Akadeemia
Eurozine
Akadeemia
2010-09-07
Abstracts for Akadeemia 9/2010
Ilias Iliopoulus
Strategy and geopolitics of sea power throughout history
Rear-Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan famously stated, "Control of the sea by maritime commerce and naval supremacy means predominant influence in the world [...] and is the chief among the merely material elements in the power and prosperity of nations." Similarly, Sir Walter Raleigh held that "he that commands the sea, commands the trade, and he that is lord of the trade of the world is lord of the wealth of the world." Accordingly, it may be said that even the final collapse of the essentially un-maritime and land-bound Soviet empire at the end of the long 20th century was simply the latest illustration of the strategic advantages of sea power.
Obviously, sea power is about naval forces -- and coastguards, marine or civil-maritime industries and where relevant, the contribution of land and air forces. Still, it is more than that; it is about geography, geopolitics, geo-strategy, geo-economics and geo-culture; it is about the sea-based capacity of a state to determine or influence events, currents and developments both at sea and on land. Or, as Sir Julian Corbett never tired of saying, the real point of sea power is not so much what happens at sea, but how that influences the outcome of events on land.
Historically, sea power depended on a number of related factors, both inside and outside the navy. Autocracy was adequate for an army, but navies needed public support, read consensus. The long-term development of sea power seems to have been particularly associated with a certain Aristotelian-Jeffersonian style of limited government and a liberal and anthropocentric style of society, based on a values system of Greek-Roman, Judeo-Christian, occidental origin.
Sea power is not, and never has been, the exclusive property of a handful of Great Powers. The Baltic nations, after winning their independence, began developing naval forces in order to maintain their hard-won freedoms. Besides, representing a nation is often a principal justification for having a navy in the first place.
It seems that sea power, maritime supremacy, and strategic control of both the oceans and the Rimland (the Earth's Ring according to Sir Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman) always remain the key of success for the occidental, Anglo-Saxon naval powers. To put it with the words of Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery, "From the days when humans first began to use the seas, the great lesson of history is that the enemy who is confined to a land strategy is in the end defeated."
Martin Kala
What does Europe believe in? And what does Islam think of it?
On September 11, 2001, the Islamic extremists attacked the World Trade Center, and in the ensuing years a wave of violent events broke over the World in reaction to the Danish Muslim cartoon scandal. US President George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 largely due to the support of the huge number of neoconservative believers. In Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, a new type of aggressive foreign policy is gaining ground through their leaders promoting religious fanatism; political choices are based on literal interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, et cetera.
After the Iranian presidential elections in June 2009, followed by mass civil unrest, which raised serious concern amongst a number of nations throughout the World, Iran's spiritual and religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed his country claiming that the aim of Iran's enemies questioning the election results is to shake the foundations of the Sharia law.
Such grave and frightening incidents occur with increasing frequency in today's World, which prompted the modern French philosopher and researcher of Islam, Gilles Kepel, to label the return of religion into our everyday life in the early nineties as "the revenge of the Almighty".
Europe is the only place in the world where one might attempt to prove the opposite. While we have witnessed significant growth of religion in the rest of the world, traditional faiths have been in constant decline in Europe, both socially and politically. Nonetheless Europe has remained very diverse in its religious realities. Although our famous secularisation and modernisation of society made religion relatively insignificant, Europe managed to remain hiddenly religious. Europeans' everyday choices and actions are based on Christian values and traditions even if they don't attend Church services. Simultaneously, Europe has seen growth in religion largely due to the arrival of Muslims and their integration into its life, resulting in the politicising of religion and giving rise to political disputes on separation of religion and state. In recent times, rivalry between religions has reached a new pitch and while Islam seems invigorated by this competition, Christianity struggles to keep pace.
Should we in Europe fight the deepening influence and advance of religion with the politics of secularity. The idea that religion is and should remain a private matter due to the percieved harm it represents to personal liberties -- or instead should we acknowledge that religion brings diversity, richness and therefore success to a society, and thus welcome its return and encourage it? There is reason to believe that an increasingly multicultural and secular Europe has to find answers to these questions ever more often in decades to come.
