The Theme Of Versailles In The 100th Anniversary Of The Soviet Union, Or “Eternal Return” In The Light Of Historical Politics

Abstract

The USSR, created after the Civil War, existed for almost 70 years and collapsed, repeating partially the fate of the Russian Empire. Researchers saw in the “chain” of events of the 20th–21st centuries. The “return” of circumstances similar to the Versailles order. Building power imbalances by ousting individual great powers from the circle of joint strategic decision-makers is again fraught with historical challenges. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the possibility of a “return” on a new “round” of historical challenges in the context of a change in the international order and the cost of overcoming these challenges in the process of geopolitical self-determination of Russia as a great power. The objectives of the article: to identify from the standpoint of historical politics the meanings of “returning” challenges as lessons for explaining the past and present, identifying the contours of the future, to conduct a comparative analysis of the consequences of Versailles and trends in the formation of the modern international order. The comparison revealed the “return” of the Versailles challenge in the form of such a variable as the condition of mass consciousness, capable of fragmenting the national identity of the state, destroying it. What happened to national identity in Russia in 1917 was “returning” at the end of the Cold War in the late USSR. There is a threat of such a “return” in modern Russia.

References

Autenshlius, B. R., Goncharov, P. S., Gromyko, Iu. V. et al. Postperestroika: Kontseptual’naia model’ razvitiia nashego obshchestva, politicheskikh partii i obshchestvennykh organizatsii. Moscow: Politizdat, 1990.
Bubnov, A. Iu. “Istoricheskaia politika i bor’ba interpretatsii kollektivnogo proshlogo v publichnoi sfere,” Izvestiia Tul’skogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Gumanitarnye nauki, No. 4, 2017, pp. 3–12.
Chandler, D. Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton. London: Pluto Press, 2000.
Cybulska, E. “Nietzsche’s Eternal Return: Unriddling the Vision, a Psychodynamic ApproachIndo-Pacific,” Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2013, pp. 1–13.
D’Iorio, P. “The Eternal Return Genesis and Interpretation,” Lexicon Philosophicum, No. 2, 2014, pp. 41–96.
Deleuze, G. Nitsshe, transl. S. L. Fokina. St. Petersburg: Machina, 2010.
Dubrovskii, V. Iu. “Stigmatizatsiia i destigmatizatsiia politsii: sotsiologicheskii analiz privlekatel’nosti sluzhebnoi deiatel’nosti v tsifrovom prostranstve,” Trud i sotsial’nye otnosheniia, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2022, pp. 74–82.
Gaidar, E. T. Gosudarstvo i evoliutsiia. Moscow: Evraziia, 1995.
Grishina, R. P., and Mal’kov, V. L. (eds.) Versal’ i novaia Vostochnaia Evropa. Moscow: Institut slavianovedeniia i balkanistiki RAN, 1996.
Ikenberry, J., and Deudney, D. “Otstuplenie ot soglashenii vremen kholodnoi voiny. Kak perevernut’ stranitsu v amerikano-rossiiskikh otnosheniiakh,” Rossiia v global’noi politike, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2010, pp. 8–29.
Kapitsyn, V. M. “Globalizatsiia i upravlenie identifikatsiiami: prolegomeny k strategii razvitiia Rossii,” Tsennosti i smysly, No. 5, 2010, pp. 68–83.
Karbivnichii, V. “Povorot ne tuda,” Rossiia v global’noi politike, October 4, 2022, URL: https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/povorot-ne-tuda/
Koval’chenko, I. D. Metody istoricheskogo issledovaniia. 2nd ed. Moscow: Nauka, 2003.
Morozov, V. E. Rossiia i drugie: identichnost’ i granitsy politicheskogo soobshchestva. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009.
Parsons, T. O sotsial’nykh sistemakh. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt, 2002.
Sümer, G. “International Order and the Access Problem of the Defeated Hegemon: The Case of Russia in the Post-Cold War Era,” Przegląd Strategiczny, No. 14, 2021, pp. 25–38.
Wright, J. “Locarno: A Democratic Peace? ”Review of International Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2010, pp. 391–411.