Tekijä: maijastina

Another eagerly waited volume, Politiche religiose nel mondo antico e tardoantico: Poteri e indirizzi, forme del controllo, idee e prassi di tolleranza just came out. It has been edited by Giovanni A. Cecconi and Chantal Gabrielli and published by Edipuglia, in the series Munera.
The articles (in Italian, French and English) deal with religion, politics and toleration from the Classical Greece until Late Antiquity.
My contribution is on the Constantinopolitan philosopher and rhetorician Themistius and his ideas of the religious policies of the contemporary emperors. It is titled as ”Rhetoric and Realities: Themistius and the Changing Tides in Imperial Religious Policies in the Fourth Century”.
 

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) tunnetaan erityisesti romaanistaan Hadrianuksen muistelmat (1951, suomennos 1984). Nyt Yourcenarilta on suomennettu proosarunoteos Tulet (suom. Jussi Lehtonen, Teos 2011). Feux on Yourcenarin nuoruudentyö vuodelta 1936, ja  aikamoinen nuoruuden vuolas vuodatus se onkin.
Tulissa maalataan voimallisia muotokuvia kreikkalaisen mytologian hahmoista kuten Akhilleuksesta, Patrokloksesta, Antigonesta ja Faidrasta. Mukana proosaruno myös kristillisen mytologian hahmosta Maria Magdaleenasta. Ja on vielä kuva runoilija Sapfosta.
Yourcenar sekoittaa vaikuttavalla tavalla antiikin ja oman aikansa maailman tunnelmia. Sapfo seikkailee 1930-luvun Ateenassa. Troijan sodan soturit taistelevat jossakin ensimmäisen maailmansodan kentillä. Tämä sekoittaminen tuo tehokkaasti esiin myyttien ajattomuuden. Samaan tapaan antiikkia ja modernia on yhdistänyt Christoph Ransmayr romaanissaan Matka lopun maailmaan (Die letzte Welt 1988, suom. 1989).

Kirjamessuilla norkoilu viikonloppuna osoittautui tulokselliseksi (tai tuhoisaksi, näkökulman mukaan). Antikvariaattiosastolla Hagelstam myi Eddan jumalrunoja 40 eurolla. Onneksi jatkoin eteenpäin. Jossakin messualueen reunoilla Helsingin eläinsuojeluyhdistyksen pöydältä saman opuksen sai seitsemällä eurolla.
Messuilla jaettiin myös Historia-lehden ilmaiskappaleita. Lokakuun numerossa on monipuolisesti yleistajuisia artikkeleita historian eri aloilta, mm. perunan kulttuurihistoriasta, Tammisaaren vankileiristä ja tutkimusmatkailija Nordenskiöldistä. Painopiste on uudemmassa historiassa, mutta mukana on jopa keskiajan tutkija Susanna Niirasen artikkeli trubaduureista.
Lehdestä on siis paljon iloa historian harrastajille, miksei myös ammattilaisillekin, jotka haluavat lukea muustakin omasta erikoisalastaan. Antiikin historian tutkijaa hiukan huvittaa se, että mukaan on saatu se pakollinen juttu Colosseumista.
Lukiessani ”Historian peili”-palstan pikkujuttua yleisen oppivelvollisuuden historiasta kyllä vähän hätkähdin. Jutussa kun todetaan: ”Yleissivistys on auttanut maailman kansoja elämään terveemmin ja pääsemään paimentolaisten tasolta sivistyskansoiksi” (s. 7). Löyhähdys jostakin menneiltä vuosikymmeniltä.

