CRIMEA: THE FIRST EAST-WEST CONFRONTATION

Crimean War

Deep-Rooted Reasons for Hostility

Глубоко засевшие причины враждебности

Profonde ragioni di ostilità

Des raisons d'hostilité profondement enracinées.

Tiefgreifende Feindlichkeitsgruende.

The cultural confrontation among Slavophiles and Westerners, can be utilized as a background scenario of Russia’s cultural and political life up to the Soviet Revolution. The reformist “Russian Thinking” around Černyševskij and Herzen, comes out of a Westerner background, whereby the reforms are seen as a partial imitation of Western Europe or of America. On the contrary, most of the literary, and/or musical, and/or pictorial productions (such as Dostojevsk’s, Tolstoj’s, Ciaikowsky’s, Serov’s, Nestorov’s, Rerih’s, Malevič’s, Strawinsky’s) are deeply rooted in the Slavonic tradition.

The strengthening of the hold of the Russian Empire on its Asiatic territories (Caucasus, but also Central Asia and the Artic Regions) had increased the interest of Russian intellectuals for the Asiatic Roots of Russia (the Scythians, the Tatars, the Finns, the Persians, the Turks), but also their sympathies for the subjected peoples, whose origins, histories, traditions, languages, were investigated at that time.

Russia was defined more and more as a “Eurasiatic” reality. “Asiatic” subjects enter into the repertory of artists, such as Shagané, Hadij Murat, the Fire Bird, Shahrazade, the Finnish folklore of the North.This attention is not much different from the praise of Mohicans by Fenimore Cooper, or the one of "strong men" of East and west by Kipling, and, fimnally, the participation of Ann Besant both to the induistic revival and to the independence struggle of India.

But also the idea of a community of destinies between Russia and Europe remained at that times strong, albeit Russia felt not be  well understood , and even to be rejected, by Europeans.

Many made an effort to become more European, for being better accepted, as in the case of the Occidentalist, or of social reformers like Caadajen. Others, like Ivanov-Razumnik (who converted to Catholicism as suggested by De Maistre), stressed that Europe needed Russia. He launched the idea of “Europe’s two lungs”, an idea which will achieve so large a resound after having been adopted by John Paul II himself.

The conflict between “Slavophiles” and “Occidentalists” will be synthesized, finally, after the October Revolution, by Blok, who, in his Panmongolizm, will submit, to Europeans, a dramatic alternative: either to accept, brotherly, the Russian as a part of the European family of people, or to find them hostiles, allied with “the Mongolic World” (now, we could think of China and of Islam).

During the XIX Century, Russia did not abandon the “Greek Project” (i Megàli Idèa”), albeit the independence of Greece was not achieved thanks to Russia (or, at least, not thanks to Russia alone); the newly independent Greece became open, besides Russian influences, also German and English connections.

The peak of anti-Russian feelings was reached between the 1848 Revolution and the Crimea War. Russia had intervened, upon request of the Austrian Emperor, in Hungary, for stopping the liberal and nationalistic unrests.Moreover, the Croatian Ban Jelacic, the Ruthenian  peasants and the Bohemian Pan-Slavists    had all supported the Emperor against the revolutionary, so causing all together the suppression of the revolts in the Austrian Empire. From this fact, Marx and Engels draw the pretext for a violent attack against the "peoples without history", responsible, first of all, to have supported the Russian and Austrian Emperors against the revolutionary movements. In 1853, there were not only the left-wing extremists, but also the bourgeois liberals governments of France and of England to be worried of the momentum gained by Imperial Russia by its presence in the Balkans  (including the occupation of Wallachia and Moldavia) and its support to Balkanic nationhoods.

The "Crimean War" consisted, in reality, in a vast encirclement of Russia by British, Franch, Austrians Turks and Sardinians, which took place along the Danube, in Ucraine, Crimea, Caucasus, the Baltic, the White Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The adhesion of the Kingdom of Sardinia was unequivocally motivated by the will of the liberal Cavour Government to join the liberal cohalition of Western constitutional monarchies, abandoning the traditional Russian friendship. The conservative opposition, led by Count Thaon de Ravel, refused to vote in favour of the war. The latter contributed heavily to the self-consciuosness of Russia, to the weakening of Austria, to the assertiveness of the Balkanic countries and to the strenthening of national feelings in Caucasian nationalities.

