Ridiculous Romanov Redux

AP,July 15:

MOSCOW - Ninety years after he was executed, Czar Nicholas II is leading a tight race to be named the greatest Russian in history.

His closest competitors? Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state that killed the last czar and his entire family.

Huh?  Not Peter the Great, or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, or Tchaikovsky or Sakharov, or Mendeleev, or Tsiolkovsky, or, well . . . anyone else?! (Lenin would be fine with me--just not Nicholas.)
Sadly, it is all part of a trend.

The announcement by Russian scientists, confirming their preliminary conclusion that remains discovered last summer were indeed those of the missing members of the czar's family, coincided with a major exhibition on the Romanovs, which is drawing adoring crowds:

As one might expect, it is a sad exercise in nostalgia and hagiography (quite literally):

The Moscow exhibition is at the Church of the Christ Savior, which itself is a symbol of Russian revival, having been torn down by Stalin and rebuilt in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union as Russia again embraced the Orthodox faith.

In a museum in the church’s basement, mothers and daughters crowded around pictures of the teenage Romanov sisters. Grandmothers wearing long dresses and head scarves stood for long periods in front of every photograph and letter.

Ms. Milkhina, a petite woman whose white bangs peeked out from beneath her head scarf, began to cry when she spoke of the czar.

“Of course, as a government official maybe he made a few mistakes,” she said. “But as a man, as a Christian, he was a great figure.”

In history books, Nicholas II is often portrayed as naïve and weak. His regime could be brutal, as in the Bloody Sunday killings of peaceful protesters in 1905, and incompetent, as in its performance in World War I. In some quarters in post-Soviet Russia, however, he is depicted as a thwarted visionary and a beacon of the Russian Orthodox faith.

Yes, Bloody Sunday, World War I: "a few mistakes."  Details, Details.

The best antidote for this sort of sentimental reactionary twaddle is Thomas Babington Macaulay's defense of the English Revolution and execution of Charles I in the brilliant youthful essay on Milton (1825):

They [the English revolutionaries] were compelled to choose whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We think that they chose wisely and nobly.

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o’clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyck dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.

For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. [emphasis added] We can as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most important of all human relations; and if in that relation we find him to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all his temperance at table, and all his regularity at chapel.

Breaking News: Bosnian Serb Leader Arrested

Good news, in the sense of better late than never!

Few details yet, aside from the fact that former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic--on the run since 1997--was arrested in Serbia.

The deeper question, of course, is why it took so long. As several reports point out, the arrest comes on the eve of negotiations involving Serbia's progress on entry into the EU, one precondition for which is the arrest of war criminals. (See this BBC report from 2004 on earlier difficulties in the pursuit of the criminals.)

Among the crimes he is charged with in the indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague are complicity in the shooting of civilians during the siege of Sarajevo and the infamous massacre of 8000 Muslims at Srebrenica.

Two general lessons: (1) It is essential to pursue war criminals relentlessly for both principled and practical reasons (they live in the constant awareness that they are never out of danger--small discomfort compared to what they forced their victims to endure, but nonetheless a form of poetic interim justice; and under pressure, they may make crucial mistakes); (2) In the course of that pursuit, it is worth remembering that naked self-interest can at times trump ideology and personal loyalty. At the least, one begins to wear down and tempt all but their most fanatical protectors. By this time, Karadzic was clearly a liability rather than an asset to the Serbian government.

A sampling of early reports:

Reuters

AP (via Newsweek)

Guardian

Nasty Nazi Analogies: Amherst Activists Call Gaza Israel's Concentration Camp

Friday, June 13 was certainly an unlucky day for our local “Women in Black."

Like many activist groups, the Women in Black attract the predictable mixture of benevolent civic-minded souls, misguided idealists, and myopic, mean-spirited dogmatists. These days, the latter two categories seem to predominate. Their recent demonstration revealed their complicity in the bigoted behavior that is becoming dismayingly common, in Amherst and elsewhere, among the supposed “left” in general and the pseudo-“peace” movements in particular.

Fridays at midday, the Women station themselves in front of the hideous Bank of America building opposite the Amherst Town Hall and Common and hold up signs calling attention to their causes of the moment.

This was the sight that greeted me as I left the bank, where I had stopped in preparation for a trip to Europe on academic business:

Taken aback, I explained that I was a professional historian and asked whether I could help them with their problem: The sign was deeply offensive and inappropriate. Were they incredibly insensitive, I inquired—or just really, really stupid?

They did not get it.

I elaborated.

Still no neurons fired.


Since my attempt to point out the moral and political bankruptcy of the slogan had fallen flat, I tried to begin again more simply. I asked Mary Wentworth, who was not only the holder of the sign, but also the leader of the local group, whether she understood that the analogy was, well, rather problematic from a simple factual point of view.

She: “No.”
I: “Well, why not?”
She: “It is a concentration camp because people cannot leave.”
I: “Inmates of the Hampshire County Jail are not allowed to leave, but that does not make it a concentration camp.”
She: “Well, uh, that’s different. But people in Gaza are not free to leave.”
I: “My daughter is not free to leave Amherst Regional High School at will during the day. That is not a concentration camp, either.”
She: “Well, uh. . .”
I: “Well, then why do you insist on using a comparison that has no validity?!”
She: “I think it is perfectly valid.”
I: “Do you have any idea what a concentration camp is?!”

