Originally Posted by Kinser79

Well I understand the feeling. While I'm not trying to get back to Russia, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be than "Not Florida". I'm a native of the state, and I've never really liked it here. I've always prefered the northern states for some reason.

Oh, I have very specific reasons why I prefer the northwest or west to Florida. At the superficial level, it's because I like places with mountains and seasons (and it's not winter without snow); at the less-superficial level, it's because the people in Florida are not my people. I've managed to live alongside them for nigh on three years now, but we're still foreigners here.

I contrast that with Pushkin, where even with our odd clothes, accents, and being 'those weird ethnic types who jabber at each other in their weird "wak-wak-wakka-wak"', we were taken in as locals by not long after our first year had passed. The people alone more than made up for the lack of mountains (and, to be fair, there are plenty of hills). And you can't get much more season than summers with no dark, winters with little light, and spring and fall where each day is noticeably longer or shorter than the previous.

That being said I would argue that Ukraine and Belarus are on the same or very similar saecular patters with Russia due to their history and culture. I cannot say about the Baltics, Central Asian or Caucasus republics. They may be on the Russian cycle, they may be on the Western cycle (probably the Baltic States), or they may be on their own cycle.

I wouldn't dispute you about Ukraine or Belarus -- I was only in Kiev once, and that for only a couple days. But I do know a fair number of Ukrainians who had recently come to live and work in the SPb area, and they didn't seem particularly mis-fit. As to the Baltics, I have to defer to the other poster here who married an Estonian lady and has been living there for many years now with their several children. He has observed that Estonia, at least, seems to be on the European cycle. As to central asia and the caucasus? The closest I come to knowing anything about that at all is the Tajik migrant laborers I hired on to build our house. But only a couple of them spoke any Russian at all, so it's not like we did much in the way of socializing. Though our oldest son did learn a whole slew of Tajik cusswords.

It seems that we're pretty much agreed on the 1T and 2T of the USSR Saeculum it seems. Would you think it may be possible that the onset of a 2T was delayed by the war? It seems due to the reading of many works from people in the soviet union of the time period just before the War that many of the younger people were wanting to liberalize some of the institutions (although be it in minute tweaks here and there--quite an Artist archetype thing) right before the war. However, it didn't start to catch full swing until after the war--due to the fact that the war itself was a fight for national survival (even though it did not happen in a 4T--rather I would argue it was the 4T of an other country spilling over into Russia).

It's fair to argue that. I really never got to know socially very many war veterans (though one woman I did spend some time with was born right before the Revolution and remembered the Civil War at least as a thing that happened while she was around). There's a great relatively-recent movie set in '55 -- right as the Russian 2T was getting into full swing. I highly recommend it -- there are .srt files out there for it, if you need subtitles. Here's the film itself (make up a login -- it's worth having; the site is one of the best torrent ones out there). Granted, it's entertainment, not history. But the setting is what matters; and it's pure Awakening.

I would say that the Brezhnev* stagnation was as classic 3T as it gets.

Sure. It's a good enough identifier.

One of my Russian friends (who is also a communist) told me of a time about 1999 when he paid for a tank of gas with vodka. And his wife (who I know less well) used cigarettes to buy food about the same time. I think they also said that dollars and Deuschemarks were used (or was it Euros--I can't really remember, we were drinking pretty heavily).

I never ran across using anything but rubles to pay (granted, I started spending time in Russia only back in '03). But that's the difference between a Crisis era and a High. During the Crisis, the functioning of institutions (like currency) isn't consistent or dependable.
Honestly, I'm surprised you know a communist. I never met a single actual one. Plenty of people vote for the Communist Party still, but it's a protest vote against the corrupt bastards in charge and the faux-'opposition' parties they have set up more than anything ideological. Then again, so are most of the votes for the LDPR (Zhirinovsky's a clown, and people who vote for him do it as a statement that even a clown would be better than who runs things now). But an actual ideological communist? Maybe I ran across some, but if so we never talked politics....

I don't know. That complacency is pretty culturally ingrained.

It is, but so have been many of the traditional social norms challenged during Awakening eras. In any case, I honestly don't expect it. But I hope for it. One of my closer friends has said on more than one occasion that he would even start paying taxes if they would implement the Chinese solution to corruption -- take a bribe, get a bullet. And he's far from alone in thinking that way. It's just going to take the realization among this latest crop of pampered Prophets that they're capable of changing people's minds if they decide to.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Of course a dubious achievement because it implies serial mass murder. Stalin as an evil superman? Maybe. But he could thoroughly dominate 24 years of an empire's history. Like Hitler he was a Crisis in his own right. But Hitler could dominate only twelve years in Germany before his end came with the Soviet Army closing in on him.

Horrific as The Great Patriotic War was it likely gave its veterans some empowerment that allowed them to command respect long after the war. I can also imagine its severity stunting youth who could never live up to the deeds of their seniors in a time of comparative peace.

Stalin tried to force a sort of Crisis of his own, a fourth wave -- through the Doctor's Plot. It fizzled, probably because by the early 1950s the Soviet Union could take no more mass purges.

But let's look at some of the patterns of Russian and Soviet generations. Their equivalent of the American Missionaries was the Bolshevik Generation that included the (not surprisingly!) the Old Bolsheviks but also the Nicholas II and many of the White leaders (Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel, etc.) and the historically (if not personally) tragic Kerensky. I'd label the generation of Lenin and at least Trotsky the Bolshevik Generation because the Bolsheviks triumphed completely.

Then comes a Reactive generation, the bulk of the young soldiers of World War I. They were made huge promises in return for becoming cannon fodder and turned against the rotten Establishment when it failed and that it could never meet its promises. The image that I get is of the soldiers marching enthusiastically to the front with their fine new uniforms at the start of the war -- and who lost their enthusiasm as defeat became inevitable and supplies failed (Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak). To be sure there were many young Bolsheviks from this generation, but they did not -- and could never -- shape the order except to be the hatchetmen of Josef Stalin. Those that Stalin began to distrust... died. But note well the excellent military commanders of the Soviet Union in World War II -- Zhukov, Timoshenko... Reactive generations make excellent generals.

But whatever entrepreneurial tendencies they had... Stalin smashed. All had to be done for the glory of a State increasingly entwined with his personality and 'vision'.

