HOW MUCH WESTERN ARE EUROPEANS?

Pope Paul II

The Key to future is in the East

Ключ будущего - Восток

La chiave del futuro è l' Oriente

La clef de l'avenir, c'est l' Orient

Die Schluessel  der Zukunft ist im Osten

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hope  we  have  succeeded in showing, as we purported to do, that, all over their history, Europeans and Russians have been very similar, and have influenced each other in a decisive way. We would like to add that this consideration is applicable also for the present days.In this regard, the similarity is still more evident, at least for what the exterior side of each country’s life. Reading the newspapers of a certain number of European countries, including Russia, or watching at their  television programmes,  you find the same themes, the same habits, the same fashions, the same trends. It is true that this is happening all over the world because of globalisation. However, if you consider the United States, the Arabic countries or other Asiatic countries, like, for example, Kazakhstan or Iran, you will perceive much more differences. For instance, you find, in newspapers, a lot of cultural articles, and, in the television programs, information tends to be more formal, the debates are very sophisticated.

Most observers find that the most important difference is political in character.

Paradoxically, in the precise moment when they would have had an outstanding occasion to enhance their identities, feeling “just Europeans”, the peoples of West Europe have started to consider themselves as “Westerners”(what they did not do before).

But are West Europeans real Westerners? Do they share the fundamentalistic expectation of a providential New World Order? Are they really so individualist, so effectiveness-motivated, as they like to describe themselves? Do not have, also they, some, or many, “Eastern” weaknesses, like the “vice” of nostalgia, like a certain inclination to communitarism and to romanticism?

Is not Europe somewhere in the middle, between East and West?

Pope John Paul II, in recovering the old idea of Ivanov-Razumnik, that Europe must breath with its two lungs, hinted precisely to the fact that Europe possedes huge cultural resources that link it to the West, but that these resources have been less and less exploited over the years, because of the growing and growing hegemony of Europe's most Western parts (England and French), and, latwer on, eve, of America.

As we have seen in all preceding posts, links of Europe with the East are the heritages of ancient civilisations (Danube Civilisation, Peoples of Kurgan, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolic Civilisations, Persians,Israel, Ellenism, Peoples of the Steppes, Constantinople, Islam, Sarmatism, the Third Rome,  Marxism, Russian Culture, a.s.o).

The contributions of most of these civilisations to the European, and even, to the Western, ones, are underestimated. Danube Civilisation, Kurgans, Anatolic civilisations, Sarmatism, are even ignored. Persians, Peoples of the Steppes, Constantinople, Islam and Russia are criticized as barbaric and tyrannic, the messages of Egypt, Israel, Ellenism, are misinterpreted. Even the positive contributions of Germany, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia are minimuised, whilst the ones of  America, England and France are overestimated.

Yet, the ethnic basis of all Europeans comes from the steppes, ancient cultures and Christendom come from the Middle East, Christian and Jewish philosophies are practically ellenistic philosophies re-worked by Islam, Eastern Europe occupies more than a half of Europe.

In present times, the tentative to "westernise" the world seems less realistic than in the past. China, India and South America, thanks to their growing economic strength, are re-opening a genuine research about the great non-western cultures. Islam is heading towards being the most numerous world religion. All are laying the basements for asking to be heard at world level  about the decisions on the future of humankind.

America itself studies attentively these developments, and many Americans are studying how to accomodate with a leading role of China.

If Europe wants to escape its present decline, it must participate in this worldwide effort to reconsider world cultures. Its pretension that its model is applicable worldwide is partially motivated by the consistence of federalism with multiculturalism. However, it is not sufficient even now for giving a voice to Europe in world affairs.

As Martin Jacques puts it, Europe risks to be cut out of world decision for its

incapacity to understand other cultures. The late Ramon Panikkar pretended that, in order to establish a true dialogue with the other cultures of the world, the West must undertake a "cultural desarmement". Present days West Europeans are far from knowing whence to start for understanding Islam, China and India.

This is paradoxical, because they have all the opportunity to know foreign cultures, which are present in their cities. We say more. They should be obliged to study certain basic elements of their own culture, such the Persian Origin of the idea of "progress", the Islamic origin of Christian theologies, the role of Central and Eastern Europe in the history of European Constitutionalism, the role of  monarchic and soviet russia in shaping basic ideas of European Federalism, such as the "Concert of European States" and  Regional Federalism.

Studying the elements of East which are in Europe, and even in Western Europe, constitutes the first step for understanding that Western culture is not the only culture. Only after this step, Europeans will be ready to understand China and India, and discuss with them on an even footing.

Therefore, the dialogue between Western and Eastern Europe is so important. Where, by Eastern Europe, we intend, in first instance, Russia, but, immediately afterwards, Euroislam nd Turkey, Eastern Churches, Judaism, all Slavic, Ugro-Finnic,Baltic, Kartvelian and Illyric nations, a.s.o.. 

