By Batiushka for the Saker blog
Tell everyone that the evil that is in the world will grow even stronger,
but that it is not evil that will triumph, but love.
Tsar Nicholas II
Foreword
A published author for 35 years on Church and cultural matters, I wrote a first article for the Saker that was published on 29 March 2022. It seems strange now that it took so long for me to offer to write here, as Andrei and I have the same spiritual background. The SMO in the Ukraine was the turning-point. This article, for 24th February 2023, is the last for Andrei's blog. Appropriately for the Orwellian-minded, it is the 84th article in those 330 odd days, one every four days. Thank you, Andrei. As for future writings on geopolitical and cultural themes, I will be talking to Pepe Escobar.
Old Russia and Old Europe
I am an Old Russian who lives in Old Europe. I have lived in several European countries, not only in Russia. But just as I never recognised the New Russia, nor do I recognise the New Europe. Just as I recognised neither the Soviet Union with its post-Sovietism, nor do I recognise the European Union with its post-Europeanism. The latter Union was born just a few days after the funeral of the former Union, as the demons that had haunted the USSR for exactly 75 years from December 1916 to December 1991 crossed westwards and found another corrupted and rotting corpse to infest and consume. I believe that we are now at a millennial parting of the ways in world history with the clear and abject failure of the Western world. Although those of nominal faith are riven by nationalist politics, compromised by money-oriented careerism, strangled by bureaucratic centralism and reduced by superstitious ritualism, we follow another way. For the King is coming and we must be ready to meet Him.
I was brought up on Tsar Nicholas II, the man who is maligned far more than Vladimir Putin, and on the murdered Alexander Pushkin and Ivan Turgenev, but also on William Shakespeare, Johann von Goethe, Alphonse Daudet and Knut Hamsun. I listened to Piotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rakhmaninov, but also to Johann Strauss, Edvard Grieg, Charles Trenet, Amalia Rodrigues and Albert Ketelby. I lived in Saint Petersburg, but also in Oslo, Paris, Thessaloniki, Lisbon and Vienna, passing through Belgrade, Geneva, Berlin, Prague, Madrid, Rome, London, Helsinki, Budapest, Bucharest and some very obscure but far more significant places inbetween, for their significance is mystical.
There is a birch forest and dusty summer tracks just outside Ekaterinburg in the Urals, a log peasant house outside Great Novgorod, a village on the Slovak border with the Ukraine where they have never spoken either Slovak or Ukrainian, the whitest sandy beach in the Gaelic Outer Hebrides by a ruined monk's cell, a fragrant pine forest on the ambered Baltic coast of Latvia, a dark backstreet in Porto where I had a funeral, the woods of Thassos in the azure-blue Aegean, a secret, lilac-filled courtyard in north-east Paris left over from the time of Zola, a path by Lake Balaton in Hungary and a path by Lake Naroch in Belarus, and a little wooden chapel in the Romanian Carpathians that belongs to hermit-shepherds. They have all played a part. All these places, and many others, form one continuous story. But that is the little epic of a family with branches scattered across Old Russia and Old Europe and which is yet to be told. The tale of that Resurrection is for another time and another place.
Russia Now
Four Christmases ago an ex-British ambassador to a certain European country asked me why the excellent relations between the West and Russia of the 1990s (when he was an 'attache' in the British Embassy in Moscow) had so regrettably dissolved. I answered him simply: 'Because the arrogant West spat in Russia's face'. He had not been expecting that answer and the only reply of the old spy was astounded silence. I maintain its truth.
In 1714 Tsar Peter I opened a window on Europe. Russia never closed it. But in 2014 the West did. The bad news was that Russia was sick for 300 years with an obsession with the setting sun of the Western world, the Abendland, the Evening land, as the Germans rightly have it. The good news is that Russia is recovering from this obsession, because in 2014 it turned eastwards with its other head, to the rising sun. In 2014 Russia turned eastwards because the arrogant West had spat in its face. And, unsurprisingly, it found daybreak in the east much more pleasant than nightfall. Russia very quickly made friends with China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Iran - to name but a few. In fact, Russia very quickly made friends with seven-eighths of the world, where its real friends had been all along.