Following this generation came those who could never have become adults until the consolidation of the Soviet state, contemporaries of America's GI Generation. I am tempted to call them the "Soviet" Generation because their adulthood was almost entirely during the Soviet era. Like our GIs they were educated to do things on a big scale... if with no intellectual subtlety. They were the builders of giant dams and other showy projects. They stood for rational science at its purest. Maybe because many of them were war veterans and because Stalin died in 1951 they were still young enough to see something wrong with Stalin... after Khrushchev's Secret Speech.

This is only a start of the discussion. I look at the late 1980s as a time when libertarian strengthened everywhere that they could not be repressed. The collapse of Communism in the Soviet bloc demonstrates what happens when an unavoidable tendency -- the libertarian tendency of a 3T -- smashes into a decadent and discreditable, collectivist order that can no longer get mass support.

You've colored-in, I see, some of the shapes in your coloring-book history. It all still revolves around Stalin to you, though. And fails to offer a mechanism by which the move of a generational cohort into the next phase of life could be retarded. So, at its very fundamentals, you are not observing and theorizing, but approaching with a theory and manipulating observations to best-fit it.

It's not, in my opinion, a very good way to learn things. It may be suited to high school debate club... but that's not a good way to learn things, either.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Much of history is an obscene tale written in the blood of the innocent.

A common misconception among those who only look to the most superficial readings of the world around them. Except for a vanishingly few exceptions, all of history consists of people living their lives, making their choices, and striving to provide good lives for themselves and their children and to surround themselves with good people. History is the actions of people in, among, and with their societies. It doesn't make for a very exciting cartoon, I understand. Eppur si muove.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

A common misconception among those who only look to the most superficial readings of the world around them. Except for a vanishingly few exceptions, all of history consists of people living their lives, making their choices, and striving to provide good lives for themselves and their children and to surround themselves with good people. History is the actions of people in, among, and with their societies. It doesn't make for a very exciting cartoon, I understand. Eppur si muove.

People take note of the big events of history -- wars, revolutions, purges, enslavement, and persecutions. By their nature they are bloody. If one wanted to live through big history few countries offered it as did Russia in the first half of the 20th century. Such is obvious overload

OK. Some big events are not so bloody -- Gautama Buddha achieving enlightenment, Euclid formulating geometry, Dante releasing his Divine Comedy, some monk inventing double-entry accounting, Gutenberg introducing a printing press, premieres of Hamlet and L'Orfeo, the English settlement at Plymouth Plantation... maybe those have more lasting importance than some king ordering a courtier fed alive to a tiger in his menagerie for not kissing up fast enough.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Oh, I have very specific reasons why I prefer the northwest or west to Florida. At the superficial level, it's because I like places with mountains and seasons (and it's not winter without snow); at the less-superficial level, it's because the people in Florida are not my people. I've managed to live alongside them for nigh on three years now, but we're still foreigners here.

Personally I'm fond of Chicago for reasons relating to the fact that I have loads of friends in that area, and very few friends down here--though I have more relatives (most of whom I cannot stand). Also it is usually easier to get employment there, or at least it was prior to the start of the Great Depression 2.0

I contrast that with Pushkin, where even with our odd clothes, accents, and being 'those weird ethnic types who jabber at each other in their weird "wak-wak-wakka-wak"', we were taken in as locals by not long after our first year had passed. The people alone more than made up for the lack of mountains (and, to be fair, there are plenty of hills). And you can't get much more season than summers with no dark, winters with little light, and spring and fall where each day is noticeably longer or shorter than the previous.

I meet your Pushkin with my Paul Robeson. Like him I was viewed more as a man than as a black man when I stayed in Gorky. It was rather refressing to not have to deal with subtle racism (or at least none that I could detect, I could have not detected it due to cultural differences) on a daily basis.

Also I rather liked the Aurora on those long winter nights. Its not common to see that except in the most northern states.

I wouldn't dispute you about Ukraine or Belarus -- I was only in Kiev once, and that for only a couple days. But I do know a fair number of Ukrainians who had recently come to live and work in the SPb area, and they didn't seem particularly mis-fit. As to the Baltics, I have to defer to the other poster here who married an Estonian lady and has been living there for many years now with their several children. He has observed that Estonia, at least, seems to be on the European cycle. As to central asia and the caucasus? The closest I come to knowing anything about that at all is the Tajik migrant laborers I hired on to build our house. But only a couple of them spoke any Russian at all, so it's not like we did much in the way of socializing. Though our oldest son did learn a whole slew of Tajik cusswords.

As to the Baltics, I'm not sure. Someone else may have a better estimation of where their cycle lines up. Ukraine and Belarus are very similar to Russia culturally. From what I can tell the Ukranian language seems to be almost a dialect of Russian. I've heard the same is true with Belorussian.

As to the Central Asian republics I have no first hand experience, but I did work with a Georgian for a good bit of time. He was older than myself by about a decade and seemed to be quite nomadic (though he could also be an outlier as he is also an immigrant to America). I did learn some interesting swear words from him though.

It's fair to argue that. I really never got to know socially very many war veterans (though one woman I did spend some time with was born right before the Revolution and remembered the Civil War at least as a thing that happened while she was around). There's a great relatively-recent movie set in '55 -- right as the Russian 2T was getting into full swing. I highly recommend it -- there are .srt files out there for it, if you need subtitles. Here's the film itself (make up a login -- it's worth having; the site is one of the best torrent ones out there). Granted, it's entertainment, not history. But the setting is what matters; and it's pure Awakening.

I'll have to check it out. My boyfriend frequently complains about my watching of long Russian Epic films.

I never ran across using anything but rubles to pay (granted, I started spending time in Russia only back in '03). But that's the difference between a Crisis era and a High. During the Crisis, the functioning of institutions (like currency) isn't consistent or dependable.

My friend told me that this was back during the Yeltsin period. The Ruble was a shambles at the time, and I imagine that in a country with a large percentage of the adult population that smokes and an even larger one that drinks both cigarettes and vodka would be suitable currencies during a 4T.

Even during the Soviet period there was an unofficial system of trading favors.

Honestly, I'm surprised you know a communist. I never met a single actual one. Plenty of people vote for the Communist Party still, but it's a protest vote against the corrupt bastards in charge and the faux-'opposition' parties they have set up more than anything ideological. Then again, so are most of the votes for the LDPR (Zhirinovsky's a clown, and people who vote for him do it as a statement that even a clown would be better than who runs things now). But an actual ideological communist? Maybe I ran across some, but if so we never talked politics....

To be frank, I make it my business to know communists from other countries. It never hurts to know people in other countries (you know, plan escape route first and all that).

It is, but so have been many of the traditional social norms challenged during Awakening eras. In any case, I honestly don't expect it. But I hope for it. One of my closer friends has said on more than one occasion that he would even start paying taxes if they would implement the Chinese solution to corruption -- take a bribe, get a bullet. And he's far from alone in thinking that way. It's just going to take the realization among this latest crop of pampered Prophets that they're capable of changing people's minds if they decide to.

Only time will tell. That said, Stalin did have plans on dealing with bureaucratic corruption in the USSR but unfortunately he died (some have said was murdered) before he could implement his ah...reforms. I do hope that that ingrained acceptance of corruption is done away with. It is a millstone about the neck of the Russian nation in my opinion.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

People take note of the big events of history -- wars, revolutions, purges, enslavement, and persecutions. By their nature they are bloody. If one wanted to live through big history few countries offered it as did Russia in the first half of the 20th century. Such is obvious overload

OK. Some big events are not so bloody -- Gautama Buddha achieving enlightenment, Euclid formulating geometry, Dante releasing his Divine Comedy, some monk inventing double-entry accounting, Gutenberg introducing a printing press, premieres of Hamlet and L'Orfeo, the English settlement at Plymouth Plantation... maybe those have more lasting importance than some king ordering a courtier fed alive to a tiger in his menagerie for not kissing up fast enough.

People may take note of the big events, however, saecular cycle study concerns itself with the big events as well as the small events. The ones no one really notices. The remains that not even Stalin (again the man was a giant among pygmies) could retard the development of an entire generation of Adaptives into young adults.

Pbrower, you have yet to present a case as to why the Russian saeculum cycle is not as I said it is.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

People take note of the big events of history -- wars, revolutions, purges, enslavement, and persecutions. By their nature they are bloody. If one wanted to live through big history few countries offered it as did Russia in the first half of the 20th century. Such is obvious overload

OK. Some big events are not so bloody -- Gautama Buddha achieving enlightenment, Euclid formulating geometry, Dante releasing his Divine Comedy, some monk inventing double-entry accounting, Gutenberg introducing a printing press, premieres of Hamlet and L'Orfeo, the English settlement at Plymouth Plantation... maybe those have more lasting importance than some king ordering a courtier fed alive to a tiger in his menagerie for not kissing up fast enough.

Big Events are only the meat of history for those easily distracted by the bright and shiny.

People who go beyond a superficial interest recognize that Big Events are no more than ephemeral sparklies in the genuine substance of history -- the lives of people and their societies.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

I meet your Pushkin with my Paul Robeson. Like him I was viewed more as a man than as a black man when I stayed in Gorky. It was rather refressing to not have to deal with subtle racism (or at least none that I could detect, I could have not detected it due to cultural differences) on a daily basis.

I saw quite a bit of the country*, but I've never been to NN (in fact, I had to look up where the hell 'Gorky' was... naming places after politicians is never a good thing, and it's nothing but good to see the old more organic names reasserting themselves). Nevertheless, I really dig your careful choice of words -- 'subtle' racism is pretty much nonexistent. And what overt racism I saw seemed (granted, as a guy who carries the ethnic-lithuanian looks of half his family, I wasn't necessarily in the right place to see it in its fullness) much less corrosive for its openness.

That said, there was a grand total of six** black guys in Pushkin while we lived there -- all foreign students at the ag university. I only ever knew the one of them, who worked for me as my assistant parts/warehouse manager. Nice guy; there from Chad; had been living in Pushkin for seven years already; got married while we were there to a girl from Arkhangelsk. He was one of the few people I met who made me feel slightly inadequate, linguistically-speaking (though it was great to have someone to practice my French with). To the Russians (besides his wife and in-laws, I assume), he was always "The African", but I would guess that since they were so few he was more a novelty than any threat, so didn't seem to be shut out of any kind of society. Then again, my family and I were "The Americans"***, to no ill consequences.

Really, though, if you wanted to encounter strong racism in Russia, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to do. Be a tsygan, like our one neighbors.

Also I rather liked the Aurora on those long winter nights. Its not common to see that except in the most northern states.

Lucky Bastard. the Peterburg area was always too socked-in with clouds for us to get to actually see any aurorae. When we get back, I'm going to bite the bullet and repeat the drive up to Belomorsk, only in the winter this time. I've heard and fully believe that they are indescribable in person and like nothing else.

As to the Baltics, I'm not sure. Someone else may have a better estimation of where their cycle lines up. Ukraine and Belarus are very similar to Russia culturally. From what I can tell the Ukranian language seems to be almost a dialect of Russian. I've heard the same is true with Belorussian.

In Kiev, we were able to read all of the roadsigns with no difficulty at all -- a slight vowel shift and knowing how to pronounce the extra Ukrainian letters suffices. But there's a whole lot of Ukrainian that isn't at all like Russian. It's really almost like spanish to portugese or italian to french -- you can pick out here and there, but they're most definitely not the same languages.

As to the Central Asian republics I have no first hand experience, but I did work with a Georgian for a good bit of time. He was older than myself by about a decade and seemed to be quite nomadic (though he could also be an outlier as he is also an immigrant to America). I did learn some interesting swear words from him though.

Cool. I had the Brothers Gargashvili working for me... in fact, they had a cousin who was one of the Russian peacekeepers in Ossetia when Georgia decided to take it over in '08 -- got his throat slit in the night by their Georgian-army 'peacekeeper' counterparts with the rest of his squad right before the rockets started falling. So... ethnic Georgians, but not really Georgians. Their mom made the awesomest cakes for their birthdays, though.

I'll have to check it out. My boyfriend frequently complains about my watching of long Russian Epic films.

Meh. The classics are classics for a reason, but the real strength of Russian video entertainment is in children's cartoons. I highly recommend Smeshariki (the original; not the bastardized-into-english version) to anyone of any age. They just do damn good stuff.