Artur Rinne
About swallows: A recollection from Arkhangelsk region, 1952
The memory fragment by Estonians' favourite singer of the past dates from the time when he was in a prison camp in Northern Russia from 1950--1956. It shows which emotions helped to keep up humanity in adverse conditions.
Leo Tiik
On settlement of Hiiumaa Island and its place names
The West Estonian island of Hiiumaa was settled in the second half of the 13th century and the 14th century greatly by refugees from the neighbouring islands of Saaremaa and Muhu, after suppression of peasant uprisings there. With its forests, Hiiumaa provided good refuge for those who escaped punitive actions. When the situation calmed down, they could come out and settle at more favourable places.
Hiiumaa and Saaremaa are related linguistically; there are also similarities in place names. The final suffix of place names -vere that has spread all over Estonia is almost nonexistent in the place names of Hiiumaa. The rarity of place names ending in -vere in Hiiumaa proves that this type of name has been introduced from the outside but has not survived, as it is not characteristic of inhabitants of Hiiumaa to pronounce the last syllables of long names clearly; therefore many names have been shortened. As for arrivals from mainland Estonia, there are only a few families from the second half of the 16th century that can be clearly recognized.
Pockets of Swedish and Finnish settlement also formed in Hiiumaa. It is not known when Swedes settled in Hiiumaa, but by 1470 they had lived there for quite a long time already. The Teutonic Order had invited them to fight against pirates. The inlets of Kõrgessaare Bay and the mouth of the Kärdla River were convenient places for harbours in the region of dangerous shallows and reefs. For locals, however, robbing of ships that had run aground on the heavily travelled sea route had become an essential source of income.
Coastal waters and edges of shallows were rich in fish; hunting for seals was also essential. Thus, the Swedish villages of Kärdla and Reigi were founded; in their vicinity new villages developed where agriculture had a significant role. By 1564 Swedish settlers had spread to the villages of Kauste, Mäeltse, Kodeste, Tareste, Tahkuna, Mudaste, Kidaste, Malvaste, Ogandi, and Sigala. The Swedes retained their language and customs until 1781 when the Swedes of Reigi area were forced to leave for Berislav in Southern Ukraine. In 1810 the Swedes of Kärdla area were forced to leave for Vormsi Island and the towns of Haapsalu and Tallinn in mainland Estonia. Only five families remained, and even their farms were taken from them in 1830 when a cloth factory was established in Kärdla. Landless Swedes became paid labourers and gradually merged with Estonians. Only a few Swedish-sounding family names survived.
Finns settled in Hiiumaa even before the island was taken over by Sweden in 1563. A proof of old naval connections is the name of the coastal village of Önigu, taken directly from Aland which has a village called Öininge by. The village existed in Hiiumaa in the mid-16th century already. There is no documentation about when people settled there from Aland. Most probably this happened as early as in the first half of the 14th century, as in 1435 mention is made of a mill in the region of Hiiumaa that belonged to the bishop, and it could hardly have been situated anywhere else than at Önigu. Most Finns settled on the northern coast of Hiiumaa, a few of them also elsewhere.
In the second half of the 17th century and in the 18th century the authorities began to establish customs clearance points to check naval trade, and boats were watched carefully. Until the mid-16th century such regulations had concerned only towns. Still, the coastal people, despite severe punishments, attempted to continue free, unrestricted sea traffic. To increase the revenues of towns and the state, by the order of the Swedish King Gustav Vasa, severe restrictions were imposed on coastal trade on the Baltic Sea, and only trade with the nearest town was allowed.
Ott Kurs
Leo Tiik: an Estonian geographer and cultural historian
Leo Tiik was born on 15 September 1910 in Tallinn where his parents had moved from Hiiumaa Island some time before the birth of their son. His parents had traditionally been Lutherans but had converted to the Orthodox religion in Tallinn. In Hiiumaa Leo Tiik's grandfather, father and uncle had earned their living as sailors. From 1918-1924 he attended Tallinn 1st Primary School for Boys. From 1924-1929 he continued his education at Tallinn Boys' Secondary School of Commerce where he simultaneously worked for four years as the school librarian. In autumn 1929 Leo Tiik matriculated at the Department of Economics at the Law Faculty of the University of Tartu. In April 1930 he voluntarily joined military service. He served in naval communications at Ristna lighthouse in Hiiumaa, then in Tallinn and finally at Vormsi lighthouse. After being released from military service in October 1931, he started working at the department of literature in foreign languages at Tallinn Central Library. In October 1935 he got a post at Tartu Public Library and continued his studies at the University of Tartu.
