歷史的迴響 一戰前的俄羅斯

Dominic Lieven’s stated reason for this contribution to the centenary literature on World War I is to place Russia “where it belongs, at the very center” of the war’s history. Certainly the war proved to be at the center of Russian history, leading to revolution, dictatorship, repression and more war.

多米尼克·利芬(Dominic Lieven)稱，自己這部關於“一戰”百年文獻的著作，目的是把俄羅斯放在這場戰爭的歷史“應有的位置，也就是它的核心”。當然，這場戰爭也被證明位於俄羅斯歷史的核心，爲這個國家帶來了其後的革命、獨裁、壓迫與更多戰爭。

But Mr. Lieven, a well-respected British scholar of Imperial Russia, makes the convincing case that World War I was really about the struggle of Russia and Germany for territory, status and influence in Eastern and Central Europe, in which the fate of Ukraine — shades of today — played a central role. At the end, Russia and Germany both lost, leading to a peace in which neither played a constructive part, and making a second conflict likely.

利芬是一位備受尊敬的英國學者，專門研究沙皇時期的俄國。他給出了令人信服的證據，表明“一戰”其實是關乎俄羅斯與德國在東歐與中歐就領土、地位及影響進行的一系列鬥爭，其中烏克蘭的命運（與如今的情況頗有類似）扮演了關鍵角色。最後，俄羅斯與德國都成了輸家，在其後的和平之中，雙方都沒有扮演建設性的角色，並且爲其後的第二次衝突埋下伏筆。

In giving Russia’s side of the story — as he did in his well-received study of an earlier war, “Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814” — Mr. Lieven punctures the popular Western image of a reactionary autocracy stumbling into a suicidal war through misguided Slavic nationalism. There is that, to be sure, but his Russia is also a vast empire and an economic powerhouse in the making, where a fledgling civil society and influential press often contributed to nationalist passions while a counterintuitively capable aristocratic elite wrestled with legitimate questions of where Russia’s national interests lay in the complex and rapidly changing world of the early 20th century.

利芬的《俄國與拿破崙的決戰：鏖戰歐羅巴，1807-1814》(Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814)一書從俄羅斯的立場出發講述俄法戰爭的歷史，備受好評，在這本新書中也是如此。在一般西方人的印象裏，俄羅斯是個反動的獨裁政府，由於誤入歧途的斯拉夫民族主義，跌跌撞撞地發起了一場自殺式的戰爭，利芬對這個觀點做出了批評。誠然有着這方面的因素，但俄羅斯也是一個巨大的帝國，是發展中的強大經濟體，剛剛起步的公民社會與頗具影響力的媒體經常鼓動國家主義熱情。與此同時，和人們的直覺不同的是，俄羅斯的貴族精英極具能力，在世界形勢極度複雜和快速變化的20世紀初，他們要爲涉及俄羅斯國家利益的正當問題而斟酌。

Mr. Lieven’s empathy with the well-born men who ran Russia and its foreign policy under Emperor Nicholas II may be explained in part by his own descent from an illustrious family of Baltic aristocrats — one of whom, Prince Alexander Lieven, makes a delightful cameo appearance in the book as chief of the Naval General Staff from 1911 to 1914, who “liked to work with his pet monkey perched on his shoulder.”

利芬對沙皇尼古拉二世治下出身高貴的俄羅斯統治階層，乃至他們的外交政策懷有共鳴，或許部分是由於他本人就出身於波羅的海貴族中的一個顯赫家族——家族中的亞歷山大·利芬王子(Prince Alexander Lieven)也在這本書中有過令人愉快的客串出場，他於1911年至1914年擔任海軍總參謀長，“工作時喜歡讓自己的寵物猴子蹲在肩膀上”。

But it would be wrong to dismiss Mr. Lieven’s portrayal of the imperial elite and its role as solely the product of his heritage. On the contrary, his intimate familiarity with the Russia he describes and his extensive study of the letters, diaries and books of the chief actors in Russia’s descent “towards the flames” — many not hitherto accessible to historians — are what render this work so authoritative and readable.

