20 Years of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Russia: Reminiscences
Dr Falk Bomsdorf
Dear Ekaterina Jurevna, dear Mr Baum, dear Mr Klaff, dear Mr Tamm, dear Mr v. Freytag-Loringhoven, dear friends,
I am so glad to find myself in the Oval Hall of the Foreign Literature Library again; a place where the Naumann Foundation has carried out many events since beginning its activity here in Russia. How often has Count Lambsdorff, our Foundation’s long-standing chairman, sat here - delivering speeches and conversing. I may sound a bit too emotional, but, nevertheless, it is true: this room, the Oval Hall, is haunted by the spirit of Liberalism. And it clings around it still. The events of today have proven it – this lively discussions with so many Russian liberals, often with opposing views. To gather them all here – that is an achievement in itself!
Perhaps it is due to the liberal spirit that we are all here but we have to also thank Ekaterina Genieva, the long-serving Director of the Foreign Literature Library, and a trusted partner of the Naumann Foundation. We know, dear Ekaterina Jurevna, what obstacles you have had to overcome in your work and still do have. I am grateful to you and your colleagues that you were willing to cooperate with the Naumann Foundation from the beginning. This cooperation has contributed significantly to the success of the Foundation's work in Russia.
To review 20 years of the Foundation’s work in Russia right now, with the short time I have available to me, is, of course, a problematic endeavour. So I will confine myself to several brief remarks. In any case, to make a comprehensive review to you would be nothing less than, as the saying goes, to carry coal to Newcastle or, as the Russians say, to bring samovars to Tula. You are all familiar with the Naumann Foundation. Most of you have worked with the Foundation and still do. You all know what I know: the Friedrich Naumann Foundation started operating in Russia in 1993. And 20 years after I opened its office, now with its third director, it is still here, “alive and healthy”, to use still another Russian expression. In other words: the Naumann Foundation keeps working in Russia. And will continue to do so in the future as well, in spite of all turbulence affecting organized liberalism in Germany. The problems this caused must be overcome. And they will be overcome when the right lessons from the past are learnt.
Russia has changed a lot since 1993. There have been changes in the Naumann Foundation as well. But despite all these changes it is true that “plus ça change plus c'est la même chose”. Roughly translated, this means that things change, but the essence remains the same. What was the essence of the past 20 years? What remains to this day?
I perceive the work of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation as an instance of the job of all German political foundations in the continuous dialogue between Russia and Germany. This dialogue has been going on for centuries. Despite many interruptions, it has always been re-established. It sounds a bit pompous, but anyway, in my opinion it is a fact that the Friedrich Naumann Foundation keeps up, along with many others, what the Germans and the Russians started centuries ago – a dialogue between their two societies, a discourse between their two peoples and between their citizens.
Often this dialogue has not been at all easy. The Germans and the Russians have, above all, talked about each other too much and too little with each other. But that is exactly the reason why the Naumann Foundation – and all German foundations – are there: to take care that people speak more to each other; to create a dialogue worthy of its name.
For the past 20 years, the Naumann Foundation has led exactly such a dialogue. It has achieved what, in my opinion, the Petersburg Dialogue has not achieved to this day and cannot achieve despite all its investments: namely, to rekindle and preserve the dialogue and debate between the civil societies of our two countries.
This German-Russian dialogue has its own value. Yet, it cannot be an endpoint in itself. Communication should help build knowledge. Who’s the other? What do they want? What can they do? What do we want from them? The knowledge gained through dialogue should as a result improve mutual relations. Only when you know the other can a partnership flourish, as the German-Russian relationship aspires to do. And I repeat: aspires.
Ultimately, almost all the activities of the Foundation during the last 20 years have been part of this German-Russian dialogue. The Naumann Foundation has thereby acted as an intermediary. It has brought together Germans and Russians who could and would lead this dialogue. And it has taken good care of the place where this dialogue would happen.
The content of this dialogue has had, and still has, a dual nature. On the one hand, it aims at a transmission of social know-how. On the other hand, it is all about understanding the tenets of civil society and, ultimately, about enlightenment.
Transfer of know-how: as far as those events are concerned, nine times out of ten, the Naumann Foundation reacted to a demand by its Russian partners. The Foundation has never imposed solutions to their problems, never expected that the answers which were found in Germany for the same matter could be carried over to Russia. The Foundation has always demonstrated expertise only - social, technical, economic, legal – that was accumulated over time in Germany. It has mostly – in accordance with its nature and its goals – offered to share its social experience that matches its liberal beliefs. The Foundation has, to put it simply, told its partners: have a look at this know-how and take what makes sense to you. Allow me to quote from Turgenev and his character Potugin from the novel Smoke: “Do not take the Western things because they come from the West, but because you need them. So think first, then select”.
I do not have anything to add to this.
Almost all the topics that the Foundation has considered in the field of civic education stem from the discussion about how Russian society should regulate itself. The Foundation needed to avoid importing suggestions from abroad. It has focused on the issues that seemed particularly important to the respective leaders of its Moscow office. There were and are differences of course. For me, it was all about promoting the process of enlightenment, which has occurred and will occur in any society, including in Russian society. Enlightenment, as understood in the Kantian sense: enlightenment in terms of overcoming the isolation of the individual in society, enlightenment as a prerequisite for the emergence of liberal structures in Russian society.
To give you an example: using this approach, I made the theme of ‘Russian myths’ the subject of several events. That is because I was, and still am, convinced that Russian society does not need the ‘re-mythologization’ which is currently going on, but rather myth criticism – a process, which is a core component of any enlightenment.
