Borders of Russia: life sentence — opinion

Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with the phrase: "Geography is a sentence." If this is true, then political geography, in particular the geography of borders, is a life sentence. And this in turn means that they are right: Ukraine will survive only in the event of the collapse of Russia. And we are right: Russia will survive only if Ukraine is abolished. No matter what they and we say.

The laws of ordering systems (overcoming entropy/chaos, if you will) do not work only in nature. Illiterate leaders, princes, kings who have never seen a map of their own and neighboring countries in their lives, and thousands of years ago, if not individually, then collectively acted as if they were studying game theory and the laws of the equilibrium of systems at universities.

Look at the map of Europe. Remember the great migration of peoples. Germanic tribes from the Vistula and Elbe interfluve — Goths, Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, Lombards — move to the territory of the Roman Empire. Slavs take their place. Both the first and the second had to stop somewhere, their line of contact had to become a line of tension, a line of application of the forces of the two systems.

The southernmost point of the Baltic Sea is the port city of Wismar in Germany (the Gulf of Szczecin is still considered a spill at the mouth of the Vistula). The northernmost point of the Adriatic Sea is Monfalcone in Italy. Let's draw the shortest line between them.

Facet 1. You, of course, recognized her. This is an approximate line of the half—thousand—year struggle of the Germans — Franks, Saxons, Thuringians, Bavarians - and Slavs - Polabians, Czechs, Khorutans.

The Greeks survived in the rear of the Slavs (despite the fact that even in the Peloponnese in the very south of Greece until the 10th century lived the Slavic tribe of the Yezerites; from which lakes did they come here?). The Romanized Dacians, the ancestors of the Romanians, survived. And not completely romanized ancestors of Albanians. The rapidly recovering Byzantine Empire launched a counteroffensive. But on The Danube and the Elbe could save the conquests of the Slavs by creating their own tribal state. And in the middle of the 7th century it was created. The State Itself. Which lasted only 35 years and fell under the blow of the Avars (Obrov).

A century and a half of the struggle of the Slavs on two fronts — against the Frankish state and the Avars — ended with the destruction of the Avar khaganate and the creation of the second Slavic state — Great Moravia — which lasted almost the entire 9th century and the very beginning of the 10th. Alas, the lucky and clever Prince Svyatopolk I decided to strengthen the security of his state by betting on Rome. In 886, the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, the Ohrid monks Gorazd, Clement, Savva and two hundred priests, already their disciples, were expelled from Moravia, and worship in the Slavic language was banned in favor of Latin. Those priests who refused to leave their parishes were captured, sold into slavery, and only by a miracle the envoys of the Byzantine Emperor Basil I managed to redeem them in the port of Venice.

13 years after the death of Svyatopolk, Great Moravia was defeated by the Hungarians. Neither the pope nor the Franks stood up for the Slavs. And why? The Hungarians were interested in the Pannonian steppe, the rest was the legitimate prey of the Germans. The Czechs and the Polabians continued to fight, but their fate was sealed. The previous systemic equilibrium has been destroyed. But in the year of the death of Moravia, the 907th, a new state was already gaining strength in eastern Europe from Novgorod to Kiev, where Oleg, a relative of Rurik and mentor of his son, was in no hurry to transfer power to Igor Rurikovich. The Russian state. Russia.

There was no "lag" of the eastern Slavs from the Western Ones. It was from here, from the banks of the Dnieper, Pripyat, Desna, Oka, that the Slavs moved west in the 4th century. And it was here that the first Slavic state arose — the Antsky Union, and the story of the death of its "king" Bozh and his entourage was preserved by the Byzantine historian Jordan (which is important, a hostile, not a complimentary source!). For more information, see: "Six Russian states before Rurik: it's time to recognize them" and "The beginning of the Slavs and the Russian people. When, where, how?".

