A History of Mutual Perceptions.
История взаимных восприятий
Una storia di percezioni reciproche.
Une histoire de perceptions réciproques.
Eine Geschichte des gegenseitigen Verstaendnisses.
The question about the real content and significance of the relationships between Russia and Europe is one of the most controversial in the history of our culture. We hope that the following trip across Russian and European cultural memories will demonstrate it.
Notwithstanding long lasting disputes, a clearcut standpoint about this question has not yet been achieved. It is not just a theoretical question, but, much more, a political one. Hence, it may be answered in different ways, case-by-case, from time to time, according to the political goals and perspectives which are pursued by each collective subject, in each specific instance. We see ourselves as just one, among the many possible ones, subject of this historical tend.-
Presently, after the fall of the Communist system, with the impending globalization and the ongoing efforts to build up a European Federation, the question is becoming more and more stringent.
Secondly, present days energy policy - including, first of all, its tight network of gas pipelines throughout Europe and a deep involvement of European industrial groups in the development of the Russia’s economy-, is laying the grounds for a growing and growing business and political integration between the two areas.
Thirdly, the paralysis of the decision-making processes within the European Union has emphasized, by contrast, the potential, for innovation in European politics, constituted by Russia, which, together with Turkey, can become , thanks to the force of their dynamism,one of the energizing factors for the European “inner” politics.
Finally, the increasing assertiveness of China and of other new world players renders it still more necessary to consider possible ways of synergy between Europe and Russia, in order to safeguard the possibility, for our Continentas a whole, to maintain and to improve its specific weight in a world growingly dominated by geopolitical giants.
The above trends show that the relationships between Europe and Russia cannot remain confined to a sort of informal partnership. This has been confirmed by the fact that the proposals of President Medvedev (of a New Security and Defense System in Europe, and of), and of Premier Putin (for an enlarged economic and cultural partners hip between Lisbon and Vladivostok and of a new a new type of partnership within NATO, formulated recently at the end of 2010), have not been rejected forthwith, as usual. On the contrary, they are making the object of serious discussions, at least within diplomatic circles.
All of that confirms the urgency of a deepened study about the historical relationships between the cultures of Europe and Russia.
As Russia is concerned, it is well-known that, at the times of Peter 1st, during both the whole Nineteenth Century and the Sovietic Period, it was often exposed to dramatic choices between Europe and Eurasia.
Also as Europe is concerned, it is not so well known that, under certain circumstances, Europe itself considered Russia as an integral part of its world, and, at least,as an asset in its competition with Islam, as well as for for the unification of the European Continent (such, e.g., by Enea Silvio Piccolomini,pope Pius II, by Leibniz, Voltaire, Herder, De Maistre, Baader,Nietzsche).
We would like to stress also that, starting from Greeks and Romans, up to the Migrations of Peoples and Christianity,and going on through royal family alliances and cultural connections, the mutual influences between Russia and the whole of Europe had never ceased to exist.
The Author of this essay is not a a professional historian . He is a European citizen, engaged, on a voluntary basis, in European cultural politics.
Taking into account the character of the book, it has not been considered necessary, by us, to complete this edition with a full-fledged set of bibliographical cross-references.This book is the result of lengthy,passionate studies, carried out across the most different branches of human sciences, from linguistics to theology, from world history to slavonic studies, from comparative literature to political sciences, always without adopting, in an exclusive way, the methodology of any of these sciences. It is based on a rich bibliography,in all languages of the world, cited at the end of this work.
This historical summary of three thousand years’ cultural history does not purport to be exhaustive. On the contrary, its aim is to recall, in a synthetic, but also effective, way, to both Europeans and Russians, how much their mutual ties are ancient and. deeply rooted. In so doing, the author implements, as concerns the specific relation between Europe and Russia, his own vision about the history of the European identity as a whole, which he has worked out also in other books.All of that, with the aim to encourage the study of the commonalities existing between the cultures of the two areas, thus contributing to fostering an increased integration level of their respective cultures , what he considers as badly needed for both Europe and Russia. On the contrary, even not ignoring them, he does not enter into the details of the ongoing political debates and diplomatic negotiations.
