Scraps of Moscow: Georgia

Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts

Monday, August 18, 2008

Unvacation

Since a few of my handful of regular readers may be wondering why I've let the blog go dark at such an eventful time, please allow me to explain. In recent weeks, we've been moving out of our apartment in DC, preparing to move to London. Last Thursday, we left DC for a month's vacation in Moldova, which of course also necessitated a bunch of packing. All of this came right on the heels of the bar exam, and since I had been focused on that all summer I guess I wasn't really prepared to be slapped in the face with all of the tasks presented by a relocation. It is whiny, to say the least, to complain about being stressed out at a time when there's just been a war on and people lost their homes and lives, but there you have it. I have come to think of the past month as my summer unvacation; hopefully the month to come will feel more like a vacation.

Anyway, judging from the sharp increase in visitors to this blog over the last couple of weeks (people have been checking out the maps of the region I've posted recently, especially this one), a lot of people have been using the internet to seek information about the war in Georgia. This may be a good thing or it may not - judging from what I've seen in the few mainstream media outlets I've had time to read/watch/listen to over the course of the conflict (I haven't been online much), only the laziest pundits and pontificators have refrained from weighing in on the crisis. Sometimes it is fruitful to hear a generalist's take on a region one follows closely; but often, it shows that the people who have to say things to fill air time and write things to fill column-inches are not always so careful when it comes to the facts. On just one day last week, reading two op-ed pages, I found a glaring error on each:

The most obvious one was in Richard Cohen's WaPo column from last Tuesday. Spot the mistake:

Peter the Great built his capital to face Europe, and Putin, don't forget, was mayor of St. Petersburg.

I don't think I have to elaborate for regular readers of this blog.

The other flubs were erroneous oversimplifications in a WSJ op-ed titled "How the West Can Stand Up to Russia," written by two guys from AEI, one of whom heads up something called the program on advanced strategic studies. Perhaps he operates on such an advanced level that he finds small details to be irrelevant when making sweeping generalizations; unfortunately, the history of the conflicts in Georgia is laden with seemingly trivial details and distinctions which turn out to be crucial to understanding what has actually happened there and what one can hope for in the future. Two passages from this piece caught my eye - here's the first:

Starting in 2004, Russia began issuing passports to the residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a fact that today serves as one of the main pretexts for the ferocity of Moscow's military campaign.

The authors are absolutely right to touch on this issue, which had often been glossed over in mainstream media accounts of the conflict but can no longer be ignored even by the press now that, for example, Medvedev named the goal of protecting "Russian Federation citizens" first when listing Russia's goals in going to war with Georgia in a public statement last week. I have done a lot of research on this interesting issue as it relates to Abkhazia (see a brief write-up of it here, a publication is forthcoming soon), and peak period when Russian passports were being handed out there was actually in 2002.

This may seem trivial, except that it undermines one of the authors' points, namely that Russia became substantially more hostile toward Georgia once Saakashvili replaced Shevardnadze. Hostility did increase, of course, based on Russia's aversion to colored revolutions and perhaps on the now well known personal beef between Putin and Saak, but Russia was quite willing to work on drawing Georgia's secessionist regions closer to its breast by handing out passports even under Shevardnadze.

If one can pinpoint a turning point in Russia's approach to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it was not so much the Rose Revolution as it was Russia's pacification of Chechnya, after which Russia - having ensured its own territorial integrity - began to seem more willing to undermine that of its neighbor. Unfortunately, these authors prefer to emphasize a false narrative of the Shevardnadze period as some pro-Russian continuation of "Soviet Georgia" (meanwhile, I recall attending a speech by Shevardnadze at Harvard back in 2000 or 2001 when he was so pro-U.S. it made me uncomfortable) and Saakashvili as Georgia's democratic savior. The truth is, of course, far more complex.

The second flawed passage from the op-ed was this one:

[T]he West should make use of Russia's claim that its role in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is driven by the need to protect the populations there. If so, Moscow should have no objections to U.N.-sanctioned peacekeepers and observers moving into those two regions to replace the jerry-rigged system of "peacekeepers" that, until the war broke out, consisted of Russian troops, local separatist militaries and Georgian forces.

