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The war in Ukraine
"Zelensky came to power in a coup,
war is between Russia and NATO"

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(Interview with Luciano Canfora, Umberto De Giovannangeli,
from "Il Riformista" of March 12, 2022 (link here)

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A voice outside the choir. By "vocation". Against the tide, even when he knows that his considerations clash with an established, mainstream narrative. Luciano Canfora, philologist, historian, essayist, professor emeritus of the University of Bari, member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia and director of the magazine Quaderni di Storia (Dedalo Edizioni), is like that. Always stimulating, however you think about it. And your reflections on the war in Ukraine are a confirmation of this.

Professor Canfora, in these dramatic weeks, many have tried to define what is happening in the East. What is your definition?
Point one, it is a conflict between powers. It is useless to try to nail down on ideology the good and the bad, the democracies and the autocratic regimes... What escapes us is that the real conflict is between Russia and NATO. Through Ukraine. Which has made itself a pawn in a bigger game. A game that didn’t start yesterday but began at least in 2014, after the coup in Kiev that ousted Yanukovich. It is a war between powers. When the various journos and newsmagazines say here are the former communists taking sides...One of the usual idiocies of our press. I claim the right to say that the warring powers are both far from my position and my choices, because the warring powers are each doing their own thing. And neither one nor the other is appreciable. Hiding the responsibilities of one in favor of the other is a gesture, to be a bit generous, at least anti-scientific.
There are those who claim that for Putin the real threat was not so much the entry of Ukraine into NATO or its accession to the EU, as the democratic system that was being tested in that country on the border with Russia. How do you think about it?
Let’s use a verse by the great Leopardi: "I do not know whether laughter or pity prevails" in front of schemes of this kind...
From poetry to prose...
If we have to consider as democratic who comes to power after a coup d’état, why when in Ukraine the incumbent government was ousted that was a coup, like that of al-Sisi in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood. Everyone is free to say the nonsense he wants but to use these categories to save his conscience, is not very serious. Biden’s son is in business with Zelensky. Zelensky is a gentleman who says he wants to fight for ideals, but those ideals also have less idealistic undertones....

To wit.

The Guardian, not Pravda, in October 2021 painted a very heavy portrait of Zelensky from a business point of view. Let’s incite our nice gazetteers to go and read last year’s Guardian to get a realistic portrait of Zelensky. After that, I am not shocked, because when the words freedom and democracy are used, it smells like propaganda from a mile away. Either we talk seriously or we make propaganda. Propaganda, however, is a very serious thing, just do not believe it.
There are those who accuse Russia of disinformation...
Well, our information apparatus is frightening too, from that point of view. I have no tenderness for Russian disinformation, but the spectacle of our press, print and television, is worse than Minculpop. In comparison, Minculpop is an Academy of Arcadia. A press with a helmet, in which from morning to night there is nothing but blathering, shouting, protesting, crying, judging, to create a mass psychosis. I must confess that although I have seen a lot of them in my life, I have been quite astonished by such readiness, which makes one think of precise orders, with which the press has put on the helmet. A frankly painful thing. Even in widespread psychology. I’ll tell you this: the day before yesterday I met a guy on the street who stopped me and said: "Professor, what do you think of that madman Putin?". "Some responsibility there is also on the other side," I answer him. "Ah", he says, "but then you think like me". This is an emblematic episode. We have arrived at self-censorship out of fear of exposure. Like during Fascism, when people used to say "but then you’re against it too..." This is what we’ve come to. Let’s launch at least a wake-up call so that the press can regain its dignity. If it can.
The pacifists who demonstrated last Saturday in Rome, have been accused by many parties as "pro-Putin"...

It is pure McCarthyism. I am not surprised by this, once it was said that they are paid for this. It is so bad faith to say such a thing that it does not even deserve a complex argument. Because it reveals by itself the McCarthyist, persecutory, hysterical, false consciousness nature of such an assessment. Clearly, we all wish for a return to a truly peaceful situation. Let’s remember the past, though....
Let’s remember it, Professor.
Gorbachev hoped for the Common European House. And it was rejected. Let’s also add that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States was born, which included Ukraine, the Baltic States, Russian Central Asia, Georgia. The Commonwealth of Independent States is a concept. Community means a few things. If you after a coup, the one in 2014, start asking to join NATO, you are disregarding a commitment made not many years before. We need a European Security Conference. A way out. If the European Union existed, which unfortunately it doesn’t, the solution would be to take an initiative for a European Security Conference. Of which the United States is not a part. Instead Europe is caged inside NATO whose political and military summit is in the United States. The commander general of NATO by statute must be an American general. In order to take office, the Secretary General of NATO, even if his name is Stoltenberg and he is Norwegian, must have the placet of the United States government. Gagged like this, we will always stutter.
In these weeks of war, there has been a lot of practice in decoding the various speeches made by Putin, in which the Russian president has evoked the Great Patriotic War, Mother Earth Russia, Pan-Russianism etc.. As a historian: isn’t it to be feared when a politician, especially if this politician is holding a nuclear power, seems to want to rewrite history?

This seems obvious to me. Only that the more fitting historical comparison would be another....
Which one?
The one that an excellent Italian scholar, Gian Enrico Rusconi, when NATO rushed to disintegrate Yugoslavia, entitled one of his books, a beautiful book, about Rischio 1914. Have we forgotten that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, NATO wanted, piece by piece, to eat up the space in between up to the borders of Russia? And the first obstacle was Yugoslavia. And when there was the secession of Croatia, analogous if you will to the secession of the Donbass, the first to recognize the Croatian government was the Pope and the second was the German federal government. And everybody applauded. The secession of Croatia was a jewel, a beauty. Now the secession of the Donbass is a crime. Risk 1914. I say this with alarm. In the Corriere della Sera, a sensible voice, that of Franco Venturini, says: but do we realize that Zelensky is continuing to call for military intervention by NATO, that is, he wants the Third World War... Do we realize it or not?
How do you judge the decision of the Italian government to send military equipment to Ukraine?
The European Union, which unfortunately does not exist, should have had a single policy on this and other issues. It is rather disconcerting and politically wrong that everyone goes his own way. In this particular case, Italy wants to be first in line. I hope it will remain within acceptable limits for the other side, given that we have NATO bases at home. If we continue to play with fire, we will do what Zelensky is insistently asking for. In this regard I would like to tell you something that is verifiable. A few days ago, in a talk show on Rete Tre, a Ukrainian scholar was in the studio, and a speech by Zelensky was broadcast and simultaneously translated into Italian. At one point, the Ukrainian scholar says "watch out, the translation is wrong," because he is saying something else. "And what is he saying," the host asks her? "He’s saying that we need NATO to intervene militarily." The translation was meant to conceal this. Figureccia of Italian television. Are we in danger of telling her these things, because before long, I don’t know, we’ll be reading the Gospel according to Riotta? I hope not.
If someone were to raise his accusatory index finger and say: well, Professor Canfora has revealed that he is nostalgic for the past... How would you respond?
I don’t think I have been nostalgic since I have repeatedly expressed my views on the scenarios following the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  No one, however, can take away the right to say what Demetrio Volcic wrote shortly before his death. And that is that the situation of balance existing at the time of the two super powers, guaranteed peace in the world. Demetrio Volcic. I hope he is considered above suspicion.

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