According to us, an item as important as the European-Russian relationships may not be left to the swinging balance of powers among competing politicians, either in Europe or in Russia, nor to technical negotiations permanently under way among diplomats, but must become also a concern for the public opinion and for the civil society.
It is with this aim that we have worked about this book, which we hope can become an operational tool for opening up a debate on this theme.
2011 is the year of Italian Language and Culture in Russia and of Russian Language and Culture in Italy. This book tries to provide a contribution to this event, offering, to both Russians and Italians, but, at the end, to all Europeans, a quick instrument for diffusing the interest for this theme across Europe.
For the above reasons, thisd study has been published in English, in order to facilitate a quick understanding from the part of all parties concerned. In case that, as we hope, we realize an existing interest, from several sides, for implementing and furthering this research, we will be happy to cooperate both with specialists and with larger organizations, for offering, to broader communities of readers, a more complete work in several languages.
The theme we are confronted with here has already been the object of a great number of works, starting, even, from the later Middle Ages. However, we have not found, up to now, any work inspired by the same objectives as ours, and utilizing the same methodology.
Our aim is not to take part in favour of one, or of anther, of the two “parties” into which almost all the preceding literature on the matter may be subdivided: the convinced “Pro-Western Russia-bashers”, like the historical “Westerners”, and the shrowd tenants of the superiority of the “Russian Soul” (like the historical “Slavophiles”).
We don’t think that the relationships between peoples have to be evaluated on the basis of a sort of “superiority-inferiority” approach, but, on the contrary they have to be judged according to each people’s contribution to the development of Mankind, however different it may be.
In particular, for what Europe is concerned, we think that the question is not the one of which of the peoples in Europe is the best, but, on the contrary, through which approach we can trace a viable “European Identity”, capable to express a useful contribution to tomorrow’s World Civilization.
As to our methodology, it will not consist either of the tentative to sort out certain “meta-historical” concepts (such as “Western Civilization” or “Orthodoxy”; “Freedom” or “Despotism”; “Sæcularism” or “Cæsaropapism”; “Individualism” or “Sobornost’”), nor of the summing up or opposition of mere facts (such as, e.g., the Mongol invasions, the Terror under Ivan the Terrible, the Reforms of Peter the Great, the suppression of the Decabrist insurgents, the October Revolution, the anti-nazi resistance during the Great Patriotic War, or, finally, Stalinism), but, on the contrary, in finding out some - even few- but essential, “Core Themes”, through which the undeniable mutual interrelationships may result more evident.
These “Core Themes”, which we have jointly discovered, are the following:
- a common Eurasiatic space;
- the “Three Romes”;
- Russia and America as the two possible European Utopias;
- Empires and Nations;
- the crisis of the European subjectivity.
In the book, the word “Russia” is not used in a “technical” sense (in the sense, either, of “Rossija”, present days Russian Federation, or of “Rus’” and or –“Russkij Mir”, the ensemble of communities sharing, worldwide, a “Russian” culture) but, on the contrary, as a generic designation, including, cumulatively, Russia, “Rus’”, the East Slavs, the “SNG”, and the “Blizhij Rubezhio” (the former “USSR Republics”) .
From our analysis, focussed on these themes, which we will carry out in the following pages, we hope that it will result clear that, contrary to what usually happens, Russia and Europe do not appear as two, hostile, or, at least, alien, worlds, but, on the contrary, as two very highly connected and interrelated faces of a same dialectics of “Western” cultures, as opposed the “Eastern” (South and East Asia’s cultures), and to “Southern” cultures (African, Latin American), which constitute the real antithesis to “Western” cultures.
This “common heritage” seems, to us, to have been expressed plastically in 2010 by the joint celebration on the Red Square of the “Den’ Pobiedy”, in the same day (the 9th of May), which is also the Day of Europe. Last year, when, beside Russian, Belarusian, Moldovan and Armenian, troops, als French ones had marched in front of the Kremlin, and the final hymn played by the joint -French-Russian- military band has been the “Hymn an die Freude” of Ludwig van Beethoven, which constitutes, albeit informally, the European anthem.
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