I tend to agree that an international peacekeeping force in both regions would be an excellent next step, although Russia is unlikely to allow it and the West cannot exactly just parachute one in. Also, it's an open question whether any Western nations would be prepared to contribute troops to such a force. More importantly, the authors of the piece appear to assume similar peacekeeping situations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. De facto, it's true that in both regions the Russian "peacekeeping" forces have failed to keep up even the pretense of neutrality.

Formally, however, it's important to remember that the Russian forces in Abkhazia are there under a UN mandate (I've heard this was a quid pro quo for Russia agreeing to the deployment of US peacekeepers in Haiti) and are observed by a contingent of actual blue-helmets (the Russian press often refers to its semi-legitimate peacekeepers as "blue-helmets," but they are not in fact UN forces) under the command of UNOMIG. The peacekeeping structure in South Ossetia since the end of hostilities has been formally administered by the OSCE and by its very structure has been less favorable to Georgia.

Pointing out the difference may seem like a nitpick, but details are important in a scrap over a region where the population is only 70,000 (a fact which, by the way, makes all of the comparisons to Kosovo - where the population is roughly 30 times larger - seem a bit ridiculous). In any event, while it's an accurate description of the pre-war situation in South Ossetia, it's more than misleading - it's flat-out wrong - to suggest that the description of a peacekeeping system of "Russian troops, local separatist militaries and Georgian forces" ever applied to Abkhazia.

Since I'm not going to have time to do any sort of roundup or collection of my own thoughts on the crisis (which are, at the moment, as jumbled as the situation on the ground in Georgia), I will conclude with a few links to internet resources with worthwhile coverage.

[image source]

First of all, my friends at Global Voices Online have shown the strength of GVO's format by setting up a special page devoted to coverage of the conflict over South Ossetia and keeping it updated. Second, the New York Times has a dedicated topical page, which includes a link to their blog on the conflict, which links to various other bloggers covering the story, such as Paul Goble at Window on Eurasia. The NYT Moscow bureau's LiveJournal community collected comments on the crisis from Russian bloggers here and here. Also, the coverage by IWPR (including this Russian-language blog) - one of the most balanced internet resources on the region in times of peace and war alike - should not be missed, especially the wisdom of long-time Caucasus observer Tom de Waal.

If you're looking for the Russian point of view, check out RIA Novosti's topical page or this collection of official Russian government pronouncements.

Finally, here are some links compiled and circulated by the International Relations and Security Network in Zurich:

Media
Russo-Georgian conflict is not all Russia's fault, Christian Science Monitor
Georgia-Russia Conflict, by the BBC
In Depth: South Ossetia Crisis, by Financial Times

Blog posts
Putin's revenge, by FP Passport
Kosovo and South Ossetia, by Outside the Beltway
Danger Room: Georgia under online assault, by Wired
The Russian press, by the Duck of Minerva
Georgia, Russia and rethinking China, by the Oil and the Glory
Georgia, from the American side, by Registan.net

Publications
Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Make Haste Slowly, by the International Crisis Group
Russia / North Ossetia: Trends in Conflict and Cooperation, by swisspeace
Tbilisi Withdraws from the Joint Control Commission; Proposes New Format for South Ossetia, by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program (CACI-SRSP)
Europe’s Unrecognised Neighbours: The EU in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Reintegration or Reconquest? Georgia’s Policy Towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the Context of the Internal and International Situation, by the Centre for Eastern Studies (CES)

Primary resources
Minutes of UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Georgia, 8 August 2008 (PDF)
Minutes of UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Georgia, 8 August 2008 (Audio)
Agreement on a Cease-Fire and Separation of Forces, 14 May 1994 (PDF)
Declaration on Measures for a Political Settlement of the Georgian/Abkhaz Conflict, 4 April 1994 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 876: Abkhazia, Georgia, 19 October 1993 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 881: Abkhazia, Georgia, 4 November 1993 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 892: Abkhazia, Georgia, 22 December 1993 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 896: On Possible Establishment of Peacekeeping Force in Abkhazia, Georgia and on Political Settlement of the Abkhazia Conflict, 31 January 1994 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 906: On Extension of the Mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia and on Political Settlement of the Situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, 25 March 1994 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 993: On Extension of the Mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia and Settlement of the Conflict in Abkhazia, Georgia, 12 May 1995 (PDF)

Maps
Republic of Georgia Maps, by Perry-Castañeda Library
Online Maps of Current Interest, by Perry-Castañeda Library
Russia and Georgia at War: Day 2, by Daily Mail
Georgia, by the BBC
Ethnolinguistic Groups in the Caucasus Region, by Perry-Castañeda Library

____________________________________

And a postscript: I wrote most of this post last Thursday but then wasn't able to complete and post it before taking off for the airport. Last night, thanks to the miracle of the Russian media sphere (perhaps a more powerful influence than the CIS in the post-Soviet space) I was able to watch the Sunday evening Vesti and Vremia roundups, which from what I could tell dealt almost solely with the conflict over South Ossetia.

