Europe, Europe ...

Tony Jadt. After the war: the history of Europe since 1945. (Tony Judt. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press, 2005. Pages: 960)

In an article written at the beginning of the Cold War, Reimon Aron said: “In our time - and this is true for individual citizens and states - a defining, fateful choice can only be global, more precisely - geographical. Either we will live in an international community consisting of free countries, or in a world where all territories are under the rigid power of the Soviets.” Tony Jadt quotes this statement ending with a characteristic warning: "This is not a struggle of good with evil, but a lawsuit between preferred and unacceptable." Among the European intellectuals of the liberals, it is customary to admire Aron for the skeptical and core clarity of thought: in this he looks like Isaiah Berlin, both of them are closer in the spirit of Clausewitz than Herzen or Herder. In all the writings of Aron, the persistent and rather unambiguous leitmotif sounds: no childishness, no utopias, no illusions and, most importantly, no excesses. But the fact remains: in the history of Europe there were more than enough - from the "spring of the peoples" of 1848 to May 1968, from the Great French Revolution to its velvet offspring.

Jadt’s book “After the War” is an extensive, qualified and for the most part a brilliantly written review of European public life after the Second World War. According to Jadt, the post -war period is characterized primarily by the energetic efforts aimed at balance periodically arising excesses with the necessary (in the spirit of Aron's judgments) counter -firms, namely: on the one hand, such revolutionary events in Eastern Europe as an uprising in Budapest and the Prague Spring, and, of course, the achievements of 1989, executed by the executed of the 1989, executed the fall of the Berlin wall; On the other hand, excitements such as the 1968 Youth Revolution were suppressed in Paris. In his book, Jadt enters into a retrospective battle with the forces of Stalinist despotism and its servants, “useful idiots” from the left camp (of course, the author does not experience the slightest sympathy and to the right -wing extremists who stained with bloody crimes, but they suffered a crushing defeat in 1945 and raised their heads only and raised their heads only Balkans after 1989). The book traces the main stages of the struggle for the restoration of a worthy, responsible policy after the long -term domination of Nazism and communism; The author concludes that this battle was won in Western Europe not at the expense of spectacular gestures focused on absolute moral and social values, but thanks to a balanced policy aimed at stabilization, establishing the functioning of institutions, achieving compromises with some unattractive remnants of Hitler's Europe, and also due to determination to re -involve Germany in civilian life and reproduce Grace to socialism, proposing instead of it the concept of the state of social well -being. It was also a struggle for overcoming a heavy heritage left by totalitarianism and World War II; In other words, Europe challenged poverty, demoralization and spiritual poverty.

The book "after the war" deserves all praise already for the fact that this voluminous, almost 900-page work, which sets out the history of sixty years saturated with events, is read with constant interest and even hobby; In addition, the author makes it clear (including the compositional construction of the book) that the two “halves” of Europe - Western and Eastern - are for him a single and indivisible continent. Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland are the same integral part of Europe in Jadt as France or Germany. The author is extremely purposefully and in detail traces the history of the subordination of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union - starting with post -war purges (especially cruel in Hungary, where a tenth of the population experienced arrests and interrogations, if not more severe repressions) and ending with the Khrushchev’s “thaw”, up to the disintegration of the socialist camp in the 1980s. And yet, despite his concern about the ghosts of Stalinism, Jadt is very attentive to those processes in the economic and social life of Europe in the mid-1950s and the late 1980s (this period is dedicated to the perfectly written middle of the book), thanks to which the situation has developed, which, in fact, impossible, impossible to separate the “capitalist West” and the “communist East”.

Readers who know Jadt on other work, especially on his brilliant articles in The New York Review of Books , have an idea of ​​the evolution of his views. At first, he specialized in the history of modern France, but at some point he was imbued with sympathy for the unenviable fate of the Eastern Europeans, especially the Czechs, whose hopes were brutally depressed after 1968. As a result of such a reorientation, Jadt’s book “The Past Imperfect , 1992) appeared, in which the views of pro-Soviet French intellectuals“ leftists ”were analyzed. The prosecutor’s tone, which this book is written, is possibly justified, but due to the author’s bias, known imbalances arose: the sharp angles of intellectual discussions turned out to be smoothed, and the position of the West had obvious defects - idealized. The same drawback is inherent in the new book by Jadt; So, for example, it briefly mentions the secret financing of the CIA of left -wing activists who adhered to non -communist views. Some of the people who received monetary assistance (and in this one can only agree with the author) were brilliant intellectuals who deserved admiration and all support in their struggle for liberalism and social democracy. However, one should take into account another, very serious, but still almost unrequited (including in the reviewed book) aspect of the problem: there were a flip side with the CIA; Providing assistance in the struggle against Stalinism, at the same time they left an imprint of specific secrecy on the public behavior of intellectuals, which turned into "people from the underground." Jadt himself perfectly understands the danger of such social deformations, as evidenced by the section of a book dedicated to the characterization of public life in Eastern European countries: it was permeated with secret collaborationism, the essence of which was the betrayal of personal ideals in exchange for certain privileges, and this “voluntary cooperation” served as the basis of communist rule in those “regarding vegetarian” years when there was a way The practice of public political processes and loud "revelations" has been discontinued. In this light, it is not surprising that the beloved hero of Jadt is Vaclav Gavel, ruthlessly exposing cheap compromises, due to which the authorities managed to stabilize pro-fighting regimes in the 1970s and 1980s.

Another feature of Jadt’s book follows from the author’s attentive attitude to the battles of the Cold War and his deep interest in political ideas. The name "after the war" is not devoid of allegorical meaning. Jadt reports that it was proposed by his youngest son, since it was about the post -war period. But the meaning of the word "post -war" is not exhausted by an indication of a period of time. The name of the book reflects the author’s conviction that the history of modern Europe is largely determined by the patient - and often suppressed, “replaced” - the memory of the war. (The epilogue of the book by Jadt is called, borrowed from Dostoevsky or Yanachek: "From the Dead House"). European history is a struggle with ghosts, sometimes successful, but often feverish, perverted and unproductive.

However, Jadt’s special sensitivity to the role and significance of historical memory leads to the fact that his book, which is an undoubted creative achievement, leaves a feeling of some ambiguity. The narrative constantly strives to break out of the framework imposed by the "post -war" collective memory. As a person who carefully analyzed the so -called “dispute of historians” in Germany, I know how dangerous such displacements are: they can imperceptibly, but very significantly distort the prospect. What we now call “collective memory” ultimately responded to a powerful impulse of the need to critically comprehend the moral heritage left by a generation that stained himself with extreme shamelessness and opportunism. But in this regard, the question arises: are the claims of fascism and communism so finally overcome? On the one hand, complacency is afraid of, on the other, the danger that the obsession with a “sick memory” can obscure real, and very impressive, European achievements, which are precisely due not to oblivion, but an increase in memory. It is enough to visit any European airport and look at young and even middle -aged passengers, business people flying from London to Frankfurt or Paris to Rome to feel the feeling that the post -war battle ended with the unconditional victory of the “forces of good”. Jadt knows about this and pays due attention to such topical plots as the problems of the migration of the population and the admission of Turkey in the European Union; But the whole thing is that it is these obvious achievements that cause a threat - thanks to them, impulses can be rejoiced and mobilized, which led to fascism 75 years ago.

In fact, despite its name, Jadt’s book tells not only about the post -war period: this is also a story about how Europeans try to end the “post -war syndrome”. In one penetrating passage, Jadt recalls the collective decision of Europeans in the 1960s to deploy a birth rate campaign, the level of which steadily fell since the 1930s. Anthropologist Laurens Wylie reports a similar phenomenon observed half a year ago: when he lived in Vokluse in 1950, French farmers refused to renew olive trees, because they lost confidence in the long-term future, but in the 1960s they again took up planting, although these trees began, although these trees began Farm is far from immediately. True, today the birth rate in Europe is lower than ever, but perhaps it will increase again: after all, demographic processes are subordinate to other rhythms than political ones.

As for the political and economic spheres, the reader will find the interval in the narrative of their development, following the decisive choice of the socio -economic model - American or Soviet - made under the influence of external factors; Then there are rather rainbow pictures of the development and normalization of the 1950s-1960s; Corpushes of the 1970s; The 1980s, marked by the collapse of communism and the beginning of the construction of the European Union; And finally, Europe appears before us, disoriented by problems related to globalization, unemployment and new sources of conflicts and violence - such as the collapse of Yugoslavia and the terrorist activity of Islamic organizations, as well as the excitement of protest against the segregation generated by mass immigration (for example, those that have recently broken out in France). These current inconsistencies are not derived from ideological faults, which at one time led Europeans to dictatorship and war and still hung over the political life of the continent during the 1940s-1950s. The concept of the “post -war syndrome” does not facilitate access to their understanding, and in this sense we must pay tribute to Jadt: the ideological support of his narrative, fortunately, does not come down to this concept, does not “focus” on it.

