Contenu du sommaire

Paul Dumont, The fascination of Bolshevism: Enver pacha and the party of the people's soviets, 1919-1922. Shortly after the armistice of Moudros, the leaders of the party "Union and Progress", who bear the responsibility of the reckless policy of the Ottoman Empire since 1908, decide to flee abroad. This will not prevent them from continuing to play a certain political part. The most active among them, and probably the most ambitious, Enver Pacha, will turn, like many other leaders of Eastern nations, towards the Bolsheviks endeavouring to obtain their support in exchange for a semblance of adhesion to their cause. The different episodes of this surprising relationship (starting with the first contact established through Radek in August 1919, until the breach in October 1921, when Enver rallied the Turkestani Basmadji) are examined in this article in the light of Turkish documents recently uncovered. The question is whether the "party of the people's soviets" organized by Enver corresponded to a real political choice, or if it was merely an opportunist scheme. We do not claim to have found a definite solution of this problem but we do note that Enver's venture, in spite of the palpable inconstancy of the unionist leader, was not as incoherent as deemed by some.

W. Bruce Lincoln Reform and reaction in Russia: A . V. Golovnin's critique of the 1860's. The first decade of Alexander II's reign brought many changes to Russia as the Imperial government made serious efforts to deal with problems of local government, serfdom, legal reform, and a host of other pressing issues. Yet, by the end of the decade, Russian domestic policy had taken a more conservative, even reactionary, turn. A. V. Golovnin, one of the reformers of the 1860's, a confidant of the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, and Minister of Public Instruction from 1861-1866, sought to examine the reasons for this dramatic change in official attitudes and to determine where this new policy was leading. Most important, Golovnin urged the Emperor and his advisers to develop a clearly-defined state policy, to allow public opinion to have a voice in governmental decisions, and to permit broader participation of Russia's citizens in local government.

François de Labriolle, The failure in the works of I. A Gončarov. Like many other impotents, Gončarov pictured love as an absolute, appearing as the real target of his heroes. All of them want to love, dream of love and suffer because of love. Love and passion are ever present in this work which appears so cold and so controlled. Ivan Aleksandrovič idealizes love to make more certain of his heroes' failure. They love a woman as an incarnation of womanhood because they can love only the abstract. Creations born in a diseased spirit must share in the same misfortunes as their creator: they cannot know the joys of a real reciprocated love. When the ideal seems to become accessible, the heroes find themselves stricken with an ailment similar to that of Gončarov, but in their case purely psychological (otherwise what a confession!), they give up, they flee.

Kéram Kévonian, Armenian merchants in the XVIIth century. On the subject of an Armenian book published in Amsterdam in 1699. The Thesaurus of measures, weights, numbers and moneys of the world of Lucas de Vanand or Vanandetsi (Amsterdam, 1699) is a guide or manual of commerce composed for the use of Armenian merchants. The interest of this work resides not only in the numerous indications that it supplies as regards weights, measures and coins in use in different countries, the transported goods and the then current prices and taxes but also because it constitutes an important document on the extent of Armenian commerce at the end of the XVIIth century. In spite of the unfavorable political circumstances, this trade reached at the time an exceptional degree of development and extended from the Dutch counters in East Indies to the Northern Europe, in particular to Amsterdam. One of the centers of this commerce is the suburb of New Djulfa, near Isphahan, where the "Trade Company of the Armenians of Djulfa" has its principal establishment. This period is particularly noted for the inauguration of new roads allowing to reach the United Provinces whilst avoiding the Ottoman territory: road from Astrakhan and Moscow to Arhangel'sk (1667 with a grant of monopoly in Muscovy in 1689); from Moscow to Narva (1692); from Moscow to Libau (1696). The inauguration of these roads is linked also to the efforts of the Armenian merchant bourgeoisie and clergy to obtain the political emancipation of their nation. In the cultural domain, identical efforts are at the origin of a progressive revival illustrated for instance by the activity of the Editors of Vanand or Vanandetsi, established in Amsterdam between 1685 and 1718, to whom we are indebted for the publication of the Thesaurus.

Edward J. Lazzerini, Ğadidism at the turn of the twentieth century: a view from within. Ismail Bey Gasprinskii, one of the leaders of the movement for the reform and renovation of the Islamic way of life among Russian Muslims (ğadidism) , wrote an informative essay in 1901 that sought to survey the broad cultural advancement that had taken place in Russian Islam between 1880 and the turn of the twentieth century. The essay, translated here, provides an insider's view of the progress made and offers the historian a convenient and concise source for an understanding of what Gasprinskii, and by extension, other ğadidists understood to be the weaknesses in the Muslim way of life that required remedy. The bibliography that Gasprinskii appended to his essay is of paramount importance in its own right as a listing of those works which, from the ğadidist viewpoint, constituted a body of knowledge which should be imparted to the Muslim people as an aid to achieving further progress. Extensive notes and commentaries serve to increase the value of both the essay and the bibliography.