Whether the cost to Crimea
Alexander Baunov: inevitably, people will be interested to hear about your famous Crimean article in "Statements". I'm at the hotel Slon also published an article in a disturbing, if not downright panic key afterwards. It seemed to me that all this cannot be in the contemporary world such a number does not pass. Two months have passed, and it turned out that the modern world has swallowed it all, because, in General, nothing happened. And the Ukrainians looking at it as a lost some hunk, and our intelligentsia looks to the East of Ukraine and thinks: maybe better? "but the important thing is the same peace that guarantees Ukraine its territory generally did nothing. I was expecting some other reaction and the worst consequences for us. Do you have any feeling that actually everything and gone? And both now teach students of international law and diplomacy, if such things take place? Not great whether change?
Andrey Zubov: No. Know it develops all quite naturally and correctly. Another thing, because, as you rightly said, that it was a nepredstavimaâ situation, and we are not only you but also I am already born when nothing was, after the year 1945. We just could not imagine what is possible. Therefore, all people who slightly versed in international relations, international law, were totally shocked by this situation. The world has not become a fight with a nuclear power is clear. But the world has shown extraordinary unanimity. It showed UN vote against a resolution condemning the annexation of Crimea, voters of all ten countries, not including Russia itself. Secondly, we can see that economic sanctions are not entirely nonsense. They are very active. This powerful pressure occurs in a sensitive manner that does not allow Russia to use weapons, destabilizing the world even more. So involved-all of a sudden, nobody imagined mechanism forcing the aggressor to the world in nuclear power. Of course, not the same as when Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait.
These actions are destructive for our economy and for the elite. And somehow compels the elite think again whether they need such a leader as the current President, who pushes her into a corner and separates from the rest of the world. This is a pretty tough game, and I think it is very reasonable. It seems to me that the world is not the first time he flinched at first surprise even more than from the horror, but began to operate.
Baunov: on the other hand, Russia is not quite Western country. It is a third world country, and third world countries allowed themselves to annexation. Do you remember how Indonesia with Timor? The Argentine was unsuccessful attempt. On the other hand, post-colonial countries any such things are allowed. Here it was annexed by India in Goa quite freely. Or North Cyprus, where seemingly everything went, and Turkey remains part of NATO and part of a larger world, however, there was no formal accession.
Teeth: you understand, firstly, Russia was the country of the g-8. This was a country of the highest level of international policies. Secondly, Russia is a party to all international and European treaties, in this sense, she was considered a European country. Thirdly, Russia is a guarantor of Ukraine in Budapest. And all this together, not to mention the fact that she is a permanent member of the UN Security Council imposes on Russia absolutely special requirements which do not impose even on India, not speaking about Iraq. In this sense, Russia is a country of the third world for its modern structure of the economy, but not on its value in international politics.
Return to Soviet diplomacy
Baunov: and tell me how you think, what was Putin's idea? The annexation of the Crimea was to give meaning to his return, her Office? Or that any plan for the redesign of the international law in General? Because the last decade, twenty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we are all the time talking about the inviolability of borders, the State sovereignty.
Teeth: No, this is not twenty years we talked. We talked with the year 2001. And before that, under Yeltsin, on the contrary, we have emphasized a principled different Russia from the Soviet Union.
Baunov: so you think that it was a return to the Soviet diplomacy, after Yeltsin?
Teeth: Of Course! To the Soviet diplomacy in all respects, until the idea that Russia in the ring of enemies, which was not under Gorbachev and, in General, has not been under Yeltsin. Putin, in contrast to Gorbachev and Yeltsin absolutely Soviet consciousness: the peoples not of his will, they may release someone, someone who can not let go, coerce, compel. Forced to enter NATO-nobody forced neither Latvia nor Estonia into NATO. On the contrary, they have asked for a long time there.
