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NEW EA STERN EUROPE IS A COLL ABOR ATIVE PROJECT BETWEEN THREE POLISH PARTNERS The City of Gdańsk www.gdansk.pl
A city with over a thousand years of history, Gdańsk has been a melting pot of cultures and ethnic groups. The air of tolerance and wealth built on trade has enabled culture, science, and the Arts to flourish in the city for centuries. Today, Gdańsk remains a key meeting place and major tourist attraction in Poland. While the city boasts historic sites of enchanting beauty, it also has a major historic and social importance. In addition to its 1000-year history, the city is the place where the Second World War broke out as well as the birthplace of Solidarność, the Solidarity movement, which led to the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
The European Solidarity Centre www.ecs.gda.pl The European Solidarity Centre is a multifunctional institution combining scientific, cultural and educational activities with a modern museum and archive, which documents freedom movements in the modern history of Poland and Europe. The Centre was established in Gdańsk on November 8th 2007. Its new building was opened in 2014 on the anniversary of the August Accords signed in Gdańsk between the worker’s union “Solidarność” and communist authorities in 1980. The Centre is meant to be an agora, a space for people and ideas that build and develop a civic society, a meeting place for people who hold the world’s future dear. The mission of the Centre is to commemorate, maintain and popularise the heritage and message of the Solidarity movement and the anti-communist democratic opposition in Poland and throughout the world. Through its activities the Centre wants to inspire new cultural, civic, trade union, local government, national and European initiatives with a universal dimension.
The Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe www.kew.org.pl The College of Eastern Europe is a non-profit, non-governmental foundation founded on February 9th 2001 by Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, a former head of the Polish section of Radio Free Europe and a democratic activist. The foundation deals with cooperation between the nations of Central and Eastern Europe. The aims if its charters are to carry out educational, cultural and publishing activities, and to develop programmes which enhance the transformation in the countries of Eastern Europe. The organisation has its headquarters in Wrocław, Poland, a city in western Poland, perfectly situated in the centre of Europe and with a deep understanding of both Western and Eastern Europe.
Dear Reader,
Exactly five years ago we published the first issue of New Eastern Europe. Titled “Europe with(out) Borders” it examined the deeper meaning behind the concept of “Eastern Europe” and why a greater understanding of this region requires more than just the removal of political borders. Our authors pointed out to the need of breaking down stereotypes in the West, but also believed that necessary changes had to take place in the East. In the opening essay, Martin Pollack warned that the alluring enthusiasm towards a united Europe without borders would be replaced by a troubling doubt. A lot has happened in our region since we published that first issue. No one could have predicted the massive changes that we have witnessed, from Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency, the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea to the refugee crisis in Europe. Unfortunately, they all provide empirical evidence to Pollack’s thesis. Thus, this issue, titled “Brave New Borders”, re-examines the topic of a borderfree continent as well as offers analyses on the border changes 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time new borders emerged. Not all of them, as Thomas de Waal and Maciej Falkowski argue, fit the social context of the countries they are meant to demark. This, in turn, can spark conflict and lead to separatist tendencies as well as other undesired developments. Borders can also be rendered meaningless by massive migration movements, as Vesna Goldsworthy illustrates in the case of the United Kingdom and the Balkans. Memory can also create borders, as is argued by Ukrainian writer Andriy Lyubka who takes us on a journey to search Ovid’s traces in the places where the Roman poet spent his last days. Lastly, Ulrike Guérot (Germany) and Dániel Mikecz (Hungary) debate as to whether we are truly ready to live in a borderless world. Clearly, the thematic scope of this issue goes beyond borders and includes the critical essays on the most current and pressing developments. They include Francisco de Borja Lasheras’s in depth analysis on the reform process (or lack thereof) in Ukraine and Taras Kuzio’s unmasking of Europe’s extreme politics rooted in Soviet narratives. Lastly, we would like to thank you all for your amazing support throughout these years. In 2011 we started as a small initiative, launched in Poland thanks to a very unique co-operation between three Polish partners: the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk, the city of Gdańsk and the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe in Wrocław. Today we can say with all certainty that it was the trust between these three partners and your interest in this region that has allowed for New Eastern Europe to become the international platform for dialogue and exchange that it is today. The Editors
Contents Opinion & Analysis 7
Revenge of the border Thomas de Waal
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In the Soviet Union the concept of a border was ambiguous. The Soviet borders were both very open and very closed. Since the fall of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, however, the concept of the border has emerged to reinforce the nationalities of the new republics.