I explained that, for a combination of personal and professional reasons, I had a rather good sense of what a concentration camp was. In fact, as I further explained, I was about to depart for Europe, where one of my duties would be to set up an overseas study program that included visits to Holocaust sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.

She insisted that she knew a lot, as well.
I begged to differ, and there we left it.

* * * * * * * *

So much for the encounter. To return to the substance of the issue:

Simply put: To equate residents of the Jewish national home and the policies of its government with the murderous regime that attempted to exterminate the Jewish people is not only obnoxious on a moral and emotional level. It is also a thinly-veiled attempt to delegitimize their society and very existence. As such, it crosses a red line.

I cannot imagine that anyone in Amherst would respond with equanimity to any comparable form of bigotry. For example, the University of Massachusetts and Edinburgh University, after steadily mounting protests, finally woke up (more than two decades later) to the fact that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is a cruel dictator—his campaign against a minority ethnic group killed 20,000 civilians in 1982-1984 alone—and rescinded the honorary degrees that they had awarded him. One of Mugabe’s policies has been a campaign to force white farmers off their lands. What if a demonstrator held up a sign accusing him of “Ku Klux Klan” terror tactics? Regardless of Mugabe’s undeniable failings, would we not be entitled—indeed, obligated—to challenge the demonstrator’s use of this vile comparison?


My points about the use of the words, “concentration camp,” are therefore very simple:

1) The analogy is completely inappropriate.
2) The analogy is deeply offensive.
3) The analogy is insidious.

(1) Inappropriate:

because, as I tell my students, almost nothing and no one are, ultimately, like the Nazis and what they did. That is why that regime stands out so sharply in our histories and our consciousness. The casual use of terms associated with Fascism and Nazism in modern political argument is intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible. It devalues language and humanity in the same breath.

I study and teach modern German and European history (including the Holocaust) as a profession and am therefore quite qualified to determine just what is or is not like a concentration camp. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as tragic as it may be and as large as it looms in the concerns of the world, is in essence a national and political struggle over a very small territory. The Holocaust was state-sponsored, industrialized genocide on a continental scale and epochal plane. The Nazi regime created its concentration camp system for the sole purpose of tormenting and killing its social and racial enemies. There is no parallel here. I am sorry: This is not debatable.


(2) Deeply offensive (does one really have to spell this out?):

The Nazis represent the closest thing to the incarnation of absolute evil in human history. Because the Jews were their principal victims, the comparison is deeply wounding, and indeed, doubly insulting. It mocks the dead and defames the living. It deprives Jews of their own history, which lies at the heart of the collective psyche and the need for a sovereign state.

That is not all.


(3) Insidious:

The analogy in effect allows Palestinians to usurp the place of the Jews as the quintessential victims of the quintessential evil—strikingly akin, I might add, to the anti-Judaic supersessionism according to which the Church traditionally claimed to have replaced the Jews as the “New Israel.” Christians—for there are many religious people among the “peace” activists—ought to be especially wary of this ideological pitfall.

This is a singularly nasty rhetorical sleight of hand, which implies that the Jews are in fact worse than the Nazis: As the victims, they should have “learned” from their experience and behaved “better.” To equate Israelis with Nazis is therefore to dehumanize Israelis and render them beyond the moral pale: Israeli actions can have no justification, can merit no understanding or sympathy. The smear adds modern insult to historical injury, thereby closing off dialogue altogether.

The Nazi analogy is thus one of the most noticeable warning signs on the boundary between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism.

The official British Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism (2006) states:

Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.
• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis

It is in several ways ironic that the demonstrator focused her attention and the Nazi analogy on Gaza, given that it has been controlled by Hamas for over a year. Although a new debate on the respective indigenous-Islamic versus Nazi roots of Jihadist ideology and antisemitism has emerged in some western circles, the fact remains that the Hamas Covenant (how many Americans have actually read it?) is a racist document, filled with paranoid antisemitic fantasies borrowed wholesale from the Third Reich. It condemns the Jews as a sinister group who use their wealth and control of the press to enslave the world, holding them responsible for (among other things); Freemasonry, the French Revolution, Communism, European colonialism, World Wars I and II, the United Nations, all wars everywhere in the world, and the Rotary and Lions Clubs.

Small wonder that former PLO representative Sari Nusseibeh—whom I greatly admire as a courageous Palestinian voice for peace—has said the Covenant "sounds as if it were copied from the pages of Der Stürmer.”

Ironically, the Covenant, despite its wholesale adoption of Nazi ideas, refers to the Israelis as engaging in “Nazi treatment” of Palestinans. Is this the moral and intellectual company that one wishes to keep?

* * * * * * * * * * *

To criticize the demonstrators’ signs is therefore not to deny them the right to voice their views. It is to call upon them to clarify their thinking and choose their words with greater care.

The issue here is not Israel’s policies, per se, but how one evaluates and debates them. Had the demonstrators taken the trouble to think for a moment, they could have held up a sign that more concretely described just what it was that they were protesting, and just what concrete action they demanded—and would have engaged rather than merely confronted passers-by. They might have said, for example, “end the blockade of Gaza,” which, by focusing on a policy, could have opened the way to a productive dialogue concerning the tragic situation, its causes, and its solution.

