"Let's Hear It For Dear Leader!" On Tyrants Writing Poetry @ArsScripta @CEUPress

A new book from Central European University Press explores why dictators are so drawn to expressing themselves in verse, and what that attraction might reveal about their leadership style. Hmmm...love the art but hate the artist? Tyrants Writing Poetry (Konstantin Kaminskij and Albrecht Koschorke, eds., Central European University Press, eds., 2018).

As conventional understanding would have it, the sometimes brutal business of governing can only be carried out at the price of distance from art, while poetic beauty best flourishes at a distance from actions executed at the pole of power. Dramatically contradicting this idea is the fact that violent rulers are often the greatest friends of art, and indeed draw attention to themselves as artists. Why do tyrants of all people often have a particularly poetic vein? Where do terror and fiction meet? The cultural history of totalitarian regimes is unwrapped in ten case studies, in a comparative perspective. The book focuses on the phenomenon that many of the great despots in history were themselves writers. By studying the artistic ambitions of Nero, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Saparmurat Nyyazow and Radovan Karadzic, the studies explore the complicated relationship between poetry and political violence, and open our eyes for the aesthetic dimensions of total power. The essays make an important contribution to a number of fields: the study of totalitarian regimes, cultural studies, biographies of 20th century leaders. They underscore the frequent correlation between tyrannical governance and an excessive passion for language, and prove that the merging of artistic and political charisma tends to justify the claim to absolute power.

More about the book here.

Hannah Arendt and Genocide

David Luban, Georgetown University Law Center, is publishing Arendt on the Crime of Crimes in Ratio Juris (forthcoming). Here is the abstract.

Genocide - the intentional destruction of groups “as such” – is sometimes called the “crime of crimes,” but explaining what makes it the crime of crimes is no easy task. Why are groups important over and above the individuals who make them up? Hannah Arendt tried to explain the uniqueness of genocide, but the claim of this paper is that she failed. The claim is simple, but the reasons cut deep.

Genocide, in Arendt’s view, “is an attack upon human diversity as such.” So far so good; but it is hard to square with Arendt’s highly individualistic conception of human diversity, which in her systematic philosophy refers to the multiplicity of unique human individuals, never of groups. Indeed, Arendt is famously skeptical of views that subordinate individuality to group identity. That makes her theorizing an instructive test case of whether individualism can yield an account of why groups matter.

The paper analyzes several possible approaches to the problem of explaining the special value of groups, beginning with Raphael Lemkin’s theory of groups as contributors to universal civilization, and then turning to Arendt’s efforts. In the course of the argument, it examines her understanding of Jewish history, her ideas about “the social,” and her conception of “humanity” as a normative stance toward international responsibility rather than a descriptive concept. For Arendt, group identification makes sense solely as a political act of resistance to persecution. In the conclusion, the paper examines a remarkable moment during the trial of Radovan Karadzić, when a defense witness explained his conversion to radical nationalism by quoting “Mrs. Hannah Arendt, a prominent philosopher.” The moment illustrates how hard it is to maintain the stance of humanity while assigning political value to group identity.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

A Study of Radovan Karadzic and the Charges Against Him

New from Cambridge University Press:

Robert J. Donia, Radovan Karadžič: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide

Radovan Karadžić, leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists during the Bosnian War (1992–1995), stands accused of genocide and other crimes of war before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. This book traces the origins of the extreme violence of the war to the utopian national aspirations of the Serb Democratic Party and Karadžić's personal transformation from an unremarkable family man to the powerful leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalists. Based on previously unused documents from the tribunal's archives and many hours of Karadžić's cross-examination at his trial, the author shows why and how the Bosnian Serb leader planned and directed the worst atrocities in Europe since the Second World War. This book provocatively argues that postcommunist democracy was a primary enabler of mass atrocities because it provided the means to mobilize large numbers of Bosnian Serbs for the campaign to eliminate non-Serbs from conquered land.

Published September 2014; $33 paperback.  Also available in hardcover; $90. Robert J. Donia is Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.