Contenu du sommaire

Nicolas Ross, Russian image of physical world at the end of the XIV th century. The object of this article is the study of conceptions of the systems of the world and of the inanimate nature, the glimpse of which is given to us by the Russian texts at the end of the XIVth century. These texts are varied enough and practically all of Byzantine origin: works of the Fathers of the Church, chronicles, apocrypha, isolated short notices... Two systems of the world are offered to the thought of a scholar: that of Aristotle, known through the works of the Fathers or the Hexaemeron of John the Exarch of Bulgaria and that of Cosmas Indicopleustès, whose "universe-box" seems however less popular. One must add to those two great systems the numerous information, some picturesque, others ingenuous, provided by the apocrypha on certain details of the organization of the universe. If it appears clearly that at the time there was no critérium whatsoever to distinguish the true from the-Jalse in the mass of book-derived knowledge, it is nevertheless true that the diversity of ideas offered by texts could stimulate personal meditation in a domain in which there was no religious constraint in Russia during the XIVth century.

Matei Cazacu, The Russian tale Skazanie о Drakule voevode. The Russian tale Skazanie o Drakule voevode, work of ďjak Fedor Kuricyn, ambassador of Ivan III to Bude during the years 1482-83 occupies a special place in ancient Russian literature. Inspired by written and oral tales circulating in Bude, in Transylvania and Moldavia on the Wallachian voievode Vlad the Impaler, also known under the name of Dracula (1448, 1456-62, 1476), the tale combines the characteristics of information works on remote countries and moralizing elements. The difficulties of foreign policy of Ivan III, especially in its relations with the Golden Horde, may have incited Kuricyn to write this work. Stress is laid on the resistance of the Rumanian prince against the pressure of the Ottoman Empire.

Jutta Scherrer, The "Religous-philosophical Societies" and the ideological quest of the Russian intelligentsia before 1917. The religious turning point reached by the Russian intelligentsia towards the end of the 19th century finds an exceptional expression in different « Religious-philosophical Societies » formed during this period at St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev. It is only the revolutionary events of 1917 that put an end to their activity. In very general terms, the article describes the trends, the activities and the functioning characteristic of each of such Societies which in fact crystallized the different spiritual tendencies in intellectual circles, such as for instance the directing ideas of Christian socialism and anarchism, of literary criticism and esthetics of Christian inspiration, and, above all, of a religious philosophy, which was to expand and take root well beyond the Russian frontiers.

Paul Dumont, The review Türk Yurdu and the Moslems of the Russian Empire, 1911-1914. Right after the Young Turks' revolution of 1908, Pan-Turkism had a considerable development in the Ottoman Empire. The principal promoters of the movement — Yusuf Akçura, Ali Huseyin-zade and some others — were Moslem publicists originating from Russia. Among the numerous periodicals published by this group, the best and the most known was indisputably the Türk Yurdu. In our days, it constitutes a first class source for the study of Pan-Turkist ideology. In this article, after underlining the importance attached by Türk Yurdu to the spiritual legacy of Ismail Gasprinsky, we attempt to delimit the main topics developed by Yusuf Akçura and Ahmed Agaev, stressing the bourgeois progressionism of the former and the anticlericalism of the latter. On the other hand, we note the receptivity of Türk Yurdu as regards modernizing factors and its awareness of the economic and social subjects. Our final conclusion is that the Türk Yurdu movement served to promote not only questionable racial theories but also innovating ideas in various fields.

Baruch Gurevitz, A case of National Communism in the Soviet Union. Poale Zion — 1918-1928. According to the National Communist theory, the human race is divided objectively into both classes and nations. The two concepts of National Communism cannot be separated or divided. Among the minorities in the Soviet Union, a wide spectrum of National Communism was developed. This spectrum went from Sultan Galiev, the Tatar leader, to Borochovism and the "Jewish Communist Workers Party, Poale Zion". The movement, while not large in number, was influential politically and ideologically.

Azade-Ayse Rorlich, Which way will Tatar culture go ? A controversial essay by Galimdzhan Ibragimov. The present article discusses G. Ibragimov's essay Which way will Tatar culture go ? which demonstrates his awareness of the historical traditions, peculiarities of the Volga Tatars as well as the need to preserve and develop the national identity in the future. Since in his essay Ibragimov posed two alternatives for the future of Tatar culture: russification or survival, the author of this article concentrated around the same issue, comparing Ibragimov's theses with those of other Tatar intellectuals concerned with the future of the Tatar nation. Ibragimov considered the national language as the main ingredient of a national culture and the present article discusses his struggle around this issue as well as his belief that the future of the Tatar culture depended upon the future of the Tatar language.

Yaacov Ro'i, Soviet policy in the Middle East: the case of Palestine during World War II. The period between the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945 saw a transformation in the Soviet attitude toward the Jewish Community in Palestine. From a stand of which the main factor was total negation, the USSR came to approve the consolidation of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. This article endeavours to survey the circumstances of this change, and particularly contacts between Soviet officials and representatives of Palestine Jewry and Zionist leaders — and analyzes its reasons.

François Rouleau, The last written work of Čaadaev. An unpublished letter. The name of Čaadaev remains in history attached to his famous Philosophical letter which created a scandal at the time of its publication in 1836. The recent publication of the complete collection of Philosophical letters allows to correct in a notable way the traditional image of Čaadaev and of his thought. There still remains to make public the numerous, significative though fragmentary, unpublished works of which a good number was written in French. A special place must be given to the text which is to be found here, because it is the last known written work of Čaadaev. It is in a way his intellectual testament in which he recapitulates his ideas as a whole concerning Russia, stylizing them around three factors: geographical, historical and social: the immense extent of the territory, the spirit of Byzantine orthodoxy and serfdom. This final point reached by Čaadaev's thought constitutes a decisive element for the understanding of the quarrel between the Occidentalists and the Slavophiles, a key to the history of ideas in Russia during the 19th century.