Sadly, they instead took the easy route of defamation rather than debate. The only sadder thing would be if otherwise decent people, out of a misguided sense of “evenhandedness,” lacked the intellectual integrity or simple backbone to condemn it.

The Women in Black claim that they are “committed to peace with justice.” Hold them accountable. Tell them that neither peace nor justice is compatible with the hate-mongering displayed here. Demand that they adhere to their own professed ideals.

The Women in Black website provides the following information for Amherst:

Every Friday 12-1 pm, S. Pleasant & Amity Sts
mlwentworth@comcast.net

July 20 1944: Attempt to Assassinate Hitler

Stauffenberg Memorial, Württembergisches Landesmuseum


On 20 July 1944, Klaus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, acting on behalf of a large group of conspirators, placed a bomb under the table at a meeting in Hitler's East Prussian headquarters. The bomb exploded but failed to kill Hitler, and the coup (Operation Valkyrie) that was clumsily set in motion quickly collapsed. The conspirators were arrested and some 200 eventually executed.

Although drawn largely from the elites of the aristocracy, professional military, and officialdom, the conspirators displayed some diversity of political views, ranging from traditional conservatism to Christian socialism, liberalism, and social democracy. Appraisals of the motives and consequences of the attempted coup have varied widely, serving as a revealing mirror of the interpreters' own politics.

For many West German conservatives in the early postwar period, the conspirators were mere traitors, especially the military officers who had--so ran the refrain--broken the personal oath of allegiance that they had taken to Hitler. For these critics, the mere fact of an oath took precedence over the cause and person to which it had been pledged. For Stauffenberg, by contrast, a higher duty took precedence over that oath, and action was required when he became convinced that Hitler "is evil itself"

It is time now that something be done. Admittedly, whoever dares to do something must be aware that he will probably go down in German history as a traitor. If, however, he neglects to act, then he will be a traitor to his own conscience.

For leftwing critics, more sympathetic to grassroots and earlier resistance efforts, the men of July 20 had done too little too late, for the wrong reasons: more concerned with saving Germany's "honor" or preserving the nation, than with the nature of the Nazi regime, as such, which most had initially supported.  

In fairness, the conspirators represented a complex mixture of motives: Many were dissatisfied with Hitler's disastrous conduct of the war and thought first and foremost of preserving the "honor" of the military and the integrity of the country in the face of looming defeat. Still, the cause of "honor" also included in many cases a growing revulsion against the crimes committed by the military, among them, atrocities against Soviet soldiers and civilians, and the genocide against the Jews (at least twenty cited the latter as one of their motivations).

In general, by the mid-1960s, the resisters became a sort of unproblematic "respectable" or "consensus" resistance group around which the political identity of a liberal-capitalist West German regime could coalesce. Not surprisingly, the East German regime generally preferred to emphasize the socialist and communist resistance, although it adopted a more positive view of the July 20 conspirators in the 1980s, in the course of a more general reappraisal and appropriation of the Prussian and German national past.

Although 20 July is not an official holiday in Germany, the anniversary is marked in various ways, and the conspirators have increasingly been honored in street names and memorials, as above, in Stauffenberg's native Stuttgart.

In the end, one is left to meditate on the declaration of Stauffenberg, and that of his fellow leading conspirator, Major General Henning von Tresckow, who, upon learning of the failure of the coup, committed suicide on 21 July: "A person's ethical value begins only at the point at which he is prepared to give up his life for his convictions."

Sample press coverage from this year's anniversary:

Even these few reports indicate the nature to which not only the Resistance, but anything to do with the military remains highly controversial in Germany.
• ZDF Television Heute: For the first time, German military recruits swear the oath of allegiance in front of the Reichstag. Ceremonies took place in the Bendler Block, where many of the July conspirators were executed. The date and location were chosen to underscore the submission of the miitary to the constitution. The Defense Minister praised the attempted coup of 20 July as a "liberating act," and former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democratic Party told the recruits he could assure them, "the state will not misuse you."  Some leftists, opposed to "militarism" and the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan, protested the ceremony.  Some officials from the military, by contrast, charged that the government was insufficiently supportive.

• As the Telegraph reported:

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, made an eleventh hour decision to attend the ceremony, in which 500 new troops were inducted. But her decision was only made after heavy pressure from the German armed forces, which complained of a "shameful lack of interest" from politicians sensitive to the German public's notorious post-war pacifism.

• Süddeutsche Zeitung: Distinguished historian Hans Mommsen evaluates the events: Without Stauffenberg, the attempted assassination would never have taken place. "Had the officer succeeded, millions of people would have survived the senseless war and the Holocaust."

Resources:
• German Resistance Memorial Center
• Die Gebrüder Stauffenberg (Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg)
• The German Wiki entry provides a convenient overview of events, ideology, and historiography--much more useful than the English-language one, which treats the topic more simplistically and focuses on military and narrative detail.

Preservation Hall of Shame: Press Roundup on UMass Campus Buildings

The controversy over the destruction of historic resources on the campus of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has been big news over the past year.  Herewith, an overview of press reports antedating our  initial blog entry:

• Katherine Neubert, "Preserve UMass recent negotiations," Massachusetts Daily Collegian, 28 April 2008

a convenient summary of issues under discussion

agreement:  

that the main section of the historic Stucco Cow Barn, Milkers Bungalow, and Calf Barn could neither be saved nor adapted to a modern use.

still under discussion:

Negotiations now focus on a Memorandum of Agreement's (MOA) third draft by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and Preserve UMass, the Amherst Commission and the state Commission are ready to sign. Though, the administration and the UMass Building Authority haven't agreed yet.

The draft MOA contains a series of findings that document the events that led to the loss of the barn and give standing to Preserve UMass and the Amherst Commission to be parties to the agreement.

It also includes five stipulations regarding the preservation process. The University must produce written and photographic documentation of the stucco barn and several other historic buildings. UMass must also create a permanent exhibit documenting the important role the University has played in agricultural research.

More significantly, the agreement stipulates that UMass will conduct a campus cultural survey and master plan that will meet state and national standards with respect to the buildings that are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. This includes planning for adaptive reuse of the historic structures to provide functions that are of current importance to the University.

• Kristin Palpini, "History lessons:  After project delay, UMass plans survey," Daily Hampshire Gazette, 19 March 2008

Announcement of the tentative agreement between the University and Massachusetts Historical Commission that the historic stucco barn may be demolished.  A prominent silo remained a point of controversy.  Preserve UMass and the Amherst Historical Commission had recommended turning the silo into part of a historic monument to and exhibit on the agricultural heritage of the University, a proposal included in the draft Memorandum of Understanding produced under the auspices of the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

In the original agreement, UMass would have preserved the silo. However, after an engineering study was conducted, university officials said keeping the silo would not be financially feasible.

"Anything is possible with money," said James E. Cahill, director of UMass facilities and campus planning. The silo "wouldn't be able to stand on its own without significant structural enhancements, and so we've determined, based on that, that it's not feasible to do."

Joseph S. Larson, a member of Preserve UMass, a group of former and current UMass professors and preservationists, said he expects the silo will eventually come down. But he questions how much it would actually cost to keep the silo standing.

"When push comes to shove, the silo will go too," said Larson. "We agreed the Stucco Barn should go down soon."

The article goes on to note that the stop-work order cost money and time.  The contrast in approaches and values between UMass Facilities and Preserve UMass could not be clearer:

"If the university puts demolition of the old buildings on hold until that assessment is done and then uses that assessment to set priorities for preservation and adaptive reuse, we would deem that a success," said Larson. "That's really what we asked for at the beginning of this."

Meanwhile, contractors are moving ahead with excavation and preparing the site for the rec center's foundation construction.

"We're moving ahead full steam," said Cahill.

• Ben Williams, "Historic barn halts progress on recreation center," Daily Collegian, 7 Feb. 2008

Larson believes that the University now feels inclined to have professional historical review of the campus.

"Having to cease work is costing the University money, which is unfortunate, but that is the cost with not being compliant with state law from the beginning," Larson said. "Our hope is that after all of this dust settles the University will never get into this [situation] again."

Useful article, though, a more appropriate headline would read: UMass's cavalier attitude toward law prompts stop-work order.

• Diane Lederman, "UMass to sort campus buildings," Springfield Republican, 20 Dec. 2007

In the wake of the MEPA hearing (see below), UMass announces plans to send out a request for proposals in order to "for a consultant to evaluate the historic or architecturally important buildings on campus to determine which structures should be saved."

Hiring a consultant has long been the request from Preserve UMass. The group was particularly upset after the university was preparing to raze a historic barn on the site of a $50 million student recreational center before a consultant was hired and doesn't want any more buildings razed until the consultant issues a report.

State officials halted the razing because university officials had not submitted the request for permits with the state Historical Commission and the environmental policy office.

The project could be delayed up to 90 days, said James E. Cahill, director of facilities and campus planning. Cahill said, however, he is hoping for a resolution in a few weeks.

• Diane Lederman, "UMass to focus on preservation," Springfield Republican, 11 Dec. 2007

That was certainly wishful thinking.  The real story, of course, was the University's failure to do so. The report does provide solid background on the controversy in advance of the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA) public hearing.

• Andy Smith, "Papers stunt UM complex," Massachusetts Daily Collegian, 29 Nov. 2007

Certainly an infelicitous title because it is opaque and confusing (note to student journalists: don't strive so hard for effect; be clear). That said, the article provides useful background to a failed attempt to find common ground in advance of the MEPA hearing:

Members of Preserve UMass and the Amherst Historical Commission met on Nov. 16 with James Cahill, director of UMass's Facilities and Campus Planning, to see if the three parties could agree on a joint response to the Massachusetts Historical Commission's [MHC] stop-work order for the $50 million Student Recreation Center.

The stop-work order, which was issued by the MHC on Oct. 26, was due to the failure of the University of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Building Authority and the project designer of the recreation center to comply with state law. Massachusetts state law requires building designers to notify and confer with the MHC when historic buildings are impacted by construction by state agencies. In this case, and in many others, this law was not followed, according to the commission.

Of particular importance are excerpts from official e-mails regarding violations of regulations by UMass.

