At the Fence of Metternich's Garden

2.

So what can Eastern Europe offer to the West? Geopolitical stability? Yes, to a certain degree, but the major concern still is Russia, and world’s security and stability depend mostly on developments there. Of course, Eastern Europe may have assumed again the role of cordon sanitaire, if it was stable itself (the Balkans are the major yet not the only problem), and if this role (a “linchpin of the new post-Cold War Europe,” in Strobe Talbott’s words) has not shifted eastward, to Ukraine. Then, maybe Eastern Europe can attract the West economically? Hardly so. There are no important natural resources there, and there is a dearth of goods that could compete on the Western markets. And the cheap labor force from the East is probably even less needed in the West than the cheap Eastern goods. Perhaps only some problems of economic as well as political transition may draw the attention of Western specialists—as material for esoteric books, articles and Ph.D. dissertations.

Then what about the culture, the last fortress where East Europeans retreated after numerous historical blows and where they cherished their imaginary statehood, their imaginary Europeanness, their inner freedom? Indeed, they have much to offer in this field; the last decades of communism witnessed an enormous revival of various forms of cultural activity, both in the legal framework and underground. But again, it was a high culture which could hardly affect anybody except a narrow circle of intellectuals, both in the East and in the West. Of course, the favorable political conjuncture of the 1980s had largely facilitated the influx of East European books, films, and fine arts to the West. And some East European names became really fashionable—not so much, however, from their major works as from their op-ed articles and interviews featured in the major Western newspapers and magazines. In 1989–1990, when this vogue reached its climax, Tony Judt complained that “the whole subject remains in the hands of the Zivilisationsliterati, of East and West alike,” but he also quite reasonably assumed that “after all, the fashion will pass, but it will at the very least leave in paperback translations a library full of works by authors, living and dead, of whom the Western reader was hitherto ignorant” [Judt 1990: 50].

In the West, however, as elsewhere in the world, ignorance can be quite compatible with the best libraries, full of the greatest works. I have met a lot of university students in the U.S. who had never heard names like Goethe, Faust, or Gogol, so I was not surprised that only a few of them knew who was Milosz, Brodsky, or Kundera (Havel appeared a bit more recognizable but mostly as a politician rather than a playwright). But even this partial ‘success’ of the Easterners is very likely to fade in the nearest future, since the communist threat has disappeared, the evil empire presumably fell in rubble, and new celebrities from the East, like Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov, and Lukashenko, have advanced in the pages of Western newspapers. Manchester capitalism seems to be less supportive for the liberal arts in Eastern Europe than over-aged and senile communism.

Today [1997], as we can easily notice, the best filmmakers move to the West to make their fortunes; and the best East European artists follow them and paint everything, including fences and walls; and the best musicians perform usually abroad, sometimes in Carnegie Hall, more often in churches and restaurants; and the writers and scholars penetrate Western universities to teach whatever they can: one of them (Yevgeny Yevtushenko) confessed recently in The New York Times that he is neither qualified nor academically prepared to teach Pushkin but, in his words, he loves the poet and will teach the love.

Apparently, it is not just a Polish but an East European problem; the tremendous endeavor of East European intellectuals to withstand totalitarianism and to preserve inner freedom has passed out and become history. Today [1997], the region enters a new, non-heroic era when the old habits of resistance and fighting are obsolete while the new habits of mundane systemic work are not yet acquired. The combatants of the long anticommunist struggle may feel disappointed and dissatisfied; they still employ their outdated discourse (and the harped-upon Central East European myth is just a part of it), but East European societies seem to be not very interested. Some people are lured by the populists, some turn back to the familiar communists, and some simply switch off their ears and brains from any political messages. We have entered a new epoch, and new leaders, ideas, and slogans are apparently needed. And Tony Judt’s sobering criticism of the Central European mythology might be as topical nowadays as ever:

To suppose that this part of the Continent was once a near-paradise of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic multiplicity and compatibility, producing untold cultural and intellectual riches, has been part of the Western image in recent years. Yet […] in truth Central Europe, from the Battle of the White Mountain down to the present, is a region of enduring ethnic and religious intolerance, marked by bitter quarrels, murderous wars, and frequent slaughter on a scale ranging from pogrom to genocide. Western Europe was not always much better, of course, but on the whole it has been luckier, which is almost as good [Judt 1990: 48].

Milan Kundera was certainly right when describing Central Europe as “not a state” but “a culture or a fate.” “Its borders [he wrote] are imaginary and must be drawn and redrawn with each new historical situation. Central Europe therefore cannot be defined and determined by political frontiers […] but by the great common situations that reassemble peoples, regroup them in ever new ways along the imaginary and ever-changing boundaries that mark a realm inhabited by the same memories, the same problems and conflicts, the same common tradition.”

But he was apparently wrong when explaining why this myth (this “imaginary realm”, in his words) had not been appealing to Westerners; why it was considered as “outmoded and [was] not understood.” In Kundera’s view, Western Europe itself was “in the process of losing its own cultural identity,” “it no longer perceive[d] its unity as a cultural unity”; and because of this “it perceive[d] in Central Europe nothing but a political regime; put another way, it [saw] in Central Europe only Eastern Europe” [Kundera 1984: 36–37].

There is no need at this point to go deeper into the problem of European identity as based on a common religion and culture (“the supreme values by which European humanity understood itself, defined itself, identified itself as European”). The major vulnerability of Kundera’s arguments does not lie in his hypothesis that there was a moment when European identity changed and culture bowed out, giving way to the marketplace, to technical feats, to mass media and to politics. Maybe he is right, maybe not. What seems to be really questionable in his theory is an unproved assumption that, before that very moment, Eastern Europe had been perceived in Europe as its integral part. History gives little evidence for this argument. To the contrary, Shakespeare’s well-known remark from the Tempest (“Bohemia. A desert country near the sea”) could serve a good motto to the entire history of Western-Eastern relations. “A desert country near the sea” is just another term for the black hole behind the fence of Metternich’s garden.

Today, Eastern Europeans have a good chance to remove the fence to the east—somewhere to the western or eastern Ukrainian borders (this depends on many circumstances, but first and foremost on the commitment of the removers). And then, Eastern Europe may have become just a Europe, without additional qualifications and humiliating discussions about who is ‘more’ Central and ‘more’ European. Exactly, as nobody in Benelux or in Switzerland cares whether they are Western or ‘Central Western’ Europeans.

3.

Like any myth, the concept of Central Eastern Europe will not dissipate immediately. It will exist until there is Eastern Europe as a certain post-communist reality, and until unpredictable “Asia” stands on the Bug, or the Dnieper, or elsewhere eastward. As any myth, it has its own power, since it was created as a rephrasing of classical myths—those of the lost paradise and the promised land. The paradise was the Habsburg Empire and “cultural unity”, while the promised land was the EC, NATO and, again, “cultural unity” within a broader scope. In the internal sphere, this myth facilitated popular anti-Soviet and anticommunist mobilization; in the international sphere, it substantiated demands to the West for further recognition and support.

Yet, from the very beginning, this myth proved to be extremely exclusivist and, thereby, harmful; its side effect was not only the mystification of ‘central’ Easterners with overly pinkish visions of their pasts and futures, but also the establishment of a very dubious hierarchy of ‘more’ and ‘less European’ nations in Eastern Europe. Since ‘European belonging’, under peculiar political circumstances, had been far more than just a cultural/geographical notion, the detachment of some ‘Central’ European nations from Eastern Europe implicitly meant that the non-members of this privileged club did deserve less, if any, Western attention and help. In practical terms, it looked like a quarrel among the prisoners over which of them used to love freedom more and deserved to be released first.

Today [1997], as the ‘central’ Easterners elbow their way to EC and NATO and raise up their European credentials, one cannot but notice, with some regret, that they appear no less exclusivist than the Westerners as soon as they manage to jump over Metternich’s fence. And now, they come to believe that “Asia” begins somewhere to the east of Poland and to the south of Hungary, and that Macedonia, Belarus, and Armenia are but more “desert countries near the sea.” The Westerners had already paid the price for their exclusiveness, but for the Easterners, the price may be much higher.

