«Ιδανική» Πολιτική Βιβλιοθήκη

Μια «ιδανική» πολιτική βιβλιοθήκη, σύμφωνα με το γαλλικό περιοδικό Lire, θα περιελάμβανε τα εξής κείμενα, από ολόκληρη την ιστορία της ευρωπαϊκής γραμματείας:

1.- Οι απαρχές του ολοκληρωτισμού της Χάνα Άρεντ (1951). H Hannah Arendt γεννήθηκε στις 14 Οκτωβρίου 1906 στο Ανόβερο από εβραίους σοσιαλδημoκράτες γονείς, ενσωματωμένους στη γερμανική κοινωνία και μεγάλωσε στο Καίνιξμπεργκ. Από το 1924 έως το 1929 σπουδάζει φιλοσοφία, θεολογία και αρχαία ελληνικά στο Μάρμπουργκ κοντά στον Martin Heidegger και τον Rudolf Bultmann, στο Φράιμπουργκ κοντά στον Edmund Husserl και στη Χαϊδελβέργη κοντά στον Karl Jaspers … Her first major book was The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which traced the roots of Stalinist Communism and Nazism in both anti-Semitism and imperialism. The book was controversial because it suggested an essential identity between the two phenomena, which some believe to be separate in both origins and nature. http://dytikosanemos.blogspot.com/2007/10/hannah-arendt.html

2.- Μάζα και εξουσία του Ελίας Κανέτι. Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Bulgarian-born German novelist, essayist, sociologist, and playwright, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. Canetti’s best-known works is Crowds and Power (1960), an imaginative study of mass movements, death and disordered society which drew on history, folklore, myth, and literature. The book was inspired by the burning of the Palace on Justice in Vienna in 1927. Canetti started publishing in the 1930s but it was not until the 1960s and especially after the Nobel price that his work started to gain sustained critical attention. Most of his life he was resident in London, but he did not actively associate with English writers or German language colleagues. «Die charaktervollsten gelehrten sein um Bücher willen schon zu Verbrechern geworden. Wie gross sei die Versuchung erst für einen intelligenten und bildungshungrigen Menschen, die zum erstenmal Bücher mit all ihren Reizen drückten!» (from Die Blendung, 1935)

3.- Οι ήρωες του Μπαλταζάρ Γκρασιάν. Baltasar Gracián y Morales (January 8, 1601 – December 6, 1658) was an Aragonese Baroque prose writer. He was born in Belmonte, near Calatayud (Aragon). Spanish Jesuit philosopher and writer. A scholar, satirist, and epigrammatist, Gracián frequently ran afoul of Jesuit authority. El héroe (1637) and El político (1640) are treatises on the ideal qualities for political leaders. Agudeza y arte de ingenio [the wit and art of genius] (1643) is an analysis of poetry. Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647) contains maxims and instructions for acquiring worldly wisdom. Gracián’s masterpiece is the allegorical and pessimistic novel El criticón (3 parts, 1651–57), which contrasts an idyllic primitive life with the evils of civilization. It brought him exile and disgrace. El héroe (1637, The Hero), a criticism of Machiavelli drawing a portrait of the ideal Christian leader.

4.- Πραγματεία για την εθελούσια δουλεία του Ετιέν ντε λα Μποετί. Étienne de La Boétie, né à Sarlat le 1^er novembre 1530 et décédé à Germignan le 18 août 1563, était un écrivain français… Le Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr’un est un ouvrage rédigé en 1549 par Étienne de La Boétie à l’âge de 18 ans. Sa première publication date de 1576. Ce texte consiste en un court réquisitoire contre l’absolutisme qui étonne par son érudition et par sa profondeur, alors qu’il a été rédigé par un jeune homme d’à peine 18 ans. Ce texte pose la question de la légitimité de toute autorité sur une population et essaye d’analyser les raisons de la soumission de celle-ci (rapport « domination-servitude »)…

5.- Ο ηγεμόνας του Νικολό Μακιαβέλι (1513). Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3/5/1469 –21/6/1527). Ιταλός διπλωμάτης, πολιτικός φιλόσοφος, μουσικός, ποιητής, και θεατρικός συγγραφέας. Υπήρξε μια διάσημη προσωπικότητα της Ιταλικής Αναγέννησης και δέσποσε στα πολιτικά πράγματα της εποχής του, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory (The Prince) on the one hand and republicanism (Discourses on Livy) on the other. These two written works—plus his History of Florence commissioned by the Medici family—were published posthumously in 1531. After the ousting and execution of Savonarola, the Great Council elected Machiavelli as the second chancellor of the Republic of Florence in June of 1498.