Baunov: I am in this situation, here's what a little worried-I remember both Chechen campaigns: English press and Russian intelligentsia really is not supported and you have configured is critical towards the Russian army. I recently reviewed the newspaper Kommersant to show Ukrainian journalists as Russian journalists covered the Chechen campaign. They never wrote "our troops" or "our anthem," "our valiant nacgvardejcy". They wrote "Russian troops," Defense Ministry "connections". Here's the same neutrality speech even condemning neutrality, which, for example, went to air force during the Falklands conflict. This, unfortunately, I do not watch now in Ukrainian journalism and moods of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, for the rare exception. Here is the Russian State, very militarizirovannoe, pretty aggressive, there are Russian intelligentsia, which he opposes. And here we got Ukraine, where the State is weak, not militarizirovannoe, which with the world on a string collects these Guardsmen. But the local intelligentsia very cheers-patriotic.
Teeth: and the reason is very simple. The fact of the matter is that the events in Chechnya is an internal, vnutrirossijskij conflict. Part of the Russian people is not ethnically Russian, but Russian citizens Russia did not wish to live in a Russian State and rebelled. Therefore, this is an internal conflict. There were no attacks, no acquisition of territory of either country. Someone supported, but not as far. Here is totally different. Here, first came the neighboring country and just invaded, annexed within two weeks of one of the provinces of Ukraine. It's like as if Japan now occupied our far East. I think all of our intellectuals would be against this, and everyone would have opposed this. If Japanese troops landed, held a referendum and so on.
Baunov: under one condition. If the population of our far East said: "we want in Japan!"-I think that there would be people who would say: "let go to Japan.
Teeth: I think not, here would be a completely different conversation. If there began a complex diplomatic process demands the UN proceedings, then, probably, the views would be divided. But here the same one seize the captured and annexed. I have two theses, Ph.d. Ph.d., devoted to electoral studies. I have been a contributor for many years, such statistics figures on the referendum may not be altogether! Just under the laws of the electoral behavior can not be such figures. Can never participate in elections more 75-78% of the population. And never participating in elections may not favour one 90% point of view, and there's about 95.5%-practically it is impossible. That is why such a reaction of the Ukrainian society: they simply felt that a neighbor to which they were quite good and even very good, all of a sudden, when you're weak, just stole from you room in the apartment.
De-Sovietization policies
Baunov: is not a problem of the Ukrainian State, that its population does not feel this country. Whether there are any shortcomings with the part, why twenty years of independence and the population of the Crimea, and the population of the South and East partial does not feel their country?
Teeth: Omissions, it was a huge amount, not only in Ukraine, but in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. The most important omission in Ukraine and in Russia, that we did not also, desovetizaciû. And in Ukraine it hold just now-the Soviet mentality, which remained just in the Crimea and in the East, very strongly manifested. This is the biggest problem. In Russia it is still more than in Ukraine. Because in Ukraine, at least, was the condemnation of Holodomor, there was something. And we still really nothing has been done. In this sense, it is a problem of the entire post-Soviet space Ukraine and it now decides to run.
Baunov: but don't you think that decommunization in the absence of national unity people not so much to unite, how much will Spurn. Take the case of Latvia: decommunization held there full-time, up to criminal responsibility for the symbolism and the denial of occupation. However, we have in Latvia the same basin, which does not happen simply because it is a NATO member country, because there is a much higher standard of living than in Ukraine,-4-5 times. Does it make sense, if the Ukraine decommunization is not the public national unity?
Teeth: you brought the example of Latvia, and we see that there is now the Russian Foreign Ministry is indignant that the Soviet occupation equated the Nazi action and appointed criminal penalties for its justification. Why outraged? Because Russia considers itself the heir of the Soviet Union. Hence the "fifth column": people relocated or who emigrated from the Soviet Union, Latvians who cooperated with the Soviet regime they feel that here, the eastern boundary of their old homeland, which supported the Communist regime. And so they have someone to rely. We also were not carried out, but at some point began restoration of Communist values: neither Lenin not dropped nor renamed almost no Street, no city; so far we have Ulyanovsk and Leningrad region, that resent any normal person. For example, I go to the Moscow City Court on Atarbekova Street, who personally in 1918 year kills my relative, one of my ancestors in Pyatigorsk. As I walk down the street in his name to the Moscow City Court.
