Interview of Robert Steuckers for the Georgian magazine "Free Eurasia" (2004)
Questions of Mr. Gia BUMGIASHVILI
1. What is your opinion about the creation of the Eurasian movement under the leadership of A. Dugin?
I first met Dugin in a Parisian bookshop in 1990. We started a conversation and, immediately, we stated that we had the same geopolitical vision, in spite of the fact that the Cold War had separated Russians and West Europeans for more than forty years. A very few group of people, on both side of the Iron Curtain, remained silently true to the same conservative-revolutionist and geopolitical ideas. We both were tremendously satisfied to state that. So I am very happy to hear now that he is launching a worldwide Eurasian movement. In Paris, Guillaume Faye is pleading since a couple of years for a "Euro-Siberian" perspective and many other people here in Belgium write me now to develop similar initiatives. In Germany too, the hope of re-establishing the traditional German-Russian alliance (from Tauroggen in 1813 till the tragic abdication of Bismarck) is present. In Italy and Spain, many people struggle also for similar Eurasian perspectives. To put the idea in practical terms and to embed it in an actual historical perspective, I would say that the Eurasian idea should be the answer to the current American strategy, which was elaborated by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard; at the same time, this mobilising idea should be the revival of the Holy Alliance led by Prince Eugene of Savoy at the end of the 17th century. Brzezinski wants to reduce the space of the Orthodox-Russian civilisation sphere to the lands it occupies before Catherine II, by supporting the Turkish and Muslim claims. Against such a strategy, we should remember the actions and victories of Prince Eugene, who compelled the Ottomans to retrocede 400.000 km2 of lands to Austria and Russia. Prince Eugene gave so the first kick that allowed some decades later Potemkine and Catherine II to push their armies to Crimea and to deliver the all Black Sea Coast from Ottoman yoke.
2. What do you think about Georgia and Caucasus?
As all Western people, I must confess that our knowledge about your country is very reduced. This is a result of forty years of Cold War. The only testimonies of people having really been in the Caucasus area are the ones of German soldiers or of people having served in the German army. I remember an old man, who is still alive, and who told me that he had been impressed by a refined way of life in the difficult conditions of war. In the neo-conservative circles in Western Europe, the main sources of reference about the Caucasus are the books and articles of the French philologist Georges Dumézil, who specialised in the ancient Ossetes, and the poems of the Armenian poet Daniel Varoujan, who wrote verses about the gods of the Ancient Caucasus. Daniel Varoujan was killed by the Turks in 1916, when the Ottoman authorities decided to get rid of all the Orthodox populations accused of supporting the Russians. About the Black Sea area, our main sources are Romanian. As the Romanians generally speaks French very well, they were the only intellectuals in the West that could give us here intelligent information about the Black Sea area. We really look forward to receiving from you more information about Georgian and Caucasian history, in the frame of our activities in Eurasian work groups. More generally, I would say that Europe needs a link to the so-called Pontic area. A Europe that is cut from your area is not complete, it lacks the contact with decisive elements of its culture, as the Romanian historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, taught us. The German historian of religions Markus Osterrieder speaks of the "Pontic mysteries", heritated by the Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Alans and the Ancient Iranians, that were cultivated in all Caucasian countries before the islamisation and that were also preserved in monasteries and cave dwellings in Crimea. The French Paul Du Breuil remembers us that the ideals of the medieval Chivalry derives form the ethic codes of the Sarmatians, who served in the Roman army, and who were also deeply influenced by the cult of Mithra. Europa has always been nostalgic of these "Pontic Mysteries" and created in the 15th century the Chivalry "Order of the Golden Fleece", in order to come back spiritually to the Pontic area, womb of the highest ideals. The Western materialistic spirit wouldn't have wounded the European soul so deeply, would the ideal of the "Golden Fleece" have been realised.
3. What political orientation of Europe are you for?
We want a free Europe, independent on all level, inclusive the food, energy and finance levels. To reach this ideal in Europe, we have to reduce our dependencies from American food consortiums, from Saudi Arabian oil and oil routes and from Wall Street. Only the Eurasian perspective, and subsequently the "Golden Fleece" ideal in its material contemporary aspects, can help us all to get rid of those dependencies. The Euro-Siberian ideal should be centred around the Black Sea, as well as the Caspian and Aral Sea, with links to the West by the river system, as the geopolitician Artur Dix saw it at the time of the Rathenau-Chicherin alliance of Rapallo in 1922. As you know, America is controlling Europe militarily by holding the Mediterranean through the presence of the 6th Fleet and its alliance with Turkey and Israel. But Chancellor Kohl of Germany realised actually a dream of Charlemagne, first Frankish Emperor of the West. Charlemagne, stating that the Mediterranean was in the hands of the Saracens, thought that it would be opportune to dig a Canal between the Main, a river which is tributary of the Rhine, and the Danube, in order to reach the Black Sea. So Europe would have had a fluvial highway from the North Sea to the Black Sea, without being disturbed by the Saracens. Kohl realised this project after more than thousand years. Immediately after the digging of the Canal, war started on another spot of Danube river, i. e. in Yugoslavia. First, the terrible battle of Vukovar between Croats and Serbs blocked the river for a while; secondly, the disastrous war of the NATO against Serbia destroyed the bridges in Belgrade, cutting the circulation on the main European river. More, from Belgrade, Europe could easily reach by road and railway the Aegean Sea, i. e. the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean, an area that the British and the American always wanted to keep far from European or Russian hands.
