Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

(continues from June, 11)

1. Prevented all the optional disciplines. The student hasn’t to opt for anything because this could lead him/her only to mistakes, and could also create the feeling that the collegium is not certain what precisely is to be studied by someone, in order to acquire learning in the given field.
2. Special priority received the practical work with the language. In this work the superiority of the professor is out of doubt, because no one, who has studied a language for 2-4 years could compare with somebody, who had taught it for 10-30 years, especially if the language is a dead one. (That’s why the first methodological crisis in the specialty classical philology broke in the year, when the first graduates of the gymnasium were enrolled in the specialty; some of them dealt with the languages quite decently, and the professors so far had experience only with beginners).
3. The non-linguistic disciplines, such as history of literature, had to be presented in very general courses, in order to create the feeling for entirety and thoroughness (it must be so, when an authority is teaching), and the successful passing of the exam had to make him/her sure in the knowledge of “these things”.
4. The syllabuses and the curriculum in general were meant to remain untouched. Besides the evident convenience for the teaching person, this created the impression that there isn’t anything else to be fancied in the given field.
5. Not to encourage elder students – say, no older than 30 years. (For the regular doctoral study, the so-called aspirantura, it was explicitly legislatively forbidden students older than 30 years to be given scholarships). Students, who have studied something different earlier or studied something else at the moment, were not to be encouraged. The real reason was that the greater life experience could create questions, which might burden the professor. The mere opportunity to compare the specialties and the professors was already something undesirable. This embarrassment caused by the older students and the students with different background was explained in the following manner: we don’t need such people, because they do not have the chance to become good specialists, since they haven’t started on time. They have wasted their time or they are wasting their time now.
6. Not to invite professors from other specialties. That is intrinsically connected with the lack of optional classes and is engendered by the principle of the authority; the authority does not tolerate either addition or comparison. No need to mention about foreign lecturers. In short, the contacts between the separated specialties and the universities, even within Bulgaria, had to be kept to a minimum. However, if some professor went for a while in a foreign university, it didn’t damage his/her authority, because usually no one was informed what (s)he has done there.
I am convinced, that these claims of mine would be confirmed by almost 100% of the students, who have studied classical philology in the past 20 years, and maybe by the older ones. At the same time many of them would say that the education they have received is not bad. And this is really so. Because, besides the fact that the mere object of the classical education is the common cultural heritage of the West (and thence of the world), the concrete teaching in the SU possessed its own character and style, due to its decades-long tradition. However, it was evident that the interest towards it is vanishing, and it was not only the collegium’s fault, but it is also a consequence of the greater change, which affected all the assets of our live – in Bulgaria and in the rest of the East European countries.
The task of the people, who had to design the future master’s programmes, was to change the mere character of the academic work. Let’s see what they have undertaken.


2. Two unsuccessful attempts

A. The Master’s programme in Classical languages

Prior to the discussion of the programme, which is the topic of this presentation, I am going to narrate (in brief) about two attempts, which preceded its creation. That will help me to draw your attention to some difficulties, which are accompanying the fulfillment of such an educational project. If not surmounted on time, most certainly they lead to its failure.
As I have mentioned above, one of the first reformative initiatives of the specialty was the elaboration of the Master’s programme, called Classical languages. The contents of this programme corresponded well to the name. It included three semesters of practical work on Greek and Latin. There were additional disciplines as epigraphic, paleography, historical grammar, morphology and syntax of each of them, comparative linguistics of the roman languages and some more specialized courses. The ratio between the obligatory and the optional courses was 50:50. The reasons for all that are still evident. The specialty had at its disposal the necessary teaching staff, in order to secure the launching of the programme and of each discipline. There wasn’t any need of change in the way of working. The programme was meant to offer to the students the study of texts, not read during the bachelor’s (that’s easy because the classical literature is quantitatively inexhaustible) and new contents of the theoretic courses. This certainly meant that the professors would be given the opportunity to make presentations of parts of their writings (which will be a prove that thus the education really turns out to be “for more advanced”.)
The idea for such a project was grounded on the already mentioned prejudice that the higher education exists in order to produce specialists. A specialist is the one, who knows something exhaustively: say, the one, who knows the names of all authors, who have written on a certain topic and is familiar with all their publications. At the same time he has to master perfectly some skill (for example, to be able to read without difficulty and dictionary ancient texts from all genres, because (s)he has read already everything and knows all Greek and Latin words). In short, the notion of a specialist in these academic spheres coincided with the notion of an authority.
No candidates appeared for this programme either in the first, or in the following years. It is not difficult to explain this lack of interest: in order to participate, they should have become bachelors in the same faculty (because there is no other place in Bulgaria, where such an education is offered). But these students were reluctant to study classical philology any more. Moreover, there were between 1 and 4 students who graduated from the department yearly (exactly as nowadays). At the same time only Master’s programmes, which have enrolled at least six candidates (exceptionally five) were permitted to start.

