Cancelling Russia

warsaw-pilsudski-square-1900s.jpg, default, Aerial view of Warsaw, with the Saint Alexander Cathedral in the Saxon Square, 1919; photo: Wikipedia , center, #000000

#language & literature

Perhaps it’s necessary to write about the lame metaphors conjured by philosophers’ pens, about how inaccurate they are, and even more often about their lack of imagination and beauty. Usually philosophers, being guided by anamnesis, can do everything best, so they don’t have to read poets. But then they spread these quasi-poetic visions of theirs, often to the abhorrence of a sensible audience.

Nevertheless, one such philosophical metaphor stuck in my memory, although – like all of them – it was not particularly poetic but was somehow accurate and convincing. I found it in Francis Fukuyama’s apology of American liberal civilization. Referring to it, the philosopher anticipated possible questions about the status and place of illiberal and undemocratic states within the supranational structure of a homogeneous and universal state, i.e. one having a strictly global character. Well, countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and others that openly reject the ideals of Western democracies, says Fukuyama, will be treated like broken cars on the highway: they will be towed to side roads and left there. After all, every user of highways knows that lumber left on the roadside is a threat. For example, one’s car can run into them. This striking metaphor, however, does not explain what will happen to these cars next: will they be repaired, or will they be scrapped? If their fate is to be in a junkyard, will anyone be willing to dismantle them? And what about vehicles that are not so easily scrapped? What about a tank? What about an armoured vehicle? In other words, what about Russia?

As it happened, the Marquis de Custine knew exactly what to do with Russia. Russia must be pushed out, he argued, from the family of European states, preferably somewhere deep into Asia, because one can never come to terms with it in any way. This Slavic-Mongolian state has aggression written into its very DNA. And even if it swears that it wants to live in peace, it will not be able to do so, because it does not have the opportunity, the appropriate facilities, or the political institutions. There, the tsar makes decisions for everyone. Russians in Russia do not even have a scrap of space where they could think about freedom – their own or that of others. They are tucked away in the warmth of their homes, in chimney corners, away from political institutions. Therefore, sooner or later, Russia will explode into aggression, showering its neighbours with a hail of deadly missiles.

Ceremony on the day of the coronation of Tsar Alexander III at Saski Square at the so-called Loyalist monument in Warsaw, 1881. Photo. Wikimedia Commons

Mochnacki, even earlier than de Custine, also knew what had to be done with Russia so that it would not bite, and he was one of the first who was eager to tear apart its European hull. Its annihilation, he wrote, would finally allow Poland to reach its full potential. First of all, it would take its place in the North.

Everyone agrees that the future of the Slavic region, the fate of European civilization, and finally the freedom of central and western Europe depend on a whole and independent Poland; but as far as I know, no one has yet said with precision that the interests of eastern Europe, commercial and material interests, combined with higher political and moral interests, also depend on such a Poland. Let’s imagine a Russia stretching from the shores of the Icy Sea to Taurica [Crimean Peninsula, ed.], without Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia and Ukraine [remembering that the Crimean Peninsula is legitimately an integral part of Ukraine and was annexed by Russia illegally, trans.e], that is, the Russia that the uprising of 29 November [1830, PN] endeavoured to leave to the tsar, for the happiness of Europe and for its own salvationd. Next to such a Russia, let’s imagine Poland, created from the mentioned parts and eight voivodships on the Vistula River, well governed, armed, independent and powerful, in a strict [military, with NATO, PN] alliance.