Leo Tiik was primarily interested in economic geography and history of economy. The leading academics in these areas were Prof. Edgar Kant and Dr. Hendrik Sepp who both became members of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in 1938. In 1937 Leo Tiik became a member of Vironia student fraternity. In 1938 he wrote a prize essay on the profitability of Estonian agriculture and in the spring term of 1939 received a scholarship for working at Stockholm University where he studied the placement of Swedish textile industry. In autumn 1939 he passed the last exams at the University of Tartu and got a temporary assistant lecturer's post at the Institute of Theoretical Economics and Statistics where his supervisor was Edgar Kant. In February 1940 Tiik graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tartu cum laude and was employed as an assistant lecturer of political economy under Prof. Eduard Poom.
When the Soviet Union annexed Estonia in summer 1940, the Faculty of Economics was transferred from the University of Tartu to Tallinn University of Technology, and Assistant Lecturer Tiik also had to move to Tallinn. When World War II reached Estonia, Tiik was conscripted into the Red Army in 1941 and was taken to Russia. The education of an economist saved him from being sent to the front. Tiik was sent to a refreshment course after which he became Chairman of the Estonian SSR Planning Committee in Moscow. Having returned to Tallinn with the Red Army in autumn 1944, he continued working at the Planning Committee for one more year. From November 1944 he worked as lecturer in economic geography at Tallinn University of Technology, being from 1950-1953 also director of the Library of the Estonian SSR Academy of Sciences. As in 1954 the Faculty of Economics was transferred back to Tartu, Leo Tiik became lecturer in economic geography at the University of Tartu again and assistant dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (1955-1961). Having defended the dissertation Old Tallinn: a historical and geographical treatise on the formation of the town in 1958, he was elected to the post of associate professor of economic geography in 1959. He retired from this post in 1977. Leo Tiik died in Tartu on 16 June 1996.
Relying on archive materials and his own summer fieldwork, he thoroughly studied the settlement history of Hiiumaa and Estonian cultural history. His academic legacy consists of four translated and edited books, a monograph on guilds in Tallinn and their plots of land, approximately 130 articles, a score of research papers that remained in manuscript and 23 supervised graduation papers.
The author of the article knew Leo Tiik from 1957-1996. Associate Professor Tiik taught economic geography of foreign countries and the USSR at the Faculty of Economics and some minor courses, primarily transport geography at the Department of Geography of the University of Tartu. When lecturing, he did not use ideological catchwords or retell the content of Soviet textbooks but paid more attention to the historical development of the economies of states and regions; he also explained the meaning and origin of place names. Although the lectures were presented in a quiet voice and without excessive emotions, they attracted interest.
During breaks between lectures he used to smoke in the corridor and talk to students, thus giving them additional knowledge. A cigarette between his fingers, he spoke about his studies and work in the pre-war Republic of Estonia, also about his experiences deep in the rear of Russia during the war. From these talks students learned that Leo Tiik was in contact with Estonian political refugees living in the west -- his former fellow students and lecturers (Edgar Kant, Eduard Poom, Bernard Kangro, Rudolf Jalakas, and others); he also managed to meet them when visiting Sweden. He was allowed to travel abroad as he was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At exams he always asked additional questions, to make sure if the student had read any other geographical books besides the lecture materials and textbooks and was able to grasp geographical connections.
Leo Tiik's behaviour and manner of speech were typical of an inhabitant of Hiiumaa Island. The students listened to his quiet talk attentively in order to understand everything that the speaker wanted to say. Tiik often used puns and jokes characteristic of Hiiumaa. At parties of geography students early in December each year, quiz questions were asked, some of which were definitely related to Leo Tiik's activities, e.g. "Who has thoroughly studied Old Tallinn?", "Who discovered the fire in Kõpu lighthouse?","Who tracked down the murderer?"
