Criticism and bibliography. Reviews

Uchebnoe posobie dlya vuzov [Textbook for universities], Moscow: Akademicheskiy proekt; Gaudeamus Publ., 2004, 576 p.

Against the background of a large number of publications with the word "ethnology" in the title, published in the last decade in Russian, it is nice to finally see a work written by a professional. The reviewed work, however, is not just written by a professional, but is truly unique in itself, since it represents the only historiographic body of knowledge about the German ethnological discipline in Russian science.

If the title of the book is chosen correctly from a historiographical point of view, it does not give a complete picture of the breadth of coverage of the material. The research is devoted not only to German, but also to German-speaking ethnology in general. As the author warns, " in accordance with the long-standing tradition that still persists in German-speaking countries, the regional definition of ethnology is based mainly on the linguistic principle." This means that "this science is called German ethnology in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland" (p. 5). The work, therefore, does not end with a historiographical analysis of science in the formal framework of Germany as a state in its current borders, but is a comprehensive study of the broader German-speaking scientific tradition in the complex context of its historical development.

A valuable and informative (in my opinion, too brief) preface explains to the layman and reminds the specialist that the terms ethnology, ethnography, and folk studies carry different historiographical and conceptual loads and cannot always be used interchangeably in the parallels between domestic and foreign scientific traditions.

The book is entirely devoted to the study of the tradition of ethnology1 . Despite the rather traditional construction of the book for the historiographic genre by periods, scientists and scientific directions, it becomes clear from the table of contents that the narrative in it is far from as straightforward as a student might want to understand some simple truths before passing the test. The work does not give simple answers and is interesting primarily because it reveals the complexity of the material and raises very insightful questions that may or may not be solved in further historiographical research. The book uses "cross-cutting" methods of analysis and narration: the author returns to the consideration of schools, creativity of scientists and their ideas in different chapters, analyzing their positions from different points of view. He does not seek to clearly attribute scientists to one or another direction, realizing that "school" in science is a problematic concept, and personal paths of knowledge are often inscrutable. Perhaps this is especially true when considering the historical context of the German-speaking countries, which (at least in the period from the end of the XIX century to the second half of the XX century) was filled with turbulent events. As the author points out, "at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. the old schools and theoretical trends either completely disintegrated, or turned into something else" (p. 173). Punctual attitude of G. E. Markov to

¹ Those interested in the tradition of German folk studies can refer to the author's earlier work (unfortunately, it was published in a small print run during the difficult post-perestroika years for scientific publishing and is now already a bibliographic rarity). See: Markov G. E. Essays on the History of German Science about Peoples. Ch. 2. German Folk Studies, Moscow, 1993.

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the ambiguity of the process of scientific creativity and the development of scientific knowledge, which is directly reflected in the structure of the work itself, deserves attention.

Part I "The Eve and first steps of German Ethnology" examines the process of the origin of ethnological knowledge, the formation and institutionalization of ethnology as a discipline in German-speaking countries. The author points out the role of German classical philosophy and general ideas of the Enlightenment in the formation of early ethnological views, dwells in detail on the activities of Adolf Bastian (often considered the "father" of German ethnology), reports on the first ethnological departments, societies and museums that emerged in this period in the German-speaking region. On the basis of concrete facts, the opinion often expressed by some Russian ethnographers in the recent past and uncritically repeated until recently about the direct connection of Darwin's teaching with the emergence of evolutionism, or the theory of development, in ethnology, is revised and re-evaluated. Although it is impossible to deny the fact that Darwin's teaching significantly influenced the development of ethnology in the second half of the XIX and even in the XX century in many countries, it should still be said that the genesis of the concepts of "evolution", "development", "progress" in ethnology falls mainly in the century preceding the appearance of Darwin's work. Thus, in the British tradition at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries, ethnological knowledge already contained clearly formed concepts of social development and progress, crystallized from the fusion of ideas of Scottish and French enlighteners and views on the essence of what was meant by the "natural" history of mankind. Similarly, as G. E. Markov shows, the situation was also in the German-speaking tradition, where the foundations of the theory of development were formed among researchers by the beginning of the XIX century. as a product of their acquaintance "with German classical philosophy and empirical ethnographic material" (p. 19).

Part II, "The Search for New Ways", focuses on a critical review of the various propositions of the theory of development and the main scientific directions that replaced this theory in the 19th century. Separate chapters are devoted to a detailed analysis of the so-called diffusionist trends, the cultural-geographical and cultural-morphological trends, the school of cultural circles, the Vienna School of Cultural History, and the sociological trend. The author introduces the reader in detail to the works of such prominent scientists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Friedrich Ratzel, Leo Frobenius, Fritz Grebner, Wilhelm Schmidt and Richard Thurnwald. The author's critical arguments on what should be understood by the term "diffusionism"are noteworthy and deserve special mention. As the author rightly points out, "many assessments and definitions of 'diffusionism' that exist in the literature, both from its apologists and opponents, are rather one-sided and do not give a complete picture of the theoretical meaning and essence of this process "(p.50). The materials in this part of the book undoubtedly clarify this point (although it may seem to the theoretical ethnologist that the author interrupts his discussion of diffusionism in Chapter 5 too early, at the point where it is just beginning to "intrigue" the inquisitive reader; it is hoped that the author will expand on this interesting topic in the future)..