Baunov: Here you say, modern Russia is the heir of the Soviet Union, or at least believes himself to be the heir. But not that it is partly that the West and America, and Western Europe is in some ways not notice ending the Soviet Union and still regarded Russia as a continuation of the Soviet Union? And on the one hand, there are some internal processes are nostalgic for the majority of the population, market for part of the Guide, because the leadership conveniently manipulate any Soviet symbols and the nostalgia. On the other hand, there is the West, which has its own inertia. Many Western politicians, journalists and intellectuals, and in the 90 's, and now it was convenient and familiar to behave as if Russia is USSR, just slightly clipped on the outskirts.
Teeth: I understand. But here are a few topics. First, peace and in Soviet times, called the Soviet Union Russia. To the outside world it has always been Russia: Russia under Tsar Russia, General Secretaries and the current Russia. And you can't berate them for it, in the same way and we: we do not differentiate between modes, usually talking about the country as a continuum, when talking about another country. To prove that we are not the Soviet Union, were we. Just as the Germans had to prove that they are not Nazis after World War II. This process of denazification, long, hard, who was in Germany and which, to some extent, goes up to the present day, with the monuments of the Holocaust, with a visit to places of mass extermination. With the announcement that those who refused to serve in the Wehrmacht during the war, not criminals, and heroes, as was recognized several years ago, the German Supreme Court, are entitled to all pensions. And we have declared themselves formally, the successor of the SOVIET UNION, Putin about it a couple of times even officially declared. From December 1917 year confiscation of different types of property in Soviet Russia, and none of these types of property was not returned.
Baunov: Church returned.
Teeth: well she was not returned. She surrendered. Just specially emphasized that it is not restitution, namely the transfer of the former property of the churches of the Patriarchate of Moscow. We are the successors of the SOVIET UNION, we have all Soviet laws. No law enacted before 1917 year, not working, no! Even in the field of civil law. Therefore, for the Western man, of course, we are a continuation of the Soviet Union, and correctly, we are actually. That's right, President Putin said in 2005, the year when he said that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century is the collapse of the Soviet Union, but we have kept most of it under the name of the Russian Federation. This is the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Baunov: I have a feeling that at some point-maybe after Yugoslavia, maybe after Chechnya, maybe after Putin when he was Prime Minister and then President-pent up something. When I was still in the diplomatic service, Putin said: "Let's go to NATO!" he covered these bases in Cam Ranh, and Cuba, said that Russia, in principle, not opposed to join NATO. This project, on which we worked then and which was closed just this year-visa-free entry to Europe. And for some reason at some point increased resistance.
Teeth: well you know why? I will explain. The fact is that the integration of Germany, and West Germany after 1945 year into European structures and the integration of Eastern European countries into the European and NATO structures after 1989-1990 years involved not only external political acts. It entailed profound internal changes: denacifikaciû, also, the restitution of property, restoring the legal order. And so, when the OSCE in 2006 year, decides that the Communist regime is typologically close to Nazi and condemns it, this was to say: "get rid of all this, from the consequences of all this. And we'll take you. " And we are a country that does not izživšaâ their totalitarian past, not only in the mentality, but in legal terms.
Baunov: about heredity: one cannot say so odnomerno that the Putin regime is the heir of the Soviet past. Look at his ideology, he also is trying to stand on two legs: he seems to be the heir of the Soviet past, though rather Stalinist and Gagarin than Lenin; on the other hand, and reburial Denikin? And the Romanovs, Stolypin monument and blockbuster "Kolchak" for people's viewing on television? But apparently proskal′zyvaûŝee from all the cracks condemnation of October revolution and Lenin, the first sovnarkom all revolutionaries?
Teeth: Yes, lately appeared this phraseology at Putin. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter what people say, what people say Putin and Marmots. For the Soviet person lie-inexpensive take. In order to become a formal country, it is necessary to change the legal basis of the State. And nationalist ideology like to put in place the Communist back in the late 1970 's.
Baunov: Seriously?
Teeth: Of Course. Was indirect project archives known. In fact, Putin is a fan of Ilina, he embodies the Ilyinsky project. And Ilyinsky project is a project of the corporate State. In this form, so even after the Crimea, we will not be accepted anywhere. Fascist-in the truest sense of the word, not Nazi, and a typical State Mussolini-certainly on the threshold will not be allowed either in Europe or NATO, nowhere among the decent States. Putin prospect to choose: become a satellite or China, or a junior partner in the Muslim South. Here are, in fact, two options, the third.
