Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Slovakia and the Czech Republic on April 6-7 is the first opportunity for citizens of the former Warsaw Pact countries to get to know the Russian president and to find out where he stands on issues.
Over the past few years, Russia has been embroiled in disputes with countries in this region-disputes over the present and the past. It is symbolic that the Russian president chose to visit Slovakia first. Slovakia, along with the neighboring Czech Republic and Austria, were the first victims of Hitler's aggression.
The formation of the nominally independent "first Slovak Republic" in 1939 (in reality, a Nazi puppet regime) didn't fool anyone. Although its leaders called themselves Christians and boasted their newly acquired "sovereignty," there was nothing Christian or sovereign in their collaboration with the Nazis.
Soviet soldiers discovered the Slovaks' true feelings toward the Nazis in August 1944, when the Slovaks attempted to put an end to the German occupation at the same time as the Polish uprising in Warsaw. Sadly, the Slovaks failed. The surviving resistance fighters joined the Red Army as it approached Bratislava. They entered the city together 65 years ago.
Soviet statistics put the Red Army's losses during the liberation of the former Czechoslovakia at 140,000 people. Fighting in Slovakia accounts for at least 60,000 of that number, and the Slovaks remember this. Unlike the neighboring Czech Republic and Poland, Slovakia has preserved almost all its monuments to Soviet soldiers. There are memorial plaques marking the sites of the heaviest fighting in Bratislava. Local historians and analysts agree that the Soviet soldiers gave Slovakia the only thing they could - freedom from the Nazis. The soldiers could not help the Slovaks resolve all of their problems or bring economic prosperity and universal freedom to the country if only because they did not have them in their own country. But they brought an end to the greatest danger that existed in Europe at that time - long-term Nazi domination. Today people tend to forget this alternate history to our common victory in World War II.
In "A Short History of the World", John Morris Roberts, the renowned British historian, writes: "Hitler sought...to win Germany territory in the East, at the expense of the Slav peoples whom he regarded as inferiors." Hitler looked to the Slavic lands in the East only as a source of living space and natural resources for the Germans. Roberts observed that this crusade-like myth appealed to many Germans and was used to justify more appalling atrocities than any other myth in human history.
When Hitler spoke about his plans for the so-called Eastern peoples, he almost always spoke about Slavs as a whole, without distinguishing between Slovaks, Russians, Poles or Ukrainians. I see no reason to discuss these plans in detail. They are well known, and no historian disputes them. Slavs were supposed to be able to count to 100 and read traffic signs. They were to be inoculated against diseases so as not to infect "the superior German race". Solace was to be provided by a little religion. And this was to be the fate of the survivors. A vast portion of the population was to be destroyed to quell even the slightest resistance. For all of its imperfections, difficulties and even tragedies, the second half of the 20th century was much better for the Slavs than Hitler intended.
This is how we should view the events of 65 years ago. Of course, freedom did not come instantly. The American historian, Erich Goldhagen, wrote that while Dante's phrase "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" could have been written above the gates of Nazi-occupied Europe, not even the gloomiest pessimist would have put it on the gates of the communist world.
Russians, Slovaks, Poles and other East European peoples proved capable of reforming themselves on their own. While this did not happen overnight, eventually it did. Russia was one of the first to recognize the independent Slovak state in 1993. Over the last few years, trade between Russia and Slovakia has approached $5.5 billion. Russia has welcomed Slovakia's entry into the European Union and continues its economic and cultural cooperation with Slovakia within this new framework.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti correspondent Dmitry Babich)
