The Crimean Crisis — The End of Tsarist Russia

The crisis in Ukraine is the last stage of the self-decolonisation of Europe, historian Timothy Garton Ash writes in La Repubblica (March 10) as quoted at EuroTopics.

“After dismantling the Soviet empire towards the end of the 20th century, Europeans went back to finishing off the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman ones, including successor states such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Now it is the pre-Soviet Russian empire that is being challenged. Think of Russia’s president as Tsar Vladimir the Last….

“Meanwhile, and subversively, the frontiers of old empires re-emerge on the electoral maps of new democracies, as if traced in invisible ink…. Two things we should learn from more than a century’s experience of Europe’s self-decolonisation. First, once people have a state, they tend not to want to give it up….

“Even more vital is a second lesson. As that great anti-imperialist Mahatma Gandhi insisted: means and ends cannot be cleanly separated…. The use of force always has unintended consequences. Tsar Vladimir may claw back domination of Crimea, but his actions will ultimately reinforce the independence of Ukraine.”