My friend told me that this was back during the Yeltsin period. The Ruble was a shambles at the time, and I imagine that in a country with a large percentage of the adult population that smokes and an even larger one that drinks both cigarettes and vodka would be suitable currencies during a 4T.

Even during the Soviet period there was an unofficial system of trading favors.

Naturally. I just never saw it myself.


----

*My first forays there were months-long trips to train up a network of service centers for back when Freightliner thought they were going to be permitted by their German overlords to function in Russia. It was generally only a week or two, but in addition to the years living outside SPb and driving all over LenOblast and the surrounding oblasts, I did get to spend time meeting (and hanging out and drinking with) people and stomping around: Moscow; Krasnodar; Samara; Ufa; Perm; Yekaterinburg; Novosibirsk; Irkutsk; Ulan-Ude; Chita; Khabarovsk; Vladivostok. It gets rugged out east, but there's nowhere not worth being.

**I assume no others were in hiding, and Pushkin's small enough that any faces that stood out would get seen.

***Again, Pushkin's not big. All the worthless expats (by which includes every American we ever encountered in Russia) stayed in SPb, where they could easily and safely send their kids to the American School and themselves walk from the US embassy to whatever office on Nevskiy or Furshtadskaya to the one and only Papa John's or the one and only Irish pub back to their expat housing without ever having to interact with any Russian people besides the bodyguards their company or government had arranged for them. As far as I know, aside from students living near the university, we were the only non-migrant-laborer foreigners in the Pushkin-Pavlovsk-Aleksandrovskaya suburban area. I know for sure we were the only nonRussians in Pokrovskaya, where we built out house.

Granted that Justin has first hand experience with Russian culture, I think there are problems with his idea that Russia is on a unique cycle of its own. Just to take one example, WWII in the US, characterized by settled and tranquil social conditions and a cooperative war effort is considered 4T according to the theory, while the Soviet Union, where fate hung in the balance, order was maintained by the foreboding presence of the GPU/NKVD/MGB, attacks were pressed home by machineguns set up to fire at retreating Red Army troops and where many POW's and even whole regions defected to the Axis powers, is by Justin considered a 1T society.

There is something about that interpretation that seems a little uneven.

By that measure Tussliago, would you say that an enemy nation invading one's home turf, burning down one's capital, and occupying one's major cities would count as a Crisis?

If so, then the War of 1812 was a Crisis.

I think we have to separate the idea of war = crisis from our minds, which I think a lot of people (not Tuss specifically, as I don't think he does) have a tendency to do here on this forum. Wars can happen in any turning for any reason. It's how the society works around it or lives their lives either with it or against it that I think determines what kind of "turning response" they have.

~Chas'88

Building off my last post I think we've forgotten what this theory is based off of--how a society reacts and lives its life--not so much the study of great events. Great events have some influence, sure, but the majority of the theory rests on "social mood" which is a nebulous measurement at best.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

By that measure Tussliago, would you say that an enemy nation invading one's home turf, burning down one's capital, and occupying one's major cities would count as a Crisis?

If so, then the War of 1812 was a Crisis.

Maybe I fail to get the sarcasm? I think it's a reasonable enough interpretation to regard the whole French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars period a European 4T. One can probably break it down in other ways and find good arguments for it, but to start with it seems like a rather natural, if maybe crude, working hypothesis.

And by those standards, the War of 1812 consequently takes on the character of a small, brief sideshow event, somewhere far away in distant North America (which by itself of course, does not appear very 4T at the time).

I think we have to separate the idea of war = crisis from our minds, which I think a lot of people (not Tuss specifically) have a tendency to do here on this forum. Wars can happen in any turning for any reason. It's how the society works around it or lives their lives either with it or against it that I think determines what kind of "turning response" they have.

Naturally I agree with you, and I try to steer clear of the war = 4T trap. But if so, what would you say actually makes WWII in America into a 4T? It seems to me the very elements that were present in the US in abundance in spite of America's 4T-ishness - collective vision, simplified worldview, determination, conviction, common goals, social peace - are exactly those that, even in much lower concentrations, makes Justin argue that Soviet Russia was in a 1T during the war.

Originally Posted by Tussilago

Maybe I fail to get the sarcasm? I think it's a reasonable enough interpretation to regard the whole French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars period a European 4T. One can probably break it down in other ways and find good arguments for it, but to start with it seems like a rather natural, if maybe crude, working hypothesis.

Now I'm not a major French history buff, but from the rough outlines I can determine: For France it stops being a Crisis somewhere between 1800 and 1808. It's somewhere in there that point you get the perspective that the "horrible days of the revolution" are behind them--that it's in the past and that a new order has come into being. You probably could date it to when Napoleon becomes Emperor of France in 1803, or possibly when Britain and France stop fighting somewhere around 1802 or so when there's 14 months of peace, or maybe even a little earlier when the push to bring back traditional family, the Church, and social stability as the Concordat of 1801 did came to an end (after all the Revolution had a large anti-Church and de-christianizing effect that was swept away with by that act), but that's just a rough estimate. The French Crisis starts before the Revolution, as far as I can tell, as Louis XVI rises to the throne when the state is already in a financial crisis in 1774--as it's that financial crisis plus a famine which causes the Revolution in the first place. Hence the majority of the Napoleonic Wars IMO occur for France when she's in a 1T.

As for Britain... the 1790s are definitely a Crisis of some sort (popularity of Gothic Romance seems to be a thing young Civic women love to read in 4Ts--Stephanie Meyer, Margaret Mitchell, and Ann Radcliffe all seem to be writing the same kind of material that becomes popular around the same sort of time, if you catch my drift), but the 1810s are definitely more of a a 1T. You can get that sense from Jane Austen of all writers. In her book "Persuasion", which is the only one to deal with the effects of the Napoleonic Wars on the home front (takes place in 1815, published posthumously), her characters all make much more sense as aging Artist archetypes--especially the lovesick Captain Benwick--than as aging Civics. Hell, the entire plot of that book wouldn't have been able to take place if the archetypes involved weren't at least the little bit of Artists as the title "Persuasion" should give a hint to. And the children in that novel are most DEFINITELY little prophets, as more than one character talks about how they're being spoiled by eating too much cake or in getting everything they want without restraint. And it's the only published Austen novel beyond Emma that really has the children as characters. Simultaneously while the children are most definitely Prophets, their parents are most definitely Artists, who when one of them falls out of a tree and gets terribly injured, the parents abandon the kid to go to a dinner party to meet Captain Wentworth, leaving Aunt Anne to look after the child, and justifying that getting their mind off of the worry of the child is the "best thing" with relatively little concern. Granted Anne takes advantage of the situation and wishes to find an excuse not to run into Captain Wentworth, as tending to little Charles gives her. Let me see if I can find the scene to quote it...

