Nationalism helps Kyiv enormously

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When the war broke out, the blustering class that populated talk shows and feuilletons was certain that Ukraine would not be able to resist Russian superiority. She recommended Kyiv’s honorable surrender. Since then, she has been offended that the Ukrainians turned down the well-intentioned advice. But where does the Ukrainian people get the strength to defy the attack for almost a year?

The explanations range from “love of freedom” to “heroism” to “courage of despair”. In the attempts to make the incomprehensible comprehensible, there is always self-doubt as to whether the saturated Europeans would be able to resist to the same extent. In any case, the Ukrainians have one thing ahead of Western Europe: their nationalism.

The mixture of sovereignty, identity and national cohesion has not existed for long in Ukraine, which is traditionally divided into East and West. It is self-defense nationalism, the only possible response to Russian aggression and Putin’s outdated pan-Slavic imperialism.

Although the phenomenon is new, it has amazing effects. It is the power resource that also allows civilians to survive the bombing of residential areas and now the destruction of the electricity grid and water supply.

The worst crimes are committed in the name of the nation

In war, the hard facts – troop strength and armament – lose value in the absence of the soft factors: a determination to win and a cause worth dying for. The Ukrainians have them, the demoralized Russian soldiers don’t.

This nationalism is also contagious. Countless Germans, who would never unfurl a black, red and gold flag, enthusiastically wave the blue and yellow national colors. One may find substitute patriotism strange, but it is not ridiculous. Because it also expresses itself in genuine helpfulness for the millions of Ukrainian women and children who have made the great trek west.

Still, the praise of nationalism can get stuck in your throat. It is a plague in Europe, even if it proves to be an antidote for the Ukrainians. Ever since religion became obsolete as a reason for collective mass murder with the Enlightenment, the worst crimes and stupidest stupid things have been committed in its name.

In the First World War, Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia out of hurt national pride. Then the other great powers threw themselves like lemmings into the abyss with the words honor and fatherland on their lips. The Cold War put an end to the killing, but it’s back since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Yugoslav wars read like a counterpart to the Ukraine war. The communist functionary Slobodan Milosevic filled the void of disavowed communism with nationalist phrases. His great Serbian madness seduced the masses, one fanaticism followed the other. The Srebrenica massacre is the result of nationalism driven to excess.

Ever since the artificial entity of Yugoslavia broke up, war has never left Europe. Western Europe initially ignored the fighting on its edges, whether in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh or Transnistria. Even the Russian invasion of Crimea and Donbass in 2014 remained a distant flash. In the meantime, the smug assertion that wars between states are no longer possible in Europe has been dismissed. The «never again!» is waste. Instead, the sentence by the philosopher Helmuth Plessner is oppressively up-to-date: “To reckon with reality means to reckon with the devil.”

No other ideology has brought so much suffering to Europe since the early 19th century as nationalism. It was rightly considered taboo by both liberals and socialists. Relieved to leave its past behind, the Federal Republic of Germany even cultivated a “post-national” identity. People were proud to think European.

It is all the more remarkable that the term, which has negative connotations, is being reinterpreted. Now the will to assert oneself and perseverance are in the foreground. Nationalism mutates into national sentiment, although it is difficult to pinpoint the difference. At least in moral terms, the starting position is clear: Russia has invaded Ukraine – David against Goliath, defender against aggressor. self-defence.

The EU peace project no longer brings peace

For no one is the reinterpretation as precarious as for the EU. It has been a post-national project ever since it committed itself to “ever closer union” in the Maastricht Treaty. It remains to be seen whether this will lead to the overcoming of nation-statehood. The possibility is always considered when the EU Commission prepares to subject another area to its central control.

That nationalism is a curse for Europe and a blessing for Ukraine is both a paradox and a provocation. Naïve EU friends trivialize the complicated European history after 1945 as a smooth narrative of progress and inexorably progressing integration.

The opposite is true. Supranational cooperation and dogged insistence on sovereignty and individuality are equally part of Europe. Ursula von der Leyen, the apostle of communitization, and Wolodimir Selenski, the herald of self-assertion, embody the diversity of the continent.

With the return of nationalism with positive connotations, Europe is changing. The Europe of fatherlands, as Charles de Gaulle once evoked it, is gaining momentum. The idea of ​​a fatherland in Europe becomes a utopia, if it was ever more than an anemic construct. Securing peace is the highest aspiration of the EU. In Ukraine it failed.

Dying for the EU? If the question used to seem bizarre, since the Russian invasion it has sounded less exaggerated. Most Europeans would shake their heads in the negative. Only the nation states can demand the utmost from their citizens. Individual countries underline this with compulsory military service. In view of the war, Germany would probably never have abolished them either. The decision is one of the frivolities of the Merkel era. But nobody would think of reintroducing military service like in Sweden. So much oomph and turning point in time would only be a nuisance in the land of well-tempered inwardness.

The Ukraine war gives impetus to the illiberal governments

Despite all the talk of a union of values ​​and European democracy, the EU remains an administrative authority with far-reaching powers. It cannot match the emotions and passions the nation is able to unleash, for better or for worse. That is why Brussels remains an extra in the war; the European Parliament may pompously call Russia a terrorist state without consequences.

The scope of the postnational has clear limitations. When it comes to security and identity, a growing number of EU states in the East and in the South are no longer making any concessions. One example is migration policy. The question of who will be allowed into the country is becoming more urgent, not only because of the large number of Ukrainian refugees. The other and the foreign seem more threatening since Russia demonstrated that it does not respect the right of its neighbors to exist. The more fragile the borders, the more resolutely they are defended.

A European migration policy is just as fictional as a common defense policy. This is evident in the dispute over the migrants who find their way across the Mediterranean thanks to paid and unpaid helpers. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will assert her tough stance as far as Italian domestic politics allows. The EU, on the other hand, cannot compete. Their paper «action plans» bear witness neither to planning nor to actions.

The illiberal governments in Poland and Hungary are also feeling tailwind. How to celebrate Zelensky and condemn Viktor Orban? They may not be more different. One defends his country, the other his personal piece of power. But their policy feeds on the same source. Both represent varieties of European nationalism.