The coverage was amazing in several ways. First, both my wife and I had moments where we walked into the room having heard a voice on TV without seeing the speaker, certain it was Putin. In both cases, it turned out to be the new, improved Medvedev, who seems to have repackaged his speaking style to be a tough, trash-talking clone of the man who installed him in the presidency.

Second, I was quite impressed with Vremia's use of footage from CNN and Russia Today - the effect was to legitimize the Russian government's position and ORT's coverage by, for example, broadcasting remarks by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov not as filmed or interviewed by ORT, but as they appeared on CNN. The Russian PR machine has become much slicker since I last regularly watched the main TV news programs a couple of years ago.

Finally, while I don't think any YouTube clips ridiculing Russia's leaders have made it onto the government-owned channels recently, one of them (I can't remember which) aired at great length a mash-up making out Saakashvili to be basically a paranoid madman. No word on whether the producer of the clip was one of the Kremlin's media-making sausage factories or an actual amateur netizen.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

More maps of the Caucasus

A friend of mine who's based in Tbilisi has emailed me these four maps: three interesting German maps of the changing political geography of the Caucasus (sorry, I don't know the source or copyright holder), and a fourth one (also quite interesting in its own way) which goes more toward the present-day situation in a small part of the region.

Histrorical Georgia 1774-1878, full-size version available here.

Histrorical Georgia 1917-1936, full-size version available here.

Histrorical Georgia 1936 - 1959, full-size version available here.

South Ossetia Areas of Control (geor-SO), full-size version available here.
Areas controlled by South Ossetian de facto authorities in red, areas controlled by Georgia in blue.
Here's one good backgrounder on the conflict, and here's another fairly interesting brief.

More maps of the Caucasus, as well as my general disclaimer about how, while I think the old maps are fascinating, I'm also convinced they are a fairly unhelpful lens through which to view the resolution of current territorial conflicts, can be seen here.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Home

[image source]

Now that everyone seems to be talking about an impending war over Abkhazia, in spite of Germany's best efforts (see the latest news here), I've decided to finally translate this post from a few months ago by LiveJournal blogger Cyxymu (perhaps my favorite blogger from the Caucasus), a Georgian who spent his childhood in Abkhazia but now lives in Tbilisi, having become an "internally displaced person" (IDP) during the hostilities in the early 1990s.

Why am I translating this now? For one thing, it's good to remember the human side of the conflict at times like this, but I had a more selfish reason for translating this post - the parts which describe pre-war bliss sort of called to my mind my childhood comfort level visiting my grandparents in Peoria and Madison combined with my in-laws' house in Floresti, Moldova (same corrugated roof, same clattering downspouts, same type of cellar...), where I hope to be spending some time next month.

And perhaps the most selfish reason for undertaking the task of translating this lyrical post rather than rooting around the internet for the most up-to-the minute speculations and accusations is that I just don't have time to do a proper roundup of all the analysis and pseudo-analysis that's circulating at the moment about what might actually happen in the region. Hopefully it will stay at the usual level of saber-rattling.

Anyway, here is cyxymu's post, titled "home":

Last night I dreamed about my grandfather's house. I hadn't dreamed about it in a long time, and it was amazing to find myself back in my childhood.

Most of the time I spent in Sukhumi I lived in that house, I knew all of its nooks and crannies, had secret hiding places and places to be alone and dream...

I dreamed that I was climbing the stairs to the attic, and it was so nice to listen to the rain fall up there. My brother and I went up there a lot and listened to thunderstorms, you could hear the branches banging against the corrugated roof, the rain pounding the tile and flowing down the gutter.

I also liked to hide in the garage, my brother and I had our headquarters there, the garage had a metal roof and the rain would pound on it really hard...

Sometimes when the Besletka [river] would rise during a rainstorm, it would start to flood. The water would pour into the cellar, and then we had to save our supplies) heroism was rewarded with the jam that grandmother made.