Part III "The Golden 20s and the Years of Darkness" is one of the most difficult in the book in terms of the nature of the material analyzed. Not only because it deals with the period of the 1920s-1940s, during which science went through the vicissitudes of the fall of the Kaiser's regime, the consequences of the First World War, the euphoria of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the Nazi regime, but also because in the historiography of German ethnology, this time remained, as the author notes, terra incognita. Serious historiographical research of science in the period under review began only recently. Materials related specifically to the time when the Nazis were in power are still difficult to access or have been lost. The analysis of ethnologists 'creativity and the problems of developing ethnological knowledge in this historical period is particularly complex, since the "ethnographic component" has directly entered the state ideology under the guise of various concepts or pseudo-concepts about "racial character", "ancient elements", "myths", "connection of land and blood" , etc. As in the analysis of Soviet science in the era of totalitarianism, here the historiographer has to deal with a complicated social universe in which creative ideas and ideology, scientific ideals and state strategies, personal hopes and social cataclysms are intertwined. The author succeeds once-

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select the material with great tact, drawing fine lines of differentiation between all these aspects.

No less complex, however, is part IV "The time of the revival of German ethnology in the post-war 1950s-1960s". This period, to which researchers have so far paid little attention, witnessed the decline of ethnology after the Second World War and the beginning of its gradual revival in the difficult conditions of the post-war redistribution of the German-speaking political world, as well as in the context of denazification, as a result of which, according to the author, "the very legitimacy of the existence of ethnology in Germany"(p. 230). The difficulty of theoretical ways of developing the discipline during this period, the fate of the scientific directions that flourished before the war, the understanding of the object of research and the tasks of the discipline at this time are covered in detail in this part of the book. The phenomenon of increasing influence of the tradition of American cultural anthropology and the role of individual scientists in introducing it to the research sphere of German ethnology are considered in detail. Thurnwald, W. Mulmann, Z. Westphal-Hellbusch, W. Rudolf, and others).

Very interesting is the final, fifth part of the book "The End of the Century and the Millennium", which deals with the situation in ethnology in German-speaking countries from the 1960s to the end of the 20th century.² The last quarter of the last century in the German ethnological discipline, as, indeed, in the ethnological/anthropological disciplines of many other countries, was marked by an increase in interest in historiographical research, in rethinking the past of the discipline. In the context of German-language science, in particular, it was extremely important to rethink the activities of ethnologists during the Nazi years.

The modern period, however, is of particular interest to the Russian reader and due to the fact that for many scientists it is a direct area of contact, cooperation with colleagues. I would like to emphasize that G. E. Markov has many colleagues among those scientists whose activities are covered in this part of the book. This period of scientific activity, when the concepts and views that exist in today's textbooks and monographs in different countries began to spread everywhere, is best remembered. Parallels and differences in the interpretation of such concepts as "ethnos", "culture", "society", as well as parallels and differences in the understanding of the tasks of ethnology at the present stage are extremely interesting.

The value of the book is particularly obvious because the works of the vast majority of scientists who are involved in it have not yet been translated into Russian (the material underlying the book was collected by the author during many years of work in the libraries and archives of the largest scientific centers in Germany). Against the background of an increasing number of translations of works by representatives of Anglo-American anthropology and French ethnology, the complete absence of translations of works by at least classics of German ethnology seems strange. Moreover, in some sense, there are much more parallels between the German ethnological tradition and the tradition of Russian (Soviet) ethnography than between the Russian and American (or French) traditions. The German tradition of Volkskunde, which was and probably still is typical of Russian ethnography, for example, is not typical of either the Anglo-American or French discipline.

It is hoped that the book will attract the attention of ethnologists, historians, sociologists, scientists, researchers of mythology and folk culture. For historians who study non-European societies and peoples, this book will be of particular interest, since it is, in fact, not only historiographical, but also source-oriented work. The material accumulated by ethnologists over the past two centuries is now a valuable source for historians studying the countries and societies of the East, the African continent, the Mediterranean and other regions. German scientists have made a huge contribution to the study of these countries and societies. It is no exaggeration to say that the book under review is one of those rare publications of general historical interest that should be on the shelf of every historian and ethnologist.

² The most recent data, partly included and partly not included in the book, are collected by the author in his recent article. See: Markov G. E. German Ethnology at the end of the millennium: Crisis or new flourishing? // Ethnographic review. 2005. N 4.

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