Can the dragon be slain? Of course it can. That’s not the issue. The main question is: why? And it’s much more difficult to answer that than many people realise.
For me and for many of my fellow citizens, the unbroken thousand-year history of Russia is important. The roots of our common European – and now our Euro-Atlantic – civilisation are important.
It’s important for me that we’re not aliens in this Western world, but among its creators and defenders. Yes, we lost a great deal when we protected Western civilisation from the Tatar-Mongol horde, from the Asian invasion, and as a result we became different people; but in our culture we didn’t become Asian. I don’t want to say anything against the ancient and wonderful Asian culture, just that it's not ours. We’re closer to William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes than to Hafez or Sun Tzu.
The modern world isn’t simply globalisation, communication and cooperation. It’s also competition on a new, global level, on the level of world civilisation.
Endless wars and contempt for human life have left us with far too little to suggest that we could afford to start another, new, separate civilisation that was able to compete.
Of course, there’s always a place on the fringes of progress, and the modern world is sufficiently humane and aware not to encroach upon this fringe. There are gentle ways to use those who are too weak to take part in real competition.
But I hate the idea that my country might occupy this space! We’re European! We helped build and defend this civilisation and have as much right to our place in it as do the French, the Germans, the British, the Australians, the Canadians or the Americans!
For centuries we’ve walked side by side, shoulder to shoulder with them, and we know that we need them and they need us. We refuse to listen to stupid and greedy people who want to drive us apart for their own selfish ends.
Yes, we can find a lot of events in history that it would have been better had they not happened, but even our troubles and our wars have been shared. To this day we remember the 50 million people who died in Europe in the Second World War alone, both friends and enemies… But the 50 million who died in China? We know about them… Do you feel the difference?
The first working title of this book was Gardarika: the Country of Cities. Why? Because Gardarika was a country from those long-off times when Europe was one. And we will be that again; it’s our historic destiny. But having our place at the shared table depends on us. It depends on our talent, our brains, our ability to anticipate the future and achieve those specific goals that will make us, our children and our grandchildren happy.
I’m making my contribution to this work. May whoever is capable of it, do more – and better.
1 Gardarika comes from the Old Norse words “gard” for city and “riki” for land, signifying a nation of many cities that take power into their own hands. It has nothing to do with Yegor Gaidar, who was the first post-Soviet Russian Prime Minister, responsible for freeing prices, which led to hyper-inflation.