但如果以此便認爲，利芬爲帝國貴族階層乃至其角色所描繪的畫像是由他的出身所決定的，那就大錯特錯了。與此相反，爲這部作品賦予權威性與可讀性的，是他對筆下俄羅斯世界深切的熟稔；是因爲他大量研究了在俄羅斯“墮入火焰”這一進程中的主角們的書信、日記和書籍（其中很多如今已經無法爲史學家們所見）。

In Mr. Lieven’s telling, the primary cause of the war was “the conflict of interests, fears, and ambitions created by the decline of the Ottoman and Austrian empires.” The crises this generated could have been resolved only through the collaboration of the rising German and Russian states. But that was neither simple nor obvious at the time in St. Petersburg, torn among the imperatives of ensuring access to Black Sea ports through the Straits; sustaining a Slavophile “mission” to the Balkan Slavs; managing the costs of a vast land empire; and balancing dynastic links to Germany against fears of its rising power.

在利芬的敘事中，這場戰爭的首要原因是“由奧斯曼帝國與奧匈帝國的衰落所引起的利益、恐懼與野心的衝突。”這些衝突所誘發的危機只能靠着崛起的德國與俄羅斯的合作纔有可能得到解決。但在當時，聖彼得堡要攫取黑海海峽，以此獲得通往黑海港口的通路；要對巴爾幹半島的斯拉夫人維持親斯拉夫的“使命”；要維持龐大內陸帝國的開銷；一方面恐懼德國崛起的勢力，一方面又要與它保持動態平衡的關係，在這種情況下，與德國合作並不容易，形勢並不清晰。

“The options open to Russia were difficult, and there were powerful and rational arguments to justify the foreign policy adopted by Petersburg,” Mr. Lieven writes. As someone who also has Russian roots, I found his portraits of the men from the “nest of the aristocracy and gentry” who made or disputed that policy — like the foreign ministers Aleksandr Izvolsky and Sergey Sazonov, or the diplomat-journalist Prince Grigorii Troubetskoy — among the most interesting passages of the book. Contrary to the notion of self-serving noblemen leading Russia to disaster, these men, as portrayed by Mr. Lieven, “were far from stupid” and generally decent. They were also, as he makes clear, closely linked by class, rank and often marriage to the aristocratic elite that predominated in most European governments.

“俄羅斯所面臨的選擇非常艱難，聖彼得堡就外交政策展開過高效而理性的討論，”利芬寫道。他在書中描述了那些參與制定或討論政策，“出身貴族與上層的人”，諸如外交大臣亞歷山大·伊茲沃斯基(Aleksandr Izvolsky)和塞吉·薩佐諾夫(Sergey Sazonov)以及外交官兼記者格里高利·特魯貝特斯科伊王子(Prince Grigorii Troubetskoy)等人，作爲同樣有着俄羅斯血統的人，我覺得他爲這些人描繪的肖像是全書中最有意思的部分之一。人們通常認爲，是自私自利的貴族引導着俄羅斯走向災難，與此相反，利芬筆下的這些人“遠非愚蠢之輩”，並且大都非常正派。他寫道，通過階級、階層乃至聯姻，這些人同統治着大多數歐洲政府的貴族精英們有着緊密的聯繫。

Nicholas II, in Mr. Lieven’s telling, is also more complex and sympathetic than the hapless monarch of Western lore. The subject of another earlier Lieven study, Nicholas is “above all else a Russian patriot,” steeped in the ideology of a unique communion between Orthodox czar and people, caught between equally dangerous demands for reform and status quo.

利芬寫道，尼古拉斯二世也比西方人心目中那個不幸的末代君主要複雜得多，富於同情心得多。利芬早年曾經專門研究過尼古拉斯，說他“首先是個俄羅斯愛國者”，篤信東正教沙皇與人民之間存在獨一無二的聯繫，在同樣危險的改革與維持現狀二者之間左右爲難。

Mr. Lieven’s ability to empathize with the different forces of the old order isn’t limited to the elites. The book is liberally sprinkled with personal asides like this one: “Personally, my sympathies are with the soldiers: I too would have been deeply unwilling to sacrifice my life for the Straits.” I particularly liked the brusque dismissal of popular myths about the power of the holy wanderer Rasputin: “Grigorii Rasputin’s influence on policy was grossly exaggerated then and has been ever since.”