B. The Master’s programme in Byzantine studies

(Sofia University central building. North entrance to the courtyard)

Demosthenes and the Unity of the Greeks II

Philip II

(continues from Friday, April 27)

III. The failure of Athens

Demosthenes himself seems to hold the opinion that Athens is already decaying as political and military force and therefore doesn't possess good potential for struggle against Macedonia. Besides, the mood in the different speeches is different: prior to the entrance of Philip in Phocis and even before the capture of Olynthus, Philip seems threatening, but still fightable. But after his march to the south of Thermopylae it becomes clear, that the capacities of Athenians to confront him are suspicious, and, what is worse, that the peace seems hardly negotiable.
It already clear that Philip doesn't want a lasting peace with anybody, whereas the Greek states, including the Athenians, have deluded themselves that he is offering them peace. That’s why the mood from the First Philippics onwards becomes more pessimistic, although Demosthenes keeps on speaking about the necessity of resistance and points to the proper measures to be undertaken. However, his attention splits: on the one side he speaks about the coordinate actions between the cities and the organization of the resistance, but on the other he is more frequently ruminating on the topic: “Why this happened?”
A step aside. Today Europe is not threatened either by an over-ambitious conqueror as Philip, or even by the Islamist terrorism, but rather by the fear, that “the things are not going as earlier”. Indeed, it is slightly believable that peoples will become richer and richer, and this will go on endlessly. Always comes a moment, when their wealth and even their culture begin to raise the interest of the neighbors. Then comes the time to act. And Europe really acts through its present day leaders, but some of the effects lead to undesirable changes (people do not merely get richer; sometimes other things happen) and the discontent appears. It is this discontent, caused by the fear, that is the real enemy of Europe today. And due to the fact that today it seems quite strong, the politicians and the troubled citizens, just like Demosthenes, ask themselves both the questions: not only “What is to be done?” but also “Why it happened like that?” And if the asking of the latter question becomes more and more frequent, this will be a sign that the situation worsens.
Demosthenes sees the following causes for the weakness of Athens. First of all, paradoxically, the democracy with its procedures impedes the necessary reaction of the state in critical circumstances. Unlike the Athenian politicians, Philip of Macedon takes all the decisions by himself: he commands the army, he presides the negotiations (if not he in person, the messengers lead them instead of him; these people would never dare to work in favour of another Macedonian, opponent to Philip); he allocates the money and is unaccountable to anyone. No one can sue against him; no one can interrupt him after speaking for a certain time at the assembly; his proposals are not subjected to a vote, because he is not making proposals, he just commands. All this still does not mean that Demosthenes is complaining of the democracy. But he says, that there are moments, when the city should behave as one, and not only the city, but also all Greeks. If this does not happen, the democracy the independence itself, which cause such delays in the communal decision-making, will be destroyed.
The second problem is the corruption. There are Athenian politicians, Demosthenes says, who are simply working for Philip; the are paid, or at least something is promised to them, or they are just hoping to gain power over the city, after the loss of its independence. However, no one can prove their guiltiness indisputably and condemn them. And the people do not worry about their deeds, because they, unlike Demosthenes, assure the citizens, that everything is in order, that the city is powerful enough, and Philip is harmless; or even that he is already an ally.
And finally, the mere laziness of the Athenians is a problem and it is caused by the irresponsible redistribution of the money of the state. The Athenians are accustomed to many feasts, and moreover they are visited by many foreigners. The mere presence of the Athenian people as audience at these feasts is paid by the state treasury and no one can offer these money to be spent on something else – for example on shipbuilding. Shortly, the Athenians are convinced that they live better than the rest of the Greeks and they are reluctant to be deprived from this social acquisition. That’s why they think the situation is not that serious, as described by Demosthenes. Such a city seems sentenced to loose its political significance and precisely this had happened. In the centuries that followed the polises had made several attempts to gain independence – either from Macedonia, or from Rome – but Athens didn’t take part in these developments, and the center of resistance had moved to the south - to Corinth and the Peloponnesian cities.

