Criticism after the comparison made by the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell. According to the director of the Hermitage: “Everyone cultivates his own garden.” For the academic, the war in Ukraine responds to a problem of survival: a Soviet “greenhouse” is preferable to the capitalist jungle.
Moscow () – In Russia, the director of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Mikhail Piotrovsky (see photo), reacted to the comparison made by the head of European Union foreign policy, Josep Borrell, who defined Russia (already other countries) as “a jungle” compared to the “garden” that is Europe. Although the Spanish diplomat immediately apologized for his comment, the expression is very revealing of the cultural and psychological dimensions of the conflict between Moscow and the West.
In Russia, they consider that European culture “is poisoned by colonialism.” From the Russian point of view, Borrell’s phrase makes it clear that this dimension is not yet completely overcome and that from the depths of consciousness it can resurface, as an attempt to impose the very idea of civilization on everyone. This is precisely the accusation that would have pushed Putin’s Russia to the extreme consequences of “defensive warfare”.
Indeed, the image of the “garden” is deeply rooted in the European tradition, from the biblical evocations of Eden or the “hortus clausus” of the Song of Songs, to the famous profane definitions of Voltaire’s “Candide”. “Each one cultivates his own garden,” replied Piotrovsky, revealing a mirror image and opposite consciousness on the part of Russia, which although it belongs to Europe, is also its adversary.
“The garden is culture,” according to the director – a staunch supporter of Putin, but also one of the brightest exponents of contemporary Russian intelligentsia. “Their destiny, however, is to share”, the very term “culture” comes from agricultural work; “Cicero spoke of culture as a sharing of soul and intellect, the most important fruits of human nature.” The garden is the symbol of the “transformation of wild nature”, and it must be “contrasted not with the jungle, but with the forest”.
Quoting a great Russian literary historian, Dmitry Lichačev, Piotrovsky explains that “both the garden and the forest have the same right to exist.” For the academic, “the forest is the primordial and active nature, the garden is the cultivated nature, the natural and the artificial together, and they should not be confused with each other”. Using Borrell’s metaphor to comment on the current situation, he said that “everyone should be allowed to cultivate their own garden.”
After all, comments the director of the Hermitage, “the jungle was formed in Russia when we began to live in capitalism and the market economy, after having become accustomed for so long to the comfortable hothouse of socialism.” The struggle between the ferocious beasts of the markets and ruthless competition confronted Russia with a problem of survival, and it ended up reacting with war to free itself from these suffocating “uncontrolled vegetations”.
Borrell’s “blunder” ultimately sheds light on the real reception and the contradiction of the cultural confrontation in Europe. This leads to “an unexpected result in the fight against homologous globalism” that forces multiculturalism, in which cultures are thrown into the confusion of the jungle without having their own living space. The demand for the equal rights of cultures actually leads to their uprooting from the original soil, but “the European garden is not prepared for the coexistence of diversity”, Piotrovsky insists, and ends with the total collapse of plural culture.
The director, successor and son of the greatest custodian of culture in Russian collections, warns that in museums, “the multiple cultures of the world are preserved and exhibited to arouse wonder and admiration, not to create confusion.” It is not about colonialism or prevarication, but about “the salvation of the many gardens of the world.” This is Russia’s task, even in the midst of the tragedy of war, according to one of the greatest exponents of Russian culture.
