2022.04.16帝国最终会在血腥和不光彩中结束。

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By Invitation | Russia and Ukraine
Dominic Lieven says empires eventually end amid blood and dishonour
The academic argues that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a case in point

Apr 16th 2022 (Updated Apr 18th 2022)

EMPIRES ARE great powers. Their demise is usually accompanied by geopolitical convulsions and wars. They are also multinational polities with peoples living cheek by jowl. Turning an empire into nation states with sharply defined sovereign peoples and borders seldom comes without great conflict. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a case in point.

In the 1880s the chief legal adviser to the Russian foreign ministry wrote that if the national principle—to every people its own state—was ever applied in the vast region then ruled by the Romanovs, Habsburgs and Ottomans the result would be mayhem. He was correct. It took two world wars, many lesser conflicts, genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale to turn the imperial map of central and eastern Europe into the post-1945 national map. Much of the Middle East is still living with the consequences of the demise of the Ottoman empire and of the British and French empires that briefly filled part of the void the Ottomans left behind. European-style ethno-linguistic and democratic nation-states had great difficulty putting down roots in a world where allegiance was traditionally defined by local community, religion, dynasty and region.


The consequences of imperial collapse often take a generation or more to emerge. Bangladesh’s secession from Pakistan happened 24 years after the end of British India. Although the end of the British empire was managed better than most, post-imperial conflicts still rage today all the way from Ireland, across the Middle East (Cyprus, Iraq, Palestine) to Fiji. The worst of these is the confrontation between India and Pakistan over the disputed border region of Kashmir.

The most frightening example of the delayed impact of an empire’s collapse is interwar Germany. Like Russia in 1991, Germany in 1919 was on its knees but remained by far the most latently powerful country in the region. A combination of post-imperial resentment and regained power led it to challenge the territorial settlement agreed in the Treaty of Versailles, facilitating another world war. This is not to make comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin. With or without Hitler, Germany would probably in time have challenged the post-war order in east-central Europe.

After 1945, the Soviet Union was the surviving empire. Now we are living with the consequences of its collapse. It was a miracle that this empire, with its bloodstained history and its massive security apparatus, disintegrated between 1985 and 1991 with barely a shot fired in its defence. The invasion of Ukraine is the belated revenge of the old Soviet security apparatus for what it sees as 30 years of humiliation, retreat and defeat.

From a Western perspective, the near-bloodless demise of Soviet communism was almost a fairy tale. It fed the belief—terrifyingly reminiscent of Europeans before 1914—that contemporary Western civilisation marked the end of history and the final triumph of liberal values. But for the Russians, the 1990s were anything but a fairy tale. The economy and political institutions disintegrated. Life expectancy plummeted. Some 25m ethnic Russians suddenly found themselves outside Russia’s borders. Russia was demoted from superpower to beggar. It is unsurprising that many Russians love Mr Putin (with much less provocation, Americans elected Donald Trump under the slogan “Make America great again”).


As always, the loss of Russia’s empire meant most to its elites. It deeply wounded their sense of status, self-esteem and world-historical significance. The loss of Ukraine specifically has hurt Russians more than that of the other Soviet republics. Possession of Ukraine has long been essential to Russia’s existence as a great empire; its secession in 1991 sealed the Soviet Union’s fate. Crimea's loss hit Russians especially hard. The great naval base in Sevastopol was vital to Russian power in the Black Sea region and had a unique place in Russia’s historical memory (owed above all to the great sieges during the Crimean and second world wars).

Both because of its importance to Russia, and owing to internal divisions between the Russian-speaking east and the rest of the country, I always believed that an independent Ukraine could only survive if Russia’s relations with the West remained good. Ukraine could act as a bridge between the two. When Ukraine was forced to choose between Russia and the West—as happened definitively in 2014—disaster followed.

Mr Putin’s initial strategy has failed. He will probably now attempt to conquer all the Donbas region and the land bridge between it and Crimea. If this succeeds, Ukraine will never accept this new border as a basis for long-term peace. The brave war of independence against the invading Russian ogre will become a central—and unifying—core of the Ukrainian national myth. Even after Mr Putin departs, any future Russian government will find it hard to retreat from Donbas (let alone Crimea) and retain legitimacy. If other borderland wars, such as in Kashmir, in former empires are a guide, the Russo-Ukrainian conflict could last in a semi-frozen state for decades, threatening international stability and periodically bursting into renewed fighting. It might even escalate into nuclear confrontation.
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Dominic Lieven is an author and academic. His forthcoming book, “In the Shadow of the Gods: The Emperor in World History,” will be published in May.