In the cellar we had hiding places where we hid all sorts of things, even just before we left, we hid an optical sight that I had found that very day. In back of the house was a chicken coop, and a rooster woke us up every morning as he summoned the sun to rise. Sometimes rats would get into the chicken coop, and I would hunt them with a small-caliber Geco. That's what I wanted the sight for.

In the garden grew everything necessary for human life: two types of pears, apples (champagne and winter), persimmons, green springtime plums [ткемали], plums, feijoa, medlar, figs and two kinds of cherries. I planted the peaches with my own hands. And tomatoes, cucumbers, raspberries, strawberries (though the strawberries often went bad, since we had very damp earth). The cucumbers liked to climb up on the raspberries, and we sometimes missed a cucumber, since we couldn't always see them in the greenery, and it would grow into a big, yellow cucumber. Then grandpa would say, "Well, it's OK, we'll use it for seeds next year."

Every spring he would start the seeds first in cans, then he would replant them into wooden crates, and only then into glass hot-houses. And when the tomatoes grew tall, grandpa and I strung nets over them, so that the pears wouldn't fall on the tomatoes when they ripened.

During [the war], when an Abkhazian shell hit next door, a bit of shrapnel took down a branch of the champagne apple tree as wide as your arm, some of the other trees lost limbs also, and I kept saying that it was the trees that protected us...

Shrapnel chopped up the whole house then, pieces flew in the window of the room where grandpa and grandma slept, miraculously not touching them, lots of bits penetrated the walls, tore the roof apart, knocked out all the windows in the house... But we didn't go move into an Abkhazian's house, instead we put in new glass and fixed the roof (patched the holes). Thinking ahead, we stuck crosses of white paper tape on the windows...

My heart aches for that house more than any other, in spite of the fact that we had nicer houses and apartments in Sukhumi. My heart stayed behind in that house.

And more than anything I can't forgive myself for leaving behind my grandpa and grandma - when I took my parents out of Sukhumi, I was hoping to return in a couple of days.

And no one from my family was able to make it to Sukhumi for my grandpa and grandma's funerals. We simply weren't allowed to return.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Even more Caucasus maps

I found one last book with scan-worthy inlaid maps in my attic archives - Kavkazskii Krai - Putevoditel' (Caucasus Territory - Guidebook) by Sergei Anisimov, from 1928. The book's largest and perhaps most spectacular map - a map of Caucasus tourism routes - is something I'm still trying to stitch together from four digital files, since the original was too big to scan in one piece, even on a large flatbed scanner. But the ones which scanned in easily are still quite lovely and - as with many artifacts of the Caucasus - susceptible to being invested with all kinds of meaning.

Anisimov - Kavkazskii Krai - Cover

The coolest of the maps I was able to scan in would have to be this map of Caucasus transit routes, which bristles with all kinds of quaint station-names, including Tikhoretskaya, a station made famous as the destination of the train in the beautiful and haunting song sung variously by Alla Pugacheva in the classic movie "Irony of Fate" (Ironiia Sud'by) (a subtitled video of the song from the movie, with Barbara Bryl'ska lip-synching to Pugacheva's singing, is at 7:45 of this clip (part of a medley of songs from the movie, the second part of which is here) and a clip of just the song, without subtitles, is here) and by Vladimir Vysotsky.

Kavkazskii Krai - Transit Routes, full-size version here.

[update July 15]

Another interesting thing about this map is that it shows the state of railways in Abkhazia in the 1920s - when there wasn't a single line in the region. Wikipedia has more on the history of Abkhazian rail transport. The rail line through the region has of course has cropped up as a relevant point in the conflict resolution talks (and as the subject of a few interesting online photo essays documenting the crumbling infrastructure) a number of times over the years and has more recently become a convenient excuse for Russia to increase its troop presence in the region.

[/update]

Also of interest is this map of the Caucasus' always controversial ethnography. This 1928 snapshot is the sort of thing that proponents of secession in Abkhazia and South Ossetia like to roll out to verify (perhaps not without justification) that "once upon a time, these lands were ours." Often this is accompanied by the tongue-twisting - and often mind-bendingly employed - word "autochthonous."

Kavkazskii Krai - Ethnographic Map, full-size version here.