A second theme in the context of dialogue with and within the Russian society: the attitude towards the past. How does Russian society and German society get around its history? How and for what purpose is history presented in schools and universities? How do our two countries perceive their respective governments’ policies in relation to history? These questions stir Russian society. The Naumann Foundation is convinced – something shared also by the Russian side – that reaching an enlightened attitude without managing the past is rather difficult.
One Naumann Foundation format has been specifically dedicated to debate: the Liberal Club. In it, particularly members of the younger generation discuss topics they have chosen themselves according to rules proposed by the Foundation. This Club operates throughout Russia. The first event took place in 1994 and since then, new clubs have joined every year.
I am particularly pleased because the Liberal Club was the project I wanted to develop when I went to Russia in 1993. I had in mind the English ‘debating societies’, whose work I myself was familiar with. And I knew what we all know: the essence of liberalism, the core of democracy, lies in debate. Whenever it comes to knowledge and decisions, discussions must ensue. Starting from the local council of a village up to the national parliament, all these institutions live on discussion. They are meaningless without discussion. An important Russian politician - he happened to be the chairman of the Duma, the Russian Parliament - stated not too long ago, here in Moscow, that the Parliament was not a place for discussion. Nothing is more false than this view: to the contrary; the Parliament is a place for discussion - perhaps the most important place!
A small personal memory related to the Liberal Club: after the first event of this kind in 1994, a young man came up to me, a third-year university student. He told me that this debate was a great experience for him, almost a revelation. Each participant in the discussion had received equal treatment, even the professors had no more rights than the students; the professors were allowed to speak only when it was their turn. Nor did they get more talking time than the students did. Something previously unthinkable for him! And he added that this was the only way - free discussion in which every opinion can be expressed - people could begin to think for themselves. And only in this way, in a discussion, could one understand Russian society, and the processes going on inside it.
I have nothing to add to his words too.
In a review of 20 years of work, this one insight should not go amiss: the Friedrich Naumann Foundation is also in Russia in order to get something. The Foundation intends to provide not only knowledge and information about Germany and from Germany. It also wants to learn about Russia and it wants to convey this knowledge to Germany. This is especially true about the Liberal Club. And in these 20 years, the Naumann Foundation has learned a lot from Russian society, including much about Russia and its people. And it has carried this experience back to German society.
I owe the Liberal Club and my work with young people here in Russia for an essential insight. The insight that the true Russian resource is neither oil nor gas, it is its people; the incredibly large number of talented people in this land, their land, even, or especially, among the young generation.
These people - the Liberal Clubs also showed this – will be better able to develop their talents and be more capable of contributing to the benefit of Russia, if they are given the opportunity to develop their personality more often. That is, when they have better access to one thing: freedom.
Ladies and gentlemen, when we came to Russia in 1993, there was not much of a civil society to be seen here. It was what historians called: a society organized by the state.
This has changed rapidly in the 90s. I know that in Russia this period is seen as chaotic and is generally evaluated negatively from today’s perspective. And indeed, these were difficult years. But it was also a time with a lively, spirited climate; a time of renewal and intellectual exchange. It was, from today's perspective (this may sound strange to many) a fruitful time.
In this social atmosphere of new beginnings, the Naumann Foundation had no difficulty in finding partners for its activities. I need to rephrase that: the Foundation was not the one to seek out partners. Rather, we were sought for. Many organizations, especially NGOs, came up to us, to the Foundation, with many concrete suggestions and ideas. The Foundation gathered a good spectrum of partners to build on. It managed to provide a solid foundation for its activities in Russia, for the work of every foundation stands and falls depending on the abilities of its partners.
The fact that the Naumann Foundation could begin their work in Russia 20 years ago and can still work here today is a result of a political development: during 1989-90, the division of Europe, and the separation of its peoples, was overcome. Not least thanks to a bold and, in the best sense, an innovative policy of the then Soviet leadership.
German political foundations embraced the opportunities offered by the new situation. They went to Russia after 1990 the same way as they have progressed with their work in France and in the United States, Brazil and Indonesia, almost all over the world. That is what, let us repeat, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation did in 1993.
The political situation in Russia has changed since then. Again, we can see signs of isolation; this is, as always in Russian history, ultimately self-isolation. Western civilization is looked upon here in Russia with a critical eye again: too secular, too materialistic, marked by moral decay. We can hear such verdicts even from top political leaders.
I do not think that this view – heard by Europeans in new variations for centuries - is actually representative of Russian society as a whole, of the majority. But one thing is clear: if this view of the West is spreading in Russia, or rather, if it is getting more intensively widespread, when it, as used to be said in earlier times, becomes the party line, then the West, the Foundation, has a problem. Or, as one would say here in Russia, where there are no problems, only tasks: the Foundation has a task. Namely, to convince Russian society in which and with which the Foundation works that, with all the flaws we have, the assessment that I have quoted is not true: we cannot say that there is moral decay in western society.
To convey this message - as part of the on-going German-Russian dialogue – will be another important task for the Foundation in the future. Therefore, the current head of the Foundation’s Moscow office, Julius von Freytag-Loringhoven, is facing – and here the word is finally appropriate – a challenge. For this, he is not to be envied. And yet, I envy him, because that challenge is worth all the effort. I'm sure that the Friedrich Naumann Foundation with my second successor will complete the task it poses for itself.