Nevertheless, big ideological topics attract Jadt more than social transformations. His book is rather the history of the east-west than the north-yuga, and it seems that this approach is already at the end: perhaps this book is the last narrative about Europe, in which the history of the east-west remains so dominant. People of the middle and, so to speak, "medium -sized" age, to which your humble servant reces themselves with, will perceive Jadt’s book as a storage of the spirit personally felt by public life, outlined by large strokes. The fact that Jadt pays tribute to people who deserve it is especially praise - especially Mikhail Gorbachev, too often thirdly by smug Western commentators. No one will deny that the brave Gorbachev of the 1989-90s, which allowed the satellites of the Soviet Union to gain independence bloodless, looked confused and suppressed two years later, when he rejected confidence that reforms would extend the life of Russian socialism; The matter ended with the fact that he was overthrown, and twice - at first - by the conspirators - "hekaches", and then his own deliverer Boris Yeltsin. And yet, as Jadt emphasizes, Gorbachev had a true courage and entered history rightfully - even if he acted on the basis of a strategic miscalculation. No less important is the reminder contained in the book after the war that the role of Washington in the collapse of communism was secondary. The system collapsed with a deafening crack due to its own bureaucratic inertia and economic stagnation; The ruling elite no longer believed that communism has a future, while constant critics of the system launched a mechanism for the formation of civil society. Although the American right -wing people hastened to attribute the glory of the destroyers of communism to themselves, they actually reconciled with the existence of Soviet totalitarianism as with a regrettable, but inevitable "medical fact", and revolutions in the Eastern European countries were by surprise, like all of us. The revolutions of 1989-1990 demonstrated that, contrary to Aron, true romantic events are still possible in history, and the mindset, which impersonates the "realistic", often turns into the most ordinary filter.

Jadt copes with the task of a panoramic exposition of events: the velvet divorce of the Czech Republic from Slovakia, cruel and, by and large, meaningless wars in the Balkans. The author is not afraid to bear moral judgments: for example, the policy of France under Mitterans, which consisted of encouraging the split of Yugoslavia, is condemned as provoking violence by the Serbs; Clinton’s policy in the Balkans is assessed by the author as more adequate, but is described without much enthusiasm. For those who like to “give assessments” to the participants in historical events, the book of Jadt is a real find: at the end of each dramatic episode, it is clearly indicated who is responsible for it, even in cases where the “antihero” shares it with someone else. Virtuoso owing reader attention, Jadt can afford to cross the continent from east to west and from north to south to trace the revival of regionalism in Spain and Northern Italy, where the nationalist movement showed itself as less ethnically extremist than in the Balkans or in Spain; Since activists of Italian separatism are mainly representatives of the middle class, the author, not without reason, calls it the "separatism of successful."

Jadt’s book is a triumph of narrative skill, and those of the readers who have something to remember, of course, will enjoy if not from nostalgia, then from the opportunity to survive certain events. Nevertheless, there were times when I experienced some fatigue from the feeling of isolation of the condensed, purely “continental” space: tracing the ups and downs of Europe for several decades, it is difficult to get rid of the desire to break out of the house filled with constantly quarreling relatives. Sometimes Europe in Jadt resembles not so much a dead house as the deaf house. But the author overcomes a feeling of suffocating continental claustrophobia, reminding us of uniqueness and at the same time universal value of the "European experiment". He makes it possible to survive the feeling of involvement in the events of the enduring significance with which Herzen wrote from Paris to his Russian friends in 1849, after the collapse of the European revolutions: “Why do I stay here? I stay because the struggle continues here. Despite the blood and tears, social problems are solved, and no matter how burning and heavy, they are clearly expressed. Nobody hides anything on the table.

But even the most remarkable historical narratives can have alternatives, and although it would be incorrect to reproach the author for not writing something, it would be useful to postulate the possibility of a completely different interpretation of the same historical period of time. Согласно видению Джадта, послевоенный период, "воспринятый вначале как новая эра перманентной идеологической мобилизации", обернулся к 1991 году "затянувшимся эпилогом к европейской гражданской войне, начавшейся в 1914 году, сорокалетним междуцарствием между поражением Адольфа Гитлера и окончательным решением проблем, доставшихся в наследство от развязанной им войны". Цель такой интерпретации состоит в том, чтобы максимально принизить роль 1960-х годов, о которых Джадт пишет с плохо скрываемым раздражением. Избалованные дети "с умилением оглядываются на 'свою' декаду непослушания, продолжая лелеять воспоминания о славных подвигах, значение которых сильно преувеличено".