The Western alliance pretended from Russia the acceptance of some points, what Russia refused to do:

1. Russia was to give up its protectorate over the Danubian Principalities;
2. It was to abandon any claim granting it the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs on behalf of Orthodox Christians;
3. The Straits Convention of 1841 was to be revised;
4. All nations were to be granted access to the River Danube.

At the end of the war, these points were accepted by Russia only partially, and never fully complied with.

Wallachia and Moldavia, formerly under a strong Russian influence, united under the name of Romania, into a new state, where French and Italian influences are decisive, up to the point that the same Rumanian language is “purified” from many of the preceding Slavonic influences, so that the heritage of the Romans is put in the forefront.

Russia interests concentrated on the Slavonic peoples of the Balkans, such as Bulgarians and Serbians, which Russia helped in their efforts to become independent from the Turkish Empire. These efforts, which were at the origin of the “Balkanic Wars”, contributed to creating the background for World War I. 

Of course, not just Russia, but the whole system of powers of the Europe of that time, are equally responsible for the Balkan Wars and for the subsequent World War II. It has to be remarked that the Russian Tsars were active in the diplomatic scene, for fostering a movement for Peace and Disarmament (the Hague Congress for Peace was promoted by Tsar Nicolas II).

The policy of the Russian Empire in that period is rather contradictory. In fact, it had to manage too many contradictory tendencies. From one side, Russia was a very powerful, cultivated, and even rich, country, whose rates of growths were higher than the ones of Western Europe. From another point of view, riches was very unequally distributed, and this created strong social contrasts. The land reforms carried out at the end of the XIX Century, whilst fostering industrialization,also as a consequence of the Crimean War, had not solved the problem of a sound farming class.

The Tsar swinged between the tough defense of traditional autocracy and timid tentatives of reforms in the direction of a parliamentary monarchy, from avant-garde initiatives in the field of internationalism, such as the Hague  Congress, to military escalations, such as the ones in the Balkans.

The policy of Russia-bashing from the side of western goverments and intellectuasls went on. The fact that, contrary to what happened in France, Italy and Austria, liberal reforms had not been implemented during the largest part of the XIX Century were explained, as always, by the innate autocratic spirit of Russians. However, as always, many of the faults identified by polemists in Russia were, or false, a shared with many other European countries.

As an example, the myth, according to which the Russian Empire had to be considered as the main enemy of nationalities in Eastern Europe is not correct. It is true that a strong conflict arose since the beginning with Poles, who did not accept the partial autonomy role of the Kingdom of Poland. It is also true that the Empire forbade the Ukrainian language and the transliteration, into Latin characters, of Baltic languages. However, also Prussia and Austria had annexed large parts of Poland, where they had suppressed any form of autonomy, whilst Russia had been even helpful with Belorussian and Lithuanians, for asserting their own nationhood, after long centuries of dominance of the Polish language, aristocracy and clergy.Not to speak of the violent repression, by England, of Irish autonomy.

THE THREE ROMES

Veliko Tarnovo

The Balkanic Origins of the Myth of the Third Rome 

БаЛКаНСКИe ИСТОКИ мифa Третьего Рима

Le origini balcaniche del mito della Terza Roma 

Les origines balcaniques du mythe de la Troisième Rome.

Balkanische Urspruenge des Myths des Dritten Roms.

The pretension, by the Bulgarian Emperors, to represent the Third Rome  had a profound influence on all the Slavonic peoples of the Balkans, and, in particular, in Dalmatia, where the Catholic Croatian monks preserved and diffused the Old Slavonic Ryths. This preservation of the Old Slavonic heritage was one of the sources of Pan-Slavism, thanks also to the role played, in Czech culture, by the Croatian monks called by the Czech Emperor Charles IV for fostering Slavonic culture in Bohemia, so counterbalancing German and Latin influence.