The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies celebrated its 10th anniversary last week at the University of Helsinki. As a part of celebrations, fellows had five-minute ”teach-ins” – sort of trailers of their work. Mine was called ”Outsiders and Human Rights – The Heritage of Late Antiquity”. All this was set in five minutes:
”I have included the term ‘human rights’ into my title in order to keep you awake. Human rights today are usually understood in the line with Universal Declaration of Human Rights announced by the United Nations in 1948.
’Human rights’ in Greco-Roman Antiquity might sound anachronistic. Nonetheless, these issues were discussed in many different ways that are not entirely unfamiliar to us. There were many sorts of outsiders, or ‘others’, in the Roman world, for instance, ‘barbarians’, slaves, women, just to mention a few, whose rights and lack of rights were discussed. In my research project, I focus on religious outsiders, or religious dissenters, in the late Roman Empire.
Late Antiquity is the period from 300 to 600. My focus is in the Late Roman Empire from the fourth to the fifth centuries that is an important period of change, Christianization and transmigrations. Religious dissenters were those groups that fell outside the ‘mainstream’ Christianity, such as ‘pagans’, ‘heretics’ and Jews. On the one hand, I study the rhetoric of power regarding these groups, and on the other hand, I wish to grasp the changing conditions of these groups. I ask how religious outsiders were treated in the world of rhetoric and in daily life.
The most important mode of discussing human rights was defining the confines of being Roman. Being Roman – a proper Roman citizen, loyal Roman subject – for its part was connected with the correct performance of religion. Defining Romanness in religious terms became a fundamental part of political debate from the early third century onwards.
I maintain that this line of delineating a proper Roman in terms of religion continued in the course of the Christianization of the Empire. The criteria for being a good Roman were changed but the principle persisted. Now a Roman was redefined as being a Christian and, moreover, the right kind of Christian. Practising other devotions than the Christian mainstream version was argued to be one of the gravest transgressions against the state and the emperor, and in some texts even as falling outside civilized – Christian and Roman – society.
In the imperial legislation, religious dissidents were gradually deprived of their rights as Roman subjects, such as their rights to make economic transactions and serve in administrative and military offices. Just one example: an imperial decree in 391 announced that a noble person who deviated from Christianity and lapsed into ‘pagan’ sacrifices should lose his status and be eternally disgraced. Then it was declared: “For what could these have in common with humans – these who in their gruesome and beastly minds, hating the respect of the community, withdraw from the company of humans?”
Now, what all this means in practice, in the actual circumstances of daily life? This is what I wish to find out, going behind the declarations of emperors, bishops and church councils. It seems that the enforcement of harsh-sounding legislation was not always particularly efficient. Nonetheless, it is worth asking to what extent words (rhetoric of power, hate speech) influenced the human relations in every-day life.
So, what’s the use of studying all this? Who cares what happened some 1600 years ago? Studying the heritage of Late Antiquity in good and in bad, we try to understand how people in the distant past struggled with similar issues concerning human rights. It is impossible to understand modern conceptions, stereotypes, attitudes and even institutions without understanding the heritage of the past. These conceptions and institutions are historically construed, and therefore, the historical perspective is needed.”

It is now the time of the year when Finnish classicists are writing reviews to Arctos, desperately trying to keep with the dead line.
One observation: There might be some correlation between inexperience of young scholars and the ruthlessness of their reviews. As soon as one has finished one’s own book and then knows by experience how much toil and tears have been shed to get the scribblings into the form of a book, one tends to become more merciful towards the productions of others.
Writing reviews is in fact one of the most difficult jobs to do. The reason for the trouble is not the books, on the contrary. For instance, One God. Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, eds. Stephen Mitchell and Peter Van Nuffelen, 2010. I read the book already last summer but postponed writing the review (postponing is not wise) because there were other things to do. Now when the dead line approaches, I have read it again and again (and enjoyed it even more).
The difficulties here are the rules of the genre. Academic reviews are supposed to be written with a proper scholarly style. Emotions are restricted or hidden: one is not supposed to write enthusiastically. Therefore, when reading, for instance, Nicole Belayche’s analysis on acclamations in inscriptions, I am obstructed from making acclamations such as “Yes! So true!” The use of exclamation marks would also be tasteless.
The fascination of One God is the diversity of the religious phenomena in the Roman Empire, all transformations, various ideas of divinities, religious groups, suprises and speculations. All the easy generalizations are proficiently questioned (especially by John North), nothing is patent and self-evident. I could quote G’Kar, the embassador of the Narn regime in Babylon 5 who eloquently said, “No one there is exactly what he seems”, but this would hardly fit the academic style of reviews.
An academic review of One God is forthcoming in Arctos soon …

Olen löytänyt uuden harrastuksen, käsityökirjat. Siis nimenomaan käsityöoppaat, ei varsinaisesti käsityö itsessään. Lainaan kirjastosta toinen toistaan näyttävämpiä oppaita. Erityinen suosikkini ovat ompelu- ja neuleoppaat, joissa tuunataan uutta vanhoista vaatteista. Olennaista ovat tunnelmalliset kuvat.
Laura Honkasalon Kotikutoista. Itsetekemisen ihanuudesta (Kirjapaja 2011) menee vielä käsityöoppaita pidemmälle. Siinä pohditaan itsetekemisen filosofiaa ja käsitöiden antamaa elämänvoimaa. Esseiden aiheet vaihtelevat erilaisista viime aikojen käsityömuodeista (mm. vintage ja virkkaavat skeittipojat) vanhoihin vaatemalleihin ja tyyleihin. Honkasalo esittelee suurella rakkaudella sukupolvien yli jatkuvia käsityöperinteitä mutta myös käsityöblogien nettimaailmaa.
Oma käsityöharrastus rajoituu lähinnä kaulaliinoihin ja sukkiin – ja noihin käsityökirjoihin. Haaveilen ja suunnittelen – huomenna aloitan jotain vaativampaa …