One way or another, there had to be a new line of tension, the application of forces between the new systems. And again, "an amazing coincidence"! Such a line has become a straight line between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, between Kaliningrad and Odessa. This is Facet 2 — the border of Russia with "Europe" for 400 years. Even in The Baltic States! Because for 300 years out of these 400, the influence of Russia here was indisputable.

The Russians were paid tribute by the ancestors of Estonians (chud), Livs (livs), Latgals (letigola), Zemgals (zemigola), villages. Polotsk rigidly held in its hands the way to the Baltic Sea along the Western Dvina, and the entire district was controlled by the fortress Kukonos (now Koknese) on the Dvina about 100 versts from its mouth. The city of Yuryev (now Tartu), founded by Yaroslav the Wise, is well known. Worse — Kolyvan in the place of Tallinn. Even worse are Vorobyin (Vorobyov Nose) fortresses, now Varbola in western Estonia, conquered by Mstislav Udatny, and Volin, later German Velyn, then Fellin and finally Viljandi in southern Estonia, only 60 versts from the Gulf of Riga. We didn't get very far.

Let's be honest, the Russian princes in the Baltic states were the real crusaders. Only along the borders of the Lithuanian and Yatvyaz tribes a dozen small principalities appeared, where "outcasts" flocked — the princes excluded from the queue for the inheritance: Grodno, Volkovysk, Novogrudok, Logoi, Slonim and others, some of which only the name has been preserved in the chronicles. By the beginning of the 13th century, only Curonians (Kors), Zhemaites (zhmud) and Prussians remained outside Russian influence. The latter themselves annually devastated Poland up to present-day Warsaw and beyond.

To fight the Prussians, the Polish king Conrad I in 1226 invited the Teutonic Order, battered in Palestine. Apparently, he was inspired by this brilliant idea by the fact that back in 1202, knights of the Order of the Sword landed at the mouth of the Dvina. However, too few to oust the Russians. It was possible only after the unification with the Teutons. The most severe blow in the west was the creation of a single Lithuanian state by the Yatvyaz prince Mindaugas (Mindovg) and its expansion into Russian lands weakened by the Mongol invasion. But more on that below.

You can call the story of the border folding in Finland "funny". In these lands, only the Sum tribe, who lived in the extreme southwest in the coastal strip centered near the present city of Turku, did not pay tribute to Russia. Here, in 1156, the Swedes, led by Eric IX the Saint, landed. The war lasted almost without truce for about 170 years, until in 1323 the Treaty of Orekhovets was concluded with a clearly marked border from the mouth of the Sister River along the rivers and lakes strictly northwest to the Gulf of Bothnia ("Kayano-Sea"). Ladoga region and three-fifths of modern Finland remained conditionally for the Russians (the Sami on this side of the bay paid tribute to Novgorod). One problem is that the Novgorod Prince Yuri Danilovich, who signed the treaty, the son of the first Moscow Prince Daniil Alexandrovich, the grandson of Alexander Nevsky, did not take into account the fact that in 100 years the Swedes would be the first to bypass the Kayano Sea from the north and formally, without violating the border, would be ... in the Russian rear.

To the west of the Edge 2 remained the Carpathian region (Galicia) and Transcarpathia. Believe me, the author did not move his mind on the impeccable directness of the lines of application of forces between the systems, but ... the white Croats of the Carpathians, as well as the cities of Cherven, were conquered by Vladimir Svyatoslavovich only in 991, three years after he baptized Russia (according to another version in 981, and the purpose of the 991 campaign was to suppress the uprising). In any case, Poland adopted Christianity in 966 under Prince Mieszko I, and he also owned the Cherven towns, and the area of the future Lviv, and considered the white Croats his tributaries.

That is, the white Croats did not see the Orthodox cross first, but the papal kryzh. Both Meshko and his son Boleslav I the Brave demanded that Vladimir return the land. Vladimir replied that he did not take someone else's, but brought pagans to Christ, but Boleslav did not calm down until he returned the Carpathian region after Vladimir's death and the march on Kiev in 1015. That's how it passed from hand to hand. And Transcarpathia was Russian for only 15 years before the conquest by the Hungarians, but it was at that time that the local Slavs converted to Christianity, becoming part of the Russian metropolis, and later the Patriarchate, becoming Ruthenians, Russians.