Originally Posted by Persuasion, Chapter 7, Jane Austen

Captain Wentworth made a very early return to Mr. Musgrove's civility, and she was all but calling there in the same half-hour. She and Mary were actually setting forward for the great house, where, as she afterwards learnt, they must inevitably have found him, when they were stopped by the eldest boy's being at that moment brought home in consequence of a bad fall. The child's situation put the visit entirely aside; but she could not hear of her escape with indifference, even in the midst of the serious anxiety which they afterwards felt on his account.

His collar-bone was found to be dislocated, and such injury received in the back, as roused the most alarming ideas. It was an afternoon of distress, and Anne had every thing to do at once: the apothecary to send for, the father to have pursued and informed, the mother to support and keep from hysterics, the servants to control, the youngest child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe; besides sending, as soon as she recollected it, proper notice to the other house, which brought her an accession rather of frightened, enquiring companions, than of very useful assistants.


Her brother's return was the first comfort: he could take best care of his wife; and the second blessing was the arrival of the apothecary. Till he came and had examined the child, their apprehensions were the worse for being vague: they suspected great injury, but knew not where; but now the collar-bone was soon replaced, and though Mr. Robinson felt and felt, and rubbed, and looked grave, and spoke low words both to the father and the aunt, still they were all to hope the best, and to be able to part and eat their dinner in tolerable ease of mind; and then it was, just before they parted, that the two young aunts were able so far to digress from their nephew's state, as to give the information of Captain Wentworth's visit; staying five minutes behind their father and mother, to endeavour to express how perfectly delighted they were with him, how much handsomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him than any individual among their male acquaintance, who had been at all a favourite before. How glad they had been to hear papa invite him to stay dinner, how sorry when he said it was quite out of his power, and how glad again when he had promised to reply to papa and mamma's farther pressing invitations to come and dine with them on the morrow -- actually on the morrow; and he had promised it in so pleasant a manner, as if he felt all the motive of their attention just as he ought. And, in short, he had looked and said every thing with such exquisite grace, that they could assure them all, their heads were both turned by him; and off they ran, quite as full of glee as of love, and apparently more full of Captain Wentworth than of little Charles.


The same story and the same raptures were repeated, when the two girls came with their father, through the gloom of the evening, to make enquiries; and Mr. Musgrove, no longer under the first uneasiness about his heir, could add his confirmation and praise, and hope there would be now no occasion for putting Captain Wentworth off, and only be sorry to think that the Cottage party, probably, would not like to leave the little boy, to give him the meeting. "Oh! no; as to leaving the little boy," both father and mother were in much too strong and recent alarm to bear the thought; and Anne, in the joy of the escape, could not help adding her warm protestations to theirs.


Charles Musgrove, indeed, afterwards shewed more of inclination: "the child was going on so well, and he wished so much to be introduced to Captain Wentworth, that perhaps he might join them in the evening; he would not dine from home, but he might walk in for half an hour." But in this he was eagerly opposed by his wife, with "Oh! no indeed, Charles, I cannot bear to have you go away. Only think, if any thing should happen?"


The child had a good night, and was going on well the next day. It must be a work of time to ascertain that no injury had been done to the spine, but Mr. Robinson found nothing to increase alarm, and Charles Musgrove began consequently to feel no necessity for longer confinement. The child was to be kept in bed, and amused as quietly as possible; but what was there for a father to do? This was quite a female case, and it would be highly absurd in him, who could be of no use at home, to shut himself up. His father very much wished him to meet Captain Wentworth, and there being no sufficient reason against it, he ought to go; and it ended in his making a bold public declaration, when he came in from shooting, of his meaning to dress directly, and dine at the other house.


"Nothing can be going on better than the child," said he, "so I told my father, just now, that I would come, and he thought me quite right. Your sister being with you, my love, I have no scruple at all. You would not like to leave him yourself, but you see I can be of no use. Anne will send for me if any thing is the matter."


Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain. Mary knew, from Charles's manner of speaking, that he was quite determined on going, and that it would be of no use to tease him. She said nothing, therefore, till he was out of the room; but as soon as there was only Anne to hear --


"So you and I are to be left to shift by ourselves, with this poor sick child; and not a creature coming near us all the evening! I knew how it would be. This is always my luck. If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it, and Charles is as bad as any of them. Very unfeeling! I must say it is very unfeeling of him, to be running away from his poor little boy. Talks of his being going on so well! how does he know that he is going on well, or that there may not be a sudden change half an hour hence? I did not think Charles would have been so unfeeling. So here he is to go away and enjoy himself, and because I am the poor mother, I am not to be allowed to stir; and yet, I am sure, I am more unfit than any body else to be about the child. My being the mother is the very reason why my feelings should not be tried. I am not at all equal to it. You saw how hysterical I was yesterday."


"But that was only the effect of the suddenness of your alarm -- of the shock. You will not be hysterical again. I dare say we shall have nothing to distress us. I perfectly understand Mr. Robinson's directions, and have no fears; and indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at your husband. Nursing does not belong to a man; it is not his province. A sick child is always the mother's property: her own feelings generally make it so."


"I hope I am as fond of my child as any mother, but I do not know that I am of any more use in the sickroom than Charles, for I cannot be always scolding and teasing a poor child when it is ill; and you saw, this morning, that if I told him to keep quiet, he was sure to begin kicking about. I have not nerves for the sort of thing."


"But could you be comfortable yourself, to be spending the whole evening away from the poor boy?"


"Yes; you see his papa can, and why should not I? Jemima is so careful; And she could send us word every hour how he was. I really think Charles might as well have told his father we would all come. I am not more alarmed about little Charles now than he is. I was dreadfully alarmed yesterday, but the case is very different to-day."


