“He was coming home drunk every night
and behaved abusively towards me and the children.”
“She only married me for my money.
She never loved me nor respected me.”
Two narratives. Who's right? Unless we
knew these people, it's hard to tell at first sight.
“The West has been encroaching upon
Russia since the end of the Cold War. Russia had to take Crimea in
its own self-interest, to stop its naval bases falling into the hands
of NATO.”
“Russia is again meddling in the
affairs of a sovereign nation, using force, subterfuge and blatant
lies to unilaterally re-draw European borders against the will of the
international community.”
Two narratives. Who's right? Unless we
know history, it's hard to tell at first sight.
The Russian narrative hinges on its
tragic 20th Century, its victory over Fascist Germany in the Great
Patriotic War taking centre stage, with the Gulag, the terror visited
upon millions of Russians by Russians, pushed back an an
uncomfortable sub-plot. The raising of the Soviet flag over the
Reichstag is still the crowning moment in the Russian narrative.
Fascism the enemy. If Russia wishes to denounce an enemy, it is in
terms of fascism.
The Red Army liberated the peoples of
Central and Eastern Europe. The imposition on the back of Stalin's
tanks of a brutal, economically stupid, regime on the captive nations
of the countries that would become the Soviet bloc is viewed in
Russia in imperial terms. The Soviet bloc was but a slightly enlarged
version of the Tsar's empire, with Russia at the heart of it.
Something that Stalin, himself a Georgian, understood full well in
1945. Russia, a great nation, arrayed around it its brothers and its
cousins Ukrainian, Byelorussians, Latvians, Armenians, Kazakhs; call
it the “Russian Empire”, the“Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics”, the “Eurasian Union” or whatever – it is, was and
will be, eternal, imperial Russia. Sonorous as the great Kremlin
bells, vast as the endless taiga stretching from Europe's borders
unto the Pacific Ocean
And against Mother Russia – there
stands the West. America, Europe... Decadent, liberal,
crypto-fascist. Meddling in the world's affairs, be it in Iraq or
Afghanistan, in Syria, Libya or Egypt... or indeed in Ukraine. Always
meddling. Always figuring a way to encroach still deeper into
Russia's sphere of influence.
In the Russian Narrative (be it voiced
by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin or the late Peter Ustinov) Ukraine is
Russia's cradle, Kievian Rus'; Kiev and Moscow – the heartland. In
the Russian Narrative, Ukrainians are merely Russians who speak a bit
funny (as Englishmen see Welshmen). They are to be gently mocked as
bumpkins, kept in the fold, but, should their national aspirations
get out of hand, they are to be denounced as fascists. After all,
says the Russian Narrative, they collaborated with the fascists
during the war. [The question of 'why' is inconvenient – Ukrainian
school textbooks mentioning the Hlodomor – Stalin's enforced
famine that killed several million Ukrainians in the 1930s – were
burnt by Russian nationalists in Kharkhiv last week.]
The Russian Narrative also sees Mother
Russia as perpetual victim, surrounded on all sides by historical
enemies intent on bringing their armies ever closer to the Kremlin
walls. Mongols, Tatars, Swedes, Poles, the French, the Germans –
they've all tried and failed miserably. And central to the failure of
the evil outsiders to conquer Mother Russia is the figure of the one
strong leader to maintain Russia's glory. From Ivan the Terrible,
Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Stalin... and Putin. Russia's
weakness stemmed not from weak institutions, underdevelopment or lack
of good governance and a strong middle class, but from the lack of a
strong man. Russia's 20th Century defeats are the fault of the weak
Romanov Tsars, of the weakness of Gorbachev and his superannuated
predecessors. A strong man must break eggs to make omelettes. Yes,
innocent Russians will perish at the hands of Russia, but their
sacrifice will have been for Russia's greater good. The strong man
must be kept strong by strong a strong security apparatus, be it the
Okhrana, the NKVD, the KGB or FSB. The courts, the media, the
church, must all be behind the strong man, or else his strength will
ebb and Russia will be threatened. All voices questioning the strong
man are therefore questioning Russia itself.
It is historians who hone narrative,
who nuance it, who question given theses on the basis of new sources
coming to light, who revise the narrative until there's a consensus
around it. The West's narrative is disparate, many-stranded, divided;
but the West's core strength lies in the very things that Ukrainians
were protesting for in Kiev's Maidan. Rule of law, a civil society, a
lack of corruption, property rights, strong institutions, stability
and predictability – the bedrock upon which young human beings can
plan their lives, study, save, buy a place of their own, raise
children.
The Ukrainian narrative is young and
fragile; it has yet to find a place for the ethnic cleansing that
went on in the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands in 1943, for the
Ukrainian SS units that fought alongside the Nazis, for the
corruption and cronyism that dashed the hopes of the 2005 Orange
Revolution. The narrative needs to be wise, nuanced and palatable to
the West.
Russia, for all its posturing, is weak.
Its computers run on Microsoft Windows; its browsers are Firefox,
Internet Explorer, Google or Opera. Its banks' credit cards are in
the Visa and Mastercard networks. It is weak because it is
insufficiently pluralist. We live in an interconnected world, and the
Big Man's Big Fist is no longer enough. If it keeps going down the
Putinist path, propelled by a dangerously one-sided narrative, it
will implode.
If one good thing's come out of the Ukraine crisis, it's the resurgence of the term 'the West' - and this time Poland is in the West.
If one good thing's come out of the Ukraine crisis, it's the resurgence of the term 'the West' - and this time Poland is in the West.
This time last year:
This time two years ago:
Prime lens or zoom?
This time three years ago:
Warsaw's failed bid as City of Culture, 2016
This time four years ago:
Stalinist downtown at dusk
This time five years ago:
The End of an Age of Excess?
This time six years ago:
Snowy Easter in England
3 comments:
A well-written analysis and during the reading some thoughts instantly sprang into my mind and even if they should be perished, for the sake of nurturing free speech, they will not.
The imposition on the back of Stalin's tanks of a brutal, economically stupid, regime on the captive nations of the countries that would become the Soviet bloc is viewed in Russia in imperial terms.
We must not forget Europe was divided into two blocks on Teheran conference. Stalin impose communism to many European countries, because other leaders allowed him to do so. Undeniably, this the price to pay for bringing Nazi Germany and its allies to their knees.
America, Europe... Decadent, liberal, crypto-fascist. Meddling in the world's affairs, be it in Iraq or Afghanistan, in Syria, Libya or Egypt... or indeed in Ukraine
Regardless of the purport of the Russian propaganda, is it untrue Americans are selective in meddling? Where their business (oil, etc.) is at stake, interfering is justified.
The Russian Narrative also sees Mother Russia as perpetual victim, surrounded on all sides by historical enemies intent on bringing their armies ever closer to the Kremlin walls.
This in turn brings to my mind the vision of Poland a "Christ of all nations", the eternal martyr...
Teheran, Yalta, Potsdam... whatever was discussed and decided, the reality was boots on the ground. Stalin imposed communism on Central and Eastern Europe because his tanks got there before the West's did. The "Betrayal at Yalta" is a component of the Polish narrative. Yet the outcome of WWII was predicated more by advancing armies than by diplomacy.
Very well written Michal.
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