After the Bulgarian Metropolit Feofej, who imported into Russia the concept of “Third Rome”, and the Croatian priest Križanić (who implored the Zar to free the Slavs from the Ottoman Empire and to adopt a pan-slavonic language), also  the Moravian Brother Quirinus Kühlmann, a disciple of Jakob Böhme, went to Moscow in order to persuade the Tsar to adhere to the anti-Turkish league. According to Kühlmann, Russia had a mission, the one to fight against both Turks and Catholics. Kühlmann was burnt as an “heretic” man upon request of German Lutheran Church in Russia.

This heritage of the Byzantine Empire did not create just friends for Russia. On the contrary, it is also the reason of a constant hostility from Western Europe and towards Russia.

The link between Bulgaria and Russia resurged during the XIX Century independence struggles of the Balkanic peoples against the Ottoman Empire. In that occasion, the supporting role of Russia for the independence of Bulgaria resulted to be decisive. For celebrating the brotherhood between Russia and Bulgaria under the aegis of the Orthodox faith, the Russian Czar built up, as a gift to the Bulgarian people, the Alexandăr Nevskij Sofia Cathedral.

On the other side, it is clear that the “first” Rome has still its weight in the overall Christendom, and that Rome remains a fundamental symbol both for Christendom and for the West. The heritage of the West Roman Empire is however challenged from many sides (starting from  the Germanic peoples, and, especially, the Americans, often claim to be the “real” inheritors of the Romans, and from Islam). Finally, things are rendered more difficult by the fact that, in Western Christianity, contrary to the Eastern one, there is a clearcut distinction between State and Church, so that an identification of the Pope with one State could be impossible. In any case, we can assume that the heritage of the West Roman Empire corresponds to what Trubeckoj called, in his time, “Western Europe”, and is “so to say”, “dispersed” among Catholicism and the different Protestant peoples. The European Union plays also, today, a central role in the definition of this “Western Europe”. However, contrary to what many tend to think, “this” Europe is not, and has also never been, the only one.

Also the “Second Rome”, Constantinople, has shaped the life of Christendom for almost one thousand years, with the traditions of the Eastern Churches, with the Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires, but also with the Ottoman Empire and its remnants still today (such as Turkey, the Balkanic and Caucasic States, the Islamic minorities throughout Europe).

And, then, the “Third” Rome, Moscow, with all its connection in the East Slavonic area, but also in the Caucasus, in Central Asia and in all those areas where Russian speaking, and/or Slavonic and Orthodox, communities exist.

So, it is impossible, today, to define Europe as limited to any of the three “Roman” heritages. This in the same way as it would be impossible to define China just with reference to Confucianism, India with reference to the Aryan languages or Islam just referring to Sunnite Arabs.

This is still more true in a moment, like the present, where globalization itself forces everybody to look for larger alliances, in order to be able to overcome together the difficulties of a changing world.

The tripartition of Europe into the “Three Romes” has a very striking parallelism with the discussions under way, today, with Turkey, for an adhesion of the same to the European Union, and, from another side, with the discussion with Russia for a “Eurasiatic Common Market from Lisbon to Vladivostok”. Elène Carrère d’Encausse has even proposed to negotiate two parallel “Super-association Treaties”, one with Turkey, and the other with Russia.

This Slavonic “Translatio Imperii” had a profound influence on all the Slavonic peoples of the Balkans, and, in particular, in Dalmatia, where the Catholic Croatian monks preserved and diffused the Old Slavonic Ryths . This preservation of the Old Slavonic heritage was one of the sources of Pan-Slavism, thanks also to the role played, in Czech culture, by the Croatian monks called by the Czech Emperor Charles IV for fostering Slavonic culture in Bohemia, so counterbalancing German and Latin influence.

After the Bulgarian Metropolit Feofej, who imported into Russia the concept of “Third Rome”, and the Croatian priest Križanić (who implored the Zar to free the Slavs from the Ottoman Empire and to adopt a pan-slavonic language), also  the Moravian Brother Quirinus Kühlmann, a disciple of Jakob Böhme, went to Moscow in order to persuade the Tsar to adhere to the anti-Turkish league. According to Kühlmann, Russia had a mission, the one to fight against both Turks and Catholics. Kühlmann was burnt as an “heretic” man upon request of German Lutheran Church in Russia.

