CfA: Kreisau-Fellows of the George Bell Institute

Call for Applications

Fellowship Program of the George Bell Institute (Chichester, UK), Kreisau Foundation for Mutual Understanding (Krzyżowa, PL), supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Stuttgart, DE)

The Kreisau-Fellows of the George Bell Institute

The Kreisau Fellows of the George Bell Institute are a network of writers, scholars, researchers and artists from Central and Eastern Europe. The Fellowship promotes difference and diversity as essential to the creative ties between generations and minds in the pursuit of understanding and justice. The Kreisau Fellows are dedicated to providing a broader context for ideas and projects based on the perception of the individual as the driving force of social and cultural change.

Deadline: January 15th, 2011

'For us post-war Europe is less a question of frontiers and soldiers, of top-heavy organisations and grandiose plans, than the question as to how the image of man can be re-established in the hearts of our fellow citizens.' Helmuth James von Moltke, 1942

'I insist, once again, on the significance of persons.' George Bell, 1943

'Never forget your humanity, and respect human dignity in your dealings with others.' Robert Bosch

Profile of the Kreisau Fellows:

Helmuth James von Moltke and his friends shared with their British ally George Bell a profound belief in the vision of the individual. They saw that the prospects of civilization itself could depend upon men and women whose creative convictions might present an alternative to accepted conventions and established institutions. Moreover, both Moltke and Bell affirmed the fundamental importance of circles of friendship which might reach across boundaries of any kind to sustain creative life and thought. Robert Bosch, too, saw that such ideals must be maintained in the conditions of everyday life and he sought to advance them in the broad context of his own work. Accordingly, the moral worlds of the lawyer, the bishop and the entrepreneur shared a striking courage, conviction and eloquence in response to the dangers of dictatorship and war.

Accordingly we are looking for candidates who possess a creative commitment which responds to the distinctive spirit which was shown by Bell, Bosch and Moltke:

1. The Kreisau Fellows are individuals with excellent intellectual achievements to their names within the humanities and the fields of natural and social sciences. More specifically they may be engaged in working in such diverse disciplines as translation, literature, physics, medicine, theatre, art, music and acting. What unites them is a vision that is both distinctive and creative, a shared commitment to their own societies and a belief in the forging of international relationships.

2. A Kreisau Fellowship enables a candidate to either realize or continue his/her professional goals in his/her own country while at the same time bringing them into an international community. The Fellowship ensures a relative independence from the existing socio-economic and political conditions and provides a (sympathetic) lasting international framework in which their commitments are recognised, encouraged and promoted. The scholarship is not paid in monthly rates, but is attached to specific projects or research costs.

3. The Fellows are expected to contribute to the international programme of the Kreisau Foundation and to spend their sabbatical in Kreisau within the first two years after receiving the financial support.

4. The candidates should come from CEE countries.

5. The communication language of the programme is English.

Selection criteria:
- A completed arts or academic degree and some work experience. The Fellowship Network aims at a mix of people of different ages.
- A willingness to participate in the international network in the period of financial support as well as beyond that specified period.
- An interest in and willingness to conduct part of the proposed project in Kreisau itself (for example in the form of a sabbatical) and a commitment to contribute to the programme locally.

Selection procedure:
- Candidates can apply or be proposed by the partners of the Kreisau Fellowships Programme (Robert Bosch Stiftung, George Bell Institute, Kreisau Foundation) and by current Fellows.
- Candidates will be selected by the Selection Committee 2 times a year (June 30, January 31).
- The Selection Committee consists of representatives of the Kreisau Foundation, the George Bell Institute and the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
- The selection of a candidate is conducted in three stages:

First stage: Documents are submitted (a CV, a project proposal, which is to be realized through participation in the network).

Second stage: A trustee of the George Bell Institute, Kreisau Foundation or Robert Bosch Stiftung is asked to give an expertise/recommendation/reference of selected candidate.

Third stage: The candidate will have an interview with a representative of the Selection Committee.

Financial support
Fellows will be granted up to 5.000 Euro a year for their arts and research projects (research trip, conferences), books and other materials; 800 Euro for travelling expenses to Krzyżowa and spend a sabbatical (1 month) in Krzyżowa.

Please submit your application (CV and Motivation Letter including a project description, which you would like to realize within the network) via mail until January 15th, 2011 to Elżbieta Opiłowska.

The resurgence of radical conservatism in Russia

Professor Bill Bowring (Birkbeck, University of London and Visiting Professor in Law at the University of Northampton) will deliver a lecture -

The Resurgence of Radical Conservatism in Russia and the Theory and Practice of Human Rights Protection

The lecture will take place at the University of Northampton (Brampton 18 Park Campus), on 1 December 2010, at 6pm.

For further information -
E-mail: Melanie.crofts@northampton.ac.uk
Tel.: (01604)-892124

All welcome!