Well, and then what? Can you imagine it? If not, keep reading:

There are relations between Poland and other parts of Russia, even those that are very remote, that are worthy of consideration in terms of the composition of a state, and especially in administrative, commercial and military terms. The Colossus has tamed its nature through an acquisition, the venerable legacy of the Jagiellonian dynasty, thatt incorporates it into Europe and binds its scattered parts into a certain, though irregular, whole, and [this Colossus, ed.] dares perform the movements and gestures of a giant, from the north eastward or from the centre westward and allows itself to expand with a stronger drive and a more steady directiono. Our country is the guide to the power of the tsars from the north to the east and south of the state. It is through Poland (for those who can accurately picture the location of the appropriated Polish provinces) that Muscovy pushes at Turkey and works effectively on all the eastern and southern partitions [i.e. lands acquired from Poland by Russia in the partitions, specifically modern Ukraine, ed.]. Within this political body, the mass of our land is like a heart in terms of its blood circulation. It is the pulse, the pulse of the new North.

Niecała Street in Warsaw around 1908, Photo by an unknown artist, source: Muzeum Warszawy

Undoubtedly, Mochnacki was a visionary, as anyone familiar with his writings will admit. He was aware of the weakness of future nation-states, which is why he projected Poland as a Commonwealth, not even as an empire, but as a strong organizational structure – political and cultural – creating an inter-regional order, which Carl Schmitt wrote about a hundred years later, using the concept of the Reich that he knew well. It was quite clear to Mochnacki that Russia was to be culturally and morally polonised, to take from Poland its softness, its subtlety, and above all to acquire some refinement, which taken together would make it an important element of a new political entity – a New Republic created around the idea of a broadly understood, historical Polishness. Polishness is to be the ‘pulse of the new North’. If today the writings of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Sologub and even Tolstoy evoke such a strong sense of abomination in many Poles, one must ask why. It is no coincidence that reading Pan Tadeusz strengthened their belief in the fundamental goodness of man. Pan Tadeusz reflects ‘the order of existence as an image (or mirror reflection) of pure Being’. The Russian experience is different. The Russian writers I have mentioned and their audience see evil, suffering and human misery everywhere. Their man is a battered, ragged beast subjected to inhuman temperatures and social pressure. It won’t get better, they say, it can only get worse.

Pushkin’s Onegin and Lermontov’s Pechorin – they are inhabitants of the Infernal City, the land of the disinherited, in which all are gradually reduced to spectres, to phantoms eof the abstracted intellect. The Man from the Underground, Raskolnikov, Ippolit Terentiev, Stavrogin, Kirilov, and Ivan Karamazov are blood of blood, bone of bone of their creator; and Dostoevsky, internally riven, corrupted by the ‘scientific world-view’, wages a desperate war, whence comes his extraliterary literature that, sad to say, is well adapted to the aberrations of our time.

This, however, is a topic for a separate story. In short: Russia, if it only wanted to – and it does not want to, therefore it must be persuaded or forced – could develop in the spirit of Polishness, thanks to which it would take on a different form from that of a military drill, finally becoming something more specific, with a view to the personal freedom of ordinary people. Anya, Taras, Sasha, Lyosha – although no, not Lyosha – then Lusya and of course our wonderful, beloved Natasha – they have all been Polish at least once, so they know what it’s like. However, when you ask them about history or politics, about Katyń, Kolyma, Mariupol, their faces harden, change beyond recognition, take on imperial features, an expression of inhuman strength. And then those good people turn back into plain Russkis who stand upright and look for someone to punch. All it takes is an order, a nod from the tsar. This is just who they are. And then, in a way that’s incomprehensible to themselves and others, they soften again, they want to be Poles again, our beloved Slavic brothers. Should we be indifferent to the need for permanent change, of which they are unaware? Secretly, every Russian wants to be a Pole but is afraid to admit it even to themselves. They are prevented from doing so by the Russian infernal Leviathan, which demands from all of them the Aztec cult of blood and sacrifice … Я, я, я, только я.

And what to do with Asia, with all the inheritance from the former Russia, which made it a powerful, wealthy and dangerous entity? Cut it off! Let Asia – a cursed, inhuman land – drift towards Asia. These are poisoned resources for which millions of human beings have paid with their lives and suffering. This land – like the Belgian Congo – only spoils Russia and Europe. It is their hell.

Sources

Translated from Polish by Michał Pelczar

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19th century literature

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