This map of the Caucasus' geological zones is perhaps interesting in its own right, but I found the most interesting aspect of it to be that it measures longitude in degrees from Pulkovo.

Kavkazskii Krai - Geological Map, full-size version here.

And I'm including this map of ~~Tbilisi~~ Tiflis mainly because it is a cool-looking, old-timey map, which is ultimately the spirit that motivates much of my map-scanning, although I am sure one could do an interesting analysis of the street names - which ones had already been changed by the Soviets by the late 1920s, which ones would later be changed, etc.

Kavkazskii Krai - Tiflis Map, full-size version here.

See all of the maps I've posted here.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The one that got worked out

Here is a map of a region in Georgia that is no longer a conflict zone. In the late Shevardnadze era (i.e., the early 2000's), Tbilisi's tenuous control over Ajaria (a.k.a. Adzharia, Adjara, Achara) was often mentioned in the same breath as the de facto independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as evidence of Georgia's failed statehood.

Relatively soon after the Rose Revolution, however, in May 2004, Ajaria's wily ruler Aslan Abashidze, who had run the province pretty much as a personal fiefdom since the Soviet breakup, was ousted from his perch in Batumi and forced to flee - to Moscow, I believe, to take advantage of the hospitality of his pal Yuri Luzhkov, who had earlier tried unsuccessfully to insert himself as a mediator in the conflict between Batumi and the Georgian center.

The only real tragedy of Abashidze's ouster was the sad fate of his many fancy dogs. The departure of the long-time leader did not fully quiet the dissatisfaction of the local population, however, and the fact that it was accomplished without violence may have fostered an early and unjustified sense of confidence among Saakashvili's team that the other regions which had strayed even farther from Tbilisi's control would somehow be easy to bring back into the fold. The region retains nominal autonomous status, which it also enjoyed during the Soviet era.

Anyway, here's a map of the region made in less chaotic times - circa 1985:

Achara Side 2, originally uploaded by lyndonk2; full-size version here.

Achara Side 1, originally uploaded by lyndonk2; full-size version here.

Please be patient, and don't worry...

...I'm running out of maps to post, in case you've grown weary of the ongoing series. It's not my intention to make this blog a repository for examples of Soviet cartography. But hopefully at least a few readers find all of these vintage maps of the Caucasus to be of interest. This one is a mid-1980s folding map of Abkhazia:

Abkhazia-Side1, originally uploaded by lyndonk2; full-size version here.

Abkhazia-Side2, originally uploaded by lyndonk2; full-size version here.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Black Sea Coast of the Caucasus

This map took much longer than I'd care to admit to scan in, since it had to be scanned in bits and then digitally assembled - and I don't really have the proper software for that, so sadly I had to use the very basic MS Paint. I might have given up if the thing wasn't so visually spectacular. It dates from 1970 and has thumbnail photos and brief summaries of tourist attractions on the back.

Through sometimes painful experience, I've concluded that Flickr is a better photo host than Blogger, so I've uploaded the images there - if you want to see larger-sized versions, click on the picture or the link underneath it and then once you have been taken to Flickr, look for the "all sizes" icon above the photo. I've also added a link to the very largest version of each image in the captions below.

BlackSeaCoastMap, originally uploaded by lyndonk2; full-size version here.

BlackSeaCoastMap-Back, originally uploaded by lyndonk2; full-size version here.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Another Abkhazia-related map

Continuing my recent spate of posts about Abkhazia, here is another map I found in one of our boxes of stuff from Moscow, most likely purchased at Izmailovo or some other flea market - a tourist's guide to Sukhumi from the early 1980s. I scanned it in at a fairly high resolution, so if you click on the images and view the full-sized files you should be able to read the narrative text describing the city's various tourist attractions.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

More on Abkhazia

I'm not in a position to try to follow the breaking aspects of the story and provide updates on the escalation or de-escalation of tensions, various visits to the region by foreign dignitaries, etc., but I did want to post a few more maps as well as point out that the International Crisis Group has just issued a report on the situation in Abkhazia. I haven't read it yet, but if it's anything like their past reports on the conflict it will be interesting and useful. I normally skim over the "recommendations" portions of their reports and head to the meatier narrative portions, which contain insights from interviews conducted by ICG which you might not see elsewhere.

