the term ‘post-Soviet’ looks more precise and far more neutral than the term ‘Eurasian’.
Taking the Russian side
The power of labeling, othering, and exclusion inherent in presumably neutral geographic terms was noticed long before the classical studies by Edward Said, Larry Wolff, or Maria Todorova were published. Milan Kundera and his colleagues from Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia had desperately rebelled against the term ‘Eastern Europe’ as allegedly excluding them from Europe as a family of free nations and placing them implicitly into a legitimate Soviet sphere of influence. ‘Eastern Europe’ became like a stigma that signified the inferiority of the region, its primordial backwardness, lack of political freedom, civic liberties, rule of law. To escape from this dangerous, disreputable place they invented the term ‘Central East Europe’, which included primarily Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia but was embraced also in Romania, Yugoslavia, West Ukraine, and the Baltics by local dissenting intellectuals.
It was a just attempt to overcome an exclusion imposed upon them by the dominant West European discourse. But their own discourse proved to be equally exclusivist vis-à-vis other East European neighbors. Slovenians claimed they had nothing to do with the ugly ‘Balkans’ because they had always been Central European. Croatians followed suit by becoming ‘Mediterranean’. The Balts declared they were ‘Nordic’ and certainly should not belong to the post-Soviet club since they had been occupied by the Soviets (as if Georgia or Ukraine or anybody else had joined the USSR voluntarily). All this made the renowned Canadian historian John-Paul Himka quip: “What’s the new geography? Western Europe, Central Europe and … Eurasia. Europe has a West, it has a Center, but holy cow! it has no East. Foucault would have loved this geographical gaping wound.”
Today [2010], as all the non-Soviet countries of the former Communist block have been either admitted to the EU or placed on a firm track towards membership, the process of othering and discursive exclusion/inclusion has changed its forms but not its essence. ‘Eurasianism’, in this respect, can be defined in a Saidian way as an attempt to control and manipulate the so-called ‘Eurasia’, which is merely a code-word for the post-Soviet republics. Russian ‘Eurasian’ discourse is aimed primarily at dominance over and re-integration of the post-Soviet space. Western ‘Eurasian’ discourse is aimed primarily at marginalization of the post-Soviet republics, their exclusion from the European project, and placing them within the Russian sphere of influence and, presumably, responsibility.
Ignorance might be one reason for such a Western approach. Neither Ukraine, nor Georgia, nor Belarus have ever existed on the mental maps of the Europeans. All these nations have been always perceived through the lenses of Russian historical myths broadly accepted in Western media and academia as ‘scientific truths’. The imperial likeness of big Western powers has also facilitated their uncritical acceptance of Russian imperialistic views of the ‘near abroad’. The alternative views and voices of the subaltern nations have been silenced, marginalized, or discredited as ‘nationalistic’.
Yet Realpolitik and, in particular, a notorious Russia-first policy pursued by major West European countries seem to play a decisive role in the exclusion of the post-Soviet nations of Eastern Europe from ‘European’ discourses and ceding them to the Moscow-centered discourse of ‘Eurasianism’. Perhaps the clearest, even though the most cynical, example of such reasoning comes from a staff columnist of the influential Asia Times daily, one Spengler:
The West has two choices: draw a line in the sand around Ukraine, or trade it to the Russians for something more important. My proposal is simple: Russia’s help in containing nuclear proliferation and terrorism in the Middle East is of infinitely greater import to the West than the dubious self-determination of Ukraine. The West should do its best to pretend that the ‘Orange’ revolution of 2004 and 2005 never happened, and secure Russia’s assistance in the Iranian nuclear issue as well as energy security in return for an understanding of Russia’s existential requirements in the near abroad […] Russia has an existential interest in absorbing Belarus and the Western [sic] Ukraine. No one cares about Belarus. It has never had an independent national existence or a national culture; the first grammar in the Belorussian language was not printed until 1918, and little over a third of the population of Belarus speaks the language at home. Never has a territory with 10 million people had a sillier case for independence. Given that summary, it seems natural to ask why anyone should care about Ukraine. That question is controversial; for the moment, I will offer the assertion that partition is the destiny of Ukraine” (August 19, 2008).
Virtually the same ideas, even though in a subtler form, can be found in numerous Western reports on political developments in Ukraine (as well as in Belarus). Neither of them is treated as a really sovereign nation, with its own particular interests that might be different from or even opposite to those of its former colonial master: “From the Baltic to the Black Sea, Russia is faced with NATO or would-be NATO states and, as a much invaded country, gets nervous about the future. Paradoxically in this situation the best result for the people in both countries [Belarus and Ukraine], at least in the short term would seem to be a vote [in forthcoming elections] against the Western tendency” (French News, March 2006).
Even though ‘Eurasian’ rhetoric is not employed explicitly in these statements, all their major premises are based on a strong belief that Ukraine is a natural part of some primordial Russian-Eurasian space: “The West must appreciate Ukraine’s historic closeness to Russia and realize that many Ukrainians consider themselves members of the East Slavic group, composed of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians” (Religious Intelligence, 16 June 2008).
A very frivolous if not overtly ignorant treatment of historical and geographical facts is a lesser problem of this type of writing. What is really striking here is a 19th century essentialism that looms large in the quoted texts. Even though Western ‘Eurasianists’ recognize, in most cases, that Ukrainian, Moldovan, and Belarusian societies are divided in their identities and geopolitical orientations, they not only unabashedly invent a Russian/pro-Russian (‘Eurasian’) majority where it barely exists but also claim that this very group, with such an identity, is ‘natural’ and ‘traditional’ while the alternative is alien and artificial, imposed by some sinister Westernizers.
Andrei Tsygankov, a U.S. professor from California, perfectly sums up the political essence of the exclusivist discourse of Western ‘Eurasianists’. He starts with an apocalyptic vision of post-Soviet space, a.k.a. ‘Eurasia’:
Violence is gradually spreading, waiting for an opportunity to erupt into a large-scale conflict. Transregional transportation routes may soon be choked due to Russia’s conflicts with Ukraine, Georgia, and Turkmenistan. The West’s attempts to secure and stabilize Eurasia after the end of the Cold War must be recognized as a failure … Eurasia has not become stable or peaceful and continues to disintegrate (RFE/RL Headlines, 29 October 2009).
The only way to preventing a “collapse in Eurasia”, he suggests candidly, is to recognize “Russia’s role in stabilizing the region”:
Once this is done in practice, and not rhetorically, many pieces of the region’s puzzle may start falling into place. Energy supplies may become more reliable; governments in politically contested areas—like Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova—may obtain a greater legitimacy; and the so-called frozen conflicts may have a better opportunity to be resolved.
And if Russia is not allowed to deliver a “greater legitimacy” to the neighboring governments, they should blame nobody but themselves: Russia will probably “dedicate itself to obstructing Western policies in Eurasia”, and “we will see more of the collapsing dynamics in the region. Ukraine and Moldova may disintegrate, as did Georgia. Central Asia and Azerbaijan are likely to be subjected to a much greater degree of instability with unpredictable consequences”.
Here,
