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NEW EA STERN EUROPE IS A COLL ABOR ATIVE PROJECT BETWEEN THREE POLISH PARTNERS The City of Gdańsk www.gdansk.pl
A city with over a thousand years of history, Gdańsk has been a melting pot of cultures and ethnic groups. The air of tolerance and wealth built on trade has enabled culture, science, and the arts to flourish in the city for centuries. Today, Gdańsk remains a key meeting place and major tourist attraction in Poland. While the city boasts historic sites of enchanting beauty, it also has a major historic and social importance. In addition to its 1000-year history, the city is the place where the Second World War broke out as well as the birthplace of Solidarność, the Solidarity movement, which led to the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
The European Solidarity Centre www.ecs.gda.pl The European Solidarity Centre is a multifunctional institution combining scientific, cultural and educational activities with a modern museum and archive, which documents freedom movements in the modern history of Poland and Europe. The Centre was established in Gdańsk on November 8th 2007. Its new building was opened in 2014 on the anniversary of the August Accords signed in Gdańsk between the workers’ union “Solidarność” and communist authorities in 1980. The Centre is meant to be an agora, a space for people and ideas that build and develop a civic society, a meeting place for people who hold the world’s future dear. The mission of the Centre is to commemorate, maintain and popularise the heritage and message of the Solidarity movement and the anti-communist democratic opposition in Poland and throughout the world. Through its activities the Centre wants to inspire new cultural, civic, trade union, local government, national and European initiatives with a universal dimension.
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Dear Reader,
It has become quite fashionable, and arguably correct, to dispute Francis Fukuyama’s theory that the collapse of the Soviet Union brought about the end of history. Anyone interested in Central and Eastern Europe understands that this region is far from monolithic, also in the implementation (or lack thereof) of western economic and political systems. At the same time we cannot deny that there is something idiosyncratic about the former Soviet bloc, something which links its societies together. Either through common experience or history (or both). We address this phenomenon in this issue roughly using the term Homo postsovieticus. It allows our authors to talk about the legacy of the socialist past which, as they argue, has not yet fully disappeared. Its traces can be found throughout the region and shape the lives of its many people. These traces have been captured by a group of photographers who collectively call themselves the Sputnik group (not to be confused with the pro-Kremlin Sputnik media). Their unique project is presented by Wojciech Górecki in the opening essay to this issue and is accompanied by some of their illustrative photographs. In addition, we tackle the issue of the incomplete system transformation which, in many cases, has allowed for a creation of hybrid socio-economic systems. They may, like in Georgia as discussed by Kaja Puto, be a result of a hasty reconstruction of the state to look more like what is believed to be the West. Or, as is the case of Belarus, which is analysed by Maxim Rust, reveal a slower emergence of collective identity that is both submissive and open, passive and entrepreneurial. In the case of post-Maidan Ukraine, where without a doubt the transformation has gone much further, the rooting of the western value system is also still under way. As we can see from Andriy Lyubka and Nina Boichenko’s texts the possible risks of its interruption cannot be ignored. Additionally, in this issue we have prepared two special sections: the first one, published on the 500-year anniversary of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, debates the legacy of the Reformation from our region’s standpoint, while the second, at the end of the issue, is dedicated to Joseph Conrad – a Polish-born writer whose masterpieces have been read and studied throughout the world for generations. Our authors take a new look at Conrad, his influences and how his works are still very relevant in 2017. Lastly, we are pleased to announce that in the autumn of this year New Eastern Europe will be launching a new website. It will provide new features to subscribers, who will not only be able to access our digital archive, but also read each text from the issue online via their web browser. We invite you to take a look and join us online at: www.neweasterneurope.eu The Editors
Contents Opinion & Analysis 7
Traces of the Soviet Union Wojciech Górecki Is talking about a post-Soviet reality justified? Or is it more of an offence? Does the term “post-Soviet” even make sense today – 26 years since the Soviet Union collapsed? Political scientists tend to answer this question with a no. Yet, the works of a collective of photographers, known as Sputnik Photos, show that what we are seeing now is something of a “Soviet afterlife”.
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A 21st century Homo sovieticus? Maxim Rust Instead of portraying the remnants of the Belarusian Homo sovieticus as a problem, we should see it as a challenge and potential advantage.
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A new Georgia? Kaja Puto
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Three years have passed since the onset of war in Ukraine. As a result some changes have occurred in the Ukrainian mentality but questions still remain: How deep are those changes? And what would it take for a reversal in attitudes towards the West?
