COMMON HISTOR.I CAL R.OOTS
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stay apart, since those we most passionately disagree with and have the
most mixed feelings about are our neighbors and our brothers.
Intellectually, you may conclude, as many people do, that it is much
better for the culture of the world, and perhaps for its economy and
politics as well, if things exist in codependence. And there have been pe–
riods in history when people have wanted to stay together, yet then they
have drawn apart from each other culturally. Today, no one wants to
stay together. The history of mankind itself is one of our constantly
changing our opinions. When you tire of your visiting relatives, you are
relieved when they leave. Later, you want to call them back, just to chat.
But there is no chatting if you speak different languages, and especially if
you insist on forgetting the language you once knew.
Thus, understanding the emotions of writers and intellectuals, the
representatives of each Eastern European country I have met here, I must
say that I know very well that offending someone's national emotions is
one of the most unpleasant things. And while no one wants to do that,
at the same time each of us wants also that others not offend our own
national emotions. That is quite normal. We are not mean; we wish
each other well. But there is a problem, and we are trying to find our
way out of it. The problem li es with what we call "the former Soviet
Union." It is not, in fact, "former." It is still there in all possible senses.
And as such it creates problems for each of the nations that inhabit it.
Even if you think of that Ruble Zone, as Brodsky called it, as now be–
ing "Russia plus the republics," and even if these republics still stay to–
gether and use the same ruble, those who live in that space will try to
define each of their nations by its difference from all the other possible
nations that inhabit that country. For some countries that are ethnically
uniform, it is a much less complicated situation than for Russia. For ex–
ample, the Estonians have a problem with Russians and other foreigners
living in their territory, but they know who the Estonians are; it is ob–
vious to them that there are Estonians and then there are the others. It
is easy to distinguish the two. The attitude toward these others is that
they are of course foreigners and perhaps even former enemies. You de–
cide how far back to look in order to find the first enemy. But with
Russia, the problem can never be solved, because there is no such nation
that exists made up of "Russians."
There is a Russian language; it's questionable, however, where the
Russian language starts and where it ends. Russia is huge. In a linguistic
sense, the distance is much greater from north to south than from west
to east, though you can drive from north to south in three days. To
drive from the west to the east, ten days would not be enough time, es–
pecially if you consider that there are no roads there. You just never
come to an end. And it's a strange phenomenon; there are more linguis-
