On the last day of May a congress of Slavic nations will open in Moscow. The presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are invited. The main objective is “the intensification of economic and cultural cooperation.” Lukashenka had already agreed to come. Putin gave an assignment to study the form of his participation. Kuchma had not respond as yet.
Good and fine. The object is wonderful. The place for the congress is familiar, and so are the participants.
However, for some reason you cannot avoid feeling that something is not being announced. For instance, we had never heard before about congresses of the Germanic nations (English, Germans, Swedish, Norwegians, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, etc.) or the Romance ones (French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) for the intensification of economic and cultural cooperation.
Moreover, the congress organizers’ self-restraint is astonishing. No one can say that the Bulgarians, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Muslim Bosnians, or Macedonians are less Slavic or worse Slavs than the Russians, Ukrainians, or Belarusians. Most perhaps they would be offended to hear it. All the more that some moments of the common Slavic cultural heredity are respected among those nations more than it is on the ground of the former Soviet Union. And when speaking about the intensification of cultural cooperation it might be logical to turn to them. The more so when speaking about economic cooperation of the Slavic nations, because all the Slavic countries significantly outstrip the post-Soviet states in rates of economic development and integration into world and European structures, and this gap grows wider. During the last 150 years none of this nations had stepped forward with Panslavic and similar propositions which are still popular with Moscow.
Intensifying cooperation in all directions is a very good thing. Especially when it is about ousting, in particular, the Ukrainian products from the Russian market by means of the anti-dumping investigations. Intensification of cultural cooperation is a wonderful idea. Especially if we recall that many contemporary Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians have never read Dostoyevsky and never heard of Rachmaninoff or nineteenth century Russian painter Tropinin, not to mention Yanka Kupala, Kotsiubynsky, Skovoroda, or Kotliarevsky.
However, using a congress for fighting against the economic failure and lack of culture looks funny. It is hard to say if all that is about an inferiority complex or a desire for self-isolation from the common processes, or something else.
The myth of the “Slavic brotherhood” canno t be an answer to the “nobody is waiting for us in the West” myth. Equally mythical is an opportunity of elevating contacts with the West at the cost of refusing to cooperate with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. This is especially so, when we take into consideration that today’s Moscow, which declares pragmatism above all else, does not believe in myths and emotions anymore.
Everything regarding Panslavism carries a smacks of yesterday at best. But, as it is evidenced by practice, a large part of the Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians still live in that yesterday.
