Humanisms [by Mark]

I'm reading a gripping book right now: A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov)'s Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel. Here's an excerpt from this morning--

Two lorries drove out of the gateway of St Sophia’s cathedral, carrying something covered over with tarpaulin: once again they were carting off some loot. It was very odd: every tenth word they used was the word ‘culture’-‘the centuries-old German culture’, ‘the cultural revival of the world’, ‘the whole culture of mankind depends on the suc­cesses of German arms’ . . . It sounded fine; it was amazing what you can do with words.

This culture of theirs consisted, in effect, in their clearing every single thing out of the museums, using the manuscripts from the Ukrainian Academy for wrapping paper, taking pot-shots with their revolvers at statues, mirrors and grave­ stones-indeed at anything that offered itself as a target. That, it appeared, was the revival of culture.

And then there was the humanism. German humanism was the greatest in the world ; the German Army was the most humane army, and everything it did was only to further German humanism. No, not just humanism, but GERMAN humanism, the most noble, intelligent and purposeful of all possible humanisms.

Because, it appears, there are as many humanisms in the world as there are murderers. Every murderer has his own, private and most noble brand of humanism, of course, just as he has private ways of reviving culture.

We had had SOCIALIST culture-‘we shall destroy the old and build the new’-and in its name they flattened the Desyatinnaya church to the ground, laid lorry-loads of ex­plosives beneath the Cathedral of the Dormition, sent scholars off to Siberia and poisoned Gorky. There was also SOCIALIST humanism, in whose name the secret police went prowling around in their cars at night, murdered people, threw them into the ravine from the windows of the October Palace, and covered Siberia with whole settlements of concentration camps.

That, it now appeared, had been wrong. GERMAN humanism was now put forward once again as the opposite of that universal, diffuse, ineffective and therefore hostile humanism, for which there could be only one place—Babi Yar.

Soviet humanism, German humanism, Assyrian humanism, Martian humanism-there were so many of them in the world, and the primary aim of each one of them was to kill off as many people as possible; they all began and ended in Babi Yars. Babi Yar—that is the real symbol of your cul­tures and of your humanisms.

It was very early in my life that I had first to delve into these concepts of culture and humanism with all their nuances, because from my very childhood my principal oc­cupation was to try and avoid becoming the object of their attention. That has remained my preoccupation all my life, and remains so to this very day...