Why did Putin decide to start the war against Ukraine? Recently, one often hears the opinion that one of the reasons was that the West failed – also because it ignored the experiences of the East, or rather Central Europe, with Russia.
If things were different in the future and the West could be told more by Poles and Balts in particular, then the situation could be different not only on the Ukrainian battlefield but also in the West. It may even be that the cruel war would never have happened. Western self-criticism, however, tends more towards apology than deeper analysis, and as such it deserves to be seen.
A little more problematic is the question to what extent Central Europe's experience with Russia could be communicated to the West at all. The extent of Western dependence on Russian energy supplies was undoubtedly far too great and therefore also irresponsible.
But since the West really wanted to undertake a major transformation of its economy and, moreover, keep it financially affordable, it should come as no surprise that cheap Russian gas simply seemed all too attractive to the West. It was about nothing less than protecting the planet from climatic Armageddon.
Fears about Russia in this context were, shall we say, relatively manageable. Because, unlike the climate, you can still negotiate with Russia! Last but not least, another question arose: If the West does not do business with Russia in the field of energy supply, what other export product could Moscow consider? Weapons, of course. In order for demand to be sufficiently high, however, conflicts would be needed. Like the one in Syria, for example.
And this explains why the West was so anxious to reach an understanding with Russia. Despite some illusions, however, I would not call it a completely naïve attitude. Perhaps the West only wanted to make a show of shedding its fear of Russia – also as a gesture of goodwill after the end of the Cold War. Or he just didn't have the free capacity for this fear anymore.
The German political scientist Kai Olaf Lang noted that the main difference between Germany and Poland is that Poland fears Russia and nothing else, while Germany fears Russia, but not at all.
Putin's war seems to eliminate this difference. The way to understanding between the West and Central Europe regarding Russia is open. But would it have been possible to eliminate this difference even without the cruel war?
I'm afraid that fear and its "export" between the partners is not a coveted commodity. The West, as mentioned earlier, felt enlightened enough after the end of the Cold War to forgive and not forget. Unfortunately, however, he did forget, and he forgot something central: he forgot his fear of Russia. Central Europe could not afford this luxury.
For Central Europe, Russia remained a geopolitically close neighbor, which had also been a brutal occupier in almost all Central European countries until very recently. Central Europe just couldn't forget. And it also failed to forgive. That's why his warnings about Russia came across in the West as not rational enough, as outdated. The West was not afraid and did not want to be afraid.
Despite the warnings from Central Europe, Russia remained exotic for the West. It was a kind of exotic that, according to one theory, gave rise to the term "bistro". After the Napoleonic Wars, Russian officers used this word, which means “fast” in Russian, to get the waiters in Parisian taverns on their toes.
Perhaps it is also this kind of exoticism that was traditionally sought after in Russian literature. Everyone in the West wanted to read his Dostoyevsky, everyone wanted to dread the Gulag reading Solzhenitsyn. For Western readers, however, it was only about stories from a distant, European home. Every reader wanted to keep contacts with Russian reality under control.
Controlled adventures - that's the wonder of the exotic! But woe betide if the exotic becomes commonplace. A German writer told me in the 1990s that interest in Russian literature in Germany cooled off significantly in the wake of reunification. In addition to the new federal states, West Germany also had Russian soldiers stationed there for a short time. Interest in Russian literature only increased again after the last Russian soldier left.
No information policy can compete with the experience of direct intimidation. It's nice that the West now sees its former Russia policy as flawed.
Czech society experienced this disillusionment after the invasion in 1968. The Czech poet Jiri Pistora wrote a small children's poem on this subject: "One lives in the steppe under dry burdock/ the other in felt boots under a pine/ the third hid in his steppe hole/ may they stay/ where they hang out/ where they like to live so much/ just stay away from us!“
What else can one say to the West? Welcome to the club? That fear of Russia doesn't necessarily have to be bad advice? Doesn't matter. Enough has been said already. It is now a matter of acting together and putting Russia in its place. The experience we have now shared shows that it is better for all of us if Russia stays away from us.