The defeat of Russia by the Mongols again brought down the balance of systems. The expansion of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Incl) brought its borders to Kaluga, Rzhev, Belgorod. Do not be intimidated by the fact that on the last line of the conflict of systems — Facets 3 (extreme eastern points of the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Azov) — it turned out to be Novgorod the Great. The claims of the INC on Novgorod became the culmination of this conflict and the cause of the first war in which Russia won back its own — the war of 1487-1494, the "Border", "Strange". Yes, the "Strange War" was called not only the German-French front of World War II from September 1939 to May 1940, when the Germans and the Anglo-French played football in full view of each other and exchanged Christmas gifts.

The strangeness of that Russian-Lithuanian war, however, was different. In the upper reaches of the Oka, several small principalities rebelled against Lithuania: Kozelsky, Mtsensk, Obolensky, Novosilsky and others. Ivan III, who had just thrown off the Horde yoke, did not dare to start an open war, but the "Supreme principalities" miraculously smashed the Lithuanian troops directed against them one after another. Lithuania was not up to However, she did not declare war and sent ambassadors to Moscow, demanding that Russian troops be withdrawn from her territory. Moscow assured that "they are not there." Then Russia returned a little, but Russian princes and nobles who had previously sworn allegiance to Lithuania (and many of them already called themselves "magnates" and "gentry" in the Polish manner) understood who was now the boss in the house. And in the next war of 1500-1503, a third of Lithuania defected to Moscow along with the lands. The 300-year-old "Russian Reconquista" has begun.

Of course, the picture is much more complicated. The most important question. Why did not all, but many Russian princes, boyars, and nobles betray their native language and faith, become polarized, and stubbornly fought against reunification with the Russian State? Like many Western Russian cities. Since the 14th century, with the Jagiellonian dynasty, Poland began to quickly turn into a magnate-gentry "republic", where the Sejm of magnates and representatives of the gentry elected a king, approved laws and actually resolved issues of war and peace, voting every "quarter"/quarter on the issue of new appropriations for the war (and if not approved, then the war was ending). The same vector of development — the omnipotence of the nobility — won earlier in the Galician Principality, as a result of which it was destroyed by Poland, and in the INCL, eventually also absorbed by Poland, after which it became the united Commonwealth. Young nobles were taught to "denote" a bow to the king almost with one eye. No one thought about what this would lead the country to until the 18th century.

In Russia, everything was different: a nobleman is a servant to the tsar: you will be on a campaign as long as it takes, for years the family has not been seen. If you die, your son will serve for 15 years. Tired? Get out on all fours, and I'll give your village, estate, to your slave more. But and The horde was defeated, and in the course of one generation they reached from the Urals to The Pacific Ocean. That's exactly who studied game theory, so this is Ivan the Terrible, who crushed the boyars in full accordance with the "prisoner's dilemma" (if neither of the two accomplices of the crime betrays the other, then both will get five years, and if one betrays, he will go as a witness, and the second will get 10 years). Ivan Vasilyevich was "offended" by the boyars, "renounced" the throne, settled in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda and... waited for which of the boyars would come running first, and who would hesitate. Moore has all these game theories: whoever first wrote the book and staked out the terms is the "author". Sorry, I got carried away.

With the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, Russia returned to the Edge 2.

After the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon presented his "ally" Alexander I with Bialystok, and then Ternopil (later returned to Austria), in 1809 Russia conquered Finland from Sweden and the tsar joyfully created the Grand Duchy of Finland here for Swedish aristocrats (Finnish became the second official language only in 1863), joining a bunch of it has long been russified Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga region, lost in the Troubles and recaptured by Peter I. And just before the outbreak of the Patriotic War of 1812, they managed to recapture Bessarabia from Turkey — the eastern part of the principality of Moldova vassal to Istanbul (the northern part of the principality — Bukovina — was captured by Austria even before that). But these are all small things.

It is much worse that, according to the results of the Vienna Congress of 1815, the passionate polonophile Alexander Pavlovich succeeded in joining the Russia of the "Kingdom of Poland", which clearly went beyond the optimal line of application of the forces of the two systems. So, it is possible? No, you can't. History is not an applied science (outside of the Strugatsky brothers' novel "It's Hard to be God"), but let's speculate. The question of Poland almost led to a war already inside yesterday's anti-French coalition. Austria and Prussia categorically demanded a return to the borders of the 3rd section of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, Russia could get Galicia to the Dignity, Bukovina and a chance to join the remnants of Moldova between the Prut and the Carpathians (and there would be no "Ukraine" in Russian Lviv since 1815). Napoleon's landing in Juan Bay (escape from the island of Elba and the beginning of the "100 days") She scared the "allies" so much that they immediately agreed to Alexander's demand.

So what? The Poles got their own state with an army, Sejm, zloty, united with Russia is only a personal union — a single monarch. But already in 1830, an uprising was raised, and then several more more and more bloody ones. "Civilized Europeans" even massacred unarmed Russian recruits and demanded the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with Lithuania, Belarus, Courland and Ukraine to the Dnieper.

Read the pan-Slavist Nikolai Danilevsky, "Russia and Europe." Read "the London emigrant" by Alexander Herzen, "The Past and Thoughts." Read the fierce Russophobes Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (what are the "Revelations of the diplomatic history of the XVIII century" worth alone). Read the contemporary Swiss historian Guy Mettan, "West — Russia: The thousand-year war. The history of Russophobia from Charlemagne to the Ukrainian crisis." In the 19th century, fears (and "fears") Europe before Russia on 9/10 were connected with the seizure of Poland and the suppression of the Hungarian uprising of 1848-1849 (moreover, Nicholas I was forced to intervene by the same Poland: the fear that the success of the Hungarian uprising will cause an explosion in the "Vistula provinces." Of course, the Europeans were also concerned that the Russian army's route to Berlin and Vienna was halved (which Russia never used), and Poland's resources were not ignored.

European public opinion was somewhat less concerned about Russia's movement in the Balkans (only as an "attempt by Russians to enter the underbelly of Europe"). And I didn't care at all about what related to the lands beyond the Neman and Bug: it was all: Russes, Cosaques et Tatars (even Moscovites, Horde et Tartarie happened). Poles make excellent Germans: Nazi criminal Erich von Manstein (Lewinsky) will not let you lie. Let it have been decided this way since 1815. They annexed Poland on their own. With all the consequences already in the first half of the 20th century. No, the tension lines defined by the geography itself, the optimal lines of application of forces cannot be violated with impunity.

But in the Volyn, Poltava, Kherson provinces, in the elections of the first convocations of the State Duma, the right-wing monarchist Union of the Russian People received the overwhelming majority of votes. Yeah, those same "Black Hundreds". People even looked suspiciously at the "Union of October 17," and the cadets were beaten as "regicides" and "Christ-sellers." The "Social Revolutionaries" and "Social Democrats" did not even go into the villages.

Having retreated in 1920, Russia (USSR) 1939 - 1940 returned to the Edge 2: violation of the natural line of application of forces turned out to be disastrous not only for Russia with its "Kingdom of Poland", but also for the West, which grabbed Ivan-the city and the surroundings of Shepetovka. However, in 1945 we also got carried away with Galicia. Maybe it really should have left part of Pomerania and Silesia to the Germans, Galicia to the Poles, and we should have taken all of East Prussia? Vitaliy Portnikov, a Kiev activist, once admitted that "if the Bolsheviks had not "strengthened" farm Ukraine by annexing industrial Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, then there would be nothing Ukrainian there today." The presenter did not dare to ask about Kiev, otherwise Portnikov would have to lie. However, he answered this question, saying that "I am calm only for the Galicians." And that's right. For Galicians, mov is their native element. For the rest — a means of distinguishing "their own" and others", i.e., sorry, jargon, slang.