"Well, if you do not think it too late to give notice for yourself, suppose you were to go, as well as your husband. Leave little Charles to my care. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove cannot think it wrong while I remain with him."

"Are you serious?" cried Mary, her eyes brightening. "Dear me! that's a very good thought, very good indeed. To be sure I may just as well go as not, for I am of no use at home -- am I? and it only harasses me. You, who have not a mother's feelings, are a great deal the properest person. You can make little Charles do any thing; he always minds you at a word. It will be a great deal better than leaving him with only Jemima. Oh! I will certainly go; I am sure I ought if I can, quite as much as Charles, for they want me excessively to be acquainted with Captain Wentworth, and I know you do not mind being left alone. An excellent thought of yours, indeed, Anne! I will go and tell Charles, and get ready directly. You can send for us, you know, at a moment's notice, if any thing is the matter; but I dare say there will be nothing to alarm you. I should not go, you may be sure, if I did not feel quite at ease about my dear child."


The next moment she was tapping at her husband's dressing-room door, and as Anne followed her up stairs, she was in time for the whole conversation, which began with Mary's saying, in a tone of great exultation --


"I mean to go with you, Charles, for I am of no more use at home than you are. If I were to shut myself up for ever with the child, I should not be able to persuade him to do any thing he did not like. Anne will stay; Anne undertakes to stay at home and take care of him. It is Anne's own proposal, and so I shall go with you, which will be a great deal better, for I have not dined at the other house since Tuesday."


"This is very kind of Anne," was her husband's answer, "and I should be very glad to have you go; but it seems rather hard that she should be left at home by herself, to nurse our sick child."


Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening, when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to let him come and fetch her, but she was quite unpersuadable; and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her, if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others?

The funny thing about that comes when later in the novel Mary insists on taking care of her sister-in-law over letting Anne do so, because she feels Louisa (a late Artist, if not an Artist/Prophet cusper--probably the latter) would want family there, and insisting on staying with the sick Louisa who fell and hit her head when jumping from a height. The compare and contrast really makes it seem that Mary cares more for her sister-in-law (whom she complains about most of the novel) than her own children.

Austen (1775 - 1817) herself I'd venture is of that Civic/Artist cusper cohort that I've been noting throughout Anglo-American history as producing some of the most notable authors and writers for new technologies, new genres, or new mediums that come into popularity in a 1T (William Shakespeare, Henry James, Rod Serling). Not only that but Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) is most definitely the James Dean of his day--that's quite obvious to me.

The only truly objective way to analyze the turning itself though, that would satisfy us both, would be Mikebert's way--which tracks many different factors to determine turnings (many of which are economic). Perhaps one day we can convince him to look at Europe during this time. But then again, he has the view that most of what is considered Europe has been on the same turning schedule since somewhere in the 1100s, with England not being in sync further back.

And by those standards, the War of 1812 consequently takes on the character of a small, brief sideshow event, somewhere far away in distant North America.

I was actually describing the effects of the War of 1812 from the American POV, and while from a European POV it can be seen as a horsefly bothering an enraged bull, from the American POV, it definitely had its factors I'd associate with non-4T wars--like the fact that America was an aggressor in wanting to "liberate Canada"--nothing says I'm not fighting for survival more than several failed invasions. For Canada it had the same effect the Am. Rev. had on us--so maybe it was a different kind of event for them. However for the US a lot of it was pushed forward by Civic hubris, which is something that manifests itself towards the end of a 1T/beginning of a 2T. The War of 1812 happened about the same point the Cuban Missile Crisis happened in the generational constellation IMO, with Dolley Madison being a perfect Jackie Kennedy equivalent.

Naturally I agree with you, and I try to steer clear of the war = 4T trap. But if so, what would you say actually makes WWII in America into a 4T? It seems to me the very elements that were present in the US in abundance in spite of America's 4T-ishness - collective vision, simplified worldview, determination, conviction, common goals, social peace - are exactly those that, even in much lower concentrations, makes Justin argue that Soviet Russia was in a 1T during the war.

I'd say what makes America 4T during WWII isn't that shared purpose but the fact that it became seen as the solution to ending our financial problems and the Great Depression and thus turned America into the pro-military intervention state it became.

I know even less of Russian history, but I'd take Justin's word on it. From what I can tell he's saying though, it's not so much that the Great Patriotic War was the "solution to all our problems" it seems more that the solution to "all our problems" had already been enacted, and then the neighbors went crazy and crashed our house right after we got our own house in order.

~Chas'88

What Chas said.

You need to distinguish, Tuss, between what happened at the front in an active war and what was happening in the society which was fighting it.

Also doing more research into the American Home Front there's this kind of tension that exists as exemplified by the Battle of Los Angeles (1942), where an air balloon prompts the city to go into a blackout, and shoot first and ask questions later. That kind of overreaction and panic seems much more appropriate for a 4T than a 1T environment.

I think as we're losing more and more of the Silents, we're forgetting just how "on edge" and "jittery" the nation was during WWII. Roosevelt didn't say "there's nothing to fear more than fear itself" for no reason, after all.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Also doing more research into the American Home Front there's this kind of tension that exists as exemplified by the Battle of Los Angeles (1942), where an air balloon prompts the city to go into a blackout, and shoot first and ask questions later. That kind of overreaction and panic seems much more appropriate for a 4T than a 1T environment.

I think as we're losing more and more of the Silents, we're forgetting just how "on edge" and "jittery" the nation was during WWII. Roosevelt didn't say "there's nothing to fear more than fear itself" for no reason, after all.

~Chas'88

One bad thing about this 4T is that most of our so called leaders want us to be afraid.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Now I'm not a major French history buff, but from the rough outlines I can determine: For France it stops being a Crisis somewhere between 1800 and 1808. It's somewhere in there that point you get the perspective that the "horrible days of the revolution" are behind them--that it's in the past and that a new order has come into being. You probably could date it to when Napoleon becomes Emperor of France in 1803, or possibly when Britain and France stop fighting somewhere around 1802 or so when there's 14 months of peace, or maybe even a little earlier when the push to bring back traditional family, the Church, and social stability as the Concordat of 1801 did came to an end (after all the Revolution had a large anti-Church and de-christianizing effect that was swept away with by that act), but that's just a rough estimate. The French Crisis starts before the Revolution, as far as I can tell, as Louis XVI rises to the throne when the state is already in a financial crisis in 1774--as it's that financial crisis plus a famine which causes the Revolution in the first place. Hence the majority of the Napoleonic Wars IMO occur for France when she's in a 1T.