This heritage of the Byzantine Empire did not create just friends for Russia. On the contrary, it is also the reason of a constant hostility from Western Europe and towards Russia.

The link between Bulgaria and Russia resurged during the XIX Century independence struggles of the Balkanic peoples against the Ottoman Empire. In that occasion, the supporting role of Russia for the independence of Bulgaria resulted to be decisive. For celebrating the brotherhood between Russia and Bulgaria under the aegis of the Orthodox faith, the Russian Czar built up, as a gift to the Bulgarian people, the Alexandăr Nevskij Sofia Cathedral.

On the other side, it is clear that the “first” Rome has still its weight in the overall Christendom, and that Rome remains a fundamental symbol both for Christendom and for the West. The heritage of the West Roman Empire is however challenged from many sides (starting from  the Germanic peoples, and, especially, the Americans, often claim to be the “real” inheritors of the Romans, and from Islam). Finally, things are rendered more difficult by the fact that, in Western Christianity, contrary to the Eastern one, there is a clearcut distinction between State and Church, so that an identification of the Pope with one State could be impossible. In any case, we can assume that the heritage of the West Roman Empire corresponds to what Trubeckoj called, in his time, “Western Europe”, and is “so to say”, “dispersed” among Catholicism and the different Protestant peoples. The European Union plays also, today, a central role in the definition of this “Western Europe”. However, contrary to what many tend to think, “this” Europe is not, and has also never been, the only one.

Also the “Second Rome”, Constantinople, has shaped the life of Christendom for almost one thousand years, with the traditions of the Eastern Churches, with the Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires, but also with the Ottoman Empire and its remnants still today (such as Turkey, the Balkanic and Caucasic States, the Islamic minorities throughout Europe).

And, then, the “Third” Rome, Moscow, with all its connection in the East Slavonic area, but also in the Caucasus, in Central Asia and in all those areas where Russian speaking, and/or Slavonic and Orthodox, communities exist.

So, it is impossible, today, to define Europe as limited to any of the three “Roman” heritages. This in the same way as it would be impossible to define China just with reference to Confucianism, India with reference to the Aryan languages or Islam just referring to Sunnite Arabs.

This is still more true in a moment, like the present, where globalization itself forces everybody to look for larger alliances, in order to be able to overcome together the difficulties of a changing world.

The tripartition of Europe into the “Three Romes” has a very striking parallelism with the discussions under way, today, with Turkey, for an adhesion of the same to the European Union, and, from another side, with the discussion with Russia for a “Eurasiatic Common Market from Lisbon to Vladivostok”. Elène Carrère d’Encausse has even proposed to negotiate two parallel “Super-association Treaties”, one with Turkey, and the other with Russia.

THE MIGRATIONS OF PEOPLES ACROSS RUSSIA

All peoples invading Europe have crossed Russia

все народы захватающие Европу переходили через Россию
Tutti i popoli invasori dell' Europa attraversarono la Russia

Tous les peuples qui envahirent la Russie passèrent à travers la Russie.
Alle Voelker, die auf Europa stuertzten, zogen durch Russland

A)THE FIRST PHASE OF THE "MIGRATION OF PEOPLES"

A period during which today’s Russia exerted a similar “matrix” role in the formation of several European ethnicities was the long period of the “Migrations of Peoples”, which can be situated between 200 B.C., with the settlement of Franks into present-day Belgium, and 1250 A.D., with the conquest, by the Ottomans, of the Aegean coasts.

During this period, present-days’ Russia, Ukraine and Belarus’ were similar to a sort of corridor, where all main migrating peoples run from East to the West, so arriving in Europe.

1. Goths

Goths are reported, by their historian Jordanes, to come from Goetaland, in Sweden. They crossed the Baltic Sea, and landed near to the Vistula River, between Danzig and Kaliningrad.

Afterwards, they migrated southwards and settled in their territories among the Danube, the Bug and the Dniepr, before invading the Danube Valley. Other authors, like Wolf, insist on their presence in the Sarmatic area. In this area, the Gothic bishop Wulfila translated the Bible into Gothic, which constitutes the first version of the Bible into a Germanic language.