All our talk about cultural unity is worthless as long as we neglect Albanians because they are poor, we neglect Belarusians because they are heavily Sovietized, we neglect Lusatian Sorbs because they are too small, we neglect Georgians and Armenians because these two oldest Christian nations are too far away from our gardens.

Who cares about all that? Who cares about wonderful Georgian cinema, which certainly was the best in the former Soviet Union and, perhaps, one of the most interesting in the world? Who cares about excellent Georgian theatre, painting, about the bright philosophers and translators (the first and only translation of Joyce’s Ulysses in the USSR was Georgian!). Who cares about great Georgian literature, which has at least two modern writers, Otar Chiladze and Chabua Amiredjibi, who would have honored the long list of Nobel Prize winners if anybody managed to read and translate them from their incomprehensible language … Again, the “tremendous intensity of spirit,” the “wild hunger for Europe” demonstrated by a small East European nation which never lost its cultural longing for Europe, have not been noticed anywhere, even by the closest neighbors. So how can we, “Central East Europeans”, complain about somebody’s ignorance, being equally ignorant ourselves?!

My Ukrainian friends may contend that their country, at least its westernmost part, is no less ‘Central European’ than Poland or Slovakia—but how to promote it into the privileged club of ‘true’ Central Europeans, if even Croats and Transylvanians look at the entrance as rather suspicious candidates? My friends may argue that the Central European, ‘Habsburgian’, myth is alive in Ukrainian Lviv even more than in Vienna or Prague; they may bring, among many proofs, the programmatic issue of the journal “Ї”—with Ukrainian translations of Bruno Schulz, Sacher-Masoch and Milan Kundera, and the stylish portrait of the emperor Franz Josef on the cover sheet of their coveted holy scripture. They would barely understand why the ‘true’ Europeans just laugh at it or, at best, smile condescendingly.

Sincerely, I believe we should stop this competition in symbolism and focus more on daily life and mundane issues. If we believe in ‘Europe’ as a system of values, we should promote them within, regardless of whether we are located in Central, or Eastern, or Central-Eastern Europe, or on the Pacific rim. Small is beautiful, and marginality might be an asset. It depends on how we manage to use its tricky advantages.

The process which Eastern Europe is undergoing now can be called normalization. It is interesting but hardly attractive. It promises little room for any ‘uniqueness’ and would certainly dissatisfy East European intellectuals who want their countries to be at the forefront of world attention. But the combatant consciousness must have gone, and exhibitionist complexes vanished. In the best scenario—unless ‘Asia’ returns, and new dictatorships re-emerge, and a new Bosnia flares up—Eastern Europe would be successfully marginalized and would certainly draw no more attention than Greece, Portugal, Finland, or Iceland. Is that so bad? For old combatants—probably yes, but for most people—no. Most people don’t care about the fence, whether it’s eastern, or central, or south-eastern. They care about the garden. I feel it’s a good time to roll up our sleeves and till it.

1998

(2) Barbecue in the European Garden

Back in 1994, The Atlantic Monthly featured Matthew Conneley’s and Paul Kennedy’s article ‘Must It Be the West against the Rest?’ with a provocative picture on its cover. A white middle-class American was grilling a barbecue in his backyard while hundreds of colored people of all races faced the process silently from behind the fence.

The metaphor seems to be highly topical. No contemporary discussion on the future of Europe and of the world can ignore the profound West/Rest divide that tends to become even deeper, harsher and irreconcilable. One need not be a committed Marxist to appreciate Immanuel Wallerstein’s idea of ‘world-economy’ as a highly hierarchical system where the developed ‘core’ nations (the ‘West’) have historically established dominance over the ‘periphery’ and ‘semi-periphery’ (the ‘Rest’), and where no ‘peripheral’ or ‘semi peripheral’ nation can get into the ‘core’ without the core nations’ support and consent.

