Russias, great and small

In a discussion with Ian Mc-Ewan in 1984, Milan Kundera asked him to ponder the national anthems of 8220;small8221; and 8220;big8221; nations.

In a discussion with Ian Mc-Ewan in 1984, Milan Kundera asked him to ponder the national anthems of 8220;small8221; and 8220;big8221; nations. Big or 8220;great8221; nations know that they have been around for a long time and that they will be around for longer still. The 1977 version of the Soviet national anthem began, 8220;Unbreakable union of freeborn republics/ Great Russia has welded forever to stand!8221; The still extant Czechoslovakia8217;s anthem, in contrast, began with the searching and hesitant 8220;Where is my home?8221; Or consider the opening of the mazurka that became the Polish anthem: 8220;Poland has not perished yet my emphasis8221; Small nations, even when they have constituted themselves into well-defined states, are not exactly sure where they are headed, how history will treat them, whether their country will still exist tomorrow. For small nations, existing is mostly a history of becoming, and not always to be where big nations are. It is more often a question of ensuring that they are not wiped off the map.

The problem of big and small significantly defines what, for want of a better term, can be called national attitude. The old imperial European states and those they conquered, dominated or colonised were not of the same stock. The amalgamation of memory and desire has made Putin8217;s Russia the embodiment of the longing to reclaim the past in and for the future. Putin described the Soviet collapse as the 8220;greatest geopolitical disaster8221; of the 20th century. His presidency actual and through Medvedev, his past, his stated philosophy have provided ample evidence of the desire to reclaim the Czarist and Soviet legacy of security and prosperity through expansion and domination. Russia wants to be where the US is but its geopolitical problems are closer home. Thus, in reality, Russian neo-imperialism is more a matter of securing the neighbourhood. Aggression, by that token, is no longer invading or robbing someone else. It is, rather, a defence mechanism to stay alive.

Compared to Russia, small Georgia has faced an existential crisis since the break-up of the Soviet Union qualitatively different from the Russian trauma of the Yeltsin years. It practically lost South Ossetia in the 1992-93 war and never had the means to reclaim it. But then, after the ouster of Eduard Shevardnadze in 2003, Mikheil Saakashvili took over, promising to get back 8220;lost territory8221;. Saakashvili, who has since the Rose Revolution increasingly and incredibly lost his democratic credentials and now looks more like a mini-Putin, blundered into believing that Putin8217;s absence from Moscow was a guarantee against a swift and violent Russian response. His ill-conceived invasion of South Ossetia last weekend is most likely to cost him South Ossetia and Abkhazia for ever, and perhaps even the Nato membership that French and German prudence had denied Georgia. He may even lose the presidency once patriotic fervour has mellowed.

Georgia is guilty of civilian deaths and refugees in thousands. However, Russian designs have run deeper and have been in place far longer. They had a de facto occupying army in South Ossetia, which handed out Russian passports. Last year, Russia fired a missile close to Tbilisi; it built an armed presence in Abkhazia while South Ossetian rebels under its patronage stepped up violence. South Ossetian and Abkhazian dread of Tbilisi and Russian aggression are distinct.

Irrespective of the legitimacy of South Ossetian desires to join North Ossetia in the Russian federation, Russia8217;s actions demonstrated that its motives are geopolitical. Dmitry Medvedev may have been asked to declare an 8220;end8221; to the war, which he has done, but Russia has made its point.

Since energy supplies have allowed the Russian economy to rebound it contributed 64 per cent to export revenues in 2007 and keep the people happy with Putin, Russia must control each and every energy conduit around itself. But Russia8217;s war is not about just the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the only one in the region outside Russian control. It is symptomatic of Moscow8217;s denial of an independent foreign policy to the erstwhile Soviet republics 8212; Ukraine and Georgia dared to vie for Nato membership. The old fear of 8220;encirclement8221; justifies reestablishing the Soviet sphere of influence.

As long as oil money keeps pouring in, 8220;Czar Putin8221; is not likely to face strong opposition at home: the poverty of the Yeltsin years has ensured Russians care more for tangible goodies than about Kasparovs and Khodorkovskys. And the West will be at its wits8217; end when Russia says that South Ossetia is its revenge for Kosovo. And Putin, whose characteristics scholars have fantastically and separately compared to those of practically every Czar worth the name Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Nicholas I will maintain the vertical power structure and provide Russia 8220;Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism8221;. That is why, unlike its other and more widely despised counterparts, Russian neo-imperialism generates a sense of deacute;jagrave; vu. As the novelist Vladimir Sorokin told the BBC: 8220;Russia is like a block of ice floating back into the 16th century.8221;

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Incidentally, the Russian anthem begins: 8220;Russia: our sacred stronghold,/ Russia: our beloved country./ A mighty will, a great glory/ Your heritage for all time!8221;

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