Preservation Hall of Shame: Weapons of UMass Destruction, or, a University Desecrates its Own Heritage

December 2007: 

the University and its collaborators respond to critics.

The greatest and continuing crisis of historic preservation in Amherst these past two years involves structures belonging to the University of Massachusetts.

Although both the West Cemetery and the University campus earned spots on the list of  “Ten Most Endangered Historic Resources” in the Commonwealth, the contrast could not be more striking. In the former case, Amherst residents and government alike readily rallied to save a treasured resource. In the latter, the responsible authorities (and one can use that term only in deliberate and full awareness of its ambiguity) have done all that they could, first, to deny that a problem existed; and second—once forced to acknowledge the problem—to obstruct an amicable and thoroughgoing solution.

The University of Massachusetts (UMass) and the University of Massachusetts Building Authority (UMBA)—they insist on this administrative distinction, so let each earn its individual place in the Hall of Shame)—in their rush to erect new facilities (however badly needed; this not the issue), have displayed callous disregard for the spirit and letter of the law alike.

Buildings have been lost. Others are threatened by sins of omission or commission. Only thanks to the persistence of a new citizens’ advocacy group—“Preserve UMass”—were the light of public opinion and the legal power of the Commonwealth brought to bear on the wanton destruction. Because we are still engaged in protracted negotiations, I will reserve detailed comment on them until the results become public. In the meantime, the sad story to date can easily be summarized:

Recent Timeline:

Spring 2007

• Emphasizing the high cost of maintaining "legacy buildings," UMass produces a list of structures variously slated for maintenance, renovation, or destruction, employing subjective standards and categories devised without advice of appropriate experts. Among the threatened structures are many of demonstrable historical and architectural significance including some listed on local and state inventories.

• In response, concerned faculty, staff, alumni, and community members form “Preserve UMass,” led by Joseph Larson, Professor Emeritus of the Natural Resources Conservation Department and Chair of the Pelham Historical Commission.

Summer-Fall 2007

• The then-Chancellor refuses to meet with PUMA (it will not have a “seat at the table”). In hopes of obtaining the professional evaluation that the University had declined to procure, PUMA (with the support of the Amherst Historical Commission) nominates and secures designation of the UMass campus as one of the state’s “Ten Most Endangered Historic Resources.”

Fall 2007

In preparation for construction of a new recreation center, UMBA begins to demolish the 1910 Brooks Dairy Barn, a pioneering, state-of-the-art facility in its day, listed on the Massachusetts Historic Assets Inventory. PUMA, discovering that the authorities cavalierly failed to file for the mandatory review by the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) and Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA), secures a stop-work order. It is subsequently revealed that both UMass and UMBA have a substantial record of non-compliance.

December 2007

• The Commonwealth convenes a MEPA public hearing on the Brooks Barn.

WSHM TV3: the public's right to know













Professor Joe Larson of PUMA demands real answers to tough questions

How dare you question us?!

You didn't tell us there would be a quiz: desperately searching for answers (we know they're here somewhere)

• The Commonwealth finds no significant environmental issues but sharply orders UMass and UMBA to comply with state historical regulations. The Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs declares:

I have received numerous thoughtful and detailed comment letters on this project that also speak to the importance of other historical resources on the UMASS Amherst campus. I strongly encourage the University of Massachusetts Building Authority and UMASS Amherst to work cooperatively with MHC and interested parties to take a comprehensive survey of structures of historic and/or architectural importance on the campus. Consultation with MHC should be a first step during the planning process for future projects and I expect that the Proponent and the University will ensure that all future projects comply with regulations pertaining to historic and archaeological resources.

January 2008

• MHC convenes a meeting to prescribe a course of action. On the one side: UMass, UMBA, and their contractors and lawyers. On the other: PUMA, Amherst Historical Commission, Preservation Massachusetts, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, all of which receive official standing from the Commonwealth to review any agreement. The preservation advocates acknowledge that it is not practical to save or adaptively-reuse the Brooks Barn as a recreation center, but propose stringent guidelines for documentation of what is to be demolished, creation of a corresponding on-site exhibit on the University’s agricultural-architectural heritage, and clear methods of inventorying and analysis to precede any further changes to historic structures and landscapes, in accordance with the law and accepted professional practice. They further insist that the Barn be treated not as a discrete structure, and instead as part of an integral but now compromised complex of historic facilities.

• Based on the aforementioned discussion, MHC drafts a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA).

March 2008

• UMBA destroys the historic Brooks Barn.

Before and after the use of weapons of UMass destruction:

Winter-Summer 2008

• Negotiations over proposed MOA drag on through multiple revisions and several months as UMass and UMBA raise repeated objections.


It is truly difficult to say which is more deplorable: the utter philistinism of the University authorities or the sense of entitlement that leads them to act in such a highhanded manner. On the one hand, one can only applaud UMass for increasing construction of facilities and hiring of faculty in an aggressive attempt to secure its status as a truly national university of the first rank. On the other hand, one cannot fathom how the oft-stated desire to raise the intellectual caliber of the institution is compatible with disregard for, first, the law; and second, its own heritage, which moreover belongs not to it alone and is, rather, the patrimony of the Town and Commonwealth.