Such a view, however discredited by the Leninist revolutionaries and anti-globalist zealots, and even more compromised by the corrupted, incompetent and repressive ‘peripheral’ regimes, is largely accepted by those intellectuals who bother to think about global problems and who reasonably loathe a world where the average European cow gets more in subsidies than an average African manages ever to earn, however hard he or she works. Yet, at the same time, the view seems to be unacceptable for the majority of the common people in the West—not only because of the discrediting and compromising factors mentioned above, and not only due to the apparent absence of any feasible solution in sight. It might be psychologically uncomfortable to recognize that the well-being of the West is largely based on the poverty of the Rest; that the so-called ‘free market’ favors the stronger player who is in position to establish (and change if necessary) the rules of the game, i.e., all sorts of self-indulgent tariffs, quotas, and subsidies; and that the popular liberal mantra of free movement of goods, services, and capital—without free movement of the labor force—is just Western hypocrisy.

Any talk on the essence of Europe and on its probable future should be placed, therefore, in a global context. It cannot be ignored—with all its profound divides and controversies. The recent paper ‘On the Spiritual and Cultural Dimension of Europe’ prepared by the Reflection Group [2004] of prominent European intellectuals, paves a rather uneasy way between the Scylla of political expedience and the Charybdis of political correctness. The middle way seems to be simple. The paper asserts that ‘economic integration as a basis of the European peaceful order’ is not sufficient today. It requires political integration, based on common values and institutions. Such an integration can be facilitated by the common European culture. The process would be ultimately beneficial not only for Europeans but for the whole world: “If Europe acknowledges the values inherent in the rules which foster its unity, then it will hardly be able to refuse a solidarity with others defined through these rules.”

These nice words and intentions could be hardly denied, even though the next sentence reveals a possible (and rather typical) loop-hole for many Western commitments and declarations: “From this globally defined solidarity, there follows a European duty, to make a contribution in accordance with its strengths and possibilities to ensuring peace in the world and to fighting poverty” (italics are mine.—M.R.) Double standards that dramatically undermine not just Western impartiality and credibility, but Western values in general, can be easily justified by the notion of ‘strengths and possibilities’. Thus, the genocide in Chechnya, unlike in Kosovo, could be tolerated; the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan, unlike in Belarus, could be internationally recognized; totalitarian China, unlike Cuba, should be accepted; its occupation of Tibet could be regarded with a blind eye, unlike Hussein’s invasion in Kuwait; the Russian oligarchic economy, unlike its Ukrainian twin, could be given ‘free market’ status, and so on.

The main problem, however, is that the paper, like many other European cultural projects, twists between the apparent task—to support the political integration of the EU (ostensibly represented as ‘Europe’) by a cultural and spiritual pillar, and the hidden desire—to represent this particular goal as universalistic and inclusive. ‘Fortress Europe’ is a reality, which will not be dismantled in the foreseeable future since it corresponds to how the world (world-economy) is arranged. People within the fortress will certainly benefit from political integration, and the fortress itself will be certainly more competitive and secure against internal and external challenges. And common culture and spirituality would indeed be of some help, both internally and externally. This does not mean, however, that without all these cultural and spiritual extras the solidarity within the fortress would perish, because the economy, as the Euro-idealists contend, is not able alone to keep the necessary social cohesion. It looks more likely that the barbecue in the backyard and the hungry faces behind the fence would facilitate the social cohesion and solidarity of the barbecue-makers fairy well. Of course, a good politics is desirable to make the backyard more secure; and a good culture would undoubtedly improve the internal climate and international PR.

But the whole story seems to be primarily about the barbecue in a cozy garden and throngs of aliens forcing their way in. At least, this is how the majority of outsiders would interpret the ambiguous notion of ‘European solidarity’: “This solidarity must be stronger than the universal solidarity, which human beings (should) feel for other human beings, for example when they give humanitarian aid”. Eurocentrism looms large in these words of the rapporteurs and there is probably nothing wrong with that—as long as we recognize that all peoples are equal but values are not, and as far as Europeans themselves are firmly committed to their professed values.