利芬對舊秩序中的不同勢力都能產生共情，而且不僅僅侷限於精英階層。這本書中亦有着大量的個人化旁白，諸如：“我個人同情那些士兵們：換了我也絕對不會願意爲黑海海峽而犧牲生命”。關於神聖遊蕩者拉斯普京的權力，利芬也嚴厲地駁斥了流行的神話，“格里高利·拉斯普京(Grigorii Rasputin)對政策的影響力從那時起乃至其後被大大誇張了”，我特別喜歡這一段。

This book is not, however, always an easy read for the general reader, who may at times become lost in the thickets of names, arguments and events. And only fellow historians are likely to fully appreciate how Mr. Lieven disagrees with them, since he often does not identify them. But for anyone interested in the First World War, the effort is well worth the exposure to a side of the war that is often given short shrift in Western histories.

不過，這本書對於普通讀者而言並不總是輕鬆易讀，讀者有時會迷失在錯綜複雜的人名、辯論乃至事件之中。只有歷史學家同行們纔有可能真正欣賞利芬與他們不一致的地方，因爲他總是不把自己視爲他們當中的一員。但是任何對“一戰”感興趣的人來說，讀這本書是值得的，可以看到通常被西方歷史一筆帶過的戰爭一方的情形。

Inevitably, an account of European maneuvers and passions on the eve of cataclysm prompts a search for contemporary parallels, especially when issues like the fate of Ukraine are described as pivotal, and the main protagonists — Russia and Germany — are again at the center of European politics. Mr. Lieven acknowledges the echoes, but he is quick to note that Angela Merkel’s Germany is very different from Kaiser Wilhelm II’s; Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not Nicholas II’s; Ukraine does not hold the key to Russian imperial power; “and Europe is no longer at the center of the world.”

對於那場大災難前夕歐洲各國的謀略與激情的描述，不可避免地會令人想到當今局勢，特別是烏克蘭的命運，在那本書中被描述爲關鍵問題，而書中的兩個主角——俄羅斯與德國——如今又位於歐洲政治的中心。利芬承認這種歷史的迴響，但他很快指出，安格拉·默克爾(Angela Merkel)領導下的德國與德皇威廉二世(Kaiser Wilhelm II)領導下的德國有着極大不同，弗拉迪米爾·普京(Vladimir Putin)的俄羅斯也已經不再是沙皇尼古拉斯二世的俄羅斯；烏克蘭不再是俄羅斯皇權的關鍵；而且“歐洲也已經不再是世界的中心”。

Yet some of the forces that Mr. Lieven describes behind Russian policies and politics — messianism coupled with a sense of inferiority, backwardness coupled with brilliance and great wealth, the vastness of the land and the determination of the rulers to be recognized as a great power — are all very much on display in Putin’s Russia.

但是利芬筆下俄羅斯政策與政治背後的力量——彌賽亞主義加民族自卑感、倒退勢力加上卓越的才華與巨大的財富、廣大的土地與擁有極大權力的領導人——這一切仍然在普京治下的俄羅斯具有重要的一席之地。

Mr. Lieven sees more worrisome parallels in Asia. On the last page, he writes that he conceived and wrote the book at his home on a Japanese mountain, and thinking about the dangers of geopolitical brinkmanship and strident nationalism in east Asia “is not a comforting experience.” Hopefully discomfort will prove to be the worst of it this time around.

利芬認爲亞洲也有同樣的令人不安之處。在本書的最後一頁，他寫道，自己是在日本山地的家中構思並寫作這本書的，他認爲，在東亞，地緣政治邊緣政策的種種危險與甚囂塵上的民族主義“並不是令人愉悅的體驗”。只希望違和感就是這個時代最糟的事情吧。

THE END OF TSARIST RUSSIA

《沙皇俄國的末日：向“一戰”與革命進軍》

The March to World War I & Revolution

(The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I & Revolution)

By Dominic Lieven

多米尼克·利芬 著

426 pages. Viking. $35.

426頁。Viking出版社。35美元