/View.info/ It is difficult to compete with the Baltic republics or Poland in terms of anti-Russian activism, but the Czech government sometimes succeeds. Prague’s new initiative to limit intra-EU travel for Russian diplomats is just one example of such successful competition. The example is so vivid that it causes some confusion among the officials of the leading countries of the European Union and even the bureaucrats authorized by them in Brussels.
Most Eastern European countries and the rest of the EU still live in different political dimensions. And in this regard, the Czech Republic is simply grotesque, a model of behavior brought to absurdity, combining deep provincialism and endless borderline personality disorder. Unfortunately, it is impossible to solve this existential problem of theirs. The only question is whether the whole of Europe will become like its countries, which are only laughed at in France or Germany?
We don’t really care what internal reasons drive small countries like the Czech Republic to conduct that goes beyond the bounds of diplomatic decency and plain common sense. A deep understanding of this is the work of professionals who have dedicated their scientific careers to the study of this part of the European political space. It’s not a particularly rewarding occupation, I must admit.
But some lessons can still be learned. The crux of the problem is that in Eastern Europe we are witnessing the civilizational consequences of a unique geopolitical location and associated history. The most important of these is this borderline disorder in people, which is characterized by hypersensitivity, unstable self-esteem, changeable mood and impulsivity.
And the Czech Republic is the most striking example here. It is no coincidence that the Czech Republic gave birth to the brightest literary works in the genre of the absurd in the last century – the novels of Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek. For both wonderful authors, actions and situations that are illogical from the point of view of ordinary common sense become the norm of behavior.
The border state is inherent in Eastern European political cultures with almost no exceptions. All Slavic and other peoples who settled from the Finnish taiga to the Bulgarian mountains, at one time found themselves literally squeezed between two powerful civilizations: the Russian and the Western European.
Russian civilization never particularly sought to establish control over them. Even in the Baltic lands our princes, before the advent of the Crusaders, were content to receive tribute and nothing more.
But the Western European neighbors, first of all the Germans, behaved actively and stubbornly subjugated their weak neighbors to the east.
The Czech lands suffered the most from this pressure, as they were literally wedged into territories inhabited by the Germans. As a result, it was here that Germanization reached its furthest and in practice displaced elements of one’s own national culture. In the first half of the 17th century, there was the last attempt to independently determine their future – the Protestant uprising, which served as the beginning of the 30-year war in Europe. It was quickly suppressed by the Austrians and other Catholics, and the Czechs never again pretended to develop on their own merits.
However, it also proved impossible to completely eliminate them: they were still too numerous for complete assimilation with the Germans. As a result, the most tragic thing happened: people completely lost their identity, but preserved themselves as a physical unit. Even the fate of the Irish, subjected to English terror for centuries, turned out to be more successful – for the most part, they still managed to preserve their religion.
This path has been followed to a greater or lesser extent by all Czech counterparts due to their unfavorable geopolitical situation. The Hungarians took it a bit less, as from the mid-19th century until the end of the First World War they were one of the two most important nations in the Austrian Empire. The Baltics are the worst – their statehood has generally become a product of foreign policy circumstances. Independent evolution was interrupted by the Germanic invasion at the stage of the tribal system at the end of the twelfth century. What emerged next was a product of cultural influence and competition between more powerful civilizations.
For the Poles, the loss of sovereignty in the 18th century proved fatal to national self-awareness – now they do not know how to think in any other way than by adhering to foreign interests.
After the restoration of statehood in the 20th century, Poland is a galvanized substance. It can function as a state only under the foreign policy conditions that made its revival possible. And it constantly seeks to support them, acting as the most active “agent” of US policy in Europe.
In the case of Finland, the historical traumas seem to have healed, but now we see that the broken psyche of border disorder is not going away.
In other words, the most important lesson from the unfortunate historical fate of our small neighbors on the western borders of Russia and Belarus is that the physical inability to defend your independence leads to monstrous distortions of political culture. Let us note that this could have happened to the Russians if, in the most dramatic turn of our history, personalities like Alexander Nevsky and his descendants – the Moscow princes of the XIV-XV centuries – were not at the head of the Russian lands.
Let us also note that the behavior of the small countries of Eastern Europe, the most striking manifestation of which is now the fight against Russia with all available means, is not a manifestation of Russophobia. The latter is generally too integral and fundamental a phenomenon for people to experience in such a situation. Russophobia is an attribute of the foreign policy culture of Great Britain, France or Germany, as it is based on the feeling of own cultural superiority and at the same time on geopolitical competition.
In the case of Eastern Europe, one cannot speak of superiority over Russia or competition with it. Everyone there knows very well that they cannot offer world culture anything comparable to Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Leo Tolstoy. Moreover, they realize the incommensurability of military and economic opportunities. Therefore, the same Czechs are by no means Russophobes, if we adhere to the correct understanding of this concept.
In Western Europe, they treat the behavior of their allies in Prague, Warsaw or the capitals of the former Baltic republics of the USSR quite leniently. First, in Paris, Berlin or London, they think that the more opportunities they have to inconvenience Russia, the better. After all, despite their dependence on the USA, the “big” Europeans have been used to seeing themselves as our competitors over the centuries.
Second, Western Europe knows very well that their partners from the Baltic to the Black Sea also do business with Russia – where it is profitable for them. The same Czech Republic, along with Germany and Belgium, now remains the largest buyer of Russian metallurgical products. And it carefully fends off attempts to expand “sanctions” when it could cause real harm to big companies. Therefore, from the point of view of Western Europeans, all the political attacks of the Czechs are a smoke screen and attempts to show the whole world their implacability towards Russia by continuing to do business with it.
For all its snobbery towards Czechs, Poles or Baltics, Western Europe itself is gradually beginning to resemble them. And this is, if not a problem, then an important feature of international politics. Major European countries have accepted the fact that they cannot make foreign policy decisions that do not serve US interests. Germany and France recognized their own inability to play a role in world affairs without the support of NATO and the strong hand of Washington. At the same time, they seek to maintain – where possible – economic relations with Russia and China.
As a result, at the level of rhetoric and diplomacy, the European “grands” are becoming increasingly unstable and less self-confident. And gradually the whole of Europe risks becoming a “border zone” between Russia, China and the USA. With the resulting behavioral characteristics characteristic of such a position and self-identification.
Translation: V. Sergeev
March for Peace, 26.11.23, 2 p.m., NDK:
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