Whatever nice words intellectuals may say about cultural interaction along the borders, for the majority of Europeans their external borders are primarily a source of security threats rather than of cultural exchange and enrichment. The reason for this is simple: “The existence of a social security system implies that there is a defined space in which people can earn benefits … Many people express the idea that migrants are essentially coming to profit from the social security system to which they have not contributed and have no right; these people conclude therefore that they should be excluded by strongly defended clearly demarcated frontiers” [Hübner 2001: 28–29].

Three years ago [in 2004], on the eve of the “big-bang” EU enlargement, I happened to look through international newspapers that covered the forthcoming historic event. Virtually every second report resembled a war communiqué—a direct report from the frontline:

Dorohusk, Poland—The message here at this gleaming border post overlooking the thickly forest banks of the Bug River is that Poland is ready.

Inside a spotless weapon room is a rack of snub-nosed Glauberyt automatic pistols, a Polish version of the famous Uzi. There are 9-millimeter pistols, boxes of bullets, two submachine guns and night vision goggles inside green canvas kits.

Outside is a Land Rover, motorcycles and two dogs trained to follow tracks in the woods. Not seen, but also available to protect this stretch of the 327-mile border between Poland and Ukraine, are snowmobiles, a helicopter and a patrol plane (…)

“There was a belief that hordes of illegal migrants are waiting outside our borders and that our controls were inefficient,” said Jan Truszczyński, Poland’s chief European Union negotiator (The New York Times, 25 April 2004).

The sample comes from the respectable New York Times read throughout the world, and it represents rather a typical than an exceptional way of addressing the issue—here is, for comparison, a twin-article from the British Observer cooked apparently by the same recipe:

Come May Day, the edge of the edge of Europe … Here [at the little village of Horodlo] is the easternmost point of a new 2,400-mile frontier of the European Union …

Springtime is stirring in the little park in Horodlo and in the Sparrow pub, to which Darek and Monika have returned from Warsaw, hoping the frontier will mean new business. “They’re bringing in 40 extra policemen just for our little village,” says Monika, “to add to the two we have at the moment. And that’s in addition to the border guards.”

“They’ve been chasing out the Ukrainians,” says Janusz who keeps the mini-market, “because the Ukrainians bring in smuggled cigarettes to sell for two zlotys (28p), while we have to sell them for five. Now people will have to come to us for a smoke.”

The border of the new EU is both porous and harsh. Upriver, what they call the new ‘Velvet Curtain’ is being drawn, on Brussels insistence—a necklace of new guard posts manned by thousands of newly recruited armed men (Observer, 18 April 2004).

From such reporting, very few readers would ever guess that the above-mentioned “edge of the edge of Europe” is located in fact a hundred kilometers east of Europe’s geographic center, and that the eastern border of Europe is located some three thousand kilometers east of this mythical “edge of the edge”—a bit further than the western border in Portugal. But geography is not the main victim of this reporting. Who are the people who inhabit that empty space—three thousand kilometers of the ‘Wild East’? Would the reader ever imagine that the human beings on the other side of the border, behind the “edge of the edge” live quite a normal life and have many businesses besides smuggling cigarettes and challenging European Land Rovers, helicopters and snowmobiles, let alone a Polish version of the Uzi and Central East European dogs trained to follow tracks in the woods? Some of those easterners, one wouldn’t believe, build aircraft and teach students, translate European poetry and conduct symphonic orchestras, and most of them have typically one head and two eyes, and move mostly vertically on their two legs. All of them, however, are treated as underdogs, an inferior East European race of smugglers and prostitutes eager to sneak into the European garden for a free barbecue. Just try to enter any West European consulate with a Ukrainian passport and you will feel the superiority of the pettiest official who knows in advance that you are not a writer, not a scholar, not a journalist but just human trash like everybody else in this land, just one more trickster striving to blunt the officials’ vigilance and bypass the fence.