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It might seem that the passivity of avos’ would imply an idea like Providence, a viewpoint sub specie aeternitatis, the viewpoint of God’s eye—except that in fact avos’ is devoid of Christian connotations and refers instead to wild, untamed happenstance. So, with avos’, it is not by the will of the Christian God that an opportunity comes to me. Rather, avos’ suggests an alternative chanciness—not as inexorable as Fate nor as deity-like as Fortuna, even if Russian writers refer to it sarcastically as a deity—which is just the way the unfathomable world seems to work. Latching on to avos’ implies unreflective immediacy. The great Russian dictionary of Vladimir Dal’ explains the etymology of avos’ as a shortening of ‘А вот сейчас’ (Oh, there it is, right now!) (Dal’ 1836-6)<ref>Dal’, V. 1863-6. Tolkovyy slovar’ zhivago velikoruskago yazyka. http://slovardalja.net/word.php?wordid=52.</ref> | It might seem that the passivity of avos’ would imply an idea like Providence, a viewpoint sub specie aeternitatis, the viewpoint of God’s eye—except that in fact avos’ is devoid of Christian connotations and refers instead to wild, untamed happenstance. So, with avos’, it is not by the will of the Christian God that an opportunity comes to me. Rather, avos’ suggests an alternative chanciness—not as inexorable as Fate nor as deity-like as Fortuna, even if Russian writers refer to it sarcastically as a deity—which is just the way the unfathomable world seems to work. Latching on to avos’ implies unreflective immediacy. The great Russian dictionary of Vladimir Dal’ explains the etymology of avos’ as a shortening of ‘А вот сейчас’ (Oh, there it is, right now!) (Dal’ 1836-6)<ref>Dal’, V. 1863-6. Tolkovyy slovar’ zhivago velikoruskago yazyka. http://slovardalja.net/word.php?wordid=52.</ref> | ||
Avos’ is associated with informal, off-the-cuff practices. For example, an avozka was the string-bag people used to carry in Soviet times just in case they came across something good to buy on their way to work. In post-Soviet times it is assumed that the days of the avozka are over (‘You’ll find it in a museum!’) and, with its peasant associations, people today rarely use the word avos’ to describe their own actions—even if in fact they act in exactly this way. On the other hand, they are all too ready to apply the word to others. This contrast is apparent in the following statements, collected during the author’s fieldwork in Vladivostok in 2015, concerning Russia’s highly risky real-estate business. A young man who had paid in advance for an apartment that, as it transpired, was never built, and having lost all his money, recounted: ‘I didn’t think of checking the reputation of the firm. You can’t call it rational. I knew it was risky. I understood that the firm had been set up more or less on the principle of a pyramid but—ha, ha, I hoped that the firm would collapse only after I received my flat.’ Another man, when asked why he had been so idiotic as to put down his entire life-savings for a flat in similarly uninsured and legally dodgy circumstances, replied: ‘Well, it was there—on my way to work. There was the house going up. There was the sales office. And inside, there was the contract. So I signed.’ Commenting on such occurrences, the director of an estate agency said, rather pompously, ‘It is common to find sad cases of avos’. When buying flats with obviously suspect documents but a price well below the market rate, a considerable proportion of our citizens continue with arrangements, even though any foreigner would have long ago fled from such fishy schemes. Sometimes when searching for a flat for clients I have to push them away almost by force from dubious offers that seem to them extremely profitable’ (RIA Nedvizhimost’ 2013). | Avos’ is associated with informal, off-the-cuff practices. For example, an avozka was the string-bag people used to carry in Soviet times just in case they came across something good to buy on their way to work. In post-Soviet times it is assumed that the days of the avozka are over (‘You’ll find it in a museum!’) and, with its peasant associations, people today rarely use the word avos’ to describe their own actions—even if in fact they act in exactly this way. On the other hand, they are all too ready to apply the word to others. This contrast is apparent in the following statements, collected during the author’s fieldwork in Vladivostok in 2015, concerning Russia’s highly risky real-estate business. A young man who had paid in advance for an apartment that, as it transpired, was never built, and having lost all his money, recounted: ‘I didn’t think of checking the reputation of the firm. You can’t call it rational. I knew it was risky. I understood that the firm had been set up more or less on the principle of a pyramid but—ha, ha, I hoped that the firm would collapse only after I received my flat.’ Another man, when asked why he had been so idiotic as to put down his entire life-savings for a flat in similarly uninsured and legally dodgy circumstances, replied: ‘Well, it was there—on my way to work. There was the house going up. There was the sales office. And inside, there was the contract. So I signed.’ Commenting on such occurrences, the director of an estate agency said, rather pompously, ‘It is common to find sad cases of avos’. When buying flats with obviously suspect documents but a price well below the market rate, a considerable proportion of our citizens continue with arrangements, even though any foreigner would have long ago fled from such fishy schemes. Sometimes when searching for a flat for clients I have to push them away almost by force from dubious offers that seem to them extremely profitable’ (RIA Nedvizhimost’ 2013).<ref>RIA Nedvizhimost’. 2013. ‘Osobennosti natsional’nogo podkhoda k pokupke i ekspluatatsii zhil’ya v Rossii’, 9 August, http://riarealty.ru/affordabletrends_analisis/20130809/401091712.html</ref> | ||
Avos’ is one amongst various ideas of luck and fortune, hope, speculation and anticipation found in societies across the world (Humphrey and Da Col 2012). Such ideas are used contextually, including in seemingly completely rationalised financial markets (Miyazaki 2007). Yet the history of anthropology shows that some indigenous concepts have themselves become theoretical terms of wider import. According to David Graeber, concepts such as ‘mana, sakti, baraka and orenda’ might best be considered as ‘grappling with the same ambiguities and antinomies of temporal existence that all humans, even social theorists, have to confront in one form or another’ (Graeber 2012:25). Avos’ has not yet reached the limelight in this respect; but it can be compared with the idea of kairos, named after the Greek god Kairos, the deity of seizing the moment—an idea that has been expanded and recast to capture ideas of event, revolution, or effective business action in numerous theoretical writings of the 20th century (Boer 2013). Writing about the US boxing business, for example, Loic Wacquant uses this idea to explain how an experienced matchmaker becomes successful by his ability to choose exactly the right time to strike the best deal for his fighters (Wacquant 1998:16). Yet avos’ differs from kairos. The latter in its ancient Greek version implies selecting the right place and time, duly measured, appropriate and opportune, and is an aristocratic practice; the unbalanced, untimely, out-of-place and vulgar are outside the zone of kairos (Boer 2013). With avos’, by contrast, conceptions of harmony and due measure are absent. So is the notion of judicious choice. Avos’ is chance that seems rather to happen to the actor, on the wing, and all he or she has to do is to notice it. | Avos’ is one amongst various ideas of luck and fortune, hope, speculation and anticipation found in societies across the world (Humphrey and Da Col 2012). Such ideas are used contextually, including in seemingly completely rationalised financial markets (Miyazaki 2007). Yet the history of anthropology shows that some indigenous concepts have themselves become theoretical terms of wider import. According to David Graeber, concepts such as ‘mana, sakti, baraka and orenda’ might best be considered as ‘grappling with the same ambiguities and antinomies of temporal existence that all humans, even social theorists, have to confront in one form or another’ (Graeber 2012:25). Avos’ has not yet reached the limelight in this respect; but it can be compared with the idea of kairos, named after the Greek god Kairos, the deity of seizing the moment—an idea that has been expanded and recast to capture ideas of event, revolution, or effective business action in numerous theoretical writings of the 20th century (Boer 2013). Writing about the US boxing business, for example, Loic Wacquant uses this idea to explain how an experienced matchmaker becomes successful by his ability to choose exactly the right time to strike the best deal for his fighters (Wacquant 1998:16). Yet avos’ differs from kairos. The latter in its ancient Greek version implies selecting the right place and time, duly measured, appropriate and opportune, and is an aristocratic practice; the unbalanced, untimely, out-of-place and vulgar are outside the zone of kairos (Boer 2013). With avos’, by contrast, conceptions of harmony and due measure are absent. So is the notion of judicious choice. Avos’ is chance that seems rather to happen to the actor, on the wing, and all he or she has to do is to notice it. | ||