Zaur T. Gasimov Livres

There was hardly another German author from the first half of the 20th century who was quoted, reviewed and criticized so often in the time immediately after World War I as the philosopher of culture and history Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). The contributions in this volume represent the first systematic look at the phenomenon of the many ways in which Spengler´s philosophy was “transferred” in Europe between the two world wars. They investigate the deep impact of the various levels of his literary reception in Western, Eastern and Southern Europe.

Since the beginning of the Modern Age, the Principality of Moscow was eager to expand toward the West and South of Europe. During the Romanov Dynasty Russia included broad swaths of populations that did not speak Russian and even had various different religions. After Poland was divided up and the Caucasus and parts of Central Asia had been conquered in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Czar obtained full control of very expansive cultural areas, which Russia attempted to assimilate as part of their colonization from the mid-1800s on. Such efforts were also undertaken with the weapons of language: speaking Polish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian was forbidden, and only Russian was allowed in schools and official public offices.

Die politischen Regimes der VR Polen und der UdSSR befanden sich in den 1980er Jahren in einem Zerfallsprozess, der 1989 in die Demokratisierung Polens und 1991 in den natürlichen Kollaps des Sowjetimperiums mündete. Die Militärs beider Staaten versuchten in dieser Zeit die Reste der Ideologie, vor allem die Geschichtsdeutung zu instrumentalisieren, um eigene Interessen zu sichern. Das polnische Militär setzte auf den traditionellen Nationalismus und die sowjetische Armeeführung schwankte zwischen großrussischem Chauvinismus und internationalistischer Rhetorik. Während sich allerdings polnische Militärmedien ab 1988 objektiver z. B. mit Józef Pisudski und Katyn befassten, stellte die Sowjetarmee noch bis Ende 1991 z. B. die sowjetische Okkupation des Baltikums und der Westukraine in Frage und versuchte vergeblich den Mythos des „Großen Vaterländischen Krieges“ zu instrumentalisieren.