Philip Tankovich - entry no.1 (Tolstoy/Tahrir)

While reading "Tolstoy and Tahrir," I had a moment of illumination regarding the direction of history. It is such that we are moving towards a social history, a democratic history, one that is embedded in the daily, the personal, and the societal. Far we have travelled from the historiography written by politicians for themselves, their king, and their country. Tolstoy brings us the first inkling of this personal trend which has developed all across the globe, most notably in France with the school called the Annales : Histoire et Science Sociale. These historians pride themselves in overturning what they deem 'traditional history' in lieu of a social, intellectual history. However these historians of are little importance in this entry, all we must know is that Tolstoy planted the first seed with his masterpiece, War and Peace, and the tree has grown well since.

      I must say that I found this article more of an interpretation of War and Peace rather than an analysis of Tahrir through Tolstoy. In my academic opinion, the author Erin Greer failed to create a conclusive piece of literature : Tahrir is mentioned only in the first handful of opening and closing paragraphs. The corpus of the text is a rather penetrating observation of the grand novel, which I indeed enjoyed, however I was able to find only tangents of connections as opposed to a thoroughly constructed argument relating Tolstoy to Tahrir. This left one mostly inferring his connections, as he did not explicate their relationship throughout the entirety of the article

     Nevertheless there are interesting qualities in this work, the most fascinating of which is this notion of "mankind divided" into two dichotomous parts : that of the personal, consciously-free self in contrast to the 'swarmlike, general' self that is bound to historical necessity. Having read the totality of Tolstoy's masterpiece, it is without doubt that this theme is omnipresent. Through Tolstoy, one is looking at a grand historical battle through the perspective of an individual who notices the slightest details such as a hair - bringing this work of literature closer to life. It also plays the inverse, linking the itch in a prisoner's foot to the directional totality of history. We can see the Tolstoy is a master at capturing the human being, alive, sensitive, and above all - willing. This notion of will, founded in the juxtaposition of freedom and necessity, shaped the history before us and continues to shape mankind today. The world is the way it is today not because it followed the path laid-forth by Napoleon or other great figures, but rather by the workers themselves who had the intention to build this path, and did so based on their personal ambitions. The 'history of the wills of the masses' (so to say) super cedes that of one figure, one nation. 

     In relation to Tahrir, we are able to see that Tolstoy was a visionary : in this continual direction towards a more democratic and broader history (for history is ever expanding, following time), we find that one leader has been ousted by thousands of individual wills that have, collectively, overridden the will of their leader. This revolution, like many others, shows that history is incessantly moving towards a more social and widespread populace - that it is being used by the commoner as a tool to express both his own personal will and at the same time follow the general direction of history, held by Hegel to be a history moving towards its telos of increasing equality of freedom. Both Tolstoy's and Hegel's intellectual produce continues to nourish our minds with its social perspective on history, allowing us to see the current-day world through a historical lens that ultimately reveals the direction of history as dictated not by some individuals, but rather by all individuals.

     Historical events do not begin or end, for they are history - and history has no beginning or end. Why, then, do I hold the aforementioned notion? As a means to show that nothing begins or ends, that the Tahrir Revolution has its foundations in prehistory, that history is an incessant evolutionary progress which is linked to each and every individual. It is the totality of mankind.