IV. The unity of the Greeks

/follows/

(Philip II of Macedon: victory medal (niketerion) struck in Tarsus, c. 2nd BCE. Cabinet des Médailles, Paris. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, English - "Demosthenes")

The Historical Novel III

Apollonius Rhodius in Modern Literature: the Interpretation of Robert Graves


1. The unsuccessful First Version

In the postscript to his novel “The Golden Fleece” Graves tells us the following:

“When he recited the poem or a part of it in the Muses` Hall, he was met with a storm of hissing, caterwauling and a storm of plates for writing. He went away relatively safe and sound, but was afraid of a public persecution, because his rival, the court poet Callimachus declared him a “abominable ibis”; and he decided to leave Alexandria for a time. After several years he returned and recited publicly the revised version which got ovations even from his former enemies; so that after the position of a curator of the Library was vacated, king Ptolemy naturally appointed him as the next curator (1).
The original version is not preserved, but its defect hardly was a lack of sonority and fascination. More probably, relying on the support of the Alexandrian women, Apollonius revealed in his epic too honestly the humiliations of Zeus by the Moon Goddess: what provoked the anger of their husbands.”

And a little after:

“The mysteries that were added to the ordinary Greek rites from the classical epoch, were nothing other than revelation of ancient religious secrets to people, who weren’t expected to divulge them in order to cause a public scandal; and in these mysteries the object of worship was the Goddess Mother… I believe, that the chief error of Apollonius was that he recited in a public hall a version of the Golden Fleece’s tale, based upon ancient sources; and that this version sounded to the initiated as a desecration of their most deeply cherished religious beliefs”(2).


2. The version of Graves

The novel of Graves, although captivating and written with a good sense of humour, contains at some places his view on the “real history” of the Greek Gods, expressed in a simple, straightforward and rather too prosaic way. These passages do not look like parts of a book of fiction. In them he declares, that the old, non-Achaean (and moreover non-Indo-European) population of Thessaly, and even of all Greece, named “pelasgoi” worshiped one supreme female deity – the “Triple Goddess” (or the “White Goddess”) – in different persons and named her with different names. The first (and the more peaceful) Greeks, coming from North – the Ionians and the Aeolians (called Minyans as well) – joined this matriarchal cult.
But the Achaeans, who invaded the peninsula several centuries later, imposed by force the cult to the God - Father and Warrior. They reformed (in a council at Olympia, convoked especially for this purpose) the local religion, created the classic pantheon with six gods and six goddesses, proclaimed the Goddess sister and obedient wife of Zeus and began to pursue the people who persisted in their adherence to the old religion.

Otherwise the novel gives us a detailed account of the expedition, where virtually all sources for the Argonauts have been taken into consideration. Graves mentions them in the postscript. Except Apollonius, we have the versions of Pindar, Apollodorus, Diodorus of Sicily and Valerius Flaccus - all of whom, although in different style and length, present the full story. Some separate episodes are poetically adapted by Euripides in the famous tragedy; there are Theocritus and Ovid too; lastly, the scarce (but important, regarding its early age) information, given by Herodotus. Of course, there are a number of sources of minor importance.
There is a passage in the postscript, concerning the temporal standpoint of the teller, on which I would like to draw your attention. On the p. 511 Graves says:

“I render the story of Argonauts in the form of a historical tale; and every author of history must clearly express his point of view in the time. In this case it would be inappropriate to tell it in the style of the XIII cent. B.C – this would mean to write using poetic pictograms. It would be equally inadequate to write it from a present day position, because then I would have been compelled to render the dialogues in an unsuitably contemporary style; besides, that would have hindered me to believe sincerely the story.
The only plausible decision was to depict the events from the viewpoint of an epoch, when the faith in the legend was still alive, but preserving the necessary critical objectivity; and with a clear, but, on the same time, serious literary expression. This is the reason for using in some places phrases like “till the present day”, and ”today”. The last page will suggest to the historians, that “today” means “no later than 146 B.C.”, when Lucius Mummius sacks Corinthos. This is the year, when Argo, put in the temple of Poseidon, disappears for ever – maybe reduced to a heap of splinters by the drunken Roman soldiers.”