Indeed, the Weltgeist of the Napoleonic imperial synthesis, sort of managing to combine the elements of the revolutionary spirit and l'ancien regime in order to create something transcending both, was the main reason I wrote: "One can probably break it down in other ways and find good arguments for it, but to start with it seems like a rather natural, if maybe crude, working hypothesis" (my emphasis).

The point of my first post was simply that in civilization spanning terms the revolutionary/Napoleonic period is like a tunnel of turmoil where the world that reemerges is a completely different place from the one that entered. Louis XVIII may try to put humpty dumpty back together again, but even the French reaction was unable to change much in terms of fundamentals. In other words a truism, but likely a vital characteristic in order to identify and align the Toynbean "general war" concept with an S&H 4T "Crisis" (half of which certainly could have been a "1T").

As for Britain... the 1790s are definitely a Crisis of some sort (popularity of Gothic Romance seems to be a thing young Civic women love to read in 4Ts--Stephanie Meyer, Margaret Mitchell, and Ann Radcliffe all seem to be writing the same kind of material that becomes popular around the same sort of time, if you catch my drift), but the 1810s are definitely more of a a 1T. You can get that sense from Jane Austen of all writers. In her book "Persuasion", which is the only one to deal with the effects of the Napoleonic Wars on the home front (takes place in 1815, published posthumously), her characters all make much more sense as aging Artist archetypes--especially the lovesick Captain Benwick--than as aging Civics. Hell, the entire plot of that book wouldn't have been able to take place if the archetypes involved weren't at least the little bit of Artists as the title "Persuasion" should give a hint to. And the children in that novel are most DEFINITELY little prophets, as more than one character talks about how they're being spoiled by eating too much cake or in getting everything they want without restraint. And it's the only published Austen novel beyond Emma that really has the children as characters. Simultaneously while the children are most definitely Prophets, their parents are most definitely Artists, who when one of them falls out of a tree and gets terribly injured, the parents abandon the kid to go to a dinner party to meet Captain Wentworth, leaving Aunt Anne to look after the child, and justifying that getting their mind off of the worry of the child is the "best thing" with relatively little concern. Granted Anne takes advantage of the situation and wishes to find an excuse not to run into Captain Wentworth, as tending to little Charles gives her. Let me see if I can find the scene to quote it...

The funny thing about that comes when later in the novel Mary insists on taking care of her sister-in-law over letting Anne do so, because she feels Louisa (a late Artist, if not an Artist/Prophet cusper--probably the latter) would want family there, and insisting on staying with the sick Louisa who fell and hit her head when jumping from a height. The compare and contrast really makes it seem that Mary cares more for her sister-in-law (whom she complains about most of the novel) than her own children.

Austen (1775 - 1817) herself I'd venture is of that Civic/Artist cusper cohort that I've been noting throughout Anglo-American history as producing some of the most notable authors and writers for new technologies, new genres, or new mediums that come into popularity in a 1T (William Shakespeare, Henry James, Rod Serling). Not only that but Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) is most definitely the James Dean of his day--that's quite obvious to me.

Yeah, and your observations are perhaps further supported by the state of England in the 1820's and 30's, during which those obnoxious little Prophets apparently came of age and which to my limited understanding appear like a period of complete disregard for authority, for example the uninhibited mockery made of George IV. Do we possibly have a candidate 2T?

I was actually describing the effects of the War of 1812 from the American POV, and while from a European POV it can be seen as a horsefly bothering an enraged bull, from the American POV, it definitely had its factors I'd associate with non-4T wars--like the fact that America was an aggressor in wanting to "liberate Canada"--nothing says I'm not fighting for survival more than several failed invasions. For Canada it had the same effect the Am. Rev. had on us--so maybe it was a different kind of event for them. However for the US a lot of it was pushed forward by Civic hubris, which is something that manifests itself towards the end of a 1T/beginning of a 2T. The War of 1812 happened about the same point the Cuban Missile Crisis happened in the generational constellation IMO, with Dolley Madison being a perfect Jackie Kennedy equivalent.

I realized you were describing it from an American POV, and you're correct. From a European perspective we are talking about marginal engagements on the far end of the European world as the waves made by the continental drama wash ashore.
Likewise, Sweden had its own marginal revolutionary/Napoleonic drama for instance, beginning with the unnecessary and mostly failed Russian War of 1788-90, the following assassination of Gustavus III in 1792 by a mix of disenchanted officers and aristocratic enlightenment enemies of absolute rule, the dangerous and somewhat inept rule by his anti-Revolution/anti-Napoleon son Charles IV Gustavus and the final catastrophe in the War of 1808-1809, when enabled by the pact with the French emperor, the Tzar took the opportunity to attack Sweden. The result was the loss of half the kingdom (Finland), the dethroning of the king and the enactment of the Montesquieu inspired Enlightenment constitution of 1809. That's how die Weltgeist reverberates throughout a civilization, even on its fringes.

I'd say what makes America 4T during WWII isn't that shared purpose but the fact that it became seen as the solution to ending our financial problems and the Great Depression and thus turned America into the pro-military intervention state it became.

I know even less of Russian history, but I'd take Justin's word on it. From what I can tell he's saying though, it's not so much that the Great Patriotic War was the "solution to all our problems" it seems more that the solution to "all our problems" had already been enacted, and then the neighbors went crazy and crashed our house right after we got our own house in order.

~Chas'88

Nah, I'd say Justin downplays the fact that the Soviet Union that entered WWII was an inherently unstable tyranny, paying lip service to World Revolution, but in reality only held together by constant purges and the Gulag, while the emerging victor from WWII swoop up to global empire status, upheld by a myth combining nationalism and socialism in ways that would carry it to its peak of stability and success during the relatively civilized period of the Khrushev 50's and 60's.

I'd say WWII sure was a game changer also for the Soviet Union. The regime, probably for the first time, even looked legit in a lot of ordinary Russians' eyes. No doubt largelly due to all former opposition dead and erased from collective memory, but nevertheless.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

What Chas said.