Until the XVI Century, a Gothic-speaking minority lived in Crimea. According to some people, their language would have influenced the formation of the Yiddish language.

                  

2.     Huns

The first large migration was the one of Attila’s Huns, which are usually identified with the Central Asiatic people called by Chinese Xiung-Nu, which, after having imposed their rule for a long period (during the Han and Jin Dynasties) over a part of China, were expelled from there, and , it seems, migrated into Europe, building a huge confederation of peoples, stretching from Caucasus to the Rhine River, able to challenge the Roman Empire itself. The debate about the Xiung-Nu/Huns connection has lasted a long time. The latest researches based on Sogdian and Sanskrit sources seem to confirm the link.In any case, all the Peoples of the Steppes were multicultural federations of tribes, whose the denominations may have covered, along the time, severar realities. 

       The battle of Campi Catalaunici between Attila and his European allies, from one side, and the Romans and some Germanic allies, from the other side, is symbolized in the Nordic Middle-Ages eposes,like  Whaltharius, “Nibelungenlied”, Volsungasaga and “Didrekssaga”. Each of the greater “migrant peoples” created, during that period, around itself a circle of allies. For instance, according to the Waltharius and to the Nibelungenlied, Suebians and Burgunds were allied of Attila, but they turned to be his foes because of clanic feuds.

According to some authors, Volga Tatars, Bulgarians Hungarians and Turks bear some connections with Huns.In fact, ancient Xiung-Nu “runes” are similar to the “Old Turkic runes” of the Blue Turks on Mount Orhon in Mongolia.

3.     Avars

Another Eastern people which followed the path of the Huns was the one of the Avars. This nomadic people, living, like Huns,  in typically Central-Asian yurtas, has been usually identified with the Rouran,Juan Juan or Hua, a warlike people which had formerly lived in Mongolia and Xinjang, and which, after having dominated the region for a while, was expelled by the Chinese, and migrated into Pannonia (present-days Hungary.

The connection between Rouran, Juan-Juan and Hua, from one part, and Avars, from the others, is disputed because of difficulties to reconstruct the pronounciation of ancient Chinese. 

Avars settled in the Danube basin, and provoked the migration of Slavic peoples.

B)THE SECOND WAVE OF THE MIGRATION OF PEOPLES

The first wave of “Peoples Migrations”, the one axed on the Germanic Peoples, ended with the stabilization of these peoples and the creation of the Holy Roman Empire.The latter was intended in the sense that the heritage of the Christian Empire, which, following to Constantine’s conversion and Theodosius’ Edict, had become the Roman Empire, was no more recognized to Byzance by the Franks and by the Pope, but, on the contrary, was claimed for the benefits of Franks and of Rome. This led, with the time, to the working out, both by Byzance, and by the German Emperors, of a theory, whereby the “Translatio Imperii”, originally conceived as the transition of the Christian heritage from the ancient Eastern Empires to the Roman Empire, had to be extended, so to include, according to the “Greeks”, the “Byzantines” Empire (which continued to be called “Romaiké Autokratorìa”), and, according to the “Franks”, the Holy Roman Empire.

The definition of the Eastern Church as “Orthodox” was created precisely for stressing the authenticity of the Eastern “Translatio”, whilst the definition as “Catholic” meant that the Western Church was the only one authentic one.

With the end of the Byzantine Empire and the conquest, by the Turks, of Byzance, things became still more complicated, so that we had, now, several claimants to the Roman Empire: the Pope, the Byzantine Empire, and, later on, also the Bulgarian and the Russian Empires. Moreover, the Ottoman Emperor, being the Chief of Islam and the King of Constantinople, claimed to be the protection of Christendom.By the way, the flag of Turkey is an ancient flag of the Bizantine Constantinoupolis.Finally, even the King of  France  pretended to be the true heir of Charlemagne, and, hence, the true “Sacred Roman Emperor”.

This plurality of lineages in Europe’s political and religious continuity constitutes, according to us, one of the most characteristic features of European history, which may not be overseen in considering European cultural history, as well as its practical consequences for today.