What the Graves’ reader could add, is that the story seems to be told by somebody, who knows who are the “real” ones among the Greek Gods, although prefers to represent priests, clairvoyants and believing-in-gods heroes rather than the gods themselves. And their “real” relations are the ones Graves sees as a historian of mythology, a poet and perhaps a psychologist. The main point is the superiority of the female Goddess, whose power over the mankind is usurped by her rebellious son; but usurped not without her condescending consent.


3. “The White Goddess” as aesthetic and history-of-culture manifesto

The information I got about Graves when working on this paper, made me suppose that the “The White Goddess” is his most popular non-poetic and non-fictional text.
I’ll say several words about this book not only because the theory, presented in it, practically coincides with the views of the teller in the “Golden Fleece”, but also because - as Graves himself tells us - the very idea of this long essay was born in the process of the work on the novel. This explains why the two books appear in a relatively short time: the first edition of the “Fleece” is in 1944, and this of the “Goddess” – in1948. In a concluding note, written for the edition from 1960 he tells the following:

“I am often asked how I took to write the "White Goddess". The history is as follows.
In 1944 in a village in Devonshire, when I fled from the present day by working on a historical novel of the Argonauts, my work suddenly was interrupted. An obsessing idea forced me to get involved in the study of a subject I still didn’t know and didn’t understand. I stopped to trace on the vast military map of the Black Sea (and with the help of mythographs) the course of the Argonauts ship, who sailed from the Bosporus to Baku and back. Instead, I was thinking about the mysterious Battle of the Trees, which occurred in ancient Britain, and all night I couldn’t find peace; and the next day too, so that my pen barely followed my thoughts. For three weeks I wrote a book in 70 thousand words...
I’m not a mystic and I always avoided involvement in witchcraft, spiritualistic séances and yoga exercises; I never listened to predictions, didn’t believe in automatic writing and so on. I live a simple peasant kind of life in the circle of my family and of a large number of mentally healthy and intelligent friends. I do not belong to any religious cult or secret society or philosophical sect, and I also don’t trust my historic intuition, if it couldn’t be verified by the facts.
But working on the book on the Argonauts, I discovered that the White Goddess of mount Pelion becomes more and more important for my narrative... I, who suddenly fell under the power of the European White Goddess, wrote about her totems in the context of the Argonauts’ story and plunged in the ancient secrets of her cult Wales, Ireland and all over the world.
When, immediately after the war, I returned to Majorca, I started working again on the book which I already called "The White Goddess ", and wrote in more details about the Holy King as a divine victim of the Moon Goddess, keeping in mind that every poet, who honours his Muse, should somehow die for his Goddess whom he worships - just like the King died...” (3)


4. Graves and the new Western spirituality

These facts I drew your attention on, give us reason to admit, that the story of the Golden Fleece whose largest version we owe to Apollonius, influenced the views of R. Graves as a poet and as a historian, and at the same time was artistically worked out by him on the ground of these same views. It seems, that the Graves’ “Fleece” is expected to be read as the “real story” of the Argonauts, told from the viewpoint of an enlightened but at the same time initiated Greek author from the last centuries B.C.
Besides, “The Golden Fleece” is produced according to a conception for the ancient mythology and the western religion, which, as Graves suggests, is founded largely on the mythological researches of J.G. Frazer. They both belong to a tradition in the European humanities, whose representatives do not regard themselves as Christians, reject the Eurocentrism and work for the cultural emancipation of the East and in general of the non-Western world from the European (or Euro-American) domination. Lastly, they are people who oppose the spirit of the classical European academism and try to reconsider the role of the university in the Western societies and its claim to dominate the education and even the spiritual life of the West.
This tradition include and is supported by many influential non-academic intellectuals, among whom I would prefer to mention the English and American followers of Mme H. Blavatsky; a little earlier, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in Germany; and from the XVIII century – Voltaire.