You need to distinguish, Tuss, between what happened at the front in an active war and what was happening in the society which was fighting it.

Man, and I who thought I was attempting to do just that.

Originally Posted by Tussilago

Nah, I'd say Justin downplays the fact that the Soviet Union that entered WWII was an inherently unstable tyranny, paying lip service to World Revolution, but in reality only held together by constant purges and the Gulag...

Wow. Spoken like a person who only knows about the USSR what he read in books produced by the opposing bloc. People who lived through the time, on the other hand, remember it as one of stability, predictability, growing prosperity (and the ever-present threat of malcontents and outside forces, necessitating investigatory/punitive organs -- much like the Red Scare in the US during the 50s). The Purges and the camps, by Stalin's day, were aimed at things that never really posed -- nor, contrary to the yellow press of the day, were actually perceived to pose a real threat of any significance to the USSR or Soviet society.


It was a bad time to be on the outside from the ruling masses, to be sure... but that's perhaps one of the key defining features of a 1T era.

Tuss,

You are also forgetting that Kruschev was deposed in 1964, and that Brezhnev's subsequent"reign" is referred to by Russians as "The Age of Stagnation". And Gorbachev took power about 20 years after that. They're almost exactly one turning ahead of the West, just like the Turks and Iranians.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Tuss,

You are also forgetting that Kruschev was deposed in 1964, and that Brezhnev's subsequent"reign" is referred to by Russians as "The Age of Stagnation". And Gorbachev took power about 20 years after that. They're almost exactly one turning ahead of the West, just like the Turks and Iranians.

I agree that Russia is essentially on the Turkish timeline, as are many non-Palestinian Middle Eastern states. A glance at their times of greatest change reveals it pretty clearly.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Wow. Spoken like a person who only knows about the USSR what he read in books produced by the opposing bloc. People who lived through the time, on the other hand, remember it as one of stability, predictability, growing prosperity (and the ever-present threat of malcontents and outside forces, necessitating investigatory/punitive organs -- much like the Red Scare in the US during the 50s). The Purges and the camps, by Stalin's day, were aimed at things that never really posed -- nor, contrary to the yellow press of the day, were actually perceived to pose a real threat of any significance to the USSR or Soviet society.


It was a bad time to be on the outside from the ruling masses, to be sure... but that's perhaps one of the key defining features of a 1T era.

Or, the opposition from 1918 onwards was so thoroughly eradicated by the end of Stalin's reign that only the archives live to tell the tale. Those who remember on the other hand and are able to give the present account, which must always be a tricky thing in regards to a society that was marinated in systematic mendacity, are those who survived. And they stayed alive maybe because they weren't "there" in the first place, came along a little later or, in the capacity of robotic Civics or innocent Silents, never heard of things from their Lost juniors about which it was best to keep silent.

But you're right I have only read about this stuff in books.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Tuss,

You are also forgetting that Kruschev was deposed in 1964, and that Brezhnev's subsequent"reign" is referred to by Russians as "The Age of Stagnation". And Gorbachev took power about 20 years after that. They're almost exactly one turning ahead of the West, just like the Turks and Iranians.

No, I'm not forgetting that. Seems to me Kruschev's reign from 1953-1964 fits rather well with a Russian 1T. Brezhnev stayed on a for an extended period of time during which the Soviet Union gradually slid into the Age of Stagnation. Then in the 3T along comes Gorbachev, and apart from during the 2T (until the late 70's), when it was possible to keep up appearances that socialism was the wave of the future (just look at the liberation movements in the third world and the angry students in the west!), the Soviet Empire now suffers the double whammy of leftism becoming unfashionable and retreating internationally as well as the deluge of western post-idealistic pop culture, a deadly threat exactly because of its irresistible banality. In that situation the center couldn't hold because it no longer possessed the will to.

The collapse of the Soviet Empire in the latter half of the 80's, was of a system imploding from its own frailty. No great showdown of opposing forces or eruption of fatal tensions necessary, such as one might expect of a 4T. Gorbie pulling out one card, and the rest of the deck came crashing down in a kind of peaceful chain reaction over the course of a few years. Mostly it just felt unreal - and not a little meaningless - like everything else in those years. It was what a collapse during a 3T surely must look like - virtually no bloodshed, silent running.

Originally Posted by Tussilago

Mostly it just felt unreal - and not a little meaningless - like everything else in those years. It was what a collapse during a 3T surely must look like - virtually no bloodshed, silent running.

Wow. There is not a single person I know who lived through that time who describes it even remotely like you describe it. The time around the Soviet collapse was a time when you could go out fishing on a friday and when you stopped for gas on the way home sunday, be told that the stuff in your pocket "isn't money anymore". Or when you could go to serve in the Army over in Germany and return after only two years to a country and a society that you could hardly recognize. The two decades, far from being silent (there were open gun battles on the streets of Moscow, and tanks blowing chunks out of buildings, for chrissake!), were a noisy, chaotic mess where every single person ended up being forced to pick a side or risk being squashed, and whose winner ended up with a over-stable hold on power in the country, supported by people motivated largely by a never-again view of the decades of chaos, violence, privation, and death that had gone before.

If anything, the Russian cycle is more clearly-defined than the American one. And in Russia, unlike in the United States, the cycle has observably turned at least twice fully without the slightest hiccup in the mechanism -- something one would expect when the mechanism is "Generations make history; history makes generations".

Originally Posted by Tussilago

It was what a collapse during a 3T surely must look like - virtually no bloodshed, silent running.

Yeah, kind of like that collapse that happened in the West the last 3T, also known as WWI. Pure 3T, pretty much under the radar, I'd be surprised if you'd even heard of it.


Look, now you're just being silly. Turkey, Iran, and Russia all had political realignments that started around 1905 (Russo-Japanese War, Constitutional Revolution, Young Turk Revolution) concluded in the 1920s (USSR, Deposition of the Qajar dynasty by the Pahlavis, Founding of the Turkish Republic under Ataturk) that then came apart in the 80s and 90s. All of them are presently in the late end of stable, high growth periods and are starting to witness the early signs of youth protests. Like Justin said, if anything they fit the saeculum model even better than the west does, and trying to shove them into OUR timeline makes no sense at all.