As President Putin said in his speech of 21 February, Russia is 'an ancient, independent and quite distinct Civilisation'. Therefore, just because arrogant Europe spat in its face, Russia does not now have to face an identity crisis. It has refound its identity in being what it is, Northern Eurasia. It no longer has to pretend to be only the Western half of itself, it has reclaimed the double-headed eagle which faces both East and West. But this does mean that the rest of Europe has to face an identity crisis. And this is serious. For it. Because, having renounced its Civilisation, it has lost its identity. And because without Russia, Europe cannot survive. Why else did the US try to destroy and substitute for Ukrainian Civilisation? It was in order to cut little Kiev off from its Russian child, who had become much greater than Kiev, just as it tried to cut off little Europe from Russia, that had become much greater than it. Why else did the US blow up Nordstream? It was to cut off the small north-western peninsula of Eurasia from the other half of Europe and so from all Eurasia, so as to make it a fully dependent invalid of the US.
The Ukraine and Europe
As we have said a multitude of times, Russia only ever had three aims in this conflict: the Demilitarisation and Denazification of the territory at present known as the Ukraine and the Liberation of the territory at present known as the Donbass. Demilitarisation. Denazification. Liberation. Three words. It is not the tens of thousands of words of the EU directive on the regulatory height of forklift truck seats. (I used to know the author). What has happened after a year is that through Western foolishness the territory to be demilitarised and denazified, the Ukraine, has had to be expanded, and the territory to be liberated, the Donbass, has had to be expanded. As a result of ever-escalating Western aggression and its supply of 'long-range weapons', Russia has now had to go further 'to repel the menace from our borders'. (I quote from President Putin's same speech). In other words, the Demilitarisation and Denazification of the Ukraine has become the Demilitarisation and Denazification of all Europe, for Europe has been Ukrainianised. It was its own choice. And the Liberation of the Donbass has become the Liberation of all the Ukraine, for the Ukraine has been Donbassised. It was its own choice.
For, through its utterly suicidal foolishness, all that part of Europe that lies to the west of the borders of the Russian Federation and Belarus, has become a borderland. Europe is now the European borderland vassal of the US, controlled by puppet governors, appointed by the Court in Washington. Today there is a Zelensky court jester in every European Capital. Their only qualification is the ability to juggle. If they cannot, they are disposed of. The proof of this is that when Russian troops have liberated the whole territory of the present Ukraine, NATO and its equally US-ordered sister-organisation, the EU, will collapse. Russia will not need to demilitarise, denazify and liberate Europe. Demilitarisation will be implemented by the collapse of NATO. Denazification will be implemented by the collapse of the EU and the rest of borderland Europe beyond the Russian borders. As for Liberation, it will be implemented by the rebellions of the peoples of Europe against the narcissistic vassals of their US Nazi Overlord. Then there will be a Free Europe. And then Russia will be gently tapped on the shoulder by the countries of Europe, who one by one will humbly ask not to be forgotten. Oppressed Serbia has not been. Nor has gallant, if diplomatic, Hungary. However, others, especially those further west, will have to do a lot more to attract attention. Russia is busy elsewhere with far more important things than the Europe that is woke, that is, spiritually and so morally asleep, and so irrelevant.
Between 1914 and 2014 Europe attempted to commit suicide three times. World War I, from which Russia was ejected by a regime-change organised from London and New York and camouflaged as a 'Revolution', was won by the US, both militarily and politically. World War II, in which Russia was only allowed to achieve its World War I aims of liberating Vienna and Berlin, was won by the US, not militarily, but politically. However, this present war, which is World War III and will be called so by the historians of the future, will be won by Russia, both militarily and politically. It will be the victory that Russia was deprived of in 1917 by the Anglo-Zionist conspiracy. Therefore, World War III, lost both militarily and politically by the US, will mean that the US loses its Empire. Its previous pride will be humbled and its previous impunity will be punished.
Afterword
In all my wanderings through Russia and Europe I have always believed that Russia must return to its roots and identity in order to refind itself. Since 2014, quite miraculously, this has been happening. However, I have always believed that Europe too must return to its roots and identity in order to refind itself. This can be so through the example of Russia's return, but it will be very radical and it will hurt a lot. Just as it hurt and hurts Russia. Humility, like the Church, always hurts. Nevertheless, all can still come right, injustices can still be righted. The thirst for justice and for restitution can still triumph over the conspiracies of the past. It is always the same sevenfold story: Repentance, return, redemption, rebirth, restoration, restitution and resurrection. They form one continuous story. But that is the great epic of all the families with branches scattered across Russia and Europe and which is yet to be told. The tale of that Resurrection is for another time and another place.
23 February 2023