Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Capetan Mihali]

JaredDiamond4Heisman. 

[derspiess]

In the 19th and 20th centuries Russia obviously produced a lot of great art. In that sense, it stands out. However, it was overall backward compared to Western Europe.

And that all went to shit when they made the brilliant decision to kill or expel their aristocracy.

[The Brain]

In the 19th and 20th centuries Russia obviously produced a lot of great art.

wut

[Queequeg]

1900-1925 at least. Birth of modern art, literature, theater and music. Beyond that, the Golden Age Russian writers from Pushkin to Chekhov left the greatest literary legacy of the 19th Century.

[Grinning_Colossus]

In the 19th and 20th centuries Russia obviously produced a lot of great art. In that sense, it stands out. However, it was overall backward compared to Western Europe.

And that all went to shit when they made the brilliant decision to kill or expel their aristocracy.

Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Bulgakov 

[Queequeg]

Tarkovsky, Eisenstein, Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva (both killed themselves, though Mayakovsky may have been assassinated), Isaak Babel (admittedly executed), Lissitzky (died of starvation in Moscow in 41), Ivan Bilibin (ditto in Leningrad in 42). 

[Queequeg]

AR; alternative Acemoglu-y theory. 

Ukraine and Russia are right next door to the steppe, and took the full force of the Mongol invasion.  Prior to this, Russia and the Ukraine were generally speaking as, if not more, advanced than their other European counterparts.  Russian princes and princesses married in to Byzantine AND European royal lines, commerce was respected, and popular literacy was the rule.  Then comes the Mongols.  The Ukraine and Belarus are eventually conquered by ineffectual Lithuanians, Novgorod becomes a front for German merchant interests, and Muscovy comes to the top by out-Mongoling the Mongols.  The great commercial and political institutions of the Rus' are effectively buried by ineffectual Polish-Lithuanian oppression, a century of Muscovite autarky and, most importantly, an ineffectual Russian agricultural system that divided arable land that did not and could not withstand post-Petrine population growth. 

Poles, Lithuanians and Mongols all established strict extractive institutions that had little interest in making the lives of East Slav peasants easier, or their labor much more productive.  Muscovy's farmland was similarly ruled by an ineffectual elite with little interest in making work more effective or in the creation of inclusive social, political or economic institutions.  This was, if anything, further complicated by the role of foreign immigrants in the Imperial Russian and Polish economies.  The USSR was basically a continuation of this; the harshest possible extractive techniques by the harshest regime possible under occasional threat of racial extermination managed to get a lot done, but once the incentive structures started breaking down and were not replaced by inclusive institutions all hopes of redeeming the economy were gone.

If you want the reasons why certain nations in Europe were wealthy in the pre-Modern period, you want to look at institutions and practices far more than some more than half-imaginary climate reason that would only make sense if the entirety of Russia and the Ukraine was swampland.  Until very recently, a map of wealthy Germany was effectively a map of Germany that didn't divide farmland between all inheritors.   The Basques were for centuries one of the wealthiest ethnicities in Spain despite their land being poor. 

[Sheilbh]

In the 19th and 20th centuries Russia obviously produced a lot of great art. In that sense, it stands out. However, it was overall backward compared to Western Europe.

And that all went to shit when they made the brilliant decision to kill or expel their aristocracy.

Actually I think what's remarkable is the quality of Russian art after they kill or expel the aristocracy.

The aristocracy fight back via Nabokov.

[Queequeg]

*cough* Stravinsky *cough*

[Sheilbh]

Emmanuel Todd!:
https://www.coleurope.eu/sites/default/files/research-paper/beer10.pdf

[Queequeg]

I'll read it. 

My example is complicated by the Basques.  Their traditional mode of inheritance is complicated.  They're freaks. 

[alfred russel]

AR; alternative Acemoglu-y theory. 