Fascist Radicalism and the New Media - podcasts

Fascist Radicalism and the New Media Symposium

Podcasts and presentations, by Backdoor Broadcasting Company -

Welcome (MP3)
- Doug Rae, Associate Dean of School of Social Sciences
- Dr Matthew Feldman, Director of the Radicalism and New Media Group

Keynote Talk: Gerry Gable (MA Crim.), Searchlight Magazine
‘Confronting Right-Wing Extremism in a Western Democracy’

Panel 1: New Media and the Resurgent British Fascism (Chair: Matthew Feldman)
- Dr Paul Jackson, University of Northampton: ‘The English Defence League and Far-Right Politics’
- Trevor Preston, University of Northampton: ‘From Billboard to Broadband: Cyber-Terrorism and the Extreme Right Wing’
- Benedict Addis, HP Labs: ‘Covert communities: How the Internet Fosters Extremism’

Panel 2: New Media and European Fascisms (Chair: Paul Jackson)
- Dr Matthew Feldman, University of Northampton: ‘Universal Nazism in Britain: The Case of the Aryan Strike Force’
- Dr Anna Castriota, University of Cardiff: ‘Julius Evola on the Web: The Fascist Ideal of “Europe as Aryanland”’
- Dr Anton Shekhovtsov, University of Northampton: ‘Far-Right Music in Europe: Songs of Hate and Devotion’

Panel 3: Practitioners on the Far-Right (Chair: Paul Jackson)
- East Midlands Community Contact Unit: ‘Experiences of a Regional Intervention Unit in Addressing Violent Extremism’
- Durham Constabulary: ‘Operation CONSTELLATION – The Right Wing Threat’

Concluding Discussion and Closing Remarks (Chair: Matthew Feldman) (MP3)

Modernism and Eugenics

The first volume in the recently established book series "Modernism and..." (edited by Roger Griffin) is out -

Marius Turda, Modernism and Eugenics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)



Is the nation an 'imagined community' centered on culture or rather a biological community determined by heredity? Modernism and Eugenics examines this question from a bifocal perspective. On the one hand, it looks at technologies through which the individual body was re-defined eugenically by a diverse range of European scientists and politicians between 1870 and 1940; on the other, it illuminates how the national community was represented by eugenic discourses that strove to battle a perceived process of cultural decay and biological degeneration. In the wake of a renewed interest in the history of science and fascism, Modernism and Eugenics treats the history of eugenics not as distorted version of crude social Darwinism that found its culmination in the Nazi policies of genocide but as an integral part of European modernity, one in which the state and the individual embarked on an unprecedented quest to renew an idealized national community.

Who Makes the Nazis?

This blog is highly recommended -

Who Makes the Nazis?
Keeping an eye on the neo-fascists burrowing their way into a subculture near you

Who Makes the Nazis? is a site focused on the fascist presence in various 'transgressive' (by their own estimation) musical subcultures. The claim is that at the fringes of these milieus, ideas about the sanctity of art and the irresponsibility and fundamental 'amorality' of the artist provide perfect cover behind which fascist and pro-fascist ideologues are allowed to spread their ideas. Currently these cultures include 'post-industrial', 'martial', 'neo-folk', 'apocalyptic folk' and 'darkwave', among others. It is not a matter of condemning these subcultures, which in fact contain many non-fascist, liberal, socialist, anti-fascist, etc., supporters, but rather of drawing a clear line between the fascists and non-fascists within them by showing the latter the nature and extent of the problem, in the hope that they will themselves marginalise and ultimately reject fascist participation in their 'scene'.

(Just in case you don't know: "Who Makes the Nazis?" is a title of one of the Fall's songs.)

Library updated (34 vols)

Have updated my library with the following e-books -

1. Walter L. Adamson, Avant-garde Florence: From Modernism to Fascism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
2. Franklin Hugh Adler, Italian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism: The Political Development of the Industrial Bourgeoisie, 1906-34 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
3. Catherine Andreyev, Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement: Soviet Reality and Emigré Theories (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
4. Peter Baehr, Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Social Sciences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).
5. William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
6. Rita Chin, Heide Fehrenbach, Geoff Eley, Atina Grossmann, After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009).
7. Oleg V. Chlevnjuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
8. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
9. Abby L. Ferber (ed.), Home-Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism (New York: Routledge, 2004).
10. A. James Gregor, The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
11. Wolf Gruner, Jewish Forced Labor Under the Nazis: Economic Needs and Racial Aims, 1938–1944 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
12. Peter Hayes, From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
13. Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
14. Douglas R. Holmes, Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
15. Constantin Iordachi (ed.), Comparative Fascist Studies: New Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 2010).
16. Jennifer M. Kapczynski, The German Patient: Crisis and Recovery in Postwar Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008).
17. Zig Layton-Henry, Czarina Wilpert, Challenging Racism in Britain and Germany (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
18. Derek S. Linton, 'Who Has the Youth, Has the Future': The Campaign to Save Young Workers in Imperial Germany (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
19. Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
20. Timothy W. Mason, Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class. Ed. by Jane Caplan (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
21. Steven Merritt Miner, Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
22. Stanley G. Payne, David Jan Sorkin, John S. Tortorice (eds), What History Tells: George L. Mosse and the Culture of Modern Europe (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).
23. Nicos Poulantzas, The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law, and the State. Ed. by James Martin (London: Verso, 2008).
24. Dagmar Reese, Growing up Female in Nazi Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).
25. Martin Reisigl, Ruth Wodak, Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism (London and New York: Routledge , 2001).
26. Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914–1923 (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).
27. Gavin Schaffer, Racial Science and British Society, 1930-62 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
28. George Talbot, Censorship in Fascist Italy, 1922-43 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
29. Susan Tegel, Nazis and the Cinema (London and New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2007).
30. Paul Weindling (ed.), International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918-1939 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
31. Andrew Zimmerman, Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
32. Joshua D. Zimmerman (ed.), Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922-1945 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
33. Geneviève Zubrzycki, The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006).
34. Efraim Zuroff, Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Fascist Radicalism and the New Media

