Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 1 – Finland’s
Marshal Mannerheim offers a distant mirror of the evolution of identity that Vladimir
Putin is again causing many Russians to make, Vadim Shtepa says. Prior to 1917,
Mannerheim served in the Russian army and always spoke of Russians as “we.”
After it, he never described himself as a Russian but rather fought against the
Soviets.
One can see this from Mannerheim’s memoirs,
the Russian regionalist says. “Prior to 1917, ‘Russians’ are ‘we.’ He fought in
the Russo-Japanese War and in World War I and between them even carried out
confidential missions for Nicholas II in Tibet” (rufabula.com/author/shtepa/825).
Then
came “a total turnabout of meanings” after the Bolshevik revolution. “From 1918 on, the formulas in his memoirs
include ‘we built a defense against the Russians,’ ‘the Russians demand,’ ‘we
responded to the Russians,’ and so on.” Soviet historians treat this “metamorphosis”
as treason, but Mannerheim “never swore allegiance” to the Soviet state.
This
was not simply a reflection of the fact that he became supreme commander of the
Finnish Army, Shtepa argues. It was about something even more fundamental: “the
very quality of the Russian nation had been changed.” For Mannerheim, brought
up in classical culture, “this Bolshevik insanity speaking Russia was
unacceptable and an absolute evil.”
Today,
the same thing is happening, “the very same break,” the Russian regionalist
argues. “It is easily possible to consider the Gorbachevs and the Yeltsins and the
Lebedevs ‘normal Russians.’ Despite all their disagreements, this was one
civilization. But today we are observing the arrival of a different civilization.”
This
new “civilization” speaks Russian as did the Soviets and claimed to speak in
the name of “’the Russian world.’” But its “’Russian world’” seeks to revive “a
wild empire and hates all those who think differently. This is again a
qualitative change in the Russian nation. And in such a situation, Mannerheim’s
response is the only appropriate one.
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