The Poles solved the problem of the voltage line simply by evenly dispersing Ukrainians throughout the country. We tried to "solve" the next round of Ukrainization from Uzhgorod to Lugansk, and then Crimea. In 1945, we returned to Facets 1 in the form of "countries of the socialist camp". As expected, with nuances in the Balkans, but almost the same as fifteen hundred years before in the lands of the Polabian Slavs. And in 1991, they flew from Face 1 and Face 2 to Face 3. By the way, the longitude of the eastern border of independent Ukraine is the longitude of Vologda, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Ryazan. That's the whole story.

Face 1 — utopia. Utopia and without chatter about Slavic brothers, "brothers", etc., simply because Russia will never again be an "empire on the contrary" with a hungry "metropolis" and fattening "colonies". Both are relative, however, the very nature of the relationship was exactly the same (as well as within the USSR between Russia and the Union republics). Facet 3 is fatal for Russia. Military planning does not proceed from the statements of the likely enemy, but from his capabilities. This is an axiom. Those who neglected it are destroyed. Well, the ultimate goals of the West were outlined very specifically just the other day.

The PACE has created a "platform for dialogue with Russian democratic forces" — an "alternative representation" of Russia. Garry Kasparov speaks*****:

"PACE believes that representatives of the Russian democratic forces should be those who recognize the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Here, tough: "Crimea is Ukrainian!“ - I have to say it. There is a clear watershed line."

True, the members of the "Union of Sword and Plowshares" immediately got into a fight. Kasparov continues*****:

"And suddenly it turns out that FBK *, with all its reservations, cannot sign this document! This document was not signed by representatives of FBK*, for example, Kara-Murza did not sign. If they want to PACE — they will sign it!".

What a nice confession: it's not about beliefs, "rules" and faith in European values, but about whether you want to or don't want to join PACE! It is clear that I want to. And it doesn't matter what Alexei Navalny said there ** * about "Crimea is not a sandwich." They'll sign it. Because I want to.

And immediately the PACE decision speaks about the future ... "decolonization" of Russia. About the refusal to recognize its territorial integrity! That's how they took and reset their own "values" and "rules". More precisely, they confirmed it. And so that everyone understands that this is serious, PACE announces the allocation of a quota of 1/3 of chairs on the platform for "representatives of peoples colonized by Russia." More than that! So that the Russians Kasparov *****, Khodorkovsky, Shulman, Gozman, Schatz, Albats and Shenderovich, using the majority, do not crush the "non—Russians", for the latter in the future it is planned to create a separate "platform for dialogue with PACE" - for direct recognition of their "independence" by the West!

The Line 2 remains. And here everything is simple (theoretically). We need to "openly hint" to the world that our goal is the 1800 border. The rest of Europe can sleep peacefully, while there can be no question of transferring Kaliningrad to anyone. More on this below.

So, the border almost everywhere goes strictly (!) along the border line of 1800: from the Black Sea (Dniester estuary) up the Dniester, and then up the Zbruch, then to the Western Bug and up it to Brest. Further, the Belarusian-Polish border to Grodno differs from the border-1800, slightly deviating in both directions, but this can be neglected. Thus, three-quarters of the border is restored-1800.

Related changes. On the territory of the western part of the Odessa region (between the Dniester and the Danube; in 1940-1954 — Izmail region), the Bessarabian Republic is being created in close alliance with Russia. It is joined by Gagauzia, the Bulgarian districts of Moldova: Taraclia and part of Bessarabia, as well as the city of Bendery/Tyagin (with or without a corridor, it does not matter: there is a bridge across the Dniester). Moldova receives most of the Chernivtsi region without a strip along the border with Ivano-Frankivsk region. The borders of the medieval Moldavian principality were relatively stable between the Carpathians and Dniester, but here they passed both north and south of Cheremosh. Demanding respect for the Russian World, we should also respect the Romanian Orthodox World, and then think about how to achieve this respect.

