Akadeemia
Eurozine
Akadeemia
2011-08-09
Abstracts for Akadeemia 8/2011
Hermogenes
On issues
Orator and author of manuals of rhetoric, Hermogenes of Tarsus (town on the peninsula of Asia Minor, now on the territory of Turkey), lived in the second and third centuries AD. The best-known works attributed to Hermogenes are On Issues and On Types of Style.
From the fifth century AD, Hermogenes' On Issues became one of the most influential works on the theory of rhetoric in the Greek language, overshadowing even Aristotle's Rhetoric and retaining its position until the fall of Byzantium in the fifteenth century AD. The manual On Issues helps the author of a speech to find, according to the circumstances of the problem, the most effective main argument, counting also the possible additional arguments related to it. First Hermogenes defines the political question; then he presents the classification of the persons and acts related to the problem.
The central theme of his manual is the division of problems into so-called heads. Different kinds of heads are called issues or staseis, and Hermogenes' system includes 13 or 14 of them (it is not quite clear whether the two subdivisions of objection can be regarded as independent issues or not). All issues are reached by dihairetic discussion, where a certain fulfilled condition stops the discussion and means the achievement of the corresponding issue; an unfulfilled condition leads further to the following question -- if the matter is unclear, it is a conjecture; if it is incomplete, then a definition. All the other issues (except objection) are subdivisions of quality, which in their turn are divided into two -- logical and legal issues. The logical issue dealing with a future problem is a practical issue; all the other logical issues concern the events of the past and are called counterplea, counterstatement, counteraccusation, transference and mitigation.
Legal issues are divided into two depending on whether they concern one or several verbal instruments. The argument over a verbal instrument is divided into letter and intent, and assimilation. The issues related to several verbal instruments are conflict of law and ambiguity. The so-called last issue differs from the others and studies the legitimacy of a process; it is called objection, which in its turn is divided into documentary and non-documentary. After providing an overview of the system of issues, Hermogenes discusses statements that can be applied to each different issue.
In the case of all classifications, the author (usually) gives fictional situations, which, in addition to history of rhetoric and law, make his manual interesting from the viewpoint of cultural history.
Reinhart Koselleck
Conceptual history and social history
Koselleck's aim is to clarify the relations between these disciplines on three levels.
First, to what extent does conceptual history follow the classical historical-critical method -- simultaneously, due to its sharpened focus, enabling social history to see more clearly the problems it is interested in? Here, conceptual analysis cooperates with social history, being its auxiliary discipline.
Second, to what extent can social history be viewed as an independent discipline with its own methods, a discipline that exists in parallel with social history but coinciding with it in its content and scope?
Third, to what extent can the specific theories of conceptual history be taken seriously so that a satisfactory study of social history would be impossible without them?
Siiri Rebane
Mauricius of Tallinn: An overview of reliable facts about him
Mauricius, Lecturer at the Dominican monastery in Tallinn, is one of the few people in thirteenth-century Estonia about whom we know a lot. Siiri Rebane provides an overview of sources of reliable facts about him, concentrating on the most voluminous and informative of them: Petrus de Dacia's Vita Cristine Stumbelensis (VCS), which is part of the early fourteenth-century manuscript Codex Juliacensis. The other source is a letter by Fridericus Haseldorp, Bishop of Tartu, from 1284. The text of VCS was last published in 1985. It has been translated into Swedish, and partly into German and Spanish. Rebane has also done a translation into Estonian as her Master's thesis. The content of VCS consists of descriptions of visits of Petrus de Dacia and other friars to Stommeln, the home village of the female mystic Cristina and her correspondence with Petrus and other persons.