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Inside Ukraine’s ideological renewal Nina Boichenko
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Oxford on the Vistula Jo Harper
Interviews 83
Seeking the ties that bind Katarina Novikova and Wiktor Trybus
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Tired of the status quo
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Not dedicated to big political visions An interview with Jan Šerek
An interview with Nikolay Artemenko
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A thief’s fear of punishment is incompatible with democracy An interview with Anastasia Kirilenko “The longer the system lasts, the more difficult it becomes to change those in power. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, democratic reforms were indeed introduced, but they were soon crushed with the strengthening of the power vertical and then everything exploded.”
The more peripheral an Eastern European country is, the more vigorously it waves the European Union flag. Georgia waves it the most vigorously, even though it is located in Asia.
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Has the war really changed Ukrainians? Andriy Lyubka
What is a Russian oligarch? Sean Guillory
History & Memory
The use of the term “oligarch” or “oligarchy” in the Russian context speaks to debates about the very nature of the Russian political system.
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Conspiracy theories and the fear of others Ilya Yablokov
Polish encounters Charles Gati Zbigniew Brzezinski’s death this year is a huge loss to me and my wife. He was America’s greatest strategic thinker and had a significant impact on my professional life, as did many other Poles and Polish-Americans throughout the last 40 years or so.
104 Connecting histories and geographies. The Jews of Central Asia Thomas Loy
Legacy of the Reformation in Central and Eastern Europe 1517 – 2017 112 On prayer and politics in the GDR A conversation with Markus Meckel
118 Poland’s Protestant diversity Andrzej Zaręba 125 The Reformation’s unexpected legacy in Ukraine Kateryna Pryshchepa 137 The humble pastor Naphtali Rivkin
Eastern Café 143 Whose hostages? Yulia Oreshina 147 When hard words break democracy’s bones Mateusz Mazzini 151 The neoliberal world was made for autocrats Millie Radović 156 In Russia’s near abroad, storylines matter Joseph Larsen
161 Feeling history, 70 years on Paul Toetzke 165 Slavic geopolitics Marek Wojnar
Special section on Joseph Conrad 178 Joseph Conrad. A Polish and European writer Kinga Anna Gajda Joseph Conrad was convinced of Poland’s great contribution to Europe. In his writings, he would present his homeland as a place with a great history and tradition. For Conrad, Poland was the beacon of Europe and Europeaness.
185 Wherever you may sail, you are always sailing towards Poland A conversation with Professor Zdzisław Najder
190 The first transnational author Laurence Davies 196 Lord Jim in the 21st Century Gene M. Moore Earlier generations found it easier to appreciate Lord Jim as a tale of a flawed hero who ultimately finds moral redemption in a tragic and suicidal death. In contrast, latter-day critics tend to regard the novel not only as a complex masterpiece of high modernism but also as an ironic revelation of the human cost of white colonial sovereignty.
202 Joseph Conrad and the East Douglas Kerr
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER The Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe in Wrocław office@kew.org.pl, www.kew.org.pl
Zamek Wojnowice ul. Zamkowa 2, 55-330 Wojnowice, Poland CO-EDITOR European Solidarity Centre ecs@ecs.gda.pl, www.ecs.gda.pl
Content with the notation (CC) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. All attempts are made to give proper and appropriate attribution to the author and source. Circulating texts without the Editors’ permit is strictly forbidden. The Editors bear no responsibility for the content of advertisements. Copyright © by the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe in Wrocław (Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego we Wrocławiu), 2017 Texts and opinions published in New Eastern Europe do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders, publishers and editors. New Eastern Europe is co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
EDITORIAL BOARD Yaroslav Hrytsak, Paweł Kowal, Ivan Krastev, Georges Mink, Zdzisław Najder, Cornelius Ochmann, Mykola Riabchuk, Eugeniusz Smolar, Lilia Shevtsova, Roman Szporluk, Jan Zielonka EDITORIAL TEAM Adam Reichardt, Editor-in-Chief Iwona Reichardt, Deputy Editor, Lead Translator Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, Editor Monika Szafrańska, Editorial Intern COPYEDITING Martin O’Reilly ILLUSTRATIONS AND COVER Andrzej Zaręba
NARODOW Y PROGRAM ROZWOJU CZ Y TELNIC T WA
The section titled “Legacy of Reformation in Central and Eastern Europe” is funded by a grant from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs received via the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.
The section on Joseph Conrad is co-financed by the City of Kraków and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
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Traces of the Soviet Union W O J CIE CH G Ó R E C K I
Is talking about a post-Soviet reality justified? Or is it more of an offence? Does the term “post-Soviet” even make sense today – 26 years since the Soviet Union collapsed? Political scientists tend to answer this question with a no. Yet, the works of a collective of photographers, known as Sputnik Photos, show that what we are seeing now is something of a “Soviet afterlife”.