1.Ancient Slavs

The migration of the Avars was also an occasion, for Slavs, to migrate, from the Danube-Dniepr region, to Central Europe (Abodrites, Sorabes, Vends and Lusatians into Eastern Germany; Polane, Vislane, White Croatians into Poland; Moravians into Czechoslovakia; Slovaks into Pannonia); into the Balkans (Slovenians to the Alps and Serbs to Moesia), and, it seems, even into Eastern Europe (Rus’).

According to the traditional learning, both Slavs and Balts descended from Scythians, and, in particular, from that tribe of Scythians, the “Anti”, which were devoted to agriculture, and, therefore, were called also “Scythians Farmers”. According to the Gothic historian Jordanes, the Anti were overcome and merciless repressed by the Goths.

Slavs are mentioned for the first time in the 5^th Century East of the Carpaths, and arrive at the borders of the Bizantine Empire in the 6^th.

Russians, together with Belarusians and Ukrainians, are considered as Eastern  Slavs. However, all scholars  recognize that the original Rus’ included, since the beginning, the Norse “Ross”, Slavic tribes (in first instance, the Poliani), Ugro-Finns and Turkish-Tatar peoples, all of them being merged into the Slavic culture of Rus’. The latter constituting, in its own turn, the common root of all Eastern Slavs.

2.     Khazars

Another people which may be probably considered as being a successor of Scythians are the Khazars, a Turkish-speaking people which, always in the 7^th Century, founded a large empire, stretching from the Danube to the Urals, from Muscovy to Caucasus. This people is known for having converted to the Jewish faith, and having hosted, within its territories, several other peoples, like Don Bulgarians, Magyars, Tatars, Cumans and Pechenegs. During the Middle Ages, Sefardic Jew writers belongings to the Muslim Emirate of Al-Andalūs (Spain) entertained relationships with Khazar Great Kaghans (Emperors), a name of presumed Jewish origin, and, in particular, “Kitab ul-Kuzarī” of Jehuda ha-Levi describes the conversion of the Kaghan as a paradigm of Jewish conversion (“teshuvà”). Also Arabic writers, such as al-Fadlān, described the Khazar Empire with admiration. By the way, the title of “Great Prince” (Veliki Kniaz, Wielki Kniaz), common to ancient Russia and Lithuania, seems to be originated, from one side, from the one of the Khazar “Great Kaghan”, and, from the other, from the Scandinavian “Konung” (“King”).

The German Jew writer Köstler raised a profound disconcert in Jewish culture claiming that the Askhenazi Jews are not of Semitic, but of Khazar descent. Still now, the tenants of the Khazar origin of the Askhenazim, like, for instance, Shlomo Sand, go on generating a sense of scandal in Israel, because they are  questioning the ethnical homogeneity of the Jewish people.

Also in Soviet Russia the memory of Khazars was considered as disturbing, since it was suspected to become a pretext, for Soviet Jews, for claiming that the fledging Jewish Socialist  Republic could be located not in the Far East (Birobidjian), but, on the contrary, between Crimea and the Don Basin.

3.Karaites

Finally, another Turkish-Jewish people, the Karaites, speaking a Turkish language similar to the one of Crimea Tatars, lived between Crimea and Lithuania, and become later the bodyguard of the Great Prince of Lithuania, settling around the Royal Castle of Trakai, where they are living still now.

4.     Bulgarians

Also Bulgarians , a Turkish-speaking people worshipping Tengri, the God of the Turks and of the Mongols, originated from Asian steppes. They are supposed to be allied of the Huns, and having migrated to present-day Tatarstan, where the city of Kazan’ was originally called “Bolgar”. Bolgar was a very flourishing city already in very ancient times. Later on, it become the first muslim territory in Europe in early 10^th Century. Ibn Fadlān was sent to Bolgar for bringing qadis an to help building a fortress and a mosque. He describes the richness of Bolgar. It constituted, for a certain time, a part of the Khazar Empire, and, later on, it became one of the centers of the Mongol Empires.. By the way, also Mordostan claims to have been a cradle of Bulgarians. In a later stage, Bulgars ravaged the Byzantine empire, up to the moment in which they were allowed, in late 7^th Century, by the Basileus, to settle in Dobrudja (in present-days Romania and Bulgaria) where they built up their capital city in Pliška, and later on in Preslav(893-972), Ohrid(891-997-1051) and Veliko Tarnovo(1185-1396). According to Byzantine theology, Byzance was also the successor of Rome, the head of Christendom, and, as such, could also create new Christian Churches among barbarians.  So, Bulgarians were converted to Christianism in 864 CE. At the same time, they created, around itself, in present-days Bulgaria, a federation of Slavic peoples, of which Bulgarians took over the language.