Fascist Radicalism and the New Media
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
17 September 2010, 9.00 a.m. — 5.30 p.m.

Symposium at the University of Northampton, Park Campus
Organised by the Radicalism and New Media group.

Featuring presentations from practitioners and authorities:

- East Midlands Community Contact Unit
- Serious Organised Crime Agency
- Durham Constabulary and NECTU

With panels of academic experts covering:

- New Media and Cyber-terrorism
- The Radical Right in Britain and Europe
- Roundtable Discussion on Fascism and the Internet

Registration fee £25 (£10 concessions)

This one-day symposium will bring together cutting-edge academic research on the contemporary far-right in the UK and Europe with a range of practitioners and enforcement bodies, including presentations by British police, local government and national officials. By focussing upon key areas related to new media technologies (the internet, personal communications devices, portable video, and so on) increasingly employed by the European far-right, from online radicalisation to cyber-terrorism, this event specifically seeks to forge a dialogue between front-line professionals and relevant academic experts. Presentations on security threats posed by extreme right-wing groups; the English Defence League’s use of Facebook; and the evolving far-right music scene, amongst others, will collectively address the relationship between new media technologies and the recent resurgence of the far-right across Britain and Europe. An introductory keynote lecture, concluding roundtable discussion and several panels over the course of the day will thus provide an up-to-date analysis on a fast-changing topic. Registration fee also includes lunch, coffee and conference pack.

For further details, or to register for this event, please contact:

Dr Mathew Feldman (matthew.feldman@northampton.ac.uk) or
Dr Paul Jackson (paul.jackson@northampton.ac.uk)

Roger Griffin's new article translated into Russian

Have translated Roger Griffin's new article "Studying the European Extreme Right: From New Consensus to New Wave?" into Russian language. It's already the third Griffin's article I've translated into Russian so far. See also -

- От слизевиков к ризоме: введение в теорию группускулярной правой (From Slime Mould to Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular Right)

- Палингенетическое политическое сообщество: переосмысление легитимации тоталитарных режимов в межвоенной Европе (The Palingenetic Political Community: Rethinking the Legitimation of Totalitarian Regimes in Inter-war Europe)

And here is my translation of Griffin's Introduction to his Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler -

- Модернизм и фашизм. Введение: Aufbruch

Jeremiah Duggan

Fortunately, the High Court of England and Wales ordered a second inquest into the death of Jeremiah Duggan, most likely killed by the fascist LaRouche movement in 2003.

More information on Jeremiah Duggan's death and the new inquest -

- Justice for Jeremiah campaign
- New inquest into Jeremiah Duggan's death in Germany (BBC News)
- Fascist cult 'may have killed Jewish student' by Murray Wardrop (Telegraph.co.uk)
- Victory for mother as inquest quashed by Jerome Taylor (The Independent)

Orlando Figes

A tragic story of the British "Sovietologist" Orlando Figes revealed responsible for posting anonymous reviews on Amazon denigrating the books of other British historians -

- Donal O'Sullivan, Anonymous Slander on Amazon, Soviet Style
- Robert Service, The Shame of Orlando Figes
- Rachel Polonsky, How I Rumbled the Lying Professor

Library updated (25 vols)

Have updated my library with the following e-books -

1. Omer Bartov (ed.), The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).
2. Sidney M. Bolkosky, Searching for Meaning in the Holocaust (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002).
3. Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).
4. Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
5. Leonidas Donskis, Troubled Identity and the Modern World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
6. Peter J.S. Duncan, Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Revolution, Communism and after (London: Routledge, 2000).
7. Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008).
8. Anna Von der Goltz, Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
9. Victoria de Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
10. Susanne Heim, Carola Sachse, Mark Walker, The Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
11. Tim Kirk, Nazism and the Working Class in Austria: Industrial Unrest and Political Dissent in the 'National Community' (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
12. MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed 1939-1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
13. Jürgen Matthäus (ed.), Approaching an Auschwitz Survivor: Holocaust Testimony and its Transformations (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
14. Kevin O'Connor, Intellectuals and Apparatchiks: Russian Nationalism and the Gorbachev Revolution (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006).
15. Susanna Rabow-Edling, Slavophile Thought and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).
16. Eric G. Reiche, The Development of the SA in Nürnberg 1922-1934 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986).
17. Evelyn A. Schlatter, Aryan Cowboys: White Supremacists and the Search for a New Frontier, 1970-2000 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).
18. Dmitry Shlapentokh (ed.), Russia between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007).
19. Frank M. Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 1919-1922 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
20. Michael Sutton, Nationalism, Positivism and Catholicism: The Politics of Charles Maurras and French Catholics, 1890-1914 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
21. Nebojša Vladisavljević, Serbia's Antibureaucratic Revolution: Miloševic, the Fall of Communism and Nationalist Mobilization (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
22. Richard Weikart, Hitler's Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
23. Eric D. Weitz, A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
24. Daniel Woodley, Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology (London and New York: Routledge, 2010).
25. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, Searching for Cioran (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).

