Soviet Invasion of the Estonian Umwelt

     Reading Uexküll I was struck by how anti-behaviorist in tone A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men: A Picture Book of Invisible Worlds was, and because of this I became curious as to how Pavlov’s famous behavioral theory was perceived in Uexküll’s own umwelt.  As Giorgio Agamban point’s out in The Open: Man and Animal, Uexküll was at one time a prominent and wealthy figure in Estonian society, one that would have likely been involved in the politics of his state and very concerned with the rival ideas being produced by foreign counterparts (39).  The fact that Uexküll was “ruined by the First World War” (39) seems to be a further indication that the man was on somewhat tenuous political ground around the same time that A Stroll was published.  This was a period in which Uexküll had expatriated to the island of Capri, which is off the coast of Italy, and this last of his family’s properties allowed him safe haven from the encroaching Soviet Russian forces that were bombarding the Estonian borders before, during, and after WWI.  In fact, in 1940, Russia did gain control of Estonia in an alliance with WWII Germany, and I am suggesting that Uexküll’s work is a direct retaliation against invading Soviet ideology in the form of a response to Pavlov’s behaviorism. 

          

      Ivan Pavlov was born in Russia, and though he himself was a vocal decrier of Soviet Russia’s brand of communism, his ideas about the human condition, and more specifically psychological conditioning resonate within the early twentieth century Russian zeitgeist.  For instance, Pavlov was often criticized for the violently cruel nature of his experiments on animals, and the Pavlovian method fit in perfectly with a decidedly violent Leninist or Stalinist type of mindset.  Pavlov was a contemporary of Uexküll’s, and most likely a known rival.  Consider the title of the paper read by Pavlov to explain the findings of his experiments on animal conditioning: The Experimental Psychology and the Psychopathology of Animals (1921).  Uexküll’s corresponding A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men compliments Pavlov’s earlier title interestingly enough doesn’t it?  The Estonian writer immediately takes a much more passive stance on his material by interpellating A Stroll Through the Worlds for the much more imposing and aggressive The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of, and then by adding Men to Pavlov’s Animals Uexküll cleverly brings the aggressive male ego down to the level of the animal experience.  And all within the title… 

          
       Uexküll tells the reader from the outset that his is a theory in opposition with the aforementioned Behaviorist standpoints, but I do not think that the political motivations behind this move are entirely clear with a reading of Uexküll alone.  He would have ten years to analyze Pavlov’s findings, and an island-side view of how the Pavlovian movement took hold of Russian psychology in so many interesting ways.  I think there are clearly traces of political undertones coursing through A Stroll and am as of yet undecided what to make of Uexküll’s work.