Ukraine and Russia are right next door to the steppe, and took the full force of the Mongol invasion.  Prior to this, Russia and the Ukraine were generally speaking as, if not more, advanced than their other European counterparts.  Russian princes and princesses married in to Byzantine AND European royal lines, commerce was respected, and popular literacy was the rule.  Then comes the Mongols.  The Ukraine and Belarus are eventually conquered by ineffectual Lithuanians, Novgorod becomes a front for German merchant interests, and Muscovy comes to the top by out-Mongoling the Mongols.  The great commercial and political institutions of the Rus' are effectively buried by ineffectual Polish-Lithuanian oppression, a century of Muscovite autarky and, most importantly, an ineffectual Russian agricultural system that divided arable land that did not and could not withstand post-Petrine population growth. 

Poles, Lithuanians and Mongols all established strict extractive institutions that had little interest in making the lives of East Slav peasants easier, or their labor much more productive.  Muscovy's farmland was similarly ruled by an ineffectual elite with little interest in making work more effective or in the creation of inclusive social, political or economic institutions.  This was, if anything, further complicated by the role of foreign immigrants in the Imperial Russian and Polish economies.  The USSR was basically a continuation of this; the harshest possible extractive techniques by the harshest regime possible under occasional threat of racial extermination managed to get a lot done, but once the incentive structures started breaking down and were not replaced by inclusive institutions all hopes of redeeming the economy were gone.

If you want the reasons why certain nations in Europe were wealthy in the pre-Modern period, you want to look at institutions and practices far more than some more than half-imaginary climate reason that would only make sense if the entirety of Russia and the Ukraine was swampland.  Until very recently, a map of wealthy Germany was effectively a map of Germany that didn't divide farmland between all inheritors.   The Basques were for centuries one of the wealthiest ethnicities in Spain despite their land being poor.

Spellus, I don't know what Acemoglu-y theory is.

However, I don't think it is a half imaginary climate reason. Temperatures do drop west to east. I doubt I would get an argument if I was to say, in general, Siberia has been historically desolate and non influential culturally because of its climate. It seems logical that the effect would have a gradient nature to it.

I really disagree on two points: 1) that institutions and practices are important when looking at millenial long trends, and 2) that Russia and the Ukraine were more advanced than European states. On the second point, the time between a locally used slavic writing system and the mongol invasions was rather short. During that brief period, Europe was experiencing the high middle ages and the region did not produce the great works of other regions.   

[garbon]

Spellus, I don't know what Acemoglu-y theory is.

Guessing this book.

http://norayr.arnet.am/collections/books/Why-Nations-Fail-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf

[Queequeg]

1) that institutions and practices are important when looking at millenial long trends

The Roman Empire?  The Catholic Church?  The free market?  The modern nation state? Liberal democracy?  The corporation?

2) that Russia and the Ukraine were more advanced than European states.

I didn't say more advanced.  Western Europe had a huge advantage in the Roman legacy.  The Germanic states became rich from frontier trade, and after the collapse of the Empire Germany and the rest of Western Europe were on an equal footing.  Russia was a wild, untamed frontier, similar in some respects to Scandinavia but without the North Sea connections and not densely populated due to the exodus of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period. 

"Comparable" is probably the best term.  For a short time when Russia could trade with a wealthy Constantinople and the Mongols weren't slaughtering everybody it was extremely wealthy and pretty important.  If you want to go back further, the Scytho-Sarmatian steppe was wealthier and more advanced then western Europe prior to the formation of a more strictly parasitic nomadic lifestyle on the steppe. 

On the second point, the time between a locally used slavic writing system and the mongol invasions was rather short. During that brief period, Europe was experiencing the high middle ages and the region did not produce the great works of other regions.

Calling BS.  Lay of Igor's Campaign.  Nabokov compared it favorably to other works of the period.  Saint Sophia's in Kiev is an extremely impressive structure, and Saint Basil's in Moscow is wonderful and structurally ambitious. 

[derspiess]

Tarkovsky, Eisenstein, Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva (both killed themselves, though Mayakovsky may have been assassinated), Isaak Babel (admittedly executed), Lissitzky (died of starvation in Moscow in 41), Ivan Bilibin (ditto in Leningrad in 42). 

Of those I recognized Eisenstein, and he was way overrated.