The new that Graves is offering us, is that he writes a lot of poetry and thinks about himself mainly as a poet; that, secondly, in difference to Blavatsky, he doesn’t pretend for possessing any exceptional spiritual abilities; and thirdly, what seems to me very important, he lived two terrible wars. Maybe exactly this experience gave him strong reason to doubt the alleged superiority of Western civilization and the truth of its main religion. But nevertheless he expresses a kind of religious hope. At the end of his conclusion to the “White Goddess” from 1960 he writes:

“The idea of a Creating Goddess was rejected by the Christian theologians almost two thousand years ago, and by the Jewish theologians even earlier. Most scientists, caring for their social comfort, worship God; but nevertheless I do not understand why a belief in the creation of the universe by a God-Father seems to them more scientific than the belief in the creation of this artificial system by a Goddess-Mother...
Since the source of creative power in poetry is not the scientific education, but the inspiration (no matter what the scientists would say), then why not name as its source the Lunar Muse, since in Europe this is the oldest and most common term defining the source of inspiration? According to the ancient tradition, the White Goddess appears through human beings – that could be a priestess, a prophetess, a queen mother. No poet, dedicated to the Muse, thinks about the Muse herself, but always thinks about the woman, in whom the Goddess at least partially is incarnated; just like an Apollonian poet is unable to perform properly his function, if he doesn’t live under the power of a monarchy or quasi-monarchy. But the poet, who really worships the Muse, is capable to distinguish between the Goddess as the supreme incarnation of power, glory, wisdom and female love from one hand, and the ordinary woman, whom the Goddess makes Her representative for a month, a year, seven years or perhaps more – from another hand. The Goddess is eternal, and perhaps he will know Her again through another woman.
Prophets like Moses, John the Baptist or Mohammed, speaking in the name of the male deity, say: "So said God!" I am not a prophet of the White Goddess and I’ll never venture to utter: "So said Goddess!" But since poetry came to the world, the poets, who worship the Muse, usually speak with love: "In all the universe there is nobody above the Triple Goddess!"”


5. A reader’s impression

At a certain place Graves says, that a poet might be evaluated as such, taking into consideration the degree in which he is familiar with the Goddess and is able to depict “Her and Her island”. And adds: “Shakespeare had known her and had been afraid of her”. As a reader of Graves I would dare to share, that even before the acquaintance with this book, I already was convinced that he is obsessed by a painful fear of the presence of a kind of woman. She is a woman, longing for power, who establishes a relationship with an influential man, dominates him and weaves intrigues against everybody else, hoping to rule through him. She does not love him, but uses him and is always ready to sacrifice him and to look for another, who would fit for the same purpose. Livia in “I, Claudius” is like that, Theodora and Antonina in “Count Velisarius” are like that, Ino, in the very beginning of the “Fleece” is like that. They are images of a woman, who exerts over the man the power, given to her from the Goddess and thus revenges for the subjugation, imposed on her by force and counter-naturally in the epoch of the old Achaeans. She is not a personification of the Muse, but of Hecate. Graves was afraid of this woman.

(1) Graves freely retells the two short Vitae Apollonii, published in the edition of the Scholia (C. Wendel, Berlin, 1935). There we find no mention about hissing, caterwauling or plate throwing, but the rest is exact – the anonymous authors indeed say, that the Apollonius work at first was met negatively, but the second version was applauded. (Zlatnoto runo. Pohodat na argonavtite, p. 504-505. See note 2)

(2) During the work on this paper I was using the Bulgarian translation of the “Fleece” – Robert Greivs. Zlatnoto runo. Pohodat na argonavtite. Translation Irina Vaseva. Fakel, 1993. The reverse translation to English is mine, N.G.

(3) This text, together with the full Russian translation of the “White Goddess” is available at http://www.druids.celtica.ru/page.php?pagename=greivs. Russian translation by L. Volodarskaja. The reverse English translation is mine.

*this paper was read at the International Conference "The Argonautica and World Culture" - Tbilisi, Georgia, 1-5 October 2007). I would like to express my gratitude to professor Irine Darchia from the Institute of Classical, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the the Tbilisi State University, for inviting me to this conference.