VCR mentions Mauricius for the first time on 2 May 1268 -- most probably, this was the time he began his studies at Dominican studium generale in Cologne. The data of VCS give reason to state that Mauricius had become a member of the Order of Preachers in the Dominican monastery in Tallinn; most probably, he was from the class of citizens. He studied in Cologne from 1268-1270 and in Paris from 1270-1272. He was probably a lecturer at Tallinn Dominican monastery from 1272. From 1281-1282 he was prior; in 1282 he attended the General Chapter of the Order as socius diffinitoris. The other of the two sources that mention Mauricius, a letter by Fridericus Haseldorp, Bishop of Tartu, says that in 1284 Mauricius was a lecturer again. By extrapolating these data, one might suppose that Mauricius was born before 1243, as by 1268 he had to be at least 25 years old. As he was considered to be worthy of receiving higher education and being a lecturer and intellectual leader of the monastery, he must have been intelligent and industrious, but otherwise of an ordinary and calm character, as the compiler of VCS always mentions exceptions from that. Mauricius' ethnic origin is unknown; there is not even any foundation for guessing.
Tiiu Speek
Veins of life in Arctic ice
During his 1824 expedition to North-eastern Siberia, Ferdinand von Wrangell (1796-1870), a seafarer and polar explorer who grew up in Estonia, described a hitherto unknown phenomenon in the Arctic Ocean: permanently ice-free areas that he called, taking example from the inhabitants of Siberia, polynya (Russ. clearing, meadow). He was the very first explorer to describe the ice in terms of different age and ice islands in the East Siberian and the Chukchi Sea, and to map the unfrozen patches. He showed where the polynyas were located, what their approximate extent was, which parts of them were ice-free throughout the year and which froze in the coldest months. He also established the main physical features of the phenomenon, which have been confirmed by present-day oceanography.
Wrangell showed that polynyas appear at a certain distance from the coast and near the islands, but they can also occur between land-fast ice and pack-ice. They are mostly caused by winds but currents and tides also play a part. A great amount of new ice forms in openings. When it breaks, ice hummocks running in parallel with veins of water pile up on pack ice. Water exudes a great amount of warmth, which causes wet fogs. At freezing, a lot of salt is discharged from the water covering the surrounding ice floes like hoarfrost.
Open water and breaking ice recurrently hindered the explorer and his companions on their way North. Although Wrangell does not characterize polynyas as pockets of life in the Arctic Ocean, he shows that in spring there are many ducks on ice floes, polar bears hunt for seals, and polar foxes search for food on the edges of the openings. In the region where Wrangell travelled, there are extensive areas of open water nowadays as well, which can be seen in NASA satellite photos.
Suzanne Héral
Thinking back to the old Schmidt School in Viljandi
Suzanne Héral describes the renowned Schmidt private school in Fellin (now Viljandi in Estonia) in the nineteenth century. Her research is based on first-hand sources: the memoirs of Gustav Max Schmidt, the founder of the institution bearing his name, and the writings of two of its former pupils, Alexander and Victor Knorre, sons of Karl Knorre, astronomer at Nikolayev observatory (Ukraine).
G. M. Schmidt's background, training and teaching experience are described, including the circumstances that led to the opening in 1844 of his own private school in Fellin in order to meet the educational needs of the local community. Alexander and Victor Knorre's boyhood memories as long-time boarders of the Schmidt School give a close account of daily life inside the institution: a detailed schedule, the subjects studied, sport, leisure time, holidays, cultural activities and programmes of summer visits to Livonian sites of natural and historical significance. Several vivid and entertaining anecdotes about different incidents involving pupils bear the mark of authentic testimonies and real life.
They also reveal G. M. Schmidt's teaching methods and general educational views. His aim was to provide his pupils not only with a sound classical education but also with useful practical knowledge, healthy physical training and strong moral principles so that they would become good citizens. With the efficient assistance of his wife Amalie, G. M. Schmidt did not manage his school like an ordinary headmaster but looked after the boys entrusted to him like an attentive father taking care of his household. This was of great benefit to all pupils, especially those who came from far-away places and were separated from their parents. That was the case of seven Knorre sons who received their education at the Schmidt School before pursuing successful careers, each in his own direction. One can say that G. M. Schmidt, inspired by idealistic and humanistic convictions, paved the way for a new form of education. Having created a remarkable educational institution for generations of pupils, he brought an important social contribution to the life of his fellow-citizens.
