Moscow, capital of Europe?
Translated in to English from Moscou, capital de l’Europe?, originally written in French by Alexandre Latsa for Tribune Libre.
France and the French people are, in their majority, europhils. This may seem paradoxical since foreigners visiting the country are at once struck by the people’s seeming closed-mindedness, lack of knowledge of foreign languages, and chauvinistic zeal.
However that may be, it is from the French that the first attempt at unifying Europe arose. Charlemagne, the late 9th-century western emperor, reigned, shortly before his death, over an empire stretching from modern France, parts of Spain and Italy to large swaths of the Germanic world and parts of the Balkans. For many scholars and historians, Charlemagne is the “father of Europe.” Luckily or not for Europe, Charlemagne’s empire fell apart after his death and was divided between his successors. The second French attempt at building Europe was led by Napoleon, who envisionned himself at the head of an empire stretching from Corsica to Moscow. As we all know, however, and particularily in Russia, this attempt at building a unified Europe by force of arms failed in 1812, as the Emperor was met both by fierce Russian resistance and a deadly winter.
After World War II, Europe was divided in two halves: a pro-American and Atlantist block on the one hand, and a Soviet-controlled and continental half on the other hand. Reconstruction in Western Europe was financed through the Marshall plan, in exchange for integrating NATO, an American-led military alliance formed in 1949, whose goal was to check Soviet imperialism. In 1955, Eastern European countries under Soviet rule are integrated into the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance created to rival NATO. Again, French europhilia comes to the fore when, in 1967, President De Gaulle withdraws his country from NATO’s command structure and develops its nuclear capabilities. Turning his back on the anglo-saxon world, De Gaulle embraces his visionary project for Europe, a continental Europe; he temporarily erases the Iron Curtain, advocates closer ties with Germany at first, and then with Russia to build his dream of Europe spanning from the Atlantic to the Ural. In 1960, Paris presents itself as European capital and launches a new attempt at building Europe. De Gaulle’s idea of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis, and the idea that Russia–then part of the Soviet Union–is fully European, appears even truer today.
In France, debates concerning the European identity of Russia go on. I am often asked about this gaullian boundary that is the Ural. The Ural range, a physical boundary that divideds Europe from Asia; is it really also a boundary in the heart of Russia or of Europe? We may also ask if the peoples and ethnic groups that dwell east of the Ural are different from those that inhabit the western side. To whomever is acquainted with Russia, such questions may seem ludicrous, yet they are in no way uneducated inventions, and, in my opinion, understandable, as far as De Gaulle’s semantic mistake is concerned, as well as the general lack of knowledge regarding Russia.
Since I have lived in Russia, I have been able to confirm what I had always thought: that Russia is indeed European, inasmuch as the very identity of its dominant people is that of the Orthodox Christian Slavs, or again because its cultural heritage is that of Greece and Rome. This European identity is present all across the Russian territory, from Moscow to the heart of Siberia, through to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast and back to the Caucasus and northern Carelia. Kazan iself, in the east, is no less European in appearance than Sarajevo. All this granted, Russia is not just like any other European country. In its size, the diversity of its ethnic groups, its territory stretching eastward toward the Pacific ocean and Asia, Russia is an empire, a giant whose dorsal spin is European, but some of its vertebrae are here Asian and Tatar, there Buddhist and Muslim. I sometimes tell my French friends that there is much to learn from the Russian multi-cultural model, at a time Europe is at pains to establish one such model.
Even if NATO and Russia are discussing the creation of a Northern Hemisphere defense arch from Vancouver to Vladivostok, disagreements remain. Through the extension of NATO to Eastern Europe, the US now has a foothold in the heart of Eurasia–a continent deemed strategically important in world affairs. Russia, itself a member of the Shangai Cooperation Organization, considered the Asian NATO, has moved to associate Europe to a new and complementary continental defense plan. In this way, the Russian plans for a common continental defense plan and a common market stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok are as visionary as, and are in fact to be understood as a continuation of, De Gaulle’s dream.
The only difference is that the center of impulse is now Moscow, and no longer Paris as was the case 40 years ago. The reason for this is perhaps that from Moscow westward to the Atlantic Europe spans over 4,000 km, while the territory from Moscow to the Pacific ocean covers 6,500 km. Europe’s political gravity center simply shifted eastward. A Paris-Berlin-Moscow alliance would at last provide Europe with a real political and military autonomy, which they were unable to build after 1945, and to offer alternatives to NATO unilateralism. It would also open for Europeans access to strategically important areas such as the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Pacific region. After Paris yesterday and Brussel today, will Moscow become tomorrow’s Europe’s capital city?