RUSSIA, THE LAST EUROPEAN EMPIRE?

European Empires

  An Empire or a Commonwealth?

Империя или Содружество народов?

Un impero o una comunità di popoli?

 Un empire ou une communauté de Peuples?

Ein Kaiserreich oder eine Voelkergemeinschaft?

To the extent that Bolsheviks had resumed war against occupying foreign forces (Russia, German Army, Freikorps, Baltic, Polish, Ukrainian Asiatic, Czech nationalists, Anglo-Americans, Japanese), they gave the impression they were fighting for the salvation of the Russian Empire (irrespective from the monarchic or republican form of the same).

The same happened with World War II and even with the Cold War, where the strength of the Soviet empire seemed, under certain points of view, to vindicate the loss of the Russian Empire. And also, after so many years, it appears that the idea of a “Russian Empire”, something larger than Russian nationality, is still on the agenda (for instance, in the Russian Media). In fact, already present days Russian Federation (“Rossijskaja Federacija”) is larger that simply the Russian “Nation” (“Ruskaja Nacija”). The Russian People (“Ruskij Narod”) is larger than Russia Federation, and the so-called Sovietic citizens (“Sovietskie grazhdane”) are a further concept than the “Russian People”. Moreover, independently from any contrary political will, Russia still exerts a, direct or indirect, influence on the whole of a larger “post-Sovietic space”. So, we can say that, whilst Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, German and Italian empires have disappeared, the Russian still exists, even if in a different form.This situation is not very different from the British “Commonwealth” and the French “Francophonie”.

At the beginning, the connection between the new Bolshevik Russia and the Russian Empire was not clear at all. In fact, the “Trip in the Armored Train” of Lenin, as well as the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk, which are the founding events of the success of the Bolshevik movement, were based on a paradoxical deal with the German Empire, whereby Russia would have accepted the creation of new Republics (Finland, Poland more the Balts, Belarus’, Ukraine and Transcaucasia), in the areas occupied by the German Armies, where local nationalists had declared their independence under German sponsorship.

Secondly, it seemed ominous that, after about half a century of rhetoric of self-determination by nationalities, from the side of the socialist movement worldwide, precisely in the “Fatherland of Socialism” the nationalities would have been repressed. Thirdly, it was necessary to recover at least a part of those nationalist leaders which had exerted the power during German occupation, some of them being Marxist. Fourth, most of the Republics did not constitute a “nation” in the Western sense of the word, because they were inhabited by dispersed ethnic entities, including, inter alia, Russians, Germans and Jews.

So, in any case, it was necessary, for managing local administrations, to create a sufficiently consistent local interfaces in the Republics. According to Marxist rhetoric, to create local national bourgeoisies, which were conceived to be similar, from one side, to the Westerns national bourgeoisies, and, from another side, to what the fledging ruling classes of the Republics purported to be.

Stalin, also being himself a Transcaucasian Revolutionary (half Georgian, half Ossetian), was chosen to solve the “nationalities problem”. In reality, the implementation of the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk was not simple, and, for a certain period - corresponding, roughly speaking, to the Russian Civil War -, the Republics remained substantially independent, even if occupied, from time to time, by different, Russian and foreign, armies.

In all that period, the relationships of Russia with other Eastern European Countries (especially Baltic countries, Poland, Ukraine, Rumania, Georgia and Armenia) where heavily influenced by the different situations created in the new bundle of Republics, as well by their evolutions following to independence, civil war, Russian-Polish War, “Dekulakization”, Ukrainization, Russification, 2^nd World War, changes of administrative borders, end of the Soviet Union.

NATIONAL COMMUNISM

The Republics of the Russian Federation

Today, very few things remain of USSR, outside the Republics structure

Сегодня, остайотся немного CCCP, кроме устройства республик

Oggi, poco resta dell'URSS, al di là della struttura delle Repubbliche

Aujourd'hui, peu reste de l'URSS, au delà de la structure des Républiques

Wenig bleibt heute von UdSR ,ausserhalb der Strukturen der Republiken, uebrig.

Although, de facto, the Leninist revolution and the Stalinist “Nationality Policy” strongly contributed to salvaging the Russian Empire, which survived the Austrian, the Ottoman, the German, the Italian, the Dutch, the British, the French and the Portuguese empires, they were not perceived by all Russians in this way. On the contrary, Russian nationalism was, at least initially, completely on the side of the Tsar and of the “White” Army, and was severely deceived both by the signature, by Lenin, of the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk and by the murder, by Bolsheviks, of the Royal Family. Of course, within the  framework of Bolshevik Russia, there were also nationalistic tendencies, like, for instance, National-Bolshevism, which interpreted Bolshevism as a national phenomenon.

