Wow, it's actually Wednesday
At least it was when I started this post...
Let's see: I haven't finished anything of what I was reading but I actually finished listening to an audio book - Boris Akunin's second volume of "History of the Russian State" - the one about the Mongolian invasion. It took me quite a long time to finish because I started getting annoyed with the author. I mean, Akunin, while a competent writer and a person willing to work a lot on research, is no historian - that was clear in the beginning of the first volume, where he stated, "I don't have any theories about the history of Russia, I'm just going to tell what's happened". So I shrugged and went on listening in the spirit of "Let's try and use this to remember the school history at least".
However, in this second volume the theories he is not having started to stand out more. We're dealing with the emergence of Moscow as a central power, and what Akunin is saying is "Look, the pre-Mongolian Russian states were a lot more decent - more rights for city dwellers, better education, better trade, more rights for nobility, all that - but that Russia fell apart even before the invasion and the Mongols destroyed its remaining bits. And the new Moscow state was a lot more authoritarian, the only person who was free was the prince... but at least this, and the invasion, made us unified, people were willing to tolerate authoritarianism if that meant order, and that was good because this taught Russia to adapt and survive any hardships".
... I am a very dubious historian myself, but. I'm not sure the processes in the pre-Mongol Russian states count as "Russia fell apart". And I'm not sure what he means by "survive any hardships" - what is supposed to survive? The people? The state? The idea of a state?
Also, Akunin's political stance for current events seems to be OK, but he's a bit too enamoured of the importance of the state and the Russian national idea for my taste.
Meanwhile I am continuing with all the previous books - well, mostly Solomon and Pinker. Funny, but the most cheerful reading - in some sense of cheerful - in Solomon's book is the chapter of poverty. "Look, people living in horrible circumstances respond very well to treatment, if anyone cares to give them some! Or even to human attention! Their lives actually get better!"
Also, I bought Ekaterina Andreeva's book on Finnish art and architecture - in my favorite genre of "history+art+travel writing put together by whatever the author's train of thought takes her" - but I'm not sure if I will be reading that because my mother took it. Also, I'm trying to finish at least something before starting a new book.
This entry was originally posted at https://taelle.dreamwidth.org/75328.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Let's see: I haven't finished anything of what I was reading but I actually finished listening to an audio book - Boris Akunin's second volume of "History of the Russian State" - the one about the Mongolian invasion. It took me quite a long time to finish because I started getting annoyed with the author. I mean, Akunin, while a competent writer and a person willing to work a lot on research, is no historian - that was clear in the beginning of the first volume, where he stated, "I don't have any theories about the history of Russia, I'm just going to tell what's happened". So I shrugged and went on listening in the spirit of "Let's try and use this to remember the school history at least".
However, in this second volume the theories he is not having started to stand out more. We're dealing with the emergence of Moscow as a central power, and what Akunin is saying is "Look, the pre-Mongolian Russian states were a lot more decent - more rights for city dwellers, better education, better trade, more rights for nobility, all that - but that Russia fell apart even before the invasion and the Mongols destroyed its remaining bits. And the new Moscow state was a lot more authoritarian, the only person who was free was the prince... but at least this, and the invasion, made us unified, people were willing to tolerate authoritarianism if that meant order, and that was good because this taught Russia to adapt and survive any hardships".
... I am a very dubious historian myself, but. I'm not sure the processes in the pre-Mongol Russian states count as "Russia fell apart". And I'm not sure what he means by "survive any hardships" - what is supposed to survive? The people? The state? The idea of a state?
Also, Akunin's political stance for current events seems to be OK, but he's a bit too enamoured of the importance of the state and the Russian national idea for my taste.
Meanwhile I am continuing with all the previous books - well, mostly Solomon and Pinker. Funny, but the most cheerful reading - in some sense of cheerful - in Solomon's book is the chapter of poverty. "Look, people living in horrible circumstances respond very well to treatment, if anyone cares to give them some! Or even to human attention! Their lives actually get better!"
Also, I bought Ekaterina Andreeva's book on Finnish art and architecture - in my favorite genre of "history+art+travel writing put together by whatever the author's train of thought takes her" - but I'm not sure if I will be reading that because my mother took it. Also, I'm trying to finish at least something before starting a new book.
This entry was originally posted at https://taelle.dreamwidth.org/75328.html. Please comment there using OpenID.