So our freedom as political entities or as a civilisation area depends largely from a freedom to use our own highways. The same is valid of course for the pipelines of Northern and Southern Caucasus. If they are linked to the Rhine-Danube system instead of to the Turkish-American project of letting the oil transiting through Turkey in the direction of Ceyhan on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, we all would be masters of our energy.
We wish also a Europe that would be lead by politicians having a clear historical and geopolitical consciousness. And who would have "responsibility ethics", as Max Weber said.
4. How do you imagine the best anti-American movement in the world?
A good movement should be borne by people in every country, who would first cope with the problems in practical and geopolitical terms. A movement is always a potential government elite and in our eyes there is no better governance than a governance guided by a good historical memory. The divisions within the Eurasian peoples' family are due to a horrible lack of historical perspective. The task of an elite is to give back to all of us an historical perspective, able to seize the real dynamics of history. Guy Debord, the French clever leftist of the Sixties, said that manipulation was possible because the historical memory had been wiped out. This is very true. CNN can tell its lies throughout the world because the brains of the petty politicians of the usual parties are totally empty. Our task is to revive the historical memory of our people, in a unifying Eurasian sense.
5. May we translate your articles and publish them in our journal?
This question makes me really happy, simply because I tell the people since decades that our freedom will come when we know each other better. The best way to know each other is to translate texts. So you understand clearly what's to be done. Of course, Georgian fellows, you not only may translate our texts, but you ought to! For the sake of our common struggle! We will try, with your help, to give as much information about your activities as we can. Many young people helping me to edit my magazines will be happy to see their texts translated. Thank you! And good luck!
Questions of Mr. Gia BUMGIASHVILI
1. What is your opinion about the creation of the Eurasian movement under the leadership of A. Dugin?
I first met Dugin in a Parisian bookshop in 1990. We started a conversation and, immediately, we stated that we had the same geopolitical vision, in spite of the fact that the Cold War had separated Russians and West Europeans for more than forty years. A very few group of people, on both side of the Iron Curtain, remained silently true to the same conservative-revolutionist and geopolitical ideas. We both were tremendously satisfied to state that. So I am very happy to hear now that he is launching a worldwide Eurasian movement. In Paris, Guillaume Faye is pleading since a couple of years for a "Euro-Siberian" perspective and many other people here in Belgium write me now to develop similar initiatives. In Germany too, the hope of re-establishing the traditional German-Russian alliance (from Tauroggen in 1813 till the tragic abdication of Bismarck) is present. In Italy and Spain, many people struggle also for similar Eurasian perspectives. To put the idea in practical terms and to embed it in an actual historical perspective, I would say that the Eurasian idea should be the answer to the current American strategy, which was elaborated by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard; at the same time, this mobilising idea should be the revival of the Holy Alliance led by Prince Eugene of Savoy at the end of the 17th century. Brzezinski wants to reduce the space of the Orthodox-Russian civilisation sphere to the lands it occupies before Catherine II, by supporting the Turkish and Muslim claims. Against such a strategy, we should remember the actions and victories of Prince Eugene, who compelled the Ottomans to retrocede 400.000 km2 of lands to Austria and Russia. Prince Eugene gave so the first kick that allowed some decades later Potemkine and Catherine II to push their armies to Crimea and to deliver the all Black Sea Coast from Ottoman yoke.
2. What do you think about Georgia and Caucasus?
As all Western people, I must confess that our knowledge about your country is very reduced. This is a result of forty years of Cold War. The only testimonies of people having really been in the Caucasus area are the ones of German soldiers or of people having served in the German army. I remember an old man, who is still alive, and who told me that he had been impressed by a refined way of life in the difficult conditions of war. In the neo-conservative circles in Western Europe, the main sources of reference about the Caucasus are the books and articles of the French philologist Georges Dumézil, who specialised in the ancient Ossetes, and the poems of the Armenian poet Daniel Varoujan, who wrote verses about the gods of the Ancient Caucasus. Daniel Varoujan was killed by the Turks in 1916, when the Ottoman authorities decided to get rid of all the Orthodox populations accused of supporting the Russians. About the Black Sea area, our main sources are Romanian. As the Romanians generally speaks French very well, they were the only intellectuals in the West that could give us here intelligent information about the Black Sea area. We really look forward to receiving from you more information about Georgian and Caucasian history, in the frame of our activities in Eurasian work groups. More generally, I would say that Europe needs a link to the so-called Pontic area. A Europe that is cut from your area is not complete, it lacks the contact with decisive elements of its culture, as the Romanian historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, taught us. The German historian of religions Markus Osterrieder speaks of the "Pontic mysteries", heritated by the Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Alans and the Ancient Iranians, that were cultivated in all Caucasian countries before the islamisation and that were also preserved in monasteries and cave dwellings in Crimea. The French Paul Du Breuil remembers us that the ideals of the medieval Chivalry derives form the ethic codes of the Sarmatians, who served in the Roman army, and who were also deeply influenced by the cult of Mithra. Europa has always been nostalgic of these "Pontic Mysteries" and created in the 15th century the Chivalry "Order of the Golden Fleece", in order to come back spiritually to the Pontic area, womb of the highest ideals. The Western materialistic spirit wouldn't have wounded the European soul so deeply, would the ideal of the "Golden Fleece" have been realised.
3. What political orientation of Europe are you for?
We want a free Europe, independent on all level, inclusive the food, energy and finance levels. To reach this ideal in Europe, we have to reduce our dependencies from American food consortiums, from Saudi Arabian oil and oil routes and from Wall Street. Only the Eurasian perspective, and subsequently the "Golden Fleece" ideal in its material contemporary aspects, can help us all to get rid of those dependencies. The Euro-Siberian ideal should be centred around the Black Sea, as well as the Caspian and Aral Sea, with links to the West by the river system, as the geopolitician Artur Dix saw it at the time of the Rathenau-Chicherin alliance of Rapallo in 1922. As you know, America is controlling Europe militarily by holding the Mediterranean through the presence of the 6th Fleet and its alliance with Turkey and Israel. But Chancellor Kohl of Germany realised actually a dream of Charlemagne, first Frankish Emperor of the West. Charlemagne, stating that the Mediterranean was in the hands of the Saracens, thought that it would be opportune to dig a Canal between the Main, a river which is tributary of the Rhine, and the Danube, in order to reach the Black Sea. So Europe would have had a fluvial highway from the North Sea to the Black Sea, without being disturbed by the Saracens. Kohl realised this project after more than thousand years. Immediately after the digging of the Canal, war started on another spot of Danube river, i. e. in Yugoslavia. First, the terrible battle of Vukovar between Croats and Serbs blocked the river for a while; secondly, the disastrous war of the NATO against Serbia destroyed the bridges in Belgrade, cutting the circulation on the main European river. More, from Belgrade, Europe could easily reach by road and railway the Aegean Sea, i. e. the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean, an area that the British and the American always wanted to keep far from European or Russian hands.
So our freedom as political entities or as a civilisation area depends largely from a freedom to use our own highways. The same is valid of course for the pipelines of Northern and Southern Caucasus. If they are linked to the Rhine-Danube system instead of to the Turkish-American project of letting the oil transiting through Turkey in the direction of Ceyhan on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, we all would be masters of our energy.
We wish also a Europe that would be lead by politicians having a clear historical and geopolitical consciousness. And who would have "responsibility ethics", as Max Weber said.
4. How do you imagine the best anti-American movement in the world?
A good movement should be borne by people in every country, who would first cope with the problems in practical and geopolitical terms. A movement is always a potential government elite and in our eyes there is no better governance than a governance guided by a good historical memory. The divisions within the Eurasian peoples' family are due to a horrible lack of historical perspective. The task of an elite is to give back to all of us an historical perspective, able to seize the real dynamics of history. Guy Debord, the French clever leftist of the Sixties, said that manipulation was possible because the historical memory had been wiped out. This is very true. CNN can tell its lies throughout the world because the brains of the petty politicians of the usual parties are totally empty. Our task is to revive the historical memory of our people, in a unifying Eurasian sense.
5. May we translate your articles and publish them in our journal?
This question makes me really happy, simply because I tell the people since decades that our freedom will come when we know each other better. The best way to know each other is to translate texts. So you understand clearly what's to be done. Of course, Georgian fellows, you not only may translate our texts, but you ought to! For the sake of our common struggle! We will try, with your help, to give as much information about your activities as we can. Many young people helping me to edit my magazines will be happy to see their texts translated. Thank you! And good luck!
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