The underlying issue, of course, was the failure to understand that there is a heritage to protect. It may well be that not only philistinism, as such, but also a corresponding status anxiety contributed to the current tragedy. Indeed, the signs that prominently mark each UMass construction site with the proclamation, “New Dirt,” can be read in an interesting way and may reveal more than they were intended to. In the first place, the phrase itself is of a liminal register, trying to be at once professional and hip: “Yeah, man, we’re a high-powered research institution and want to compete with Berkeley and Ann Arbor, but hey, we’re cool and don’t take ourselves too seriously and use small words that 'the people' understand—just look at this sign! (wanna see my piercings? I mean: SAT scores?).” In the second place, it is as if all the activity is in part an attempt (subconscious or other) to bury or erase the shameful past: The "new dirt” of construction for offices, classrooms, or labs of the “Research-1” university intended to supplant the “old dirt” of agriculture. It really isn’t necessary—the pretence and posturing and prevaricating, I mean.

Ironically, if the University had an ounce of self-confidence and strategic instinct, it could have embraced its agricultural heritage, turning it from a mark of shame into a point of pride: As one of the first Morrill Land Grant (1862) universities, the Massachusetts Agricultural College was a pioneer in democratic education and new scientific research alike. In 1869 or 1910, the field trials of plows and the construction of the Cow Barn were the forerunners of today’s vaunted Polymer Science center and Nanotechnology Institute. A leader then, a leader now; for nearly 150 years, a pioneer in a changing world: Is that so hard to grasp? Are there no marketing and advancement advisors to speak common sense (and cents) to power?

As our concern for late nineteenth-century vernacular and agricultural structures makes clear, historic preservation does not involve only ancient and elegant buildings (indeed, the boundary is set at 50 years; the Eisenhower-era ranch house, no less than Washington’s Mount Vernon thus potentially qualifies). The historical evolution of the campus from pioneering agricultural college to leading academic research university should be a story that we highlight and tell with pride. That story is recorded in the built and landscape environment of the University, valuable in itself and also as a means of promoting support of that institution and cultural tourism for the town as a whole. Its value as an ensemble is greater than the sum of its parts, and the destruction of each individual historic building or landscape feature—though the loss may seem small and acceptable to some at the time—whittles away at the integrity of the whole.

Indeed, a news report on the Amherst Preservation Plan led with the Historical Commission’s appraisal of the campus as “a showplace of historic architecture,” and the co-author of the Plan stated in a public hearing that “many of the earliest buildings from its days as a land-grant college—as well as some contemporary structures—are historically significant and endangered” (Tom Marshall, “UMass considered as historic district,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, 29 June 2004; reproduced in Appendix E-2 of the Preservation Plan). One of the top priorities of Preservation Plan is therefore the creation of a contiguous University of Massachusetts Historic District (pp. 29, 36).

What the Historical Commission, PUMA, and like-minded preservation groups and citizens are asking is not impossible. Indeed, it is strikingly similar to a statement of purpose recently promulgated in the Master Plan of the University of Wisconsin, another leading public institution of higher learning that has a distinguished heritage in agriculture and academic research alike—and moreover shares many concrete historical ties with UMass:

These Guidelines are not intended to prescribe solutions nor limit creativity, but rather to establish a flexible framework that respects UW’s past and addresses its current challenges, while being inventive in establishing its future.

It is notable that this document opens with a photo essay on "buildings we like," which in turn begins with "historic fabric buildings"--including agricultural as well as academic, administrative, and residential--very similar to those on the "hit list" in Amherst.  What a difference in tone and sensibility:  Whereas the UW-Madison documents speaks first of affection for buildings, the UMass-Amherst report treats "legacy buildings" primarily as a problem and an expense.

 To read a separate, earlier report on the 1898 University of Wisconsin Dairy Barn (“Cow Palace”) is to think with regret on what might have been here:

The Dairy Barn's local significance as an enduring campus landmark is indisputable. By virtue of its role in the early development of the University of Wisconsin's College of Agriculture, the Dairy Barn's significance to state history also is readily apparent.

As one who grew up in Wisconsin and attended the University there, I also have fond memories of the 1909 Stock Pavilion.  Back in the day when we transacted business on paper rather than online, we used to pick up our course registration forms there every semester.  Above all, though, it was the site of numerous major local events, from a campaign speech by Harry Truman (well before my time, of course) to concerts of classical and rock music.  I still very clearly recall sitting there, my chair sinking ever so slightly into the sawdust floor material (at least I think it was sawdust), as the  Madison Symphony performed with guest artists—e.g. Eileen Farrell singing Wagner arias—under the benevolent gaze of bovine portraits.

That said, I have no desire to make invidious, not to mention, ahistorical comparisons. The UW report makes it clear that even the Cow Palace only narrowly escaped destruction in a scenario eerily reminiscent of the vandalism currently taking place at UMass:

A. F. Gallistel, then superintendent of the UW Department of Buildings and Grounds, chaired a committee that inventoried campus buildings and made recommendations about their maintenance and retention [1946; JW]. … The Dairy Barn, 49 years old at the time, was deemed ‘obsolete’ and an ‘extreme fire hazard,’ with the committee recommending that the barn be razed ‘when replacement is available.’

