Regular readers of this blog might well be tempted to think that, as far as I am concerned, nothing is more important than art. This is hardly surprising, since the purpose of the exercise has very much to do with my life as an artist. It’s intention has always been, l however, to convey some idea of how my art relates to the rest of life. In some cases, indeed, art is shouldered aside abruptly by some other events. This appears to be one of those episodes. Although some of my time and attention still revolve around art, at the moment it does appear to be increasingly marginalised. The situation in eastern Europe does occupy a great deal of my attention. Indeed, I think about it quite a lot. This should hardly be surprising in view of my former employment as an academic specialist on the Balkans.
As I was doing a little gardening today an incident came into my head from the days of my involvement in Yugoslavia. During the crisis in Kosovo, when a NATO force moved into the area in order to deter further Serb aggression, suddenly a Russian force turned up in Pristina airport. The British commander rapidly realised that their intentions were far from aggressive. and the primary motive behind the exercise was to make the point, very dramatically, that the international community had just about written off Russia as having any legitimate interest in the situation, and anything to contribute to its resolution.
For a long time now NATO has written Russia out of any script in relation to European affairs. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they have been criminally negligent in their lack of awareness of any Russian interest in the region. There has been a cavalier assumption that the Russians simply “lost”, and NATO is in possession of the field and can just about do what it likes. This was underlined for me by the discovery that the Ukrainians had written into their constitution their intention to join NATO! This was despite the fact that there is general agreement that not only does that country not satisfy the conditions for entry at the moment, but it is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future.
This is not a suitable context for an academic article on Eastern Europe. I simply want to draw attention to the fact that a sober reappraisal of the position of Russian within Europe is long overdue. Whatever else happens as a result of the current crisis, it seems certain that that will be among the results.