Reading the hermeneutics of violence: The literary turn and Chechnya

The primary aim of this paper is to draw together a set of theoretical questions in order better to explore a case of contemporary violence. The case of Chechnya has, in the main, been ignored by Anglo-American academics. Therefore, as this paper will demonstrate, the use of hermeneutics—and more specifically literature—may provide theorists with a further critical theoretical tool for interpreting the complexity of contemporary violence in Chechnya. Still further, it will be argued that literature can be used to identify some of the cultural and symbolic forces that condition violence. The first part of the paper will explore aesthetic, hermeneutic and literary international relations. This section will outline and establish a hermeneutic interpretation of contemporary violence, drawing upon the primacy of ontology, agency and inter-subjectivity. The second part of the paper will demonstrate the role that literature plays in guiding representational readings of contemporary Russo-Chechen violence.