Call for papers: Contemporary Russian Nationalism

"Contemporary Russian Nationalism, and Its Historical Roots"

A special issue of Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte [Forum for the Ideas and Contemporary History of Eastern Europe]

Deadline for submission of English or German papers: 1 August 2010.

ZIMOS, the Eichstaett Institute for Central and East European Studies in Upper Bavaria, invites English- and German-language research papers for a 2010 special issue of volume 14 of its biannual Germany-based print-journal Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte [Forum for the Ideas and Contemporary History of Eastern Europe]. Since 1997, the Forum has been published twice per year by Böhlau Press (Vienna, Cologne and Weimar).

Since 2004, it has been supplemented by ZIMOS's interdisciplinary Russian-language web journal Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры [Forum for Contemporary East European History and Culture], where currently a similar Russian-language multi-issue project on post-Soviet anti-Westernism and its historical roots is being implemented.

We are looking for properly footnoted, scholarly researched, well-structured, and thoroughly edited English- or German-language investigations into the political ideas, world views, intellectual biographies, societal impact and various activities of contemporary Russian representatives of nationalism and their sources in the history of Russia and other countries.

Submitted texts should have a length of approximately 4,000 to 7,000 words, and be based on primary as well as secondary sources fully listed and properly described, in the footnotes. Papers may be submitted and will be printed in English or German. In the case the author submits not in her or his mother tongue, the text should be thoroughly copy-edited by a native speaker. The paper should not have been published before, in the language in which it is submitted to the Forum. If it has been published in another language before, authors are required to provide proof of reprint permission, by the copyright holder of the original version of the article. The editors of the Forum will not take responsibility for any violations of copyright.

Papers accepted content-wise for publication will only be published in case of a proper adaptation of its linguistic quality and formal style (footnotes, headings, references, citations etc.) to the standards of the Forum by the author/s, by 1 August 2010. Model articles showing the formal style required of the final editions of the papers to be prepared by the author/s may be found at the following sites:

Two German-language model articles:
http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/LuksChamber.htm
http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/Rybakov.html

An English-language model article:
http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/Motyl.html

All versions of the papers should be submitted as MS Word Documents using Word's footnote function.

So far, the following authors have agreed to submit texts with the following working titles:

Kaarina Aitamurto (Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki), “Reviving the Native Faith: The Nationalism of Contemporary Slavic Paganism and Russian ‘Rodnoverie’”

Rosalind Marsh (University of Bath, UK), “The ‘New Political Novel’ by Right-Wing Writers in Post-Soviet Russia”

Denis Jdanoff (Berlin), "Die historischen Wurzeln des heutigen russischen Faschismus: Nationalsozialistische Gruppierungen der russischen Emigration im Dritten Reich"

Mikhail D. Suslov (European University Institute, Florence), “Between Nationalism and Imperialism: Pan-Slavism in Modern Russia”

Andreas Umland (The Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt), "Zhirinovskii as a Fascist: Palingenetic Ultra-Nationalism in Early Documents of the LDPR, 1992-1993"

In the future, it is planned to re-publish some of these papers within a collected volume of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society”.

Please, submit your text as soon as possible, but not later than 1 August 2010 to:

andreas.umland[at]ku-eichstaett.de

or as a hard copy to:

Redaktion des Forums
ZIMOS
Ostenstr. 27
D-85072 Eichstaett
GERMANY

We look forward to receiving your proposal or paper!

Thank you.

The Forum's Editors
Prof. Leonid Luks and Dr. Andreas Umland
http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/Institut.html

Article on apoliteic music in Russian

A friend of mine has translated my article on apoliteic music into Russian, so here it is -

Аполитеическая музыка: неофолк, мартиал-индастриал и "метаполитический фашизм"

Russian Nationalism Yahoo group

In September 2007 Andreas Umland established a Russian Nationalism group on Yahoo groups.

The group is designed as a forum of exchange and an open archive serving researchers, journalists and others interested in the history and current permutations of Russian right-wing thought and politics. While everybody is invited to join, this forum is reserved for the spread of substantive, analytical information as well as for the announcement on relevant conferences, publications, and other academic projects. This is not a discussion group.

In addition to extremely useful Links and Files sections, there is also a biweekly "Russian Nationalism Bulletin" (RNB) that has started to appear on 1 November 2007.

Although you can freely see the messages, Links and Files sections are available only for the members of the group. Joining is pretty easy and you are not required to have a Yahoo account.

Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality

If you read Roger Griffin's magnum opus Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler, you may find this documentary film really fascinating -

Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality (Wiki)



Flight from Death is the first film to investigate the psychological effects of death anxiety, or fear of death. This 90-minute documentary about the effects that our reactions to death anxiety have on a psychological, spiritual, and cultural level reveals convincingly that death denial is a root cause of human behavior and more importantly, violence and aggression.

The effects of death anxiety are embedded within everything we do across the globe. Our architecture, our careers, the children we raise, and the wars we wage, are all manifestations of our desire to gain a sense of permanence in defiance of our mortality. This film is a cinematic approach to these theories, placing them in a modern context and portraying them in ways that are both stimulating as well as reflective of the importance and magnitude of their implications.

Flight from Death is the culmination of many years of research and shooting all over the world in locations such as Egypt, Israel, Guyana, Greece, and China. It features interviews with leading scholars, philosophers, researchers and authors such as Robert Jay Lifton, Irvin Yalom, and Sam Keen culminating in the most comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and mind-blowing investigation of humankind’s relationship with death ever captured on film.


FFD crew with psychohistorian Robert Jay Lifton.

(I remember referring to Lifton in my article on "clerical fascism".)

The Palingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism

A new issue of Russian-language version of German online academic journal Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte features my article on Aleksandr Dugin -

Палингенетический проект неоевразийства: идеи возрождения в мировоззрении Александра Дугина

It was previously published in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions and is available here.

The new issue of Forum also features important articles by Andreas Umland, Marina Peunova, Marlene Laruelle, Leonid Luks and other authors.

Jewish question in Bandera's independent Ukraine

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today condemned Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for posthumously awarding the "Hero of Ukraine," one of the country’s highest honors, to Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader whose followers killed thousands of Jews and others during World War II.

In a letter to Oleh Shamshur, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Mark Weitzman, the Wiesenthal Center’s Director of Government Affairs, expressed "deepest revulsion at the recent honor awarded to Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis in the early stages of World War II, and whose followers were linked to the murders of thousands of Jews and others. It is surely a travesty when such an honor is granted right at the period when the world pauses to remember the victims of the Holocaust on January 27."

I have scanned a short excerpt from the protocol of the OUN (Bandera's faction) conference held in Lviv on 18-19 July 1941. The conference dealt with the ethnic minorities in Bandera's independent Ukraine, but this short excerpt concerns the "Jewish question" only.

П. ГУПАЛО: Добре було би, якби нам віддали райони, заселені українцями. Головне, багато всюди є жидів. В центрах спеціально. Не дозволити їм там жити. Вести політику на виселення. Вони будуть самі втікати. А може виділити їм якісь міста, пр. Бердичів.
П. ЛЕНКАВСЬКИЙ: Схарактеризуйте мені жидів.
П. ГОЛОВКО: Жиди є дуже нахабні. Не можна було сказати жид. З ними треба поступити дуже остро. В центрі не можна держати рішучо. Мусимо їх покінчити.
П. ЛЕВИЦЬКИЙ: В Німеччині Жиди мають арийський параграф. Для нас більше цікава є ця справа в Генерал Губернаторстві. Там назначено кожного Жида. Кожний Жид мусів бути зареєстрований в віроісповідній громаді. Їх усували із деяких міст приміром з Кракова, а переміщували до інших, пр. до Варшави, призначували їм гета, які обмуровували мурами. Вони мають кіна, театри, але не мають що їсти.
Молоді здібні до праці - ідуть до праці. Частину треба знищити. Хоч і тепер є вже дещо знищено... Факт є, що деякі влізли в українську кров, богато женилися з українками. В Німеччині є різні пів-жиди, чверть-жиди, але в нас так бути не може. Німець, що жениться з жидівкою, стає жидом.
П. ГОЛОВКО: На Україні супружжа з жидівками є головно в містах. Жидівки виходили заміж за Українців для вигідного життя, коли українці банкротували вони розводилися. Жиди з українками добре навіть жили. Мені дуже подобається німецький погляд.
П. ГУПАЛО: В нас є багато працівників жидів, яких навіть поважають, є і такі, які вихрестилися до революції.
П. ЛЕНКАВСЬКИЙ: Це треба розглядати індивідуально.
П. ЛЕВИЦЬКИЙ: Німці спеціалістів використовують. В Кракові є 5 жидів, що не носять опасок, за те, що добрі сили. Мені здається, що німецький спосіб жидівської справи нам дуже підходить. Мусимо індивідуально розглядати поодинокі випадки.
П. ЛЕНКАВСЬКИЙ: Відносно жидів приймемо всі методи, які підуть їм на знищення.

Source: Бондаренко К. До питання про національну політику Організації Українських Націоналістів на початку німецько-радянської війни // Українські варіанти. – 1997. – № 2. – С. 93-95 (94).

Radicalism and New Media

Matthew Feldman has recently established a very important research group at the University of Northampton -

Radicalism and New Media Research Group Vision Document

Remit

By harnessing existing expertise in the University of Northampton’s School of Social Sciences, an interdisciplinary research group has been formed to investigate radicalism and new media. While historical examples range from Martin Luther’s use of the printing press to Joseph Goebbels’ use of the radio, primary focus will be placed upon the new media revolution over the last generation (the internet, mobile phones, satellite television, personal audio devices, etc.) as it has been deployed by ideological and/or religious radicals.

