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Russia and the Collective West: The Global Politics of the Cold War 1.0/2.0

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Russia as the phoenix in global politics

After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia became a less popular area of study and dealing with in comparison to before the end of the Cold War (1949‒1991). In the West, it was believed that after 1991, Russia was simply “finished” as Moscow was no longer the capital of a great power state (of the USSR) which had an important influence in global politics and international relations after WWII. In other words, the Western policymakers thought that after 1991, Russia would remain irrelevant as both economic and political power in global politics, and, therefore, for instance, many universities’ studies programs on Russia in the USA and Western Europe were either canceled or downsized under the explanation that studying Russia was no longer important for international relations (IR) and global security.   

However, all of those who shared an opinion that Russia was “irrelevant” in global politics and international relations since the end of the Cold War realized at least from the 2008 Russo-Georgian War[i] onward their fatal mistake of judgment. Russia is “back,” and subsequently, Washington and Brussels declared a new Cold War (2.0) on Russia in 2008[ii] as they clearly understood that Russia is back as a military, economic, and political great power. In other words, the Collective West, especially (and led by) the USA, made a critical experiment of provoking Russia on the international stage, and they received a very clear answer. The second fatal experiment of challenging Russia was on the soil of the (Soviet) Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, when reborn post-Cold War 1.0 Russia accepted the thrown “white glove” in February 2022 by launching a Special Military Operation (SMO) against the Russofrenic neo-Nazi political regime in Kiev, directly politically, logistically, financially, and militarily supported by the Collective West since the 2014 EuroMaidan’s cup.   

Russia, as a country with tremendous energy resources, nuclear power, educated and talented people, simply cannot be ignored in global politics by the Collective West, as was the practice in the years from 1991 to 2008. It became true especially from the very point of fact that Russia has been actively since 2008 pursuing its own national interests and security policy near its borders (within the space of the ex-USSR). Nevertheless, it became totally wrong to believe that the post-Cold War Russia was going to be an adversary to the American “New World Order”, as reborn Russia after 2000 clearly shows to be a respectful Eurasian global power with national interests and aspirations of her own to be both acknowledged and respected. It was finally proven by the start of the Russian Special Military Operation on the territory of Eastern (Soviet) Ukraine populated by the Russian speakers in February 2022. This operation, at the same time, clearly showed the Global West that Russia once again (after the dissolution of the Soviet Union) became a member of the top global powers in global politics and, therefore, its influence in IR cannot be ignored anymore.      

Transformation of post-Soviet Russia into a Great Power

It is a historical law that each state changes with time. However, only a few states experience such dramatic change during the short period of time as Russia has over the last 30+ years. In other words, Russia has changed as a state, nation, and military power, followed by its fluctuating position in global politics and international relations. From 1991 to today, Russia has transformed peacefully and rapidly its entire political and economic system, which is a relatively rare example in history. When the USSR dissolved in 1991, Russia was left to be one of its 15 constituent republics, which proclaimed independence forced to substantially redefine its role in global politics. The 1990s were very painful for Russia’s position in international relations as the country’s foreign policy was, in fact, supervised and directed by Washington and Brussels as the case of NATO aggression on Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, for instance, clearly showed but since 2008 Russia’s foreign policy once again became an independent and gradually returning the country to the club of the Great Powers.  

The importance of Russia´s influence in the world in the arena of global politics is based on the fundamental fact that Russia is one of the strongest international actors that is determining the global political agenda. It means that Russia is once again a member of the Great Power club as „a great power state is a state deemed to rank amongst the most powerful in a hierarchical state-system“.[iii] Russia, in this respect, surely fits the conventionally accepted academic criteria that define a Great Power:

  1. A Great Power state is in the first rank of military capacity.
  2. A Great Power state has the capacity to maintain its own security and to influence other states on how to behave.
  3. A Great Power state is economically powerful, although this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for membership in the Great Power club (the cases of Japan or Germany are the best illustrations of this claim).
  4. A Great Power state has global but not only regional spheres of national interest and action.
  5. A Great Power state is running a „forