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Bohley’s own response was to observe somewhat sourly: ‘We wanted justice and we got the
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De Maiziere’s second act was at last to acknowledge East Germany’s shared responsibility for the Holocaust and allocate DM6.2 million for reparations.
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It is no coincidence that Mitterrand was the only major Western political figure to accommodate himself without hesitation to the apparent overthrow of Gorbachev in the abortive Moscow coup of the following year.
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It is not a little ironic that Mitterrand’s successors are now having to grapple with the budgetary constraints and social consequences of that same treaty.
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Not the least of which was the appointment of Mitterrand’s crony Jacques Attali as head of a new institution—the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)—with a remit to invest in the rebuilding of Eastern Europe. After spending millions refurbishing a prestigious building for himself—but very little on the bank’s putative beneficiaries—Attali was ignominiously removed. The experience did no discernible damage to his considerable self-esteem.
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There is some evidence that Gorbachev conceded this crucial point inadvertently, when he acceded in May 1990 to President Bush’s suggestion that Germany’s right of self-determination should include the freedom to ‘choose its alliances’.
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In Grass’s view, modern German history consists of a perennial disposition to bloat and expand, followed by desperate attempts at constraint by the rest of the continent—or in his words: ‘Every few years, for our all-German constipation, we are given a Europe-enema.’
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Note that just eight weeks earlier Gorbachev had adamantly refused to consider any such change.
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The five central Asian republics—Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadjikistan, Turkmenia and Uzbekistan—between them covered more land (18 percent of Soviet territory) than any republic other than Russia itself, although their combined share of Soviet GNP in September 1991 was just 9.9 percent. But their story falls outside the bounds of the present book.
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But mostly unpredicted. For an impressive exception, see the essays by Roman Szporluk: written over the course of the Seventies and Eighties and gathered in
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And should not be confused with historical Moldavia just across the Prut river in Romania.
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The Azeris being of Turkic origin, part of the background to these tensions can be traced to the Armenian massacres of World War One in Ottoman Turkey.
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The characteristic Russian self-image, an unstable alloy of insecurity and hubris, is nicely captured in remarks by the liberal philosopher Peter Chaadayev, from his ‘Philosophical Letters’ of 1836: ‘We are one of those nations which do not seem to be an integral part of the human race, but which exist only to give some great lesson to the world. The instruction which we are destined to give will certainly not be lost: but who knows the day when we shall find ourselves a part of humanity, and how much misery we shall experience before the fulfillment of our destiny.’
