Cossack lands, especially the Don, the Vendee of the Russian Revolution. However, it is impossible to place an equal sign between the Vendee peasants, fighting for king and church, and anti-Bolshevik Cossacks and peasants because the Cossacks and peasants were not fighting for the restoration of the monarchy. One can find a Russian equivalent to the Vendee regional concept of mass counter-revolution in the nine western provinces of the Russian Empire in the Revolution of 1905-1907. These provinces, along with six other provinces, comprised the Jewish Pale of Settlement and became bastions of the Union of the Russian People and other Black Hundred organizations. Unlike the interior Russian regions, the western provinces were multiethnic and multireligious. The western provinces had mass protest movements and outbreaks of terrorism where ethnic, religious and social factors intersected. The amorphous populist Black Hundred ideology could attract mass support in the western provinces from all those seeing themselves as victims of all different variations of exploitation and injustices from the hands of different establishments.

scholarly journals Kant as the German Theorist of the French Revolution: the Origin of a Dogma

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Alexei N. Krouglov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Historical School ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The French Revolution

The origins in Marxist-Leninist philosophy of the dogma about Kant as the German theorist of the French Revolution requires some analysis and I explain how a phrase of Marx later gave rise to the dogma. I first look at the sources that influenced K. Marx’s view of Kant and the French Revolution, above all С. F. Bachmann and H. Heine. I then examine the form in which Kant’s philosophy was compared with the French Revolution in the non-Bolshevik milieu before the 1917 Russian Revolution (P. Ya. Chaadayev, V. S. Mezhevich, the Dostoyevsky brothers, V. F. Ern, Archbishop Nikanor, P. A. Florensky). Then I look at how Marx’s phrase influenced Russian social democrats and specifically the Bolsheviks (G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin, V. M. Shulyatikov). I cite the example of the discussion triggered by a letter of Z. Ya. Beletsky concerning the third volume of The History of Philosophy (1943) to demonstrate the non-canonical status of Marx’s thesis on Kant and the French Revolution in the Soviet Union in the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, the first Soviet edition of Kant’s works in the 1960s canonised Marx’s phrase and gave the exact source. The reason why it took so long to give chapter and verse for the Marx quotation is that it occurs as early as 1842 in “The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law” which belongs to the idealistic period of the early Marx.

SCOTTISH PERSPECTIVES ON WAR AND PATRIOTISM IN THE 1790s

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA PLASSART
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
National Sentiment ◽  
New Form ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The French Revolution

ABSTRACTThe article examines Scottish discussions surrounding the French revolutionary wars in the early and mid-1790s. It argues that these discussions were not built along the lines of the dispute that set Burke against the English radicals, because arguments about French ‘cosmopolitan’ love for mankind were largely irrelevant in the context of Smithian moral philosophy. The Scottish writers who observed French developments in the period (including the Edinburgh Moderates, James Mackintosh, John Millar, and Lord Lauderdale) were, however, particularly interested in what they interpreted as France's changing notion of patriotism, and built upon the heritage of Smithian moral philosophy in order to offer original and powerful commentaries of French national feeling and warfare. They identified the ‘enthusiastic’ nature of French national sentiment, and the replacement of traditional patriotism with a new form of relationship between the individual and the nation, as the most significant and dangerous element to come out of the French Revolution.

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