6.- Το πνεύμα των νόμων του Μοντεσκιέ (1748). Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat (18/1/1689 – 10/2/1755). Montesquieu was one of the great political philosophers of the Enlightenment. Insatiably curious and mordantly funny, he constructed a naturalistic account of the various forms of government, and of the causes that made them what they were and that advanced or constrained their development. He used this account to explain how governments might be preserved from corruption. He saw despotism, in particular, as a standing danger for any government not already despotic, and argued that it could best be prevented by a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law. This theory of the separation of powers had an enormous impact on liberal political theory, and on the framers of the constitution of the United States of America…

7.- 1984 του Τζορτζ Όργουελ. The British author George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, b. Motihari, India, June 25, 1903, d. London, Jan. 21, 1950, achieved prominence in the late 1940s as the author of two brilliant satires attacking totalitarianism. Familiarity with the novels, documentaries, essays, and criticism he wrote during the 1930s and later has since established him as one of the most important and influential voices of the century. Orwell’s parents were members of the Indian Civil Service, and, after an education at Eton College in England, Orwell joined (1922) the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that later found expression in the novel Burmese Days (1934). His first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), was a nonfictional account–moving and comic at the same time–of several years of self-imposed poverty he had experienced after leaving Burma. He published three other novels in the 1930s: A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), and Coming Up for Air (1939). His major works of the period were two documentaries: The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), a detailed, sympathetic, and yet objective study of the lives of nearly impoverished miners in the Lancashire town of Wigan; and Homage to Catalonia (1938), which recounts his experiences fighting for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was wounded, and, when the Communists attempted to eliminate their allies on the far left, fought against them and was forced to flee for his life…

8.- Πολιτεία του Πλάτωνος. Ο Πλάτωνας ήταν μεγάλος Έλληνας φιλόσοφος και συγγραφέας (427 π.Χ. – 347 π.Χ.), ο γνωστότερος μαθητής του Σωκράτη. Ο Πλάτων έγραψε την Απολογία του Σωκράτους, που θεωρείται ως μια σχετικά ακριβής καταγραφή της απολογίας του Σωκράτη στη δίκη που τον καταδίκασε σε θάνατο. O Πλάτωνας γεννήθηκε στην Αθήνα, από γονείς ευγενείς. Γιός του Αρίστωνα και της Περικτιόνης, είχε δύο αδερφούς, τον Αδείμαντο και το Γλαύκωνα. Το πρώτο του όνομα ήταν Αριστοκλής, αλλά αργότερα ονομάστηκε Πλάτωνας γιατί είχε ευρύ στέρνο και πλατύ μέτωπο. Γνώρισε το Σωκράτη σε ηλικία 20 ετών και έμεινε κοντά του μέχρι το θάνατο του μεγάλου δασκάλου (399 π.Χ.). Ο άδικος θάνατος του Σωκράτη ήταν το κίνητρο για να αναλάβει το ρόλο του κοινωνικού μεταρρυθμιστή της αθηναϊκής δημοκρατίας…

9.- Ριχάρδος Γ΄ του Ουίλιαμ Σέξπιρ. William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, now widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the «Bard of Avon» (or simply «The Bard»). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon…

10.- Το αρχιπέλαγος Γκουλάγκ του Σολζενίτσιν. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-) Russian author and historian, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. Solzhenitsyn has continued the realistic tradition of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and complemented it with his views of the flaws of both East and West. In the 1960s and 1970s he produced a number of major novels based on his own experiences of Soviet prisons and hospital life. Later he saw that his primary mission is to rewrite the Russian history of the revolutionary period in the multivolumed work The Red Wheel (1983-1991).