Qu’est ce qui était fondamentalement incorrect dans la publication d’un historien de critiques anonymes des livres de ses compétiteurs sur Amazon? Katie Engelhart explore les problèmes que soulève cette situation tragi-comique.
Exposition des faits
En avril 2010, un mystérieux commentateur, écrivant sous l’alias «Historian» (historien), commença à publier des critiques caustiques de livres récemment parus sur le thème de l’histoire soviétique sur le site internet Amazon.co.uk. «Historian» évalua le travail du professeur Rachel Polonsky comme étant «lourd» et «prétentieux», et le dernier tome du professeur Robert Service comme étant «nul», «un livre horrible». En même temps, ce commentateur loua le travail «beau et nécessaire» du professeur Orlando Figes de Birbeck College. Dans des emails privés ayant circulé entre spécialistes éminent dans le domaine (incluant Figes), une suspicion fut évoquée: «Historian» ne serait autre que Figes lui-même. Dans un de ces emails, Service décrivit les critiques comme «des attaques personnelles désagréables à la manière de bonne vieille méthode soviétique.»
C’est ainsi que commença la saga académique. Figes nia catégoriquement les allégations dont il faisait l’objet et accusa ses rivaux de mensonge. Il manda rapidement ses avocats de menacer d’actions en justice Polonsky, Service et plusieurs autres publications que les différents historiens avaient produits. Mais aussitôt que les menaces de poursuites eurent été dévoilées, la femme de Figes, l’avocate Stephanie Palmer, admit avoir publié les critiques elle-même. Un Figes apparemment choqué publia un communiqué indiquant «qu’il venait de l’apprendre».
Mais cette explication s’avéra de courte durée. Le 23 avril 2010, Figes publia un nouveau communiqué dans lequel il assumait «l’entière responsabilité» pour les critiques et s’excusait auprès de ceux qu’il avait accusé. Il accepta par la suite de s’acquitter des dommages causés et du coût des procédures judiciaires engagées par Polonsky et Service.
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ANONYMITY IN SCHOLARSHIP SHOULD BE AN EXCEPTION
Katie Engelhart’s interesting discussion of the negative anonymous reviews of Rachel Polonsky’s and Robert Service’s works by their colleague Orlando Figes takes a curious turn at the end. Service, she writes, noted that Figes’s attitude reminded him of the Soviet practice of personal attacks. Engelhart, though, shrewdly remarks that Figes had the right to publish anonymous reviews, and she rejects Service’s view with the following argument: “Service surely understands that anonymous criticism has, in history, had its rightful place.” This argument is historically and morally untenable.
Anonymous criticism certainly had a rightful place in history—as a weapon of the weak. When in times past, graffiti and anonymous pamphlets defied the aberrations of power, they were given credit. This is hardly the case here. Figes was not the weaker party: his works are praised as much as those of Polonsky and Service. Anonymity did not serve to shield him from the vengeance of academic power; rather, it was an instrument to improperly hit his professional rivals. From a historical angle, the argument is misplaced.
Figes had the right to publish anonymous reviews, but as a citizen, not as a professional or as a scholar. As a professional, that is as a publicist, he had no good reason to remain anonymous. Journalism and anonymity go together only in the one widely recognized case of secrecy regarding a source that gives information in confidence. Figes did not protect such a source, he protected himself. As a scholar, that is as a historian, his position is even weaker. Scholarship and secrecy are each other’s enemies. Scholars have to strive for maximal transparency and accountability. Disclosure is the rule, confidentiality the exception. Peer review, if it wants to be anonymous, needs strong justification. In the Figes affair, no such justification was available, and the anonymity was in violation of scholarly deontology. Engelhart’s argument is correct at the level of citizenship only, but if the duties of professionalism and scholarship are taken into account—and they should, as the affair centers on publication and scholarly rivalry—it founders.
Ironically, in apologizing and redressing the wrongs caused by his action, Figes seemed to accept the above reasoning more than Engelhart does.
Antoon De Baets
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Did RJ Ellory learn nothing from Figes? Another author caught out for trashing colleagues and glorifying his own work on Amazon – http://goo.gl/gP0we