When the Byzantine Basileus felt the need to diffuse, among Slavic peoples, the Christian faith, he decided to entrust, with this challenging task, two Slavic brothers and intellectuals, Kyrillos and Methodios, originating from Solun, present-days Thessaloniki, which, in those days, was inhabited by Southern Slavic populations similar to Bulgarians. The two brothers, before leaving for their pastoral mission, started to translate the Bible, from Greek, into a Slavonic language created by them, which was called “Old Slavonic” or “Church Slavonic”, or, even “Old Bulgarian”, utilizing, first of all, a new alphabet, called “Glagolica”, and which, later on, was transformed and re-baptized “Kirillica”in Bulgaria.

The diffusion of Christendom in its oriental version by means of the Church Slavonic was contrasted, in Greater Moravia, by the Latin and German-speaking clergy influenced by the Holy Roman Empire. So, the clergymen educated by Kirill and Methodius, according to the Eastern Ryths, in Church Slavonic language were obliged to flee into Bulgaria, which, thus, became a stronghold of East European Christendom and riths. Before the end of the X^th Century, the Basileus of Byzance decided to overcome the competition which was exerted, at those times, in the Balcanic area, by the Bulgarian Empire. The Basileus, which was renamed Bulgaròktonos “the Killer of the Bulgarians”, conquered the land, and imposed his Greek clergy.

However, when, in 1185, Byzance was weakened (and, later,  conquered by the Crusaders, who created in Constantinople their “Latin Empire”), the ruling clan of the Assenoviči insurged in Northern Bulgaria, created a New Bulgarian Empire and proclaimed themselves the “Kaisars”, or “Zar”, that means the heirs of the Roman and Byzantine Empire. For this reason, Veliko Tărnovo, the capital city of the Bulgarian Empire, was proclaimed “Third Rome” (after Rome itself and Constantinople), that means the true heir of all large empires of Antiquity, as well as the leader of Christendom. When, at its turn, Bulgaria fell under the attacks of the Turks, Bulgarian monks migrated to Russia, and urged the prince (“Kniaz”) of Moscow, to proclaim himself “Czar”.The designation of the new Bulgarian capital city, Veliko Tărnovo, as the New Constantinople (and thus the “Third Rome”) was the reply and act of resistance of tsar Ivan Alexander’s ideologists to the attempts of some critics at Constantinople to discredit the autocephalores statute of the Bulgarian Church in the 1350s and 1360s. Patriarch Kaliste headed the campaign. We have Kaliste’s letter of 1361 to the monks of the Tărnovo community, his life, written a little letter in dedication by his pupil, Theodosius of Tărnovo, as well as other Byzantine sources of the 1360s.

The doctrine of Tărnovo-New Constantinople (“The Third Rome”) became a programme for tsar Ivan Alexander’s struggle to defend the independence of Bulgarian Church and the international prestige of Tărnovo as a seat of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Historical records show that Emperor Ioannes V Paleologus of Byzance in the face of the Ottoman threat asked the west for assistance. This means that Constantinople was planning to enter into alliance with Rome, what created an opportunity for Tărnovo to assume the functions of the “Third Rome” in view of its superior loyalty to Eastern Orthodoxy.

When Byzance was conquered by the Turks, Ivan III of Moscow married Zoe Paleologos, daughter of the last Byzantine emperor, and grown up to Italy, later baptized as “Sofia”. At the same time, the Bulgarian clergy emigrating to Russia, as well as Russian clergy worked out the theory of Moscow as the true “Third Rome”.