Although this understudied connection is both striking and increasingly noticeable – whether from the English Defense League’s use of Facebook for directing activities or Islamist jihadi beheadings filmed for the purposes propaganda and global dissemination – there has been, as yet, no coordinated network to systematically undertake research in this critical, highly visible area. In taking on this role, we will invite academic researchers, practitioners and civil servants (partihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcularly the police and security services) to compare experiences and develop collaborative enterprises in the analysis of this wide-ranging phenomenon, particularly as it relates to the contemporary UK.

To achieve such goals at this formative stage, the ‘Radicalism and New Media Research Group’ especially aims to develop s at once academic and public-facing, cutting-edge yet supported by the School’s established academic leaders in the fields of media studies, political extremism, law, sociology and criminology, as well as modern history.

Academic Advisory Team at the University of Northampton

- Dr Matthew Feldman, History (Project Leader)
- Dr Paul Jackson, History (Project Co-ordinator)
- Professor Jon Stobart, History
- Dr Manos Daskalou, Criminology
- James Ressel, Law
- Kirstie Best, Law
- Simon Sneddon, Law

Forthcoming Activities

- Running academic conferences, ideally for summer 2010 initially;
- Conducting original research, particularly as it relates to the Research Group’s above remit;
- Launching an online journal, perhaps on the interaction of cults and new media;
- Writing government reports, such as for OCST, J-TAC, the Home Office or similar;
- Forming external partners, notably through a series of large grant bids to UK research bodies;http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
- Developing interdisciplinary Masters programme in Radicalism and New Media or similar;
- Creating new continuing professional development courses in issues relating to radicalism and new media;
- Establishing a Research Centre for Radicalism and New Media at the University of Northampton

Contact Details

Email:
Matthew.Feldman@Northampton.ac.uk
Paul.Jackson@Northampton.ac.uk

Postal:
Dr Matthew Feldman, School of Social Sciences, University of Northampton, Boughton Green Road, Northampton NN2 7AL

Telephone: 01604 892575

Tymoshenko and the Ukrainian radical right

The presidential candidate Yuliya Tymoshenko's links to the Ukrainian far right are often played down. Few people seem to remember that in 1997 Dmytro Korchynsky, a former leader of the notorious extreme right-wing party UNA-UNSO, left his party and organised the so-called "Shield of Fatherland" (Щит Батьківщини) which was deemed to be a "paramilitary" wing of Tymoshenko's party "Fatherland" (Батьківщина). In 2000-2001, during the "Ukraine without Kuchma" campaign, Tymoshenko directed Korchynsky and his organisation to protect the protesters. In 2002 Korchynsky reformed the "Shield of Fatherland" into the "Brotherhood" (Братство) party which was officially registered by the Ministry of Justice in 2004.

Another former leader of the UNA-UNSO (1999-2001), Andriy Shkil, joined the parliamentary group of the Bloc of Yuliya Tymoshenko (BYuT) in 2002 and became an official member of the "Fatherland" party in 2004. Quite soon he was elected to the political council of the party.


Andriy Shkil (on the right behind the NPD flag) during the
meeting of the UNA-UNSO with the extreme right-wing
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD)
in June 2000.

Interestingly, in Lviv the editorial office of the UNA-UNSO journal Nationalist, edited by Shkil, shared the same premises with Tymoshenko's "Fatherland" party.



It was Shkil who unambiguously approved Viktor Yushchenko's "Bandera the Hero" act.

On 24 August 2008, Levko Lukyanenko, a prominent member of the BYuT parliamentary group, celebrated his 80th birthday and published a revealing article titled "Ukraine's Civilisational Choice", in the MAUP's anti-Semitic journal Personal Plus. Just an excerpt -

Do we, Ukrainians, people of the white race, want to become different from what we have been, for example, to become black, yellow or red? The cases of marriages of Ukrainian women to representatives of another races indicate that not all [Ukrainians] value their white race. Thus I state my own position: I come out wholeheartedly for the preservation of the Ukrainian people as the white race and ultimately oppose the transformation of the Ukrainian nation into a nation of some blacks, browns or of any indefinite colour.

On the very same day Tymoshenko wished Lukyanenko many happy returns of the day.

Isn't it too much for the democratic (?) and pro-European (?) presidential candidate?

Stepan Bandera becomes a Hero of Ukraine

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who contested the presidential elections held on 7 January 2010, obtained only 5.45 per cent of the vote and, thus, set a new world record for the lowest vote for an incumbent in a presidential election.

On 22 January 2010, during the ceremonies marking Ukrainian Unity Day, Yushchenko conferred the rank of a Ukrainian Hero to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN, Bandera’s branch). President said that the high rank had been conferred to Bandera for “defending national ideas and battling for an independent Ukrainian state”.

Stepan Bandera (1909–1959) was one of the most notorious Ukrainian fascists, terrorists and Nazi collaborators, who was responsible for deaths of hundreds (if not thousands) of Poles, Russians, Jews and Ukrainians. He played a key role in the terrorist activities against the authorities of Poland and other countries (see more info on the OUN's attempt at assassinating Franklin Roosevelt). In 1934 Polish authorities even sentenced him to death for terrorism but eventually the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment: Bandera was freed in 1939 by the German troops after they had occupied Poland.

Bandera has been one of the few Ukrainian Nationalists mentioned in the proceedings of the Nuremberg Trial of German Major War Criminals. On 25 December 1945, former Colonel of the German Army Erwin Stolze testified –

“In carrying out the above-mentioned instructions of Keitel [General Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel] and Jodl [General Colonel Alfred Jodl], I contacted Ukrainian Nationalists who were in the German Intelligence Service and other members of the Nationalist Fascist groups, whom I enlisted in to carry out the tasks as set out above [subversive activities in the territory of the USSR]. In particular, instructions were given by me personally to the leaders of the Ukrainian Nationalists, the German Agents Myelnik (code name ‘Consul I’) and Bandara [Stepan Bandera] to organise, immediately upon Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, and to provoke demonstrations in the Ukraine, in order to disrupt the immediate rear of the Soviet Armies”.

On 30 June 1941, after Nazi Germany had levied war on the USSR, Bandera was proclaimed a leader of independent Ukraine. Article 3 of the Act of Ukraine’s Independence read as follows –

“The newly formed Ukrainian state will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Muscovite occupation.
The Ukrainian National Revolutionary Army which has been formed on the Ukrainian lands, will continue to fight with the Allied German Army against Muscovite occupation for a sovereign and united State and a new order in the whole world.
Long live the Ukrainian Sovereign United Ukraine! Long live the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists! Long live the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian people – Stepan Bandera”.

Of course, Bandera’s priority was an independent Ukraine, and that was where Bandera’s and Nazis’ plans differed. Where they did not differ, however, was both German and Ukrainian fascists’ vision of the “new world order”.

Yushchenko is right in one thing: Bandera did “battle for an independent Ukrainian state”. But what Ukraine would it have been? Article 1 of Constitution of Ukraine, the principles of which Yushchenko swore to defend after the victorious “Orange revolution”, unequivocally states that “Ukraine is a sovereign and independent, democratic, social, law-based state”. What does Bandera’s vision of Ukraine have to do with the democratic, social and law-based Ukraine? Absolutely nothing, I believe, and the majority of Ukrainian citizens think likewise. Does President of a democratic state have a right to legitimise Bandera’s fascist Ukraine on the only ground that it would have been an independent Ukraine? No, they do not. Small wonder that Yushchenko decided to make Bandera a Hero of Ukraine after he had ignominiously lost the presidential elections: he had nothing to lose.

But we do have something very important to lose. With Bandera being a Hero of (democratic!) Ukraine, we are losing confidence that extreme nationalism and fascism of different strains have been driven out to the margins of genuine democratic politics. Can we expect response to this outrageous act of Yushchenko's from two major presidential candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Yuliya Tymoshenko? I think we should expect because they must clearly state their positions, before the second round of the presidential elections to be held on 07 February. At the moment we have responses from Yanukovych's (Party of Regions) and Tymoshenko's (BYuT) parties, but the presidential candidates must express their opinions themselves.

Von Thronstahl: Germanium Metallicum

I hate that Von Thronstahl released their new album Germanium Metallicum after I had written my article on apoliteic music!



There is an interesting text in the booklet accompanying the above-mentioned album -

This album is the result of a collaboration between young artists from seven countries - united in their creative will, and conspired by their apprehension for their Europe, which should be both a home and a fortress for their culture and their children.
Protecting their holy values, a young generation of Europeans are about to strengthen the resistance against all forms of imminence: both from the outside and from the inside. And, if necessary, even against their own governments, for now they betray the essential interests of their people.
Pure and noble are the hearts of young idealists, pure and noble is the element of Germanium Metallicum. The homeopathic effects of this Germanium Metallicum is also helping to vitalise the power of resistance and it makes contact with the inner will and determination. So this is a worthy symbol for an alchemic transformation; physically and spiritually.

(Small wonder that a Russian New Right groupuscule "Peoples' Rights" has published a lengthy review of Germanium Metallicum on their web-site.)

I would have definitely quoted this text in my article, as it is such a revealing example of the far-right inner immigration! And, speaking of the inner immigration: Von Thronstahl is citing George Orwell in the same booklet: in its turn, that is a nice example of the far right's habitual appropriation of the left-wing legacy -

Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
(George Orwell, 1984).

What would have Orwell said....

2010 Presidential elections in Ukraine

The vote count for the 2010 Presidential elections is finished. The Central Commission of Ukraine reports the following results (more than 1 per cent) -

Vuiktor Yanukovych - 35.32.
Yuliya Tymoshenko - 25.05.
Serhiy Tihipko - 13.06.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk - 6.96.
Viktor Yushchenko - 5.45.
Petro Symonenko - 3.55.
Volodymyr Lytvyn - 2.35.
Oleh Tyahnybok - 1.43.
Anatoliy Hrytsenko - 1.20.