As for the maps, I've scanned them in from a book I recently acquired, Konflikty v Abkhazii i IUzhnoi Osetii: Dokumenty 1989-2006 gg. I was expecting a dry compilation of documents and perhaps some black-and-white maps - imagine my surprise when the book arrived with two inlaid full-color maps and maps on each of the endpapers.

The book is published in Moscow and at least one of the maps appears to have been authored by a relative of Abkhazia's de facto leader Sergei Bagapsh, so it is quite possible that the maps are designed to make subtle and perhaps deceptive political points (this is also suggested by the somewhat tendentious title of the second map - rough translations of the map titles appear as captions below).

Nevertheless, they are so well-designed that I couldn't resist posting them (though I'll be happy to take them down if the copyright holders object!), and I would imagine that at least the ones based on 1989 figures are reliable. The map titled "peacekeeper deployment" also contains ethnic breakdown figures, but they are based on the questionable 2002 census figures arrived at by the de facto Abkhazian authorities.

Click on the images to expand them:

Ethnic minorities in Georgia (based on the 1989 census)

Ethnic minorities within (the internationally recognized borders of) Georgia
(based on 2002 figures)

Abkhazia: an ethnic map based on the 1989 census

Republic of Abkhazia and peacekeeper deployment

Friday, May 30, 2008

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Pondering the prospects for a post-Putin "perestroika"

[image source]

I found this article fascinating - hopeful and yet pessimistic at the same time, it perhaps relies too much on comparisons with the USSR and makes a conclusion that may be too bold. But its author, an emigre sociologist and a long-time and prolific commentator on life and public opinion in the USSR and Russia, makes a number of important points in arriving at that conclusion.

Johnson's Russia List
27 May 2008
How the new Russian President could start a new Perestroika with friendly trips to the capitals of neighboring countries
By Vladimir Shlapentokh
Michigan State University

[...]

[M]aintaining the image of the world as an enemy of Russia is a crucial way to legitimize current regime, along with the political stability in the country. The imperial ideology exploits the nostalgia of many Russians for the great empire and abets nationalism. It pits the population against foreign countries, treating them as hostile toward Russia and its integrity, and as working against the restoration of the country’s previous geopolitical role. In order to maintain a climate of patriotic agitation and divert the people from the country’s real problems, Russian politicians and journalists talk incessantly about “great Russia,” “Russia’s great past,” and “the great victory in 1945.” It is remarkable that, on the official site of the Russian president (2000-2007), the adjective “great” was mentioned more than 3000 times.

The practicality of the imperial ideology is seen in the fact that up to 85 percent of the population, according to a survey by the BBC at the beginning of 2008, responded positively, in one way or another, to the xenophobic propaganda of the Kremlin and its foreign policy. In fact, the ruling elite do not possess other ideological ways to influence the minds of most Russians. Alternative ideological fundamentals, such as private property and the market economy (in April 2008, Medvedev underscored their importance for Russia), are not attractive at all to the majority of the population, which hates the corrupt bureaucrats and their illegal fortunes. Only 10 percent of the population, according to a survey by Levada’s polling firm conducted in November 2007, declared that they “respect people who became rich in the last 10-15 years.”

Only the imperial ideology allowed the Kremlin to pursue its deeply antidemocratic domestic policy and disregard the growing social inequality in the country. This ideology justifies the supremacy of the “national leader” and the mistreatment of democratic institutions. It presents the members of the opposition as almost foreign agents and makes it impossible for Western organizations, such as the British Council, to function in Russia. It justifies the rude intervention of the state in the activities of foreign companies, such as British Petroleum, which cannot protect their interests against Russian competitors. It helps persecute the Protestant Church in Russia as an American agent. The imperial ideology also treats Stalin as its main hero and maintains his positive image by silencing the media’s coverage of the mass terror in Soviet times.

In fact, the imperial ideology is only meant for a domestic audience and its influence on the relations with foreign countries is rather limited. The case involving the USA is typical. During the parliamentary (December 2007) and presidential (March 2008) elections, the volume of anti-American propaganda was extremely high. However, this propaganda did relatively little to deteriorate the relations between the two countries and in no way prevented the cordial meeting between Bush and Putin in Sochi where they, like a loving couple, went to see the sunset on the Black Sea on March 27.

In order to restart Russia’s move toward democracy, it is vitally important to break the spine of the imperial ideology. Germany and Japan, after the war, would not have been able to take the road toward democracy without a resolute and consistent rejection of the ideology of supremacy, militarism and expansionism.

