For only the second time in my life, I’m in the Slav world: I walked from Italy into Slovenia earlier in the week and spent yesterday exploring Ljubljana, before today heading on to Zagreb. But Crikey doesn’t pay me to write travelogues, so instead of talking about the scenery (wonderful) or the weather (cold), I’ll focus on geopolitics.
For centuries, one of the reigning myths of western Europe (to which the Anglo settlement of Australia is also heir) has been that the Slavs are barbarians: peasant peoples unfit for self-government. The myth has been fortified by repeated waves of conquest and colonisation; most recently, it was a powerful ingredient in the Cold War. Before that, the German, Austro-Hungarian and Italian empires were the west’s bulwark against the Slav world.
But things have changed in the past 20 years. On all accounts Slovenia is one of the great success stories of post-communist Europe. For years a secure province of the Austrian empire, not even in the borderlands, it later became part of Yugoslavia before winning its independence in a brief war in 1991. It is now a peaceful and prosperous member of the EU.
As usual, though, talk about the Slavs ends up being talk about the Russians. What happens to Slovenia concerns mostly the Slovenians, but Russia overshadows its fellow Slavs and, indeed, all of Europe. It has been the stage villain in western morality plays for at least two hundred years. Its integration into an open and democratic Europe is a matter of vital importance — if it’s possible. Is it?
Slovenia is unmistakably Slav — for a westerner, the deep incomprehensibility of the language gives it away. The extension of democracy eastwards has confounded a lot of sceptics. But democracy in Russia still seems tantalisingly elusive.
So what’s the moral of this? Unfortunately, different people will draw it differently — although perhaps that’s a moral in itself. Those who want to believe that Slavs need the civilising influence of Germans or Italians can continue to do so. I see it differently: democracy, or constitutionalism (the Austrian empire was no democracy), doesn’t happen overnight; it takes work and practice, but that practice is available to everyone.
We now know what could still be doubted 50 years ago, that Slav nations can be liberal democracies. That warrants optimism about Russia. And if there is nothing anti-democratic in the Slav soul, that’s another reason to doubt the similar nonsense still spread about the Chinese, the Arabs, or whoever the latest bogeyperson might be.
Gee, what an article!
Americans claimed time and again, that the Russian post revolution emigres had a huge influence on American scientific and cultural development. Demonising Russia was always a part of a Western policy. Easy to forget the War of Roses , times of Henry VIII and the history of the Tower of London. Henry V ordered to murder 2000 of French aristocrats, prisoners of war, after the Battle of Agincourt. Richard the Lion Heart…. the shame of knighthood and England.
Barbarian Slavic nations produced such savages like Jan Hus, Copernicus, Chopin, Bolzano, Andric, Kusturica, Gogol or Tolstoy.
Czech savages like Smetana, Dvorak, Capek or Hrabal could never perform in a savage country. The university of Prague was founded in 1349. Bedrich Hrozny deciphered Hittie language and Gabriel Farenheit and Helvetus gave new meaning to science and astronomy. Barbarian Czechs are famous for Tesla, Ferdinand Porsche, Havel and obviously Good King Venceslav.
At the time when Western Europe was busy fighting religious wars, many of the ‘heretics’ found a safe haven in Poland.
Barbarian Poland was the first Commonwealth in Europe. And the first liberal democracy with ‘liberum veto’.
The Jagiellonian university of Cracow founded in 1364 is famous for many outstanding students and graduates. One of those graduates was the first female student in the Middle Ages, called Nawojka.
Nicolaus Copernicus and the Pope John Paul II were some of the famous students.
The famous Polish scientist Maria Curie Sklodowska was the first female Nobel Prize laureate. She got her Nobel Prize TWICE: in 1901 and 1911.
The highest summit in Australia was named after a Polish national hero, Tadeusz Kosciuszko. It was named by Polish Sir Paul Edmund, the Count Strzelecki. Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Pulaski were also fighting in American War of Independence. Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski is one of the most famous English writers although his spoken English was very ‘ethnic’.
Prof. Banach founded the famous Polish School of Mathematics. And Polish mathematicians deciphered Enigma Code and smuggled it to England when the war broke, thus contributed enormously to the victory over Germany. Poland produced many pagans like Penderecki, Paderewski, Wajda, Zamenhoff, Kieslowski, and the Swiss hero, Polish president- engineer Narutowicz.
There is the whole army of Slavic Russians; writers, scientists and composers, like Prokofiev, Szostakovich, Tschajkovski, Rimsky Korsakov, Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, Mendeleyev, and the list is endless.
At the time when England declared their ‘splendid isolation’, mainly from Europe -fighting overseas wars, Europe was a breeding place for great scientists, artists, humanitarians and educators.
Slovenia is the least ‘Slovenic’ bunch of the lot. For centuries they mixed and blended with Austrian/Hapsburg and then German culture. They are still ‘Slavic barbarians’, though.
Just wondering what is the definition of ‘a barbarian’.
Thanks Rena – I hope there wasn’t anything in what I wrote that makes you think I disagree with anything you say. I think the myth of slavic barbarism is just that – a myth.