In early April this year I attended a presentation in Berlin of a photo project titled Lost Territories. The project was carried out between 2008 and 2016 by a group of photographers, collectively referred to as Sputnik Photos. During the Berlin event one of the photographers, a Pole named Michał Łuczak, presented the main purpose of the project. His presentation was followed by a discussion with a Russian writer, Sergey Lebedev, and me. During the conversation we came to the conclusion that the greatest value of the project did not lie in the artistic quality of the photographs or the interesting travel recollections that were shared by the photographers. Rather, it was how it captured the traces of the Soviet Empire, both material and non-material, which can still be found today in what some call the post-Soviet space. Does this fact mean the Soviet Union, which formally ceased to exist over a quarter century ago, has survived, despite conventional wisdom? Or perhaps, its death is a slow and painful process?
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Opinion & Analysis
Traces of the Soviet Union, Wojciech Górecki Through Sputnik’s lenses
The international group of photographers, who describe themselves as a “collective” (a communist-sounding name in itself ) and call their project Sputnik Photos (www.sputnikphotos.com), was established in 2006. The project brings together artists from Poland and other Central European states whose biographies demonstrate that this is an initiative of a certain generation. The majority of the photographers were born in the late 1970s, which means that at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse they were still teenagers. They set up the group when they were in their 20s (shortly after completing their studies and starting their careers) and are now reaching 40. This is the last generation that had first-hand experience with communism. At the same time, this is a generation that has been formed by the new post-communist reality. Through photography, film and a photobook the group has been constructing, for over a decade now, a record of the transformation of the former Soviet bloc (let me admit that the topic of photographs has been By using photography, limited solely to the territories of the former USSR). film and a photobook The artists have been working with a team of curators, writers, graphic artists and cultural activists. With the Sputnik collective documentary photography being their exit point, the has been constructing project contemplates the contemporary dimension function of this space. It experiments with form a record of the and and content and thus, an important component of transformation of the Sputnik Photos are its diverse forms of visual educaformer Soviet bloc. tion which support and promote young artists from the region. So far the Lost Territories has been the most important project of the Sputnik group. It includes the Lost Territories Archive (or LTA), which is a collection of several thousand photographs that have been used in numerous installations, exhibitions and books. They have been applied in many different narratives devoted to understanding the various aspects of the post-Soviet space. What is more, the LTA should be seen as a collection of works of individual artists who have travelled across the former Soviet republics and who have taken photographs independently of their work from the Sputnik group. Each photographer has worked for his or her recognition, presenting the photos or publishing texts with their own names. Yet those individual projects are later de-constructed, which deprives them of their unique context and they become a component of a completely new chronicle. When used as part of the Sputnik project, the authors do not receive credit for the photos. In this way, they become part of the collective work of the
Traces of the Soviet Union, Wojciech Górecki
Opinion & Analysis
whole group. Individual narratives captured by the photographers’ lenses are, instead, marked by numbers assigned based on the simple order of their creation. A dictionary and a photobook The first product of the LTA to be published was the Lost Territories Word Book. It is a unique dictionary, published as a printed book, offering an explanation of certain concepts that are uniquely related to the former Soviet Union. It was prepared by a group of 21 people – writers, journalists, political scientists, historians and artists among them. The dictionary also publishes the Sputnik group’s photographs which are used both as illustrations and commentaries. For example, the definition of the term “invasion” (written by Sebastian Cichocki) is accompanied by a black-and-white photograph of the earth from above, taken from a small airplane window. The explanation of the term “resources” (authored by Aleksandra Jarosiewicz) is accompanied by an image of a large hay pyramid stacked in a meadow, while the definition of the term “Musora” (in Russian a derogatory slang term describing militia/police) authored by Małgorzata Nocuń is published together with a faded photograph of two extremely tired Georgian policemen, sitting sideways on a hospital bed. LTA3 is a photobook titled Fruit Garden and is meant to visually paraphrase the famous sentence of the Soviet fruit farmer and breeder, Ivan Michurin: “We cannot wait for favours from nature; our task is to wrest them from her.” The book is, as the authors state, “a trace of research which hides, under a layer of haphazardness and chaos, a determined quest to fulfil destiny. The search is obsessive, with a series of experiments which instead of results generate the need to observe new trials. Here the oppression of Soviet ideology is reflected in the devastated and objectified nature. The titled fruit garden becomes a training ground for different modules: space, animals, micro-organisms, plants and people. All these are parts of one multi-dimensional ideological experiment which is undertaken without any regard to its consequences.” Is this a Soviet? After looking through the Sputnik Photos’ books and exhibitions, one gets the impression that the role this project plays in photography is comparable to the contribution that the French Annales School once made to historiography. Specifically, the researchers who were associated with the scholarly journal, Annales d’histoire
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