The most peculiar fact is that a radical change of foreign policy is much easier than doing the same in domestic affairs. This is exactly what should be on Medvedev’s mind, if he wishes to be a liberal and not one of Putin’s clones. Medvedev seemingly understands the danger of using “greatness” as the central postulate of the official ideology. In April 2008, Nikolai Svanidze, a known Russian journalist, asked Medvedev, “What does great Russia mean to you?” Putin’s heir answered, “Russia, without doubt, is a great country.” However, he then called upon the Russians “not to be intoxicated” with the idea of “greatness” and to look soberly at the real position of Russia in the world.

Many liberals are waiting for the release from prison of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch jailed by Putin for his political ambitions. However, Medvedev would have a more difficult time releasing Khodorkovsky than attacking the imperial ideology. As a matter of fact, liberalizations in post-Stalin Russia began in this area. Even before Khrushchev’s famous speech about Stalin’s atrocities at the Twentieth Party Congress, he proclaimed a policy of peaceful coexistence and undertook a number of actions that radically changed Soviet foreign policy. He was instrumental in the achievement of the armistice in Korea in 1953 and the peace in Indochina in 1954. Then, in 1955, he made a trip to Yugoslavia and apologized for Stalin’s policy toward this country and its leader Josip Tito. Then (still in 1955 and before “the thaw”) he reduced the Soviet army.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s foreign deeds also preceded his domestic liberal policy. Before the Soviet people and the world understood Gorbachev’s democratic intentions, which did not become clear until 1987, the new Soviet leader met with Reagan in November 1985, only a few months after his ascension to power. This meeting marked the beginning of the warming of relations between the two superpowers. It was followed by a new meeting with the American president in the next year in Reykjavik. By 1987, the USSR and USA prepared a treaty on the elimination of short- and middle-range missiles.

The experiences of Khrushchev and Gorbachev might serve as a playbook for the new president, if he had the guts to turn toward the democratic road. In fact, the major obstacle to democratization is the Kremlin’s support for the imperial and nationalist ideology.

Ironically, the key element of the imperial ideology and Russian foreign policy that should be attacked by a new reformer is not the animosity against the West, the USA or Europe. The hatred of Russia’s neighboring countries (the former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia, and former satellites such as Poland) plays a much more important role today. For instance, in AprilMay 2008, Russian media talked much more about the perfidious Georgia than England, which now, after the Litvinenko case, is also treated as a committed enemy of Russia. What is more, the media talked about Georgia almost as much as it did about NATO, which is seen as another one of the country’s fierce enemies. Indeed, between April 21 and May 22 , Georgia was mentioned almost 590 in 50 major Russian newspapers; England was mentioned 420 times and NATO 425 . The Kremlin’s aggressiveness toward the neighboring countries is a major source of friction between it and the West, which became apparent at the Bucharest meeting of NATO in April 2008.

Many experts in Russia and the West believe that the imperial ideology is deeply rooted in the Russian mind. Of course, the traditions of the country’s political culture, with its authoritarianism and xenophobia, are quite strong. However, the impact of the media on the Russians is much stronger. Khrushchev easily and almost instantly transformed public attitudes toward Tito’s Yugoslavia, a “fascist country,” from deep hostility to friendliness. President Reagan was vilified by the Soviet media in all possible ways from the moment of his inauguration in January 1981. However, when he came to Moscow as Gorbachev’s guest in May 1988 (I was there and watched it myself), he was greeted by ordinary people and intellectuals with great joy.

It would be easier for the Kremlin to redirect the media away from its hostility toward the Ukraine and Georgia than make the judicial system honest and independent. If president Medvedev decided to “reboot” the Russian political process, he would have to go on friendly visits to the capitals of all neighboring countries, starting with Kiev and Tbilisi. These visits would be as historically important as Khrushchev’s trip to Belgrade in 1955. He also must remove (which would be even easier) the main hawks on TV, including Maxim Shevchenko and Mikhail Leontiev, who sow the hatred of the external world on an everyday basis by inventing the most absurd theories about the subversive activities of the United States and the Ukraine against Russia.