Writing bee of personal stories "In and out through Estonia's doors"
Throughout history, people have left Estonia in search of fortune elsewhere, and have also come back. The reasons for leaving Estonia have varied at different times. Many fled wars or hid from occupation, many have gone to find better opportunities for success, obtain education and experience, seek a better life, explore the world and sort themselves out. Never before have the doors of Estonia been as open as today. Why do people leave Estonia today? And why do they come (back) here? What should be done so that Estonia will not run out of people; so that people will want to live in Estonia, so that Estonia is be the best place for Estonians to live realize themselves, for bringing up children and for growing old; so that people don't feel like strangers at home, and at home away from home.
The aim of the writing bee organized by the Centre for Ethics at the University of Tartu and the Academic Advisory Board of the President of the Republic of Estonia "In and out through Estonia's doors" was to collect the experience and stories of different people related to:
-- going abroad and coming from abroad,
-- openness of inhabitants of Estonia and people from other countries, and prospects for self-realization both here and abroad,
-- (re)integration here and abroad.
Akadeemia publishes a few of the stories.
Ragnar Mägi
In and out through -- Estonia's doors: A short chronicle of an Estonian family
Ragnar Mägi, born in exile, first takes a look at the genealogy of his parents; thereafter he speaks about his eventful life and return to his Estonian roots. During WWII, his parents emigrated from the Estonian border town Narva to Belgium -- his mother fearing Nazism, his father the Soviets. In 1945 there were approximately 2500 Estonian refugees in Belgium. From 1945 to 1950 most of them emigrated to Canada, Australia, Sweden, South America and the United States. Magi's father was offered a profitable job as a land surveyor in Belgian Congo. In 1957, eight-year-old Ragnar returned to Brussels where he was received by his godparents. He visited his parents' native country in 1990; in 1991 he even took the Estonian citizenship. Now Magi still lives in Belgium but frequently visits Estonia. He managed to teach his children to speak fluent Estonian and his daughter Véronique has a job with the European Commission.
Margit Tõhk
Conqueror
Margit Tõhk takes us to the time when Estonia and the other Baltic states were oppressed by the Soviet occupation. In 1981 she received an offer to an accountant in the land of the Khants in Western Siberia. Enormous deposits of oil had been found there, and roads had to be built in order to access them. Like builders from the other Soviet Baltic republics, Estonian Surgut Road Construction Agency also built roads to the deposits of this valuable natural resource.
Tõhk speaks about her life in the village of Pim in Surgut district of Tyumen region where Estonians and Russians who had come from Estonia lived together. She had not seen better integration between Russians and Estonians than in Siberia.
Oil drilling was done at the cost of the lives and traditions of the Khants who, with their reindeer herds, were driven out of their ancient settlement area. Tõhk laments that, as a representative of a conquered nation, she in turn was a conqueror.
Kadri Raudsepp
The rest is for yourself to do
Raudsepp, who has lived outside Estonia for a long time studying Tibetan religions and culture in Europe and Asia, uses her experience to remark on the boxed mentality of Estonia. In her opinion xenophobia occurs in Estonia, although this attitude is not unknown in other countries either. She also notices more activities and behaviours in Estonia than in the rest of the world that are excessively directed at material well-being. Even self-realization is usually measured by the person's wealth and success. People who are interested in their own mind and existence are generally considered New Age freaks. Nonetheless, Estonia is an unbelievably peaceful place for self reflection.
"All kinds of rumours are going around...":
Reports about the situation in Estonia in 1943-1945. Part VII
We publish summaries about the situation in Estonia in the last years of the German occupation, the beginning of the second Soviet occupation, and about the fate of Estonian refugees. The reports which were intended for Estonian diplomatic representatives in Finland and Sweden (in 1943-1944 also for the Finnish General Staff) were mainly compiled by journalist Voldemar Kures (1893-1987). He interviewed refugees and monitored letters from Estonia, newspapers, radio programmes, etc.