COMMO N HI ST O RI CAL ROOT S
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ori ginated in a process o f d evelopme nt whi ch started , perh aps, in
Northwestern Europe with the emergence of the N etherl ands and G reat
Britain, grew slowly with th e mo re centrali zed and absolutist kingdoms
like France , and later, in th e nin eteenth century , with Ge rmany and
Italy. It's a process that has gone furth er in the twenti eth century; per–
haps the parti cular fo rmati on of Cza rist Russia and the Soviet Uni o n was
a very spec ial instance in thi s process. Of course, the Ru ssian nati on was
already stron g enough in th e seventeenth o r eighteenth centu ry to create
a big, independent nati onal state. It was easy then to move eastwa rd and
southward , to conquer all o f Siberi a with abo ut two th ousand Cossacks.
In fac t, the wo rld 's larges t co ntin ental co lo ni al power was crea ted
without great sacrifi ces, and like all colo nial powe rs it also had a kind of
peacemaking ro le in its terri to ri es, such as the Ca ucasus, where o ne hun–
dred and twenty different languages we re spo ken and th e men we re
accustomed to ca rrying guns.
T he no n-Communi st powers, from Kerensky to Ko rnil ov in 19 17,
were no t able to keep the Empire toge ther. But with their spec ifi c ide–
ological and o rga ni za ti o nal tools, the Bo lsheviks we re able to do so .
The decoloni za ti o n of Russia has begun only very recently. Ukraine was
ready fo r independence in 1917, at the end of the First Wo rld W ar, as
were Armeni a, Georgia, and th e Balti c countri es . Yet all these soc ieti es
were put in the refri ge rato r, as later o n were the East Central European
ones outside th e periph ery o f the imperium. But the co lo ni ze rs, the
Russians themsel ves, were as unhappy as the colonized . And everyone had
the feel in g that th e reason for th eir unhappin ess w as th e Other: the
coloni zed beli eved it was beca use th e Russ ians had occ upi ed their
countri es, and the Ru ssians beli eved it was because they had to occupy
those countri es. The re are j o kes in the Ottoman Empire abo ut the
tourist w ho as ks th e Hun ga ri an , "Why are yo u so poo r ?" Th e
Hungarian answers, "Because the Turks were here." And this question is
asked thro ugho ut the Balkans. Finally the tourist arri ves in Turkey and
asks, "Why are you so poor?" " It 's because we were fo rced to go into
Hungary ."
Now eve rything is coming o ut o f the refri gerato r. It is a prove n fact
that nothin g can remain buried - no aspiratio ns; no intell ec tual, ideo–
logica l, reli gious, famili al, o r po liti cal traditi o ns; no class divi sio ns.
Everythin g emerges from the soil, from underground , and all kinds of
national tendencies erupt. Those who analyze the situati o n and speak of
a kind of nati o nal renaissance are right in an analyti cal sense : it is a time
of emergence fo r new nati o ns. Yet that brings us to the problem o f the
criteria fo r " nati on. " As [ menti o ned , hi sto rical proofs and justifi ca tions
are brought to li ght by way o f a kind of political archaeol ogy, w hi ch
finds or invents some monuments, artifa cts, symbols, to " prove" that it
