APPEAL TO EUROPEANS

Serov's Abduction of Europe

 

 Let's Discuss together about our Future

Обсуждаем вместе наше будуще

Discutiamo insieme il nostro futuro

Discutons ensemble notre avenir

Diskutieren wir unsere Zukunft zusammen

After so many bad news, finally a good one: more than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europeans are in a position to evaluate without prejudices the events which occurred to them since then:

-Contrary to what they expected, the fall of the communist system has not given rise to a better way of living or to more peace;

-On the contrary, the former communist states have suffered a huge loss in their standard of living, which they are recovering just now;

-Whilst Europeans had had no war during the last fifty years they have had about 10 wars, both in Europe and abroad, between 1989 and 2010 (Afganistan, Nagorno-Karabagh, Transnistria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kossovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, Irak);

-The economic situation of Western Europe has not become better, but, on the contrary, it has gone deteriorating from year to year, in the sense of the loss of economic perspectives, of individual rights, of investment opportunities, and, especially, of the certainty to be able to program a reasonable future for themselves and for one’s relatives. The last events, including financial crises, Middle eastern events and Japan’s catastrophe, are worsening and worsening the situation;

-The hopes to have a European Constitution, which could have transformed the present European Union into a full-fledged European Federation, have vanished after several tentatives to write a meaningful text of Constitution, and to have it approved by a popular referendum;

-The historical political and cultural leaderships seem to have exhausted their own creative capabilities, and have even given up to speak about Europe’s future, focussing on marginal technical emergency issues, like the salvage of Member State’s budgets;

.-New countries are emerging on the world’s economic and political scene. Europe becomes more and more irrelevant. Paradoxically, only Russia is proposing to Europe something concrete, i.e.:

-      to join forces in the economy, utilizing the huge resources and markets of Russia for maintaining a large amount of turnover, and allowing, in exchange, to Russia, to profit of Europe’s technology;

-    to join forces in politics, for solving the overdue problems of post-cold war Europe: new peace agreements limiting strategic forces; military cooperation; new legal instruments for association between the European and the Post-sovietic areas;

-     to mutually open one’s house  doors, in such a way that the peoples of Europe and of Russia can cooperate and know each other better, working and studying together.

This is a specially favorable moment, in which there is not any so dramatic emergency as to drain political resources in both areas, nor to create a partisan confrontation between “favorables” and “contrary” to Russia.

Creating a structural form of cooperation between Europe and Russia would amount, substantially, to the real completion of Europe’s unification.

This objective, which nobody had formulated seriously up to now, has been expressed formally by Russia’a Prime Minister in an article in Süddentsche Zeitung and repeated at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Führungs Kräfte. Mr. Putin has added that such an objective would have been considered as a dream until short time, but, on the contrary, it could not be considered any more as such, if all of us make an effort in this direction.

He cited also, as an example, the remarkable achievement of Chancellor Kohl, who succeeded in the reunification of Germany, which also many consider as just a dream.

The same objective has been expressed in other occasions by President Medvedev, when he has proposed, in particular at his meetings with NATO and EU, a completely new set of agreements for the European Security, in substitution of the ones of the times of the Cold War.

All of us are conscious of the difficulties implied in such objectives. However, we feel also that what is lacking in our time are, precisely, ambitious objectives which we can realistically pursue, so giving a meaning to our lives.

Personally, as the founder of Alpina Srl and of the Dialexis Cultural Association, I have aimed, since the beginning, at the objective to start a process of innovation  among Europeans,in order  lead to a stronger European Identity, to a stronger European Union and to the enlargement of Europe, in a form or in another, to all “European” peoples.

We would be happy to become the catalysts of a cultural, social and political movement of Europeans striving to enlarge, to Russia, the European Cultural Identity, and to support the political efforts  of Authorities for the association of Russia (together with other Post-Sovietic countries) to the European Union.

These objectives will be pursued through a multiplicity of instruments:

-      debates about Europe and Russia;

-      publications connected with this theme;

-     campaigns, for interesting both the public opinion, and the authorities, on a specific program in this direction.