Leo Tiik had friends among Estonian writers and other cultural figures (Friedebert Tuglas, Voldemar Panso, and others). He seemed to be a parsimonious man; each time when money was collected for something, he hurried away. Still, he seemed to have enough money for buying books and cigarettes and visiting the café. The author of the current article had quite interesting talks on books with him sometimes. In the 1970s and 1980s, when retired already, he and Endel Varep supervised geographical field trips to Saaremaa.
According to students' memories, they formed a good tandem. In 1982, when the lecturers and researchers of the Department of Geography took an excursion to Vormsi Island, pensioner Leo Tiik was with them and shared pertinent explanations on cultural history. Leo Tiik continued to research archive materials to the end of his life. The author of the article met him for the last time outside the Estonian Historical Archives in Tartu in May 1996. Their unfinished talk concerned the events in the summer of 1941 when Tiik, as a conscript, had to spend the night lying on a cobbled street in Tallinn, waiting for being sent to Russia.
Ivo Volt, Paavo Roos
Ervin Roos (1908-1962): a classicist in Estonia and Sweden
The article presents an overview of the life and writings of Ervin Roos, an Estonian classicist whose 100th anniversary was celebrated in 2008. The story of his life closely resembles those of many Estonian intellectuals who took refuge from the atrocities of World War II and the Russian occupation in 1944 and decided to flee to Sweden or elsewhere. Roos was born and educated in Tartu and defended his Master's degree at the University of Tartu in 1935 with a thesis on the reflection of political history and public situation in the Acharnians of Aristophanes. From 1930 he was employed by the university as a teaching assistant, later as a lecturer. He was mainly responsible for language courses in Latin and Ancient Greek, in which he also introduced reforms in pronunciation and teaching methods. The main publication of Roos from the Estonian period is a book titled The System of Estonian Quantitative Hexameter (1938, in Estonian, with a summary in German), which has been influential to later theoreticians. He also published popular surveys of both Ancient Greek and Roman literature, and a more specific one focusing on the Odyssey. In addition, he translated a selection of passages from Greek and Latin texts into Estonian for various publications.
In 1944, Ervin Roos was the only Estonian classicist who managed to take refuge and reach Sweden together with his family. There, he got a position at a library. At that time, such positions were specifically created for refugees to Sweden. This enabled Roos to continue his academic career in classical studies. He received his licentiate from the University of Uppsala in 1948, and his doctorate from the University of Lund in 1951, with the thesis Die tragische Orchestik im Zerrbild der altattischen Komödie, which was published as a book.
Unfortunately, he could not get a post at the university and had to work at another library for some more time. (In 1952 he was offered a job in Minnesota, but due to immigrant quota restrictions he could not get the US visa.) Then he was invited to a temporary teaching position at the University of Lund, where he had to teach ancient history, history of ancient art, theatre etc., all of which were new courses for him and involved a lot of stress and pressure. At the end of his life, Roos worked at a library again, but his health was already very poor. He died at the age of 53 in 1962, having spent 18 years of his life in exile. By that time he had published 11 scholarly articles in German and Latin, and a handful of popular pieces in Swedish Estonian-language journals. His topics include Attic comedy (Aristophanes), ancient dance, language of the New Testament, Latin onomastics, Thucydides, etc.
Wilfrid Sellars
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Part I
Based on lectures delivered in London in 1956, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" is the most famous work by Wilfrid Sellars (1912-1989). It is a sustained discussion and rejection of what he called "The Myth of the Given" -- the claim, central to both phenomenology and sense-data theories of knowledge that we can know things about our perceptual experiences independently of and in some important sense prior to the conceptual apparatus which we use to perceive objects. Within the empiricist tradition, the "given" is also held to be the foundation of all knowledge. Sellars himself constructs "The Myth of Jones", a philosophical parable to explain how thoughts, intelligent action, and eaven subjective inner experience can be attributed to people within the naturalistic worldview. One of his most central goals, which may be called Kantian, is reconciling the conceptual behaviour of the "space of reasons" with the concept of a subjective sense experience. Sellars follows Kant in rejecting the Cartesian picture of a sensory-cognitive continuum. The "of-ness" of sensations -- e.g., a sensation's being of a red triangle -- is not the intentional "of-ness" ("aboutness") of thoughts.