The history of this part of the “Translatio” is very complex and controversial. For instance, the metropolite of Monemvasia, who signed the charter of the Moscow Patriarchate, containing the idea of a Third Rome, pretended to ignore its content, because the document was written in Russian.

Moscow so became “Tretij Rim”, “the Third Rome”, in lieu of the conquered Constantinople and of Veliko Tărnovo. Even Russia was re-baptize “Romejskoe Carstzo” (Roman Empire) Ivan the Terrible rounded for his pretension to be the “Roman” emperor on the apostolate of St. Amir in Russia.

In any case, the creation of new Orthodox Churches, like the ones of Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia, created a whole “world” which, albeit divided by the pretention of the “Translatio Imperii”, shared a common view of religion (orthodox) and history (“Roman”). The Turkish Empire recognized this reality, and baptized its Christian inhabitants as “Rūm Millet” (the “Roman Nation”).

VEDAS ARCTIC HOMELAND

Defrost

Was (and will be again) Arctic a friendly environment? 

Была ли ( и будут ли) Арктика  гостеприимная среда?

L'Arctique fut-elle jadis (et sera-t-elle un jour)un milieu amical pour l'homme? 
L'Artico è stato un giorno (e tornerà ad essere) un ambiente ospitale?

War Arktikum ein Menschenfreundliches Milieu (und wird es wieder dies sein?)

According to the most ancient historic documents of the Aryan peoples, the Hindu Veda and the Persian Avesta (Bundahishn), the original fatherland of all Aryans was on the Arctic Circle, which, at that time, was not covered by ice. When (following to the sins of humankind) Gods displaced the North Pole and condemned the Arctic to permanent frost, the Aryans migrated southwards, with a trip which ended in today’s Persia and India.By the way, the Pole is shifting again. We are puzzled by the meaning that we may give to this new shift.

Similar to this Aryan legend is the one of the Hyperboraei, a perfect people which ancient Greek historians and poets reported to have inhabited the Arctic Circle. Some present-day Russian traditionalists pretend that the right of Russia to be considered as the bulwark of the most ancient traditions derives from their descent from these Hyperboreans. Present-days de-frosting of the Arctic Circle, as well as the current displacement of the North Pole, and the connected historical, geological and palaeontologic researches, have shown that the Arctic myth of the Vedas and of Avesta have a scientific ground.

XX Century’s archeologists, including Marija Gimbutas, Ivanov and Gamkrelidze, have also focused their attention on the remnants of an ancient civilisation, the “People of Kurgans”, which was characterized by the fact of burying its princes under artificial hills (“Kurgans”), built in the middle of the steppes. Such civilization had its center in Russia, where most “Kurgans” are, but some of them may be found also in Japan, in Georgia, in Lithuania, Poland and Germany. According to Marija Gimbutas, the Peoples of Kurgans were Aryan warriors, which, having domesticated the horse, had acquired an overwhelming military superiority over their foes, thank to which they were able to expand, from their original Russian territories, into a much broader area, including Europe, where they entered, among other, the Balkan Peninsula, previously settled by the Danube Civilization, devoted to the cult of Mother Goddess.

The encounter of the “military” civilization of Kurgans and the civilizations of the South is  echoed in several characters of Greek tragedies, such as The Amazons, Phædra, Ariadne, Cassandra, Calypso, Cyrce, Iphigenia, and, especially, Europe. The Myth of Europe comes, thus, on the foreground of the encounter of the two largest proto-historical civilizations of Eastern Europe.

Most recent searches in the Kurgans show that the picture given of them by Marija Gimbutas may result only partially true.On the other hand, the finding of  chariots in Chinese burials of the first Dynasties seems to show that Kurgans civilization was not limited to the “Aryan” area.

The Cult of Mother Goddess will have a resonance on several aspects and movements over the whole cultural history of Europe, up to the ideas of a primitive Slavonic communism, linked to the social forms of zadruga, mir and obšćina, with the corresponding debates in European political thinking.

At later stages, other steppes populations which should have settled in Europe, lived, for a certain period, in Russia, such as the Huns, the Goths, the Bulgarians, the Avars and the Magyars.