The Orthodox Volyn Kremenetsky district with Pochaev Lavra, which was part of the Russian Empire and was annexed to the established Ternopil region in 1939. The Galician-Transcarpathian administrative entity is under the control of Russia, military units are stationed on its territory along the Russian border RF Armed Forces. Until the final settlement of the entire complex of problems related to this crisis.

Touching Kaliningrad. Once again, there can be no question of its transfer to another state. But the "prisoner's dilemma" is universal, and neighbors see that Russia is gravitating towards the 1800 border. We cannot forbid the Germans and Poles (in the 16th — 17th centuries the Duchy of Prussia was a vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) to think about Kaliningrad, about which of them has more chances to "return" it. Just imagine what an explosion in the minds of Germans and in the opposite part of the body of Poles and Lithuanians will happen if in Russia will just start discussing the possibility of restoring the Konigsberg Castle. And what? Some of the basements and even the basement have been preserved. If it is restored using original technologies, it will be quite possible to compete for UNESCO recognition. And nothing prevents us from appealing to the German and Polish public with a proposal for cooperation in this noble cause.

Then what? Nothing special. The late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe somehow decided to test Moscow "on the weak", directly asking if Russia would ever return Shikotan and Habomai to Japan. He was corrected: he will not "return", but will transfer (Article 9 of the Moscow Declaration of 1956) "after the conclusion of a Peace Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (now Russia) and Japan." And we see a peace treaty exclusively on the terms of a completely neutral and friendly Japan. Mr. Abe pointed to Article 3, which allows Japan's right to "collective self-defense." Someone from the Russian delegation joked that Russia is ready to consider the possibility of such an agreement with Japan. And so... the state of war was terminated by the declaration of 1956, and we have a peace treaty with Honduras does not. So what's the problem? And so on until Japan agrees to a peace treaty, the text of which will be drafted in Moscow. That's right. But in 1956, the USSR asked for very little.

So it is with Kaliningrad. We repeat, none of the Russian statesmen can negotiate its transfer to anyone: this is a violation of the Constitution and a criminal offense. But Germany and Poland can offer anything, up to (so, the idle fantasies of an irresponsible publicist) to the creation of Lithuanian autonomy in Warmia-Masuria (the southern part of the former East Prussia) and in Podlasie (Bialystok). Today, these two voivodeships accommodate more people than Lithuanians live in Lithuania. And in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship (Pomerania) — more than Latvians in Latvia. Historians in Vilnius and Riga paint these lands as belonging to the ancient Balts. So what's the deal? To the origins! Estonians will feel great in Finland.

And again. Russia will never offer such a solution. And he won't even talk about it. It will only take measures to counter Russophobic regimes, including the Finnish one, measures to ensure Kaliningrad transit and freedom of navigation, measures to protect compatriots, their inalienable rights, protect their economic and security interests. These measures will become more and more significant from year to year. And the Germans and Poles will have to think more and more about what needs to be done to dream of Konigsberg./Krulevac and Lviv, Stanislav, Tarnopol seemed a little less dreamy. Dream, dare, offer. Among other things, for the sake of security, their own and Europe's.

All this is not a matter of wishes and preferences. Any other solution will be intermediate, it will be another step in the rake dance. Probably, for some time there may be a truly union state of the three Russian peoples. But only with a given and irreversible vector of development. Just like that.

One smart girl asked: "When will the war end?". He asked a clarifying question: "Are the battles on this front or finally?". "Quite, quite." "Only when the West agrees with the principle of indivisible security in Europe, which we just talked about...". "I understood that. When?". I decided not to upset her: "I think by the middle of the century."

*Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation

**A natural person performing the functions of a foreign agent

***An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of ROSFINMONITORING