Но нельзя ли взглянуть на эту декаду под иным углом зрения? Разве невозможен подход, при котором 1960-е годы предстанут перед нами как период, подорвавший политическую дисциплину, наложенную императивами послевоенной реконструкции и конфронтации времен холодной войны? Конец 1960-х, 1970-е и 1980-е годы явились свидетелями постепенного раскрепощения (и, возможно, "разбалтывания") Европы - подобно тому, как в романе Жозе Сарамаго "Каменный плот" развеиваются старые представления и разрушаются казавшиеся незыблемыми связи, когда Иберия отправляется в свободное плавание. Именно на этом, взрыхленном "поколением 1968 года" месте зародилась новая Европа, дезориентированная локальным терроризмом, глобальной инфляцией, иммиграцией из прежних колоний и возобновлением холодной войны в Африке и в Азии; все эти факторы привели (несмотря на безусловные достижения Еврокомиссии под руководством ее бывшего президента Жака Делора) к сейсмическому ослаблению чувства идентичности; возникает ощущение, что Европа стоит на пороге новой эры, далекой от завершения; континент переживает процесс постепенного "воссоздания заново", вектор которого направлен, так сказать, "снаружи вовнутрь".

Джадт заканчивает книгу рядом взаимосвязанных размышлений, которые, в принципе, могли бы быть согласованы с намеченным выше альтернативным подходом: он рассуждает о границах и языках, о важности сохранения европейских государств при наличии Евросоюза и об отношении европейцев к Америке (в которой они видят страну, застрявшую в тенетах религиозного фанатизма и гегемонистских устремлений). В определенный момент автор приходит к следующему, весьма благоприятному - по крайней мере для европейцев - заключению: "Немногие могли бы предсказать подобное развитие событий шестьдесят лет назад, но, возможно, двадцать первый век будет веком Европы". Тем не менее в конце своей книги Джадт устремляет взгляд не на будущее, а на прошлое, со всеми его ужасами. В эпилоге, посвященном теме памяти и важности истории, он снова сосредоточивает внимание на жертвах нацизма и сталинизма, но прежде всего - на Холокосте; и в свете концепции "послевоенного синдрома" такой подход представляется вполне оправданным. Изо всех народов, нашедших пристанище в Европе, лишь одна этническая группа - евреи - систематически притеснялись и уничтожались независимо от того, насколько полно они интегрировалась в социальную и культурную жизнь континента; при этом в уничтожении евреев виновны не только немецкие нацисты, но также и их многочисленные приспешники по всей Европе. (Другие этносы, например цыгане, также уничтожались, но без идеологических фанфар). Таким образом, историческое повествование Джадта описывает параболу и заканчивается тем, с чего и началось, - Второй мировой войной, фашизмом и судьбой евреев. Следует отметить, что преднамеренное уничтожение евреев обременило европейцев памятью особого рода - столь "автономной", что с ней никак не соотносятся ни вызовы американизации, ни более поздние притязания мусульман. Получилось так, что Холокост по-своему - весьма извращенным образом - удерживает в целости, защищает от расползания прежние уютные границы Европы; Джадт не говорит об этом прямо, но из его рассуждений вытекает, что именно погибшие евреи служат обручами, которые в определенной степени удерживают идентичность "доброй старой" Европы.

В поисках метафорического места, которое олицетворяло бы европейскую память, Джадт кончает книгу рассказом о посещении Дома террора, воздвигнутого венгерским правоцентристским правительством в Будапеште для увековечения памяти жертв нацизма и коммунизма. Автор книги считает подобный замысел весьма многозначительным и своевременным. Однако если центральное место в европейской памяти занимают все-таки евреи, я закончил бы эту историю посещением другого мемориала - памятника убиенным евреям Европы американского архитектора Питера Айзенмана, представляющего собой лес из двух тысяч семисот бетонных столбов разной величины (до 7,5 м), тесно расставленных на площади величиной в 20 тыс. кв. метров рядом с Бранденбургскими воротами и местом бывшей Рейхсканцелярии. Кроме всего прочего, этот мемориал тянется вдоль той линии, которая - в виде бывшей Берлинской стены - на протяжении четырех десятилетий разделяла Европу на две половины. Айзенмановский лес из стел вовлекает посетителя в свой головокружительный "интерьер". Он взывает к размышлениям, но в то же время предоставляет возможность детям играть, а взрослым - искать взглядом живых среди камней. Этот памятник аутентичен поставленной задаче, поскольку допускает бесконечное количество толкований и даже оставляет место для надежды и нечаянной радости. Он признает прошлое, но не как предмет лекционного курса; он не скрывает ужасов, но не предполагает невротической реакции. Вопреки установившимся клише, прошлое - это не неизвестная страна, а место, которое мы покидаем добровольно, в надежде на лучшее.

Translation by Joseph Friedman