The voter turnout is rather low in comparison to the previous Presidential elections (first round) -

1999 - 69.82.
2004 - 74.92.
2010 - 66.72.

Viktor Yushchenko, a hero of the "Orange revolution" who lost public confidence due to his political inefficiency and Russophobia, proved himself a loser. Two days prior to the elections he stated that he did not like politics and did not consider himself a politician. I don't think this miserable failure of a President deserves any political space. Thanks for the "Orange revolution", anyway: it brought us fair elections and now the fair elections deliver us from Yushchenko. Case closed.

Well, almost closed. Yushchenko has still got his party Our Ukraine. At the moment it is not possible to predict whether the party will contest the next (most likely early) parliamentary elections. If it does not, I think that a considerable part of Yushchenko's voters will turn to Oleh Tyahnybok's radical right-wing party All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom".

Unfortunately, now Ukraine has to face a choice between two blatant populists: Viktor Yanukovych and Yuliya Tymoshenko. As Andreas Umland correctly argues, these candidates do not really differ from each other. I truly hoped, despite the surveys, that Serhiy Tihipko would win through to the second round, but it looks like unfeasible promises are still popular with the Ukrainian voters. This is ultimately frustrating.

I also hoped that Ukraine would get rid of the painfully familiar West-Centre/South-East cleavage. Well, Yanukovych won in Zakarpattia, but that is all -

From the extreme right to Yushchenko

In 1998 two extreme right-wing Ukrainian parties, the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) and the State Independence of Ukraine formed an electoral alliance called "Less Words". The alliance did very bad in the 1998 parliamentary elections - it gained miserable 0.16 per cent of the popular vote.

Those elections were the final straw for the SIU and it was dissolved. The SNPU was unable to participate in the 2002 parliamentary elections but was reformed in 2004 and now is known under the name All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" (yes, the word "freedom" is conveniently put in the quotation marks) headed by Oleh Tyahnybok. In 2004 Tyahnybok supported the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko (the "democratic" hero of the "Orange revolution"). Later on Tyahnybok focused primarily on his "Freedom" party and is currently a 2010 presidential candidate (with no chance of doing the 2002 Le Pen thing).

Yet what about other people who represented the "Less Words" alliance? Most of them never tried to get elected again, especially those from the SIU part of the "Less Words" list. Most of the SNPU candidates stayed, however, with Tyahnybok.

Now it is really interesting that two candidates of the extreme right-wing alliance "Less Words" are authorised representatives of the 2010 presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko -

- Iryna Kalynets (Ukrainian: Ірина Онуфріївна Калинець) (number 4 in the "Less Words" list),
- Volodymyr Parubii (Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Парубій) (former leader of the SNPU and number 8 in the "Less Words" list).

Even more suprising is that another former SNPU member and number 11 in the "Less Words" list Andrii Parubii (Ukrainian: Андрій Володимирович Парубій) is a plenipotentiary representative of Yushchenko in the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Ukraine! There can be only person to represent a presidential candidate in the CEC and for Yushchenko it is a (former?) right-wing extremist Andrii Parubii. Well, he joined Yushchenko's party Our Ukraine approximately in 2005, but still, what a nice company!

Protests against the visit of Oleh Tyahnybok

On 6 January 2010, approximately a thousand (some say 1.500) of citizens of Sevastopol protested against the visit of notorious radical right-winger Oleh Tyahnybok, a leader of the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" and a 2010 presidential candidate -



The protests were organised by various groups and parties, ranging from internationalist anti-fascists and Marxists to radical Russian nationalists and Ukrainian populists (the Party of Regions). Anti-fascists and Marxists chanted slogans like "Fascism shall not pass" and "Ouf fatherland is the whole world", while Russian nationalists shouted "Russia, Russia". The Party of Regions, which backs the currently most popular presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, did nothing at all, and I assume most of the people who held blue banners of the party were paid for participating in the protests. But well, at least they showed up. It is a shame that local activists of the Bloc of Yuliya Tymoshenko, another popular presidential candidate, did not support the protests against Tyahnybok.

I've shot some video with my camera -

Protests against the visit of Oleh Tyahnybok in Sevastopol from svonz on Vimeo.

The visit of Tyahnybok was claimed to be a meeting with citizens of Sevastopol, but very little people were actually allowed to meet him in the Sevastopol Cultural and Business Centre. Police let through only the local supporters of his party (mostly football hooligans and Neo-Nazi skinheads) and certain journalists. His younger supporters preferred to hide their faces -





Tyahnybok's Sevastopol visit actually followed an earlier "March Against Illegal Immigration" organised by his "Freedom" party and held on 26 December 2009 in Sevastopol. Here's the video - the "March" was picketed by counter-demonstrators and there were a couple of skirmishes. Note the Nazi salutes given by the activists of the "Freedom" party, under blue banners. Well, I am not surpirsed actually as the local leader of the party Oleksandr Boltyan likes posing in a Nazi helmet -



Fascism, however, shall indeed not pass.