Western ruins

Paranoids from the so -called Islamic state are not released, so you have to continue the topic that has begun here [1] . This time they publicly kill people, but the monuments of history, long -standing and recently, - and here our plot is a two -month ago makes a curious turn. For two months now, the fanatics destroyed the palace of the ancient Assyrian king Ashurbanapal in Nimrud, as well as many antiquities in the museum in Mosul. The other day, the IG made the audience happy with a new musical video:

It is bitter to look at all this, there are no words, but to reflect on what is happening in Babylonia and Assyria is instructive. We will begin, however, from the time when in those places where these bearded hammers and stone carriers are now frolic, the Ottoman Empire and no one and even more so “Iraq” have been thought about. A hundred years remained to the total territorial-ethnicity.

In the second decade of the 19th century, Claudius James Rich, a representative of the English East India Company in Baghdad, began excavations in the city of Babylona known to him by the Old Testament. Actually, at that time no city had existed there for a long time; Looking at the miserable settlements on the site of the capital of the once powerful kingdom, it was difficult for Rich to refrain from reasoning (albeit exclusively for his own use) in the spirit of Sic Transit Gloria Mundi . But here we are interested in something else: Rich’s main motivation, as well as subsequent European enthusiasts, amateur archaeologists, and then professional archaeologists, was to prove that the Bible was not misleading- all this was really : Babylon, Babylonian captivity, and brilliant cruel Assyria. In 1815, Claudius James Rich released the first book-report about his brave enterprise, “ Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon ” , and three years later ( “ Second Memoir on Babylon” ); Then, an exhibition of antiquities obtained in the Babylonian and Assyrian land was organized in the British Museum. The Englishman Rich was followed by a Frenchman, a consul in Mosul Paul Emil Botta, who began to dig Assyrian Nineveh (1842); Another Englishman (however, his ancestors were French Huguenots), Austin Henry Layard, so as not to lag behind the continental rivals, took up the fabulous nimrud. It was Layard who was able to organize the most complicated transportation of dug -up bas -reliefs, sculptures, columns to London. It was not possible to bring and sort everything; Nevertheless, what today can be seen in the British Museum is the result of the heroic efforts of Layard. If, as the fighters with a colonial heritage claim, it was the theft, then it is associated with such difficulty that an ordinary robber would simply retreat from his plan. Layard (and before him and Rich) noted that local residents worked with great reluctance at excavations (local Arab leaders and officials of the Ottoman Empire, by agreement with the Europeans, provided lands on the strange “francs”), the open statues considered the devilish generation and, if conveniently, tried to destroy the finds. In other words, antiquity needed only strangers. They took them to them. Alas, not everyone was taken away, may my left progressive beautiful -hearted friends forgive me.

Before us is not the spontaneous cruelty of the idiots, but a precisely calculated blow to the heart of each of us, a demonstration that they are from another world than we, and this world is fighting to destroy the foundations of our life.

A few years ago, languishing from boredom in the resort Brighton, I wandered into one of the local excellent bugs stores. It is impossible to leave empty -handed; Because in order not to endanger my own finances, I chose the prey in the box with the inscription "£ 1". A volume of pocket format in a chopped soft cover from the wonderful pre -war series of Penguin , where the works of the most interesting in the world were printed - about distant travels and amazing finds. I do not remember either the name or the name of the author, who (I then googled at home) turned out to be one of the British intelligence officers in the interwar East - and in combination with the famous archaeologist. The book was talking about the beginning of Mesopotamian archeology, about Rich, Layarde, his patroness - British, after in Istanbul, Sir Stratford Canning and other amazing, cruel, stubborn and smart people, thanks to which anyone who reached London or living there can be admired by the Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities in the British museum. I swallowed a volume instantly, after which I presented a familiar historian in Moscow - and, to my shame, I forgot the author and the name. There was only admiration for many questions in memory. Actually, now, when unbridled idiots destroy what once could not and did not want to take out the French, Germans and Americans from the territory of the current Iraq and Syria, two of these issues are haunted.