Europe and Russia
Baunov: about the satellite from China or Arab South, there is a third claim that bifurcates and is as follows: Russia is either an independent civilization, and here it is, its operation, or European civilization that has remained true to its roots. Europe lost its Christian roots, there's the bearded women all managed. And Russia due to the fact that slower over time, retained the old European values and Victorian England and Catholic Spain. We are a centre of Europe now.
Teeth: It all again, roughly speaking, chatter. I know, I was on the Valdai Forum, where Putin in September 2012, these beautiful words spoken, but all this crap. Because that's really the main thing, with whom you are connected. From what you got technology, political principles, the Organization of life. Over 1100 years of Russian history were periods collapses from the most pious reasons, by the way. This is when the autocephaly in the mid-15th century we have announced, and there was no need, because we are separated from Byzantium. It was a self-declared autocephaly, after which the Orthodox world is not Orthodox, Catholic-criticized us schism and hundred years we were separated from the rest of the world in General. Weak secondary civilization, because the primary was a civilization of Greece and Rome. And we as secondary, Northland.
Baunov: I also tried to explain that we branch of European culture.
Teeth: Russia several times separated themselves from Europe, most fatal was just a branch in the mid-15th and mid-16th century, never sweat is not completely correct your common typing errors. Therefore, if we now go down this path again with the modern development technologies, especially technologies of electronic, communication, we just collapse. We are going to North Korea.
Baunov: Or Iran.
Teeth: Iran not so separated themselves from the rest of the world. And China is not separated to such an extent. And then we will be just with the bow-these seventy years of communism cost us an incredible backlog. Therefore, if we go on this track, we are destroying ourselves, I look at it with great horror. It is necessary to unite with the most powerful, advanced, dynamic and most humane. And to accept or reject homosexuality-it depends on us. In Poland it is not adopted, there is nothing of the kind.
Baunov: well this is yet.
Teeth: and we have so far. In Hungary, yes that there, in Germany until the year 1974 was jailed for three years for homosexuality. We don't know what will happen in Russia twenty years from now, but we can not copy the modern gender orders, all the more so because the European Union does not require this, it leaves it to the discretion of the countries.
Baunov: well this is rather public pressure.
Teeth: in the United States, there are States where we can, and there are States where it is impossible to absolutely nothing. Abortion, the number of which we have too, many States denied categorically. Even in many European countries: in Germany and especially in Poland. So all this talk about our peculiarities is absurd. We are not so special.
Baunov: and with Europe all right, from the point of view of its Christian identity, or not? Already attending from Russia; Here's Europe. There is a crisis of European civilization or not?
Teeth: I think that the crisis is generally normal state of human existence. You, as a person of Greek culture, know the meaning of the words. This is quite normal. Take the 18th century, would it not there the crisis of European civilization? The age of enlightenment, the French Revolution. And the 17th century? English civil war, the thirty years ' war. Hobbes and Locke, their dispute.
Baunov: 16TH century Reformation.
Teeth: not only the Reformation: what was done at that time among thinkers in the same Italy? And Thomas More. Crisis is a permanent phenomenon. I don't so much care about or are appalled by the fact that in Europe there are many proponents of legalization of homosexual marriages. For example, I care what people in Europe have the right to have a different point of view. And it's good that they have the right to have a different point of view. And win new trends, but, on the contrary, strengthened trend of Christian austerity, integrity. Want to please live man to man. Do not want-create a large family allowance will be. No one denies that person civilly. This is, I think, very good. It's just the depth of its Christian principle. Because the Foundation of the Christian approach is inner freedom like human beings.
Baunov: and I still have questions about your writing work. You write for reading Wednesday or for the people? More for reading people. Not only does Putin not only authoritarian Government, but our usual highbrow Russian shares: here's your liberal values, and here's your Christianity. Whoever imposes on us Christian values, the enemy of liberalism. It is also faced with some rejection. Our intelligentsia-it antiklerikal′na.
Teeth: I write for all. We cannot predict the outcome. As our word again-and who our word hear? The more our society now is not as different as two hundred years ago: all literate, half the people use the Internet. So who should those and read, I do not know its social were sampled. I write for anyone who wants to hear.