应邀参加｜俄罗斯和乌克兰
多米尼克-列文说，帝国最终会在血腥和不光彩中结束。
这位学者认为，俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵就是一个典型的例子。

2022年4月16日 (2022年4月18日更新)

帝国是大国。它们的消亡通常伴随着地缘政治的动荡和战争。它们也是多民族的政体，各国人民毗邻而居。将一个帝国转变为具有明确的主权民族和边界的民族国家，很少会没有巨大的冲突。俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵就是一个典型的例子。

19世纪80年代，俄罗斯外交部的首席法律顾问写道，如果在当时由罗曼诺夫家族、哈布斯堡家族和奥斯曼家族统治的广大地区适用民族原则--每个民族都有自己的国家，那么结果将是混乱的。他是正确的。经过两次世界大战、许多较小的冲突、大规模的种族灭绝和种族清洗，中欧和东欧的帝国地图才变成1945年后的国家地图。中东大部分地区仍然生活在奥斯曼帝国以及短暂填补奥斯曼人留下的部分空白的英国和法国帝国灭亡的后果中。欧洲式的民族语言和民主民族国家很难在一个传统上以当地社区、宗教、王朝和地区为效忠对象的世界中扎根。


帝国崩溃的后果往往需要一代人甚至更长时间才能显现出来。孟加拉国从巴基斯坦分离出来是在英属印度结束24年之后。尽管大英帝国的结束比大多数国家都处理得好，但今天，从爱尔兰、整个中东地区（塞浦路斯、伊拉克、巴勒斯坦）到斐济，后帝国时代的冲突仍在不断发生。其中最严重的是印度和巴基斯坦在有争议的克什米尔边境地区的对峙。

一个帝国崩溃的延迟影响的最可怕的例子是战时的德国。就像1991年的俄罗斯一样，1919年的德国也是跪在地上，但到目前为止仍然是该地区最潜在的强大国家。后帝国时代的怨恨和重新获得的权力相结合，导致它挑战《凡尔赛条约》中商定的领土解决方案，促成了另一场世界大战。这并不是要在阿道夫-希特勒和弗拉基米尔-普京之间进行比较。不管有没有希特勒，德国很可能会在一段时间内挑战中东欧的战后秩序。

1945年后，苏联是幸存的帝国。现在我们正生活在它崩溃的后果中。这个有着血腥历史和庞大安全机构的帝国，在1985年至1991年期间解体，几乎没有为保卫自己而开过一枪，这是一个奇迹。对乌克兰的入侵是旧苏联安全机构对它所认为的30年的羞辱、退却和失败的迟来的报复。

从西方的角度来看，苏维埃共产主义近乎无血的灭亡几乎是一个童话故事。它使人们相信--可怕的是让人想起了1914年之前的欧洲人--当代西方文明标志着历史的终结和自由主义价值观的最终胜利。但对俄罗斯人来说，20世纪90年代完全不是一个童话故事。经济和政治机构瓦解了。预期寿命急剧下降。约2500万俄罗斯族人突然发现自己在俄罗斯的边界之外。俄罗斯从超级大国被降级为乞丐。许多俄罗斯人喜欢普京先生并不奇怪（美国人在 "让美国再次伟大 "的口号下选出了唐纳德-特朗普，挑衅程度要小得多）。


一如既往，俄罗斯帝国的丧失对其精英阶层来说意义重大。它深深伤害了他们的地位感、自尊心和世界历史意义。与其他苏联共和国相比，乌克兰的丧失对俄罗斯人的伤害更大。长期以来，拥有乌克兰对俄罗斯作为一个大帝国的存在至关重要；1991年乌克兰的分离决定了苏联的命运。克里米亚的丧失对俄罗斯人的打击尤其大。塞瓦斯托波尔的伟大海军基地对俄罗斯在黑海地区的权力至关重要，在俄罗斯的历史记忆中具有独特的地位（首先归功于克里米亚战争和第二次世界大战期间的大围攻）。

由于它对俄罗斯的重要性，也由于讲俄语的东部地区和该国其他地区之间的内部分歧，我一直认为，只有俄罗斯与西方的关系保持良好，一个独立的乌克兰才能生存。乌克兰可以充当两者之间的桥梁。当乌克兰被迫在俄罗斯和西方之间做出选择时--正如2014年明确发生的那样--灾难随之而来。

普京先生最初的战略已经失败。他现在可能会试图征服整个顿巴斯地区以及它与克里米亚之间的陆桥。如果这成功了，乌克兰将永远不会接受这个新的边界作为长期和平的基础。对抗入侵的俄罗斯食人魔的勇敢的独立战争将成为乌克兰民族神话的核心和统一的核心。即使在普京先生离开后，任何未来的俄罗斯政府都会发现很难从顿巴斯撤退（更不用说克里米亚）并保持合法性。如果前帝国的其他边境地区战争（如克什米尔）是一种指导，那么俄乌冲突可能会在半冻结状态下持续数十年，威胁到国际稳定并定期爆发新的战斗。它甚至可能升级为核对抗。
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多米尼克-列文是一名作家和学者。他即将出版的《在众神的阴影下：世界历史中的皇帝》一书将于5月出版。