A bulletin of the late 1940s further declared that the Dairy Barn: "contradicts almost everything recommended in dairy housing," that the building was "out of step with modern dairying," "highly inflammable," and "not planned for the saving of time and money in herd care."

Historic preservation thus depends not only on foresight, good sense, and good taste, but also on just plain dumb luck. The UW Dairy Barn lucked out or outlasted its enemies and found continued use and a loyal following. The UMass Cow Barn ran out of luck and time. May she rest in peace. May we all be wiser and more vigilant in the future, lest further pieces of our heritage be sacrificed on the altar of convenience and faddishness.

Epilogue and Prospects:

Shame on UMass! 

If you would like to express your concern over the threat to our heritage, address your comments to:

• UMass Facilities and Campus Planning

• UMass Building Authority

• And be sure to copy the Massachusetts Historical Commission

Fortunately, there is reason to hope that the rank philistinism that brought us to this painful point will have passed with the departure of the old administration (the cultural equivalent of a kidney stone). The Interim Chancellor seemed more inclined to listen to concerns about historic resources. Above all, the recent appointment of distinguished scholar and experienced administrator Robert Holub as the incoming Chancellor is reason for confidence and optimism.

As a Germanist (we do not know one another, but shared teachers at the University of Wisconsin, half a generation apart), he is familiar not only with Heine’s entirely appropriate critique of the nationalist idolization and completion of the Cologne Cathedral, but also with Goethe’s youthful enthusiasm for the Gothic Strasbourg Cathedral and his adult investigations of the antiquities of the Rhine and Main regions, to which he dedicated a new periodical.

And all of us should heed the advice of the 18th-century English architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, who saw no contradiction between building the new and maintaining the old:

"Whatever is goode in its kinde ought to be preserv'd in respect for antiquity, as well as our present advantage, for destruction can be profitable to none but such as live by it."

Preservation Success Story: Cemetery Restoration Proceeds

Amherst’s West Cemetery, the original “burying ground,” dating from 1730—even before the community was recognized as an independent colonial parish (we mark the 250th anniversary in 2009)—is one of our major preservation success stories.

With the arrival of summer weather, two of the most important and visible steps in the preservation process are underway. Streetscape renovation by the Department of Public Works has now reached the northern end of the downtown, thus permitting completion of the access walk from Pleasant Street and installation of lighting for the nearby commemorative mural. At the same time, long-awaited restoration of broken and deteriorating headstones is finally beginning.

Located within the bounds of the ancient “West Highway” (1703) and now bordered by modern roads as well as retail and residential properties, the cemetery was named to the list of the “Ten Most Endangered” Massachusetts historic resources. The cemetery holds some of the rare virtually unchanged colonial landscape in the town center, and the occupants present a cross-section of Amherst society: famed and forgotten, scholars and soldiers, factory-owners and farmers. Among the graves that regularly attract visitors are those of poet Emily Dickinson (1830-86) and her family; Revolutionary War officer and politician Ebeneezer Mattoon (1755-1843); Henry Jackson (1817-1902), conductor on the Underground Railroad, and his son, Sanford Jackson (1831-63), who, along with some two dozen other African-American residents, fought in the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry (of “Glory” fame); William Smith Clark (1826-86), pioneering agronomist and founder of both the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts) and Sapporo University in Hokkaido; and jazz musician Robert “Gil” Roberts (1896-2002), who performed with Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker as well as the New Black Eagle Jazz Band.

The cemetery was threatened by a combination of natural deterioration, neglect, and vandalism. The endangered designation helped the Historical Commission to call attention to and raise resources for urgent restoration tasks.

In 1999, the Historical Commission commissioned a survey and systematic Preservation Plan for the Cemetery. In 2000, physical work began with restoration of perimeter fencing and installation of metal gates at the two entrances. In both cases, funds came from the Department of Conservation Historic Landscape Preservation Initiative.

Although better control of access to the Cemetery eliminated some of the abuse resulting from vandalism, a different problem was posed by the narrow space between the west fence and an adjoining retail structure, which became a site of what have been called inappropriate juvenile nocturnal activities, including perennial defacing of the wall with graffiti. Staff Liaison to the Historical Commission Lynda Faye came up with the bold idea of commissioning a mural for the wall, in order both to solve the graffiti problem and to create a more dignified backdrop for the cemetery.

Over the space of several years, the Commission negotiated with the owners of the building for an easement, conducted a public input process to select an artist and design, and raised private contributions for the project. From 2004-5, Cambridge muralist David Fichter, with help from local volunteers, created the mural, which depicts not only those buried in the cemetery, but also other residents, from poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) to 19th-century Irish women mill workers and twentieth-century farmers. (A brochure available at the cemetery identifies the figures depicted.) Initially controversial in some quarters, the mural has now become our most popular work of public art, and a new icon of the town.


The wall of the cemetery mural,

next to the defaced wall of an adjoining building

The remaining work on restoration of the cemetery, proper, is being financed through appropriations by the Town from Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds. (The CPA—about which more later on this blog—was one of the wisest acts of Massachusetts legislation [2000]: a progressive measure that channels funds from property taxes toward improvement of local quality of life through support of affordable housing, historic preservation, and open space and recreation.)