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The experiment of post-Maidan Ukraine lacks a long-term vision of reform, even if this has become the new benchmark to judge political legitimacy. Europe hardly has a long-term vision for Ukraine either.
A journey upstream: New meanings of the border Vesna Goldsworthy
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At 25 is Ukraine any closer to Europe? Joanna Fomina
A difference between Serbia and Britain might be that the former is emptying and the latter is filling, both at speeds which can affect their ability to flourish. Much of the current debate about the European Union, in either place, appears to me to be a distraction from this bigger story. The new global migrations do not listen to national votes.
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Hybrid deportation from Crimea Greta Uehling
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Wine and geopolitics Kamil Całus and Piotr Oleksy
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In search of barbarians Andriy Lyubka
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Can we live in a borderless world? Ulrike Guérot The truth is that we are living in a borderless world and we do not want to change that. “The world is flat”, wrote Thomas Friedman in 2001. We want the gas for our heating from Russia and we want to fly to Hong Kong for Christmas. We want Africa’s resources, chia seeds from Latin America and cheap electronics from China. In fact, we want our borders open for trade, but not for people and that is the European dilemma.
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Reforming Ukraine in times of war and counter-revolution Francisco de Borja Lasheras
Believe it or not: Borders ensure political action Dániel Mikecz
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Building co-existence: Part II Krzysztof Czyżewski
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The South Caucasus. A stable change Maciej Falkowski
Over the last two years, the West has been watching Moldova with disappointment as this tiny country has gone from a role model of EU democratisation and modernisation to a de facto authoritarian oligarchy.
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The Mikhalkov-Putin syndrome Leonidas Donskis
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The Soviet roots of anti-fascism and antisemitism Taras Kuzio
101 Russia’s complicated memory Kacper Dziekan 106 London’s gift to Moscow Grzegorz Kaliszuk 121 Armenia seeks to bolster its role as a transit state Erik Davtyan 127 Central and Eastern European heritage in the Southern Cone Stuart Feltis
Interviews
People, Ideas, Inspiration
135 The collapse of the Soviet Union was a miracle. The tragedy is taking place today
182 Good girls seldom make foreign policy Iwona Reichardt
An interview with Serhii Plokhy
143 The Donetsk that we used to know no longer exists An interview with Yuriy Temirov
Eastern Café 190 Between Ostpolitik and eastern policy Paweł Kowal
Reports
200 Snapshots of Central Asia Eimear O’Casey
151 The Balkan Route uncovered Natasza Styczyńska and Omar Marques
205 Searching for shadows Maxim Edwards
Greece is currently housing around 50,000 refugees and migrants, most of whom live in camps that are overcrowded and miserable. As the situation has worsened, compounded by growing conflicts inside the camps and long wait times for asylum, the number of illegal crossings through the Balkan borders has grown.
History & Memory 165 Monument wars in the Baltic states Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik
A Debate on Memory 170 A new national story? Jean-Yves Potel Since coming to power in 2015 Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS) has enacted its historical policy aimed at ending the “pedagogy of shame”. However, instead of bringing Poles together, the new plan is dividing the society.
176 In the interest of freedom Piotr Skwieciński After 1989, the Poles who were enslaved during communism and humiliated with lies about their own history, needed a story with their own heroes. The new government’s historical policy aims to satisfy this need.
211 Energy quest for Belarus Vytis Jurkonis
25 years together. Regional co-operation between Poland and Saxony 216 Why a good neighbourhood matters? Paweł Kurant 219 We can be optimistic about the future An interview with Adam Hamryszczak
223 On Polish-German relations during challenging times Bartosz Rydliński 227 Preserving the unity of a fragmenting Europe Kai-Olaf Lang 231 Borders of opportunity Adriana Skorupska 238 Poniatowski in Leipzig Konstantin Schoenfelde
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER The Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe in Wrocław office@kew.org.pl, www.kew.org.pl
Zamek Wojnowice ul. Zamkowa 2, 55-330 Wojnowice, Poland CO-EDITOR European Solidarity Centre ecs@ecs.gda.pl, www.ecs.gda.pl
EDITORIAL BOARD Leonidas Donskis, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Paweł Kowal, Ivan Krastev, Georges Mink, Zdzisław Najder, Cornelius Ochmann, Mykola Riabchuk, Eugeniusz Smolar, Lilia Shevtsova, Roman Szporluk, Jan Zielonka EDITORIAL TEAM Adam Reichardt, Editor-in-Chief Iwona Reichardt, Deputy Editor, Lead Translator Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, Editor Igor Lyubashenko, Contributing Editor Stuart Feltis, Contributing Editor COPYEDITING Martin O’Reilly ILLUSTRATIONS AND COVER Andrzej Zaręba COVER LAYOUT Do Lasu s.c SUBSCRIPTION dystrybucja@kew.org.pl LAYOUT AND FORMATTING Małgorzata Chyc | AT Wydawnictwo EDITORIAL OFFICES New Eastern Europe ul. Mazowiecka 25 p. 808, 30-019 Kraków editors@neweasterneurope.eu European Solidarity Centre Plac Solidarności 1, 80-863 Gdańsk tel.: +48 58 767 79 71 ecs@ecs.gda.pl
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Revenge of the border T H O M A S D E WA A L
In the Soviet Union the concept of a border was ambiguous. The Soviet borders were both very open and very closed. Since the fall of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, however, the concept of the border has emerged to reinforce the nationalities of the new republics. Yet, these were borders based on the nationality policies of Lenin and Stalin, the consequences of which persist today.