Whether and when Medvedev will choose this scenario is highly uncertain. Many subjective and objective factors are in the game. So far, all signals coming from Moscow indicate that Medvedev, as Putin promised, will stick to the imperial ideology. He had no objection against the military parade on the Red Square on May 9, which was clearly addressed not to foreign governments in order to scare them, but only to the domestic audience in order to fuel the imperial spirit in the country. In his speech at the parade, Medvedev talked about some enemies who present threats to the motherland. In his capacity as president, Medvedev deemed it necessary to visit the base of strategic missiles in order to “enjoy,” as reported by a Moscow newspapers, “the might of Russian weapons.”

The new president also hailed Russian TV, an open bulwark of the imperial ideology, and the antidemocratic policy as “one of the best in the world.” Instead of Tbilisi and Kiev, Medvedev chose as the place of his first visits Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) and Beijing (the capital of China). Both visits, as Moscow newspapers wrote, demonstrated the continuity of Putin’s foreign policy. However, these first steps did not doom the idea of a future perestroika. Mikhail Gorbachev, in the first year of his tenure, verbally attacked imperialism and considered the improvement of the Soviet military forces as his main task.

However, it is almost certain that a return to democracy in Russia lies in the capitals of Ukraine and Georgia. Friendly relations with its neighboring countries are important to Russia because any hatred of them damages the Russian people. Whoever becomes the next American president, he or she should pay special attention to the relations between Russia and its neighbors. Without an improvement of these relationships, Russia will not be a stable partner in solving the world’s major problems.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Russian popular opinion on the "frozen conflicts"

[image source]

The Russian Analytical Digest (RAD) is a valuable resource; each issue focuses on a different topic (almost always something highly relevant to current events) and has essays as well as polling data. A recent issue focused on the "frozen conflicts" (even as that term comes to seem less and less apt) in Georgia. The lead essay provided a good overview of the ongoing tension between Georgia and Russia over Abkhazia and South Ossetia and incorporated some of the ideas that were discussed at a recent conference on the "frozen conflicts" that I was fortunate enough to attend.

One interesting thing that the RAD often does is put together relevant polls on whatever topic the issue is covering, often using Russia's major polling outfits. Even though one of them has been compromised after its director received an award from Putin for his work during the recent election campaign, their polls are still probably the best ways to follow the changes in Russian public opinion over a span of years. Here are a few of RAD's graphical summaries of their polling data on Abkhazia and South Ossetia (click on them to enlarge if you can't read the fine print):

[original source - Levada Center]

[original source - VTsIOM]

Russia's third major polling agency, FOM, also had a report in early April about the situation surrounding Abkhazia, with some interesting analysis about the changes in Russian public opinion about the secessionist region over the years:

And how have the events in Kosovo affected Russians' attitudes toward the Abkhazian problem? Reference to the example of Kosovo is encountered fairly rarely among the arguments advanced by those in favor of recognizing Abkhazia's independence - in just 2% of the responses: "how is it any worse than Kosovo?"; "America recognized Kosovo, and we need to recognize Abkhazia"; "in connection with Kosovo - likewise." [these are quotations from FOM's respondents]
There is, however, another number, which obviously demonstrates that the events in Kosovo have put Russians noticeably on guard. Since October 2006, the portion of our fellow citizens who believe that Russia should recognize Abkhazia's independence has declined by 12% - from 51% to 39%. Correspondingly, the percentage of respondents who found this question difficult to answer increased from 30 to 45%. The answers to the free-form questions prevent us from concluding that support in Russia for Georgian sovereignty over the region has increased. More likely, we should conclude that solidarity with Serbia and feelings of sympathy for the "brother Slavs" related to their loss of Kosovo forced some Russians to begin to doubt whether it is desirable or acceptable to promote separatist tendencies wherever they may arise - including in Georgia.

The FOM question discussed in the bit I translated above was worded as follows (the graphic is from the same report):

In 1999, Abkhazia declared its statehood and independence [from Georgia]. Other countries have not recognized Abkhazia's independence. Do you think that Russia should or should not recognize Abkhazia's independence?

(left column - should [recognize]; center - should not [recognize]; right column - difficult to say)

(blue - July 29-30, 2006; purple - Oct. 7-8, 2006; yellow - March 29-30, 2008)

The latest chapter (or perhaps the latest paragraph in the latest chapter) in this very long story would seem to be this report.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

A bit dated but still interesting

[image source]

I decided to type up my notes from a talk I went to a month ago (on April 22) titled, “Recent Russian Policies in Georgia: How Should the West R