The first is quite simple; Trying to answer him, I understand that we are vulnerable to (fair) criticism and even reproaches from those who oppose historical injustice called “colonialism”. The situation is as follows. We ask ourselves - and try to answer honestly. What would happen to these bas -reliefs on which the Assyrian kings take cities, accept crowds of prisoners and at the conveyor pace destroy Lviv, not put Rich, Layard, Botta and many others their health, energy, money, and some of the life to dig this out of the uncertain garbage, to clean the delivery and leave in the museums of the Old New World - giving the opportunity to other people, professional archaeologists, historians, linguists, to study this for almost two centuries, then setting out their discoveries in the form of a detailed history of land, back in the 18th century known only in biblical and ancient texts? What would be the fate of the famous library of the last great Assyrian king Ashurbanapal, which was supposed to contain all the knowledge known then, remained buried under the ruins of his palace? Would you read the "epic about Gilgamesh"? The answer is simple: no. Then we will ask ourselves further: can we live without this knowledge? Undoubtedly. Neither food, nor drinking, nor clothes, nor dwellings in our world would not have become less. But the only fact is that we ourselves, Europeans, people of Western culture, would be different. Let a little, but we would not be those that we are today. The Western world is on a solid foundation of knowledge; Knowledge should be infinitely replenished; Refuse our world from him, he will undermine the foundation of his own existence. Only after colonial officials, adventurers, adventurers, various dreamers, using all possible means (including criminal from today), dug the ancient East from the ground and sent to places where they were able to describe, interpret, that is, west, only after that - and after the Western world realized the idea of ​​colonialism, the idea could arise - the idea could arise - the idea could arise Return these things back. The only problem is that, returning the British Museum and the Louvre of the Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities to the territory of former Babylon and Assyria, they would befall the fate of statues and bas -reliefs of the Old Testament Nimrud. The restoration of justice will lead to a catastrophic loss of things, without which knowledge of the Western world will weaken, exhausted, and will begin to dry up. Yes, these antiquities have long been described and introduced into academic and educational circulation, but their very existence is the key to new discoveries, new interpretations, and new thoughts about the past. The opportunity to talk about the past is rational-this is the really strong the Western world, the different from other worlds, including the "Russian".

The Western world is more and more interested in the foundations of its own existence. The West becomes indifferent to “abstract knowledge”, which cannot be practically used and gained rapid benefits.

That is why the robbers from the "Islamic state" destroy antiquity. They themselves do not need them; The tales of the faithful Muslims, who, as the Qur'an ordered them, fight with idolatry and images of people and animals in general, remain fairy tales for fools. After all, these fighters with images joyfully posing in front of video cameras: with a hammer, which are crushed by Assyrian sculptures, with a knife with which they cut the throat with unfortunate hostages. Break an ancient winged bull or sadistically kill a Western journalist is the same thing. Before us is not the spontaneous cruelty of idiots; No, this is exactly a calculated blow to the heart of each of us, a demonstration that they are from another world than we, and this world is fighting to destroy the foundations of our life. Here they are perfectly logical and consistent.

And then a second question arises, to which an honest answer should also be given. How did these people feel to feel the most living nerve of the Western world? After all, if they are “others”, then they should not understand “us” - accordingly, they cannot reach the hidden strings of someone else's consciousness. The answer is simple and unpleasant, first of all, to the Western world. The alien of the "Islamic state" is greatly exaggerated. These people portray strangers, play ominous savages in black rags. In fact (which is confirmed by the inexhaustible stream of European recruits into the Islamist detachments) They are the same product of the Western world as the most respectable professor of ancient Eastern archaeology of the University of Cambridge. It’s just that our professor still shares the values ​​of this world, and some Jihadi John no longer shares. He does not want to share them. He no longer likes them-read the brief biography of any of the famous thugs, and you will understand that once everything was fine, a person dreamed of expensive sneakers and mortgages, and suddenly that. The point here is not only in washing the brain by the preachers of hatred: no, just in these brains there was little to resist washing. This happened not least because the Western world is more and more interested in the foundations of its own existence. It is enough to see what is happening at the university, in the main sphere of this world, in the field of reproduction of knowledge. The West becomes indifferent to “abstract knowledge”, which cannot be practically used and gained rapid benefits. In such a world, the appearance of the new Claudius James Rich or Austin Henry Layarda becomes problematic. So, we ourselves deserve all this, and we can only in the powerless rage watch how arrogant bastards are being scolded by what we read about in beautiful old books about travel and excavation.

[1] The text is an expanded Russian essay published in Latvian in the magazine Rigas Laiks .