In a first phase, the Brest-Litowsk Treaty, signed by Lenin, recognized the independence of many Republics, and this was considered a treasure by many Russians. Moreover, once the peace treaty signed within Germans and the Bolshevik power established in Russia, the Russian Government started supporting the Bolshevik Parties existing in the Republic, exerting pressures on the local governments, in order that the role of such parties was enhanced. The protection of the local parties led to military interventions, which strengthened the idea of a tight connection between “Communism” and “Russian Centralism”.

During this period, a very complex political, military and theoretical activitym  took places, aiming at defining an attitude, by the new Bolshevik power, towards the multinational character of the former Russian Empire.

From one side, it was difficult to tell the Republics, once become independent, that they should revert to be a part of Russia. From another side, Bolsheviks were, to a large extent, foreigners to Russia, such as the Georgian Stalin, the Jews Kaganovich and Berija, the Polish-Belorussian aristocrat Dzerzhinski, the Ukrainian Khruschev,the Georgian Ordzhonikidze,  the Kazakh Frunze, the Baltic Tarle. Also important foreign communist leaders, such as Gramsci, Tito, Togliatti, lived in Russia for a shorter or longer time. Moreover, the Soviet Union, whose official denomination made no reference to Russia, gave a huge role, in its Constitution, to the newly created Republics, so frustrating Russians, whose Republic did not even possess its own Communist Party. The Communist Party itself launched campaigns against “Great Russian Chauvinism” and in favor of “Ukrainization”.

Finally, there had long been a Russian prejudice, which has not ceased even today, whereby the Republics were under-developed countries, maintained by Russia, a highly develop country just for political reasons. This had been, i.a during Perestrojka, the position of Alexandr Solzhenitsin, who wrote an essay (“Kak nam obostruit’ Rossiju”) proposing the secession of Russia and the “Slavonic” Republics from the Soviet Union. By the way, this is an idea which was accepted by the latter republics, and is pursued still today, with uncertain outcomes, by the most extreme circles of Russian Nationalism..

At the end of the day, the relationships between the Russian “center” and the “national” minorities has always been partially conflicting, as in all large States, albeit if less conflicting as in others like, e.g, in the United States, where Native Americans and the preexisting French-speaking and Spanish-speaking populations were practically destroyed over 100 years of “American” occupation.

Even an “affirmative action” of the Soviet Union from the point of view if its “internal” nationalisms, including Russian Nationalism, became always more evident with the passing of time. The cultural motivations and rhetorics of the “Great Patriotic War” were largely mutuated from traditional Russian nationalism (the reference to heroes of the past, such as Alexandr’ Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, the identification of “Russia” with the “Soviet Union”, various practical privileges for people originating from the “core” East Slavonic peoples). As concerns other Republics, such as the Central Asiatic ones, they were practically “invented” by Bolsheviks, whilst, precedently, the idea was the one of a large Turkestan.

After World War II, in certain “pro-German” Republics, such as the Baltic States, Ukraine and Chechnya, the Russian language and Russian immigrants or minorities were inserted in order to avoid possible separatisms. Finally, when the Soviet Union became the center of a huge block of “socialist” countries all over the world, the fact of constituting the center of a huge alliance gave to Russian (if not also to other “central” nationalities) a great sense of power and of security.

Communism had taken 6 years for going to power and disappeared in 6 years.

The Russians could have become, with the time, the “national” core of a multicultural “empire”, like today’s Han for China and Hindustanis for India. On the contrary, with the crisis of the international credibility of the Soviet Union, following to the defeat in Afghanistan, a separate sense of identities of the different nationalities, including, in first instance, a Russian “national” identity, immediately reappeared. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian nationalism rapidly emerged as a driving force, even subtracting to the Communist Party the role of leading oppositional trends.

We must remember that, in the Russian Parliament, there are, today, four Parties: the majority party (middle-of-the way) is Jedinaja Rossija; the left opposition parties being the Communist Party and Spravedlivaja Rossija; the right wing opposition party is the Liberal-Democratic (nationalist). Moreover, there are smaller movements which are not represented in Parliament, the most important being the radical nationalistic Association Against Illegal Immigration and National-Bolshevik Party. A practical opposition role is also exercized by pro-western leaders, such as Kasparov and Nemtsov, supported by foreign ONGs present in Russia (such as the Fund for an Open Society). However, road protests and underground popular culture are clearly on the side of Russian Nationalism, having, as its main targets, from one side, the West, and, from the other side, former Republics and their immigrants into Russia.

Thus, the problem of the relationship between the Russian nationality and the former USSR Republics is not overcome. On the contrary, it is a fundamental problem, as stressed by Russian authorities.But this has nothing more to do with communism.

A last question. People often ask themselves why, notwithstanding the horrors of the Civil War and of the Stalinist Repression and the “economic stagnation” of the Brezhnev period, as opposed to the present bonanza, many people in Russia are still nostalgic of Communism. A part the fact that it seems that the number of nostalgics of Tsarism is still higher, the answers could be numerous, but are often not pertinent. We would try to add here some words for a tentative explanation.

Summing up, one answer might be that, contrary to the usual rhetoric, there is no pre-determined reason according to which people who have experienced different socio-political systems must necessarily prefer Western style capitalistic democracy.

Specifically, the major achievement of Russian communism was to have been able to create, and to maintain alive for 70 years, a whole worldwide system able to compete, under all points of view, with the system created by worldwide capitalism. We are perfectly aware of the huge weakness of this system (contradictions with its premises; technological and military inferiority; rigidity) so that it could not help but to fall. And, yet, the existence of an alternative to the Western Capitalism was a conceptual need for all the world. Not because of a specific fault of Western Capitalism. But, just because the latter pretended, and still pretends, to be the only valid system for all the world. Now, whichever system, even the better, if imposed on all the world, would come out to be the harshest of tyrannies.

Today, many contend that it is impossible to create a system which constitutes a full-fledged alternative to Western Capitalism, because the latter would correspond to “the nature of man”, to the “natural selection principle”, an “intelligent design” of God, or, even, to a sort of “Destiny of Technique”. And this could even be the case. But nobody can take away, from human nature, the temptation of contradiction, the illusion of freedom, the taste of a struggle without any chance.

But, irrespective from the sort of Communism, Russia can still now constitute an element of hope, at least for Europeans, that some form of international coexistence different from the simple acceptance of American model is still possible.

THE GREAT MOTHER

The Mother Goddess

Russia as the common Mother of all Europeans 
Россия как общая Мать всех европейцев 
La Russie, Mère commune de tous les Européens.
La Russia:madre comune degli Europei
Russland, gemeinsame Mutter aller Europaeer. 

 We will try to show that the first, and fundamental, link existing between Russia and the whole of Europe is the fact that almost all of Europe’s present-days inhabitants (probably with the sole excepition of the Basques), have an origin stemming from “the Kurgans” (hence, from present days Russia).

This does not imply just an historical or  linguistic  heritage, but also several traditional commonalities (such as archaic Indo-European institutions, referred to by Benveniste and Dumézil,  as well as traditional connections between peoples and territories, such as the ones of Greeks with Odessa, of Poles with the Back see, of Swedes with the Baltic Coasts, of Eastern Jews with the “Pale of Settlement”, a.s.o.).

The image which is most commonly associated to Russia is the one of a “Mat’” (“Mother”): “Mat’ Rossija” (“Mother Russia”), “Mat’ Rodina” (“Motherland”).

“Mat’ Rodina” is shown in the highest monument in the World, called “Rodina Mat’ zovet” (“Motherland Calls ”). It represents a gigantic Mother Goddess raising a long sword over the battlefield of Volgograd (Stalingrad). It is the plastic transfiguration of a famous political poster of the Red Army, containing the same phrase: “Rodina Mat’ zovet”. Such poster was diffused in Soviet Russia in 1941 during the German invasion, for prompting volunteering into the Red Army and urging partisans to resist occupation. The statue itself was created for celebrating the Soviet victory over the German invaders, in the precise point where the decisive battle took place. This statue is deliberately similar to the Statue of Liberty of New York, but much higher. The sculpture at the moment of creation became the highest in the world.

The reference to Russia as to a “Mother” is not casual. Russia is a huge territory, stretching from Europe to America, and including one half of Asia, where the legendary original fatherlands of most peoples of the world are located: Aryans, but also Turks, Ugro-Finns, Cartvelians, but, probably, also North American Indians and Chinese. Especially, the territory of Russia is the most likely cradle of most of the peoples of Europe, both Aryans and not.

From another point of view, the cult of the Mother Goddess is one of the oldest in the world, and many elements hint at the fact that also ancient Slavs were worshippers of the Goddess. The cult devoted to the Mother Goddess by the most ancient peoples of Eastern Europe has been thoroughly studied by the Lithuanian scholar Marija Gimbutas. The Moscow Linguistic School has studied the unbelievable melting pot subsisting in the territories of Russia and, still more, of the former Soviet Union, during prehistoric times, when the most ancient languages materialized.

In particular, the studies of Illich Svitych have shown that most of the languages presently existing in the world derive from a very ancient, common language, called Nostratic, from which Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Turk, Hugro-Finnic, Kartvelian and (probably) Dravidic derive.

Russia, the largest country of the World (“Strana ogramnaya”) and as “Euro-Asiatic Space” (“Evraziatijskoe Prostranstvo”) constitutes, so to say, the “Mother Land” of all Europeans.