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Originally Posted by Austrvegr
Indeed, Lev Gumilyov was a latter-day Eurasianist. I have never liked his books. They are fiction rather than science. And they are based on ridiculous chemical-biological positivism.
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I enjoy his style very much. I would never have learnt anything about the Stepnyaks if I hadn't been lucky enough to find his books. I have the full set upstairs. I'm reading Tysyacheletie vokrug Kaspiya as we speak!
I think it is possible to read him for the history, while taking much of his 'etnogenez' theory with a pinch of salt. He has a wonderful breadth of narration, able to cast his eye over the whole of the Eurasian landmass. I don't know about the idea of 'cosmic rays' or whatever being the tolchok [nudge? stimulus?] of the birth of a new ethnos, but I think that this only one element in his scheme. He believed he could observe a natural 'lifespan' of an ethnos [1500 years, I think], and he just needed some initial reason to spark off such a process, and so he looked to this sort of thing [it's all down to Vernadskiy, I believe]. Conservatively, I would rather see the initial burst of activity arise from clashes of compatible and incompatible peoples in peculiar geographic circumstances, but I'm willing to have an open mind.
Maybe I'm too trusting and simple, but I believe we can see his process of pod'yom [rise?], acmatic phase, nadlom [breakdown?], inertia, obscuration and so on. It makes a lot of sense to me. At least, we can say that it makes for an interesting way of looking at history, as well as our PRESENT situation. I believe I can truthfully say that I owe it to Lev Nikolaich that I can now read Russian! I tried to start with novels and other fiction, but the vocabulary was too daunting for me [and much of it was archaic too], and so I find history in the style Gumilyov writes is very pleasant to read.