警惕重划欧洲版图 重启血腥争端

Somebody born in Lviv in 1914, who died in 1992 and never moved out of the city, would have lived in five different countries during the course of a lifetime. In 1914, Lviv, then called Lemberg, was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire; by 1919 it was part of Poland and became Lwow; in 1941 it was occupied by the Germans; after 1945, the city was incorporated into the Soviet Union; and then in 1991 it became part of newly independent Ukraine.

如果一个人1914年出生在利沃夫，1992年去世，一生中一直在这个城市生活，那么这个人一生中已经在5个不同的国家中生活过了。1914年，利沃夫(Lviv)还叫伦贝格(Lemberg)，是奥匈帝国的一部分；到1919年，这个城市已成为波兰的一部分，名称也变成了利沃夫(Lwow)；1941年，这个城市被德国占领；1945年后，这个城市被并入苏联；然后，在1991年，这个城市又成为新独立的乌克兰的一部分。

Most of these changes were accompanied by warfare and bloodshed. So when it was suggested last week that, a few years ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin had proposed to Donald Tusk, then Polish prime minister, that Ukraine should be partitioned once again – with Russia claiming the eastern territories, and Poland Lviv and other parts of western Ukraine – there was an uproar.

这些变化的发生大多伴随着战争和流血。正因如此，不久前的那个消息才会引发轩然大波，该消息称，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)几年前曾向当时的波兰总理唐纳德•图斯克(Donald Tusk)建议，应再次瓜分乌克兰，东部的领土归俄罗斯，利沃夫和西部的其他领土归波兰。

The details of the Putin-Tusk conversation – and indeed whether it ever really took place – were swiftly made murky by denials and clarifications on all sides. But the furore over the idea of a partition of Ukraine was still telling. For it revealed the deep and justified fear in Europe that national boundaries might shift once again, across the continent, with all the dangers that implies.

有关各方都表示否认并出面澄清，普京与图斯克那次对话的具体情况随之变得扑朔迷离，的确，就连那次对话是否真的发生过也成了一个谜。但瓜分乌克兰的构想引发了公愤，这本身仍然很能说明问题，因为这揭示出，对于欧陆版图再次遭到重划的可能性及其必将带来的种种危险，欧洲感到深切和有理由的恐惧。

The dismemberment of Ukraine has, in a sense, already begun – with Russia’s forcible, but largely bloodless, annexation of Crimea this year. Since then thousands have died in fighting in the east of Ukraine, parts of which are now controlled by Russian-backed separatists. Even though Ukraine held elections at the weekend, the occupied parts of the country were unable to vote.

俄罗斯今年强行吞并了克里米亚（不过整个过程基本上没有流血），意味着对乌克兰的瓜分在某种意义上已经开始。自那以后，已有数千人在乌克兰东部的战斗中丧生，该地区如今已局部由俄罗斯支持的分裂主义者控制。即便乌克兰不久前举行了选举，但分裂主义者控制区域的选民无法投票。

There are influential voices within the EU urging the Ukrainians to “accept reality”. Rather than waging a draining and losing war to win back all of the east – then having to rebuild its devastated cities – they are advised to concentrate on making a success of the large majority of the country that they still control. They can deny the legality of Russian control. But they should accept its reality.

在欧盟(EU)内部，有重量级人物敦促乌克兰人“接受现实”。他们建议乌克兰人专注于搞好仍然在自己控制范围内的大部分国土，而不要试图通过打一场旷日持久、又不可能成功的战争以求赢回东部的所有国土，然后不得不重建那些沦为废墟的城市。乌克兰人可以声称俄罗斯对那些区域的控制是不合法的。但他们应接受这一现实。

That is the “realist” case for partition. But there are other influential voices who think that even tacitly accepting that Europe’s borders can once again be redrawn by military force would be a disastrous mistake.

这是对领土被瓜分的“现实主义”看法。但还有一些重量级人物认为，即便是有策略地接受可以用武力重划欧洲的版图，也是个灾难性的错误。

Carl Bildt, who has just stepped down as Sweden’s foreign minister, puts it bluntly: “The borders of Europe are more or less all drawn in blood through centuries of brutal conflict.” Allowing these borders to be redrawn, he thinks, would be an invitation “for the blood to start flowing again”.

刚刚卸任的前瑞典外交大臣卡尔•比尔特(Carl Bildt)直言道：“欧洲的版图或多或少都是用鲜血划成的，在这个过程欧洲经历了几个世纪的血腥冲突。”他认为，允许重划欧洲版图，无异于鼓励“鲜血再次横流”。

The most obvious risk is that the Russian government would redeploy the argument that it used to justify the annexation of Crimea – that these are lands that are historically and culturally Russian – and use it to justify seizing the roughly one-quarter of Ukraine that the Kremlin now habitually calls “Novorossiya”. That part of the country includes all of the Ukrainian coastline, and losing it would in effect cripple Ukraine as a nation.