Tuoreita pohdintojani on taas luettavissa Suomen Akatemian verkkolehden blogissa.

This week I’ll make a visit to the University of Granada, Spain. An international workshop ”Conflict and Compromise. The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity” will be organised there.
My paper deals with the role of bishops in Late Antique conflicts between polytheists (’pagans’) and Christians. Thus the paper is titled ”Pacifiers and Instigators: Bishops and Interreligious Conflicts in Late Antiquity”. I concentrate in a couple of notorious cases in which Augustine of Hippo was involved.
ABSTRACT
My contribution will deal with the dual role of bishops in religious conflicts in the late fourth and early fifth century. On the one hand, bishops and church councils were keen to ‘lobby’ their views of religious unity at the imperial courts. For example, the Council of Carthage in 401 requested the emperors to proceed towards harsher legislation against the ‘remnants of idols’ that should ‘be eliminated thoroughly all over Africa’. Furthermore, many bishops attempted (often in vain) to influence local landowners who in practice determined whether the imperial decrees were really applied or not. Some bishops were involved in organizing attacks against polytheistic cult places. The most notorious case was the destruction of the Canopus Serapeum in 391 that was machinated by Theophilus of Alexandria. On the other hand, bishops often found themselves in a tricky position between the claims of Christian hardliners and the limits of legality. In conflicts that repeatedly arose in the urban public space between polytheists and Christians, bishops tried to pacify situations that seemed to get out of hand. They attempted to keep situation in their control, restraining the excessive zeal, especially against private property. For instance, Augustine of Hippo had to defend the moderation of the ecclesiastical authorities against the demands of Christian hardliners. He used all his best diplomatic skill, trying to avoid blaming these hard-liners too much but still attempting to restrain excess in violence.

Kirjansidonnan opettajani muinoin varoitti, että on syytä huolestua, jos työt alkavat häiritä harrastuksia. Puuh, tässä muutaman viikon aikana tämä häiriö on näkynyt blogissakin (tai oikeammin näkyy siinä ettei mitään blogauksia ole näkynyt).
Lukemisten jäätyä vähemmälle voi kuitenkin turvautua Pierre Bayardin opukseen Miten puhua kirjoista joita ei ole lukenut (Atena 2008). Siinä osoitetaan, että kirjoista voi repostaa asiantuntevasti, vaikka ei olisi kirjaa avannutkaan. Huomasinkin, että lukupiirissä osallistuin antaumuksella keskusteluun Monte Criston kreivistä, joka on edelleen lukematta.
Bayard kirjoittaa: ”Sivistyneisyys ei ole sitä, että on lukenut sen tai sen kirjan, vaan taitoa löytää tiensä kirjojen muodostamassa kokonaisuudessa, sen tietämistä siis, että ne muodostavat kokonaisuuden, ja kykyä antaa kullekin osaselle oma paikkansa suhteessa muihin” (s. 28).
Bayardin periaatteita kunnioittaen: en tietenkään voi lukea hänen kirjaansa aivan kokonaan.

 
 
 
 
 
Lukuvuorossa on ollut Juuli Niemen kolme runokokoelmaa, Yömatkat (2010), Pitkästä ilosta (2005) ja Tara (2003). Kaksi aikaisempaa kokoelmaa on nimetty runotarinoiksi, mutta kyllä minä Yömatkojakin luin tarinana.
Yhteistä kolmelle kokoelmalle ovat tuskaisat ihmissuhteet, mustasukkaisuus, toisten ohi puhuminen, unet ja matkat. Erityisen sattuvia ja satuttavia ovat Taran runot sisarusten välisistä suhteista ja Pitkästä ilosta -kokoelman tarina omistushaluisesta ystävyydestä. Yömatkojen runossa ”Minun lapsuuteni on saari” tiivistetään vaikuttavasti ihmisten kyvyttömyys oikeaan dialogiin.