Conspiracy theories and literary ethics: Umberto Eco, Danilo Kis and The Protocols of Zion

Comparative Literature, Spring 1999 by Boym, Svetlana

Parallel passages from Joly's "Dialogues in Hell" and Nilus's Protocols presented at the Berne trial of the Protocols in 1934-1935 demonstrate how the latter's Jewish Masonic conspiracy was concocted from the former's anti-Napoleanic satire.'

"Dialogues in Hell"

Machiavelli: "You know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity . .servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, incapable of supporting the contrarieties of the liberal regime, are patient to the point of martyrdom before all violence of bold despotism, upsetting thrones in its moments of anger, and giving itself rulers whom it pardons for actions the least of which would have caused it to decapitate twenty constitutional kings."

The Protocols

It is the bottomless rascality of the goyim peoples, who crawl on their bellies to force, but are merciless towards weakness, unsparing to faults and indulgent to crimes, unwilling to bear the contradictions of a free social system but patient unto martyrdom under the violence of a bold despotism-it is in those qualities which are aiding us to independence. From the premier dictators of the present day the goyim peoples suffer patiently and bear such abuse as for the least of them they would have beheaded twenty kings.

"Dialogues in Hell"

Montesquieu: Now you may go on to the regulation of books Machiavelli: . . . In the first place, I shall oblige those who wish to exercise the profession of printer, editor or librarian to secure a seal, that is, authorization which the government may always withdraw, either directly or indirectly, or by decision of the court. Montesquieu: But in that case . . . the instruments of thought will become the instruments of power!

The Protocols

Let us turn again to the future of the printing press. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with a diploma issued therewith which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures the instrument of thought will become an educative means in the hands of our government . . .

Rachkovsky's and Nilus's plagiarism is obvious. The contempt for humanity in general expressed by the character Machiavelli in "Dialogues in Hell" is presented in the Protocols as a Jewish contempt for the "goyim peoples"; the polemical dialogue is absorbed into a prophetic monologue in the first person plural. In Rachkovsky's perfect calculation, the reader was incited to conspire against the supposed conspirators and fight against them. No Jewish author had anything to do with the making of the Protocols or their intertexts; they were mere fictional ghost writers in the "goyim" paranoid fantasy of the "goyim" secret police. As Herman Bernstein writes: "The only `protocols of the wise men of Zion' are the Holy Scriptures. Moreover the future reign of the Jewish king as presented in the Protocols strikes one not so much as a satirical description of the Government of Napoleon III (the way Joly intended it) but as Tsarist Russia."