The Soviet Union, Russia: Yuri and I: A memoir

Abstract

56 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXV, No.3, Spring 2012 The Soviet Union, Russia: Yuri and I A memoir Hafeez Malik* Professor Yuri V. Gankovsky and I started first as academic colleagues; gradually we became friends, and then ended as “brothers”. This transformation could take place only between two “Asians” not between American friends. In the American culture is the concept of friendly relations which develops between two individuals, when they live close to each other, or work in the same place. When the environment changes or people move to different neighborhoods, they refer to each others: “we were good friends”. Yuri was a native Russian and I a man of Pakistani origin. Being white and Slavs Russians are considered a kind of European; but they do have traits of Asian culture in them. Their interaction with Muslim Asia dates back to the time when Ghingiz Khan’s grand’s son Batu (1257-1266) conquered Russia in 1240 and his descendents ruled over it for 250years. Russians also tell you (half in jest) that the Ulama in the entourage of IbnFadlan who came from Bagdad in 921 under Caliph Al Muqtadir’s instruction invited the Czar to accept Islam. The Czar accepted all the modalities of fasting and praying, but declined emphatically when it came to foregoing Vodka at the table. But Russia did better for itself; it conquered practically all of Muslim Central Asia, and especially Tatarstan in 1552. Since then there has been heavy mixing of Slavic blood with the Muslim blood of Tatars. A saying goes “you scratch a Russian and underneath you find a Tatar”. Incidentally Czar Boris Godunov was of Tatar origin, and an opera named after him, celebrates his origins. Even Ivan the Terrible who defeated the Tatars had married a beautiful Muslim princess from the Caucasus, and christened her with the name Maria. *Hafeez Malik is a professor Emeritus of Political Sciences, Villanova University, Villanova PA. He is the Editor of the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. 57 Russia is also a land where Orthodox Christianity and Islam have intermingled sometimes in hostility, but more often than not in peaceful coexistence. Their interaction is assured by geography’s enduring pattern of persistence. Geographically Russia is an extension of Asia. Accompanied by Fr. Kail C. Ellis, I traveled on a Soviet built highway from Chelyabinsk to Ufa. Somewhere in the midpoint a pillar is erected by the highway bearing on one side East and the other side West. In other words Asian Russia is east of the Ural range and European Russia west of it. We stopped there and and had a brief picnic; and contemplated the vastness of this geographically determined mélange of the East and West. ( I ) As a faculty member I joined Villanova University in August 1961 to teach courses on South Asia and Communism. As a PhD candidate at Syracuse University I studied international relations with emphasis on the Soviet Union. These subjects were offered by Professor W.W. Kulski, a former Polish Ambassador (of Poland’s government in exile in London) to Britain during the World War II period. Like Henry Kissinger he spoke with heavy European accent, and was deeply immersed in the intricacies of Soviet Political system and the pivotal role of the communist parties in the Soviet Union and the East European states. He was a grand connoisseur of the cold war diplomacy. Unlike Kissinger, professor Kulski was fluent in Russian and French as he had earned his PhD from the Sorbonne Paris in the 1920s. He became my mentor at Syracuse, and taught me to control my emotions in assessing the historical developments. Be a realist was his message, which he illustrated from Poland’s three tragic partitions and dismemberments of its territory between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Since then realism has been my creed. Under professor Kulski’s masterful care I started my doctoral dissertation on the role of nationalism in the formulation of Pakistan’s foreign policy, but ended up in presenting the reality of Muslim nationalism in India. He encouraged my deviation, and both of us were happy with the final magnum opus...