Wissenschaft als Mittel der Selbststilisierung

The philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960) and the folklorist Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) are generally regarded as paramount personalities in Japanese intellectual history. Influenced by the modernizing efforts of the ending Meiji era (1868-1912) and the starting Taishō era (1912-1926) they epitomize the initial period of cultural self-reflection which intends to dif-ferentiate Japan from the West and would reach its climax in the years before the Second World War. In this sense Watsuji and Yanagita, trying to guarantee a unique Japanese cultural identity, are among the most prominent representatives of a so called "cultural particularism". A closer examination of their respective approaches reveals, first of all, crucial differences, even contradictions in what they took to be "Japanese identity." Watsuji, for one, emphasizes a distinctively Japanese ability to absorb foreign ideas and integrate them in the already exist-ing national culture. Yanagita, in contrast, aims at determining an original, singularly Japanese culture without foreign influences. Thus, the concept of Japan as a nation of culture and civilization on par with Western cultures competes with the idea of an ancient native popula-tion whose morals are still alive in Japanese rural communities. Secondly, the question is ad-dressed which methods, especially scientific, they employed in their respective constructions of cultural identity. Watsuji accepts the paradigms of Western philosophy wholesale, and con-sequently the ethnocentric tendencies inherent in Western thought and science are equally accepted. They find their way into his presentation of the peculiarities of the Japanese mental-ity and landscape, and reflect Western forms of intellectual distortion as a mirror image. Yan-agita, then again, is faced with the task of establishing Japanese folklore. In order to demon-strate the uniqueness of Japanese culture he disregards any possibility of intercultural compar-ison and classification. Although alternative typologies of Japanese folklore were under dis-cussion at the time, Yanagita decides to follow a scientific program that leads to the exclusion of foreign influences and ethnocentric implications. Yanagita's and Watsuji’s considerations thus laid the ground for the development of the so called Nihon-ron

Sergej D. Martynov: Gosudarstvo i ėkonomika: sistema Vitte [Staat und Wirtschaft: das System Vitte], St. Petersburg: Nauka 2002

Bönker K. Sergej D. Martynov: Gosudarstvo i ėkonomika: sistema Vitte [Staat und Wirtschaft: das System Vitte], St. Petersburg: Nauka 2002. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 2006;54(1):98-100

L. I. Zajceva L. A. Zubčenko: S. Ju. Vitte i Rossija. Čast' 1: Kazennaja vinnaja monopolija (1894-1914). Po naučnym publikacijam i archivnym materialam konca XIX - načala XX veka, Moskau: Institut Ekonomiki RAN 2000

Bönker K. L. I. Zajceva L. A. Zubčenko: S. Ju. Vitte i Rossija. Čast' 1: Kazennaja vinnaja monopolija (1894-1914). Po naučnym publikacijam i archivnym materialam konca XIX - načala XX veka, Moskau: Institut Ekonomiki RAN 2000. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 2005;53(3):446-447

Kristin Roth-Ey: Moscow Prime Time. How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2011

Bönker K. Kristin Roth-Ey: Moscow Prime Time. How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2011. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. jgo.e-reviews. 2015;5(3):39-42

Dietmar Neutatz: Träume und Alpträume. Eine Geschichte Russlands im 20. Jahrhundert, München: Beck, 2013

Bönker K. Dietmar Neutatz: Träume und Alpträume. Eine Geschichte Russlands im 20. Jahrhundert, München: Beck, 2013. Neue Politische Literatur. 2013;58(2):326-328

Military History, Militarization, and the "American Century"

The blossoming of military history in Germany offers the chance to set new agendas beyond conventional narratives. The notion of a distinct authoritarian Prusso-German militarism, set against political modernity and civil society, has long served as the master narrative of modern German military history. But this narrative no longer holds any promise. It fails to situate the German experience within a common European and transatlantic military political realm and war culture; it ignores the centrality of technocratic reasoning and industrialized warfare for any understanding of the German military; it offers too overblown and simplistic a portrayal of societal militarization; and it downplays militarist multiplicities and the transformations of the early 20th century. This narrative has the additional disadvantage of cutting off the history of the military and war after 1945 from what came previously

Derek Offord: Nineteenth-Century Russia: Opposition to Autocracy. Seminar Studies in History, Harlow: Longman 1999

Bönker K. Derek Offord: Nineteenth-Century Russia: Opposition to Autocracy. Seminar Studies in History, Harlow: Longman 1999. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 2002;50(1):140-141

Andreas R. Hofmann/Anna Veronika Wendland (Hrsg.), Stadt und Öffentlichkeit in Ostmitteleuropa 1900–1939. Beiträge zur Entstehung moderner Urbanität zwischen Berlin, Charkiv, Tallin und Triest, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002

Bönker K. Andreas R. Hofmann/Anna Veronika Wendland (Hrsg.), Stadt und Öffentlichkeit in Ostmitteleuropa 1900–1939. Beiträge zur Entstehung moderner Urbanität zwischen Berlin, Charkiv, Tallin und Triest, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002. Archiv für Sozialgeschichte. 2004;44:701–704

Watching Television and Emotional Commitment in the Late Soviet Union

Bönker K. Watching Television and Emotional Commitment in the Late Soviet Union. Euxeinos: Governance and Culture in the Black Sea Region. 2018;8(25-26):61-71