This spring, the Town contracted with Monument Conservation Collaborative LLC for the conservation and restoration of some 240 headstones.

The headstones are of course the most visible markers of the graves whose presence constitutes the essence of the site. Their condition often prompts expressions of concern from local residents and descendants of the deceased. It has at times been difficult to explain that our efforts first had to go into studying and securing the site, and that funds can be appropriated, contracts awarded, and work carried only after a rather cumbersome bureaucratic process. It is therefore most gratifying to be able to announce that the delicate restoration work has at last begun, and that ten years after earning its place on the ignoble list, this historic resource is truly no longer endangered.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

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Nominations for Most Endangered Resources Due August 1

This is public policy and public pressure at its best.

The announcement (below) of the opening of this year's nominations for the most endangered historic resources in the Commonwealth is a welcome opportunity to note that Amherst is home to two sites that have made that sad list in the recent years. Although the outcomes have varied, there is no doubt that the designation helped to bring attention to the need. The first case is an unqualified success. In the second case, danger has already turned into destruction, and the fate of what remains is uncertain, though, we hope, improving.

In both cases, the Amherst Historical Commission (full disclosure: I am the current Chair) is playing an important role in the preservation process.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Preservation Massachusetts is now accepting nominations to our 2008 Ten Most Endangered Historic Resources List!

2008 marks the 15th Anniversary of the Ten Most Endangered program. PM is excited to use this year as an opportunity to reflect on this program, our successes, struggles and ongoing challenges. Through the commitment and determination of communities, organizations and individuals, we hope that all of the Ten Most Endangered Historic Resources will be prove to be preservation success stories in the coming years!

Established in 1993, the Ten Most Endangered Historic Resources Program is one of our most important preservation advocacy and education tools. Local groups or individuals who are deeply concerned about the potential loss of these significant resources nominate sites from across the state. The list is one of the first steps in focusing statewide attention on the condition of these historic resources and their importance to communities, and often serves as a catalyst for extensive preservation opportunities.

Nomination forms are available for download in PDF form and are due by 5:00 PM on Friday, August 1, 2008.

Questions? call 617-723-3383 or email ekelly@preservationmass.org

Happy 14 July ("Bastille Day")

A somewhat belated joyeux 14 Juillet to all (as I had just returned from Prague)!



"SIEGE DE LA BASTILLE DEDIE AUX ELECTEURS DE 1789 PAR PALLOY PATRIOTE LORS DE LA RENTREE DE SA CHUTE A LA NATION," contemporaneous bronze copy of medal by Pierre-François Palloy (Hennin 18.26). As the text around the rim indicates, the original from which it was cast was made from the lead that secured the chains of the prison.



"SIEGE DE LA BASTILLE." "PRISE PAR LES CITOYENS DE LA VILLE DE PARIS LE 14 JUET 1789," by Bernard Andrieu (Hennin 23), in the first of what became his series of medals commemorating the chief events of the Revolution.

"Mais déjà l'indignation du Peuple contre la garnison de la Bastille, son impatient courage, ses menaces même, avoient forcé les Chefs militaires. On répétoit par-tout que le Peuple avoit été invité à approcher de la Bastille par des signaux de paix et d'amitié; et qu'au moment même où il étoit entré dans la première cour, le Gouverneur avoit fait faire sur lui deux décharges à mitraille.
"On demandoit à grands cris le siège de la Bastille, on vouloit du canon."

--from the account of the event in Procès-Verbal des Séances et Délibérations de l'Assemblée Générale des Électeurs de Paris Réunis à l'Hôtel-de-Ville le 14 Juillet 1789 . . . (Paris, 1790), I: 335.

Medals such as these were one of the first manifestations of the new cultural as well as political revolution, as what had been a royal monopoly suddenly entered the domain of both popular initiative and commerce. It is a commonplace that the Bastille was by this time a symbol rather than a practical tool of repression. Recent scholarship has explored that symbolism in some detail, though perhaps most innovatively as concerns the period after rather than before the fall of the prison. Rolf Reichardt and Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink offer a comprehensive and rigorous account in their The Bastille: A History of a Symbol of Despotism and Freedom. Simon Schama, despite (or perhaps because of) his skepticism about so many traits of the Revolution, offers (in a chapter of his Citizens, later adapted as a separate booklet), a characteristically engaging narrative of the events of July and the process by which "Patriot Palloy" turned the demolition of the structure and commemoration (or transfiguration) of its history into a personal as well as national enterprise, involving everything from souvenir relics to reenactments and traveling exhibits. Indeed, the Bastille became one of the first modern sites of stage-managed public memory, uneasily blending history, tourism, and hucksterism. In that sense, it is hardly a remote topic and, rather, set the tone for our own treatment of sites as diverse as the Berlin Wall and World Trade Center.

Resources:

French site on the holiday and its history

Hiatus and Return

Due to a variety of unanticipated external factors, the blog went into a sort of hiatus shortly after it went up (among other things, the BookMarks program and blog required more attention). However, things are back on track again.

Although we of course cannot and should not attempt to cover all the pertinent news items that appeared in the interim, we will occasionally refer to some of the more important by way of brief recaps or contextual introductions to new topics. Happy reading.