最明显的风险在于，俄罗斯将再次搬出它用来证明吞并克里米亚有理的那个理由，即这些土地在历史上和文化上都属于俄罗斯，并用这个理由来占领如今已被克里姆林宫习惯性地称为“新俄罗斯”(Novorossiya)的乌克兰约四分之一国土。这块区域包含了乌克兰的全部海岸线，失去海岸线将严重削弱作为一个国家的乌克兰。

If the dismemberment of Ukraine began in earnest, others might be tempted to join in. Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, referred to in some other EU capitals as a “mini-Balkan Putin”, has made clear he regards the loss of two-thirds of Hungarian land after the first world war as a tragedy. Parts of historic Hungary now lie across the border in Ukraine – as well as in Slovakia, Serbia and Romania. If Ukraine really began to fall apart, even some Poles might be tempted by the idea of the return of Lviv.

如果对乌克兰的瓜分真正开始，其他国家或许也会忍不住加入。在某些欧盟国家素有“小巴尔干的普京”之称的匈牙利总理维克托•欧尔班(Viktor Orban)已明确表示，他认为匈牙利在一战后失去了三分之二的国土是个悲剧。一些曾经属于匈牙利的土地如今有的在乌克兰境内，有的在斯洛伐克、塞尔维亚或罗马尼亚境内。如果乌克兰真的开始分裂，就连波兰都可能有人忍不住想要收回利沃夫。

The German government, although often accused of being soft on Russia, is particularly adamant in arguing that all talk of redrawing borders within Europe must be banished. It was only in 1970 that Germany dropped all claims to the lands it had lost to Poland and Russia after the second world war. Some of these regions were at least as central to German culture as Crimea is to Russia. The area that is now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, for example, was once Königsberg – capital of Prussia and home of the great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

尽管德国政府常常被批对俄罗斯太软弱，但德国政府特别坚定地主张禁止谈论一切重划欧洲版图的话题。直到1970年，德国才放弃对二战后被划归波兰和俄罗斯的领土的主权要求。那些区域与德国文化的亲近程度，至少不亚于克里米亚与俄罗斯文化的亲近程度。比如说，现在为俄罗斯飞地的加里宁格勒，曾经叫柯尼斯堡，是普鲁士的首都，也是伟大的德国哲学家伊曼纽尔•康德(Immanuel Kant)的故乡。

It was Kant who argued that the morality of an action can be judged by what would happen if it became “a universal law”. Or to put it another way: “What if everybody did that?” That rule explains why an apparently pragmatic acceptance of Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine contains so many dangers. If Europe once again allowed countries to start claiming bits of their neighbours’ territory – on historic or ethnic grounds – the process could convulse the continent.

正是康德提出，判断一种行为是否道德，方法之一就是假设这种行为成为“普遍规律”，看看会发生什么。换句话说就是，“假设每个人都这么干，会怎样？”这一定律解释了为何接受俄罗斯吞并乌克兰部分领土貌似务实，但实则非常危险。如果欧洲再次允许各国以历史或民族为由，开始对邻国的某些领土要求主权，整个欧洲大陆将陷入动荡。

The Russians argue that it is actually the west that started this dangerous process with Nato’s intervention in the Kosovo war of 1999, and the subsequent recognition in 2008 of Kosovo as an independent state.

俄罗斯方面辩称，实际上是西方开启了这一危险的进程，因为北约(Nato)在1999年介入科索沃战争，随后在2008年承认科索沃为独立国家。

That process remains controversial, even within the EU. But Kosovo, unlike Crimea, was not incorporated into a neighbouring country. It was a province of the former Yugoslavia that sought independence. Within that process, the border between Serbia and Kosovo remained unaltered. The Kosovo war also took place in the context of the many years of fighting that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia.

科索沃独立的过程确实仍有争议，即便在欧盟内部也是如此。但跟克里米亚不同的是，科索沃并没有被某个邻国吞并，而是作为前南斯拉夫的一个省争取独立。在整个过程中，塞尔维亚和科索沃之间的边界没有变化。此外，科索沃战争是在南斯拉夫解体后多年战乱的背景下发生的。

However, the Balkan wars of the 1990s are relevant to Ukraine in one sense. They revealed how much blood can flow once Europe’s borders begin to crumble.

然而，上世纪90年代的巴尔干战争在一种意义上对乌克兰仍有借鉴意义，那就是，巴尔干战争揭示出，一旦欧洲版图开始破碎时，场面会变得多么血腥。