It is the summer of 1984; an Intourist bus carrying a group of British students travels high into the Caucasus mountains. Our guide, named Sasha, announces: “We are now approaching the Russian-Georgian border. Please get your passports out.” He pauses and says, “Only joking!” In the Soviet Union, the concept of a border was ambiguous – at once a formidable and a slippery thing. A Soviet foreign border, backed up by a deep security zone and miles of barbed wire, was an impenetrable barrier; “abroad” exists on the other side (literally in Russian za granitsei, “over the border”). The USSR hymned its vigilant border guards protecting the Soviet state from enemy intruders. In 1938 the poet Daniil Kharms, best known for his absurdist works, was one of many to write a patriotic poem for children, praising these defenders: Ни в метель, Ни в пургу Не пробраться
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Opinion & Analysis
Revenge of the border, Thomas de Waal
Врагу! День и ночь начеку Пограничники! Neither in a blizzard, Nor in a snowstorm, Will the Enemy get through! Our border guards are alert Day and night! These external borders were, at once, impregnable and liable to sudden change. The Soviet Union’s borders expanded several times in the 1930s and 1940s, as it annexed pieces of neighbouring territory in the Baltic States, Bessarabia, Eastern Galicia and Karelia, to name some examples. In many of these cases, the Soviet authorities tried to legitimise their land grab with a plebiscite authorising the change of border, a device used again in Crimea in 2014. Incubator of new nations Back then the Soviet Union also had a mass of open internal borders, like the one I crossed in the Caucasus in 1984, whose meaning was even more complex. The USSR was a vast and multi-layered federal structure of regions with different statuses, carefully delineated in the 1920s and 1930s. As the new state was constructed on an ethno-territorial principle, separating national groups with a newly defined or even newly bestowed nationhood within the Soviet family of peoples, many of these borders became de facto “ethnic borders”, dividing one national group from another. This, to be sure, made the Georgian-Russian border a dividing line in the minds of Soviet citizens, even as it was easily traversable. And, of course, when the Soviet state broke up in 1989 – 92, the status of several of these internal borders led to ethnic conflicts: in Nagorno-Karabakh, When the Soviet state South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, the Prigorodny broke up in 1989 – 92 Region of North Ossetia and Chechnya. For years there was a western scholarly consensus the status of several that the Soviet Union was the “prison-house of nations,” internal borders led that is to say, it proclaimed a multi-ethnic identity but only a mask concealing a unitary Russian state. to ethnic conflicts. itThewasethno-territorial borders, Sovietologists contended, had been drawn on a “divide-and-rule” basis so as to set one ethnic group against another. Later on, however, western scholars challenged this notion by tracing how certain kinds of national identity developed and actively flourished in the Soviet
Revenge of the border, Thomas de Waalâ€
Opinion & Analysis
era. The phenomenon of nascent Soviet nationalism became all too real in the perestroika era, when union republics and autonomous regions challenged Moscow with ready-formed nationalist agendas. It is no wonder that it took scholars a long time to get this right, as the paradoxes of Soviet nationalist policy are breathtaking to consider. The Soviet Union nurtured nations and murdered them. Stalin vigorously promoted Ukrainian nationalists in the 1920s and then ruthlessly suppressed them in the 1930s. Russians were, at the same time, the most privileged citizens and the most neglected. Soviet borders were both very open and very closed.
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