We invite everybody, who is interested in this program, to enter in contact with us for this objective.

In the following posts, we will inform about the initiatives under way and comment the events which are going to occur in the meantime.

http://www.alpinasrl.com

http://www.dialexis.com 

http://www.torino2019.eu 

tel 00 39 011 6688758

E.mail: info@alpinasrl.com

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.

ROMANS IN RUSSIA

The Bosporan Kingdom and the neighbouring Roman Provinces

Regnum Bospori: a large Client State of the Roman Empire.

Боспорское царство - великое «государство-сателлит» Римской империи

Il Regnum Bospori, un importante satellite dell' Impero Romano

Le Royaume du Bospore, un important état client de l' Empire Romain

Konigreich Bosporus, ein wichtiger Satellit des Roemischen  Kaiserreichs.

Asander and Dynamis were the ruling monarchs of the Regnum Bospori until Caesar commanded a paternal uncle of Dynamis, Mithridates, to declare war on the Bosporan Kingdom and claimed the kingship for himself. Asander and Dynamis were defeated by Caesar’s ally and had gone into political exile. However after Caesar’s death in 44 BC, the Bosporan Kingdom was restored to Asander and Dynamis by Octavian . Asander ruled as an Archon and later as King until his death in 17 BC. After the death of Asander, Dynamis was compelled to marry a Roman called Scribonius, but the Romans under statesman Marcus Agrippa  set Polemon I(16 BC - 8 BC) as King of Pontus  in his place. Polemon married Dynamis in 16 BC and she died in 14 BC. Polemon ruled as King until his death in 8 BC. After the death of Polemon, Aspurgus, the son of Dynamis and Asander, succeeded Polemon.

The Bosporan Kingdom of Aspurgus was a "Client State" of the Roman Empire, helped by Roman garrisons. Aspurgus (8 BC - 38) founded a line of kings which endured with certain interruptions until 341. Aspurgus adopted the Roman names "Tiberius Julius" because he received Roman citizenship and enjoyed the patronage of Augustus and Tiberius. All of the following kings adopted these two Roman names followed by a third name, mostly of Pontic or Thracian origin , but also of local origin .

The kings adopted the "Pontic Era" introduced by Mithridates VI, which started with 297 BC; this era was used to date coins. Bosporan kings struck coinage throughout the kingdom period .  Their kingdom covered the eastern half of Crimea and the Taman peninsula, and extended along the east coast of the Azof Sea  to the mouth of the Don, a great market for trade with the interior.

They carried on a perpetual war with the native tribes, and in this were supported by their Roman suzerains, who even lent the assistance of garrison and fleet. The Bosporan Kingdom was incorporated as a part of the Roman Province of Moesia Inferior from 63-68. In 68, the new Roman Emperor Galba had restored the Bosporan Kingdom 

At one of these periods (255) the Goths and Borani were able to seize Bosporan shipping and raid the shores of Anatolia.

Besides influencing the Regnum Bospori, Romans controlled the town of Tyras (present days Tiraspol, capital city of the Republic of Transdnistria) .

Latin influence is strongly felt in the Romanian and Moldovan languages spoken in that area. Moreover, Russian rulers often were pleased in making reference to Roman cultural and political traditions, which is self evident in the denominations “Tsar’” (“Caesar”),Tsar’stvo “Kaiserreich”),Tretij Rim”Third Rome” (“Translatio Imperii”), “Imperator”, “Imperija” (“Imperium”), and, even, by constrast,”Respublika” (“Res Publica”).

Paradoxically, Roman words are present in Russian more than in many other Slavonic languages ( the names of the months;  “avion” instead of “zrakoplov”;"aeroport" instead of "aerodrom"; “kanikuli” instead of “odmor”; “Italija” instead of “Wlochy”; “Germanija”  instead of “Njemacka”; "President" instead of "predsedvik"; "Universitet" instead of "Sveuciliste", a.s.o.).