The great migration as the great challenge

Differences between West and Eas of Christendom are of different origin. Some are pre-Christian. For example, only Romans preferred to think about left side as the right one - the side where deities live. Here roots such small differences as the way of making the sign of the cross (from right to left in Eastern Christianity, from left to the right in the West) or wearing the wedding ring (in the East -- the right hand while both spouses are alive.)

Still, in Dark Ages there was much in common. Only from XI century the growth of divergence become explosive. What had happened? One of the obvious differences between West and East of Christendom in 6-10 cc. is that the great migration of peoples was more devastating to the West than to the East. Byzantium successfully integrated barbarians. It was the empire of the type Carl the Great or German kings of the Xth c. only dreamed about. Western idea of unity, which was the dream of many generations and still is, was reality in the East. Byzantium was the real melting-pot society, much more than United States.

Eastern Slavs also created very homogenous society, but not through integration of barbarians Just the opposite, here unity was reached through extermination or integration of the native people. The division of Rus' into three branches on the dawn of modernity haven't created anything of the sort of divergence which was and still is the reality in Western Europe.

Even now, after thousand years of intercultural contacts, of latinization through Catholicism or Americanization through Hollywood Western Europe is much more smashed to pieces than the East. In Russia it is usual way to state that on the territory of this or that region you "can find room for dozens of Frances, Switherlands, Spains." The fall of Soviet Union was felt to be something like the fall of Byzantium, the fall from the primordial Unity into sinful disintegrity.

Unity for Western Europe was always a dream only. Why Western Europe hadn't reached homogeneity is one problem with too much solutions. But this diversity came out to be a blessing. In tenth century it produced the word and idea of Christendom. It produced innumerous conflicts but it produced also innumerous contacts, the art of intercultural dialogue, the art of living in melting-pot without actual melting. In this relation Western Europe was and still is the prototype of the United States. National and tribal divergence was the great challenge. East respond to this challenge successfully removing it. West preserved the divergence but made it the basis of its special way of political and spiritual life. In usual terms, West failed (to create the empire etc.) But without this failure no modernity -- based on the dialogue in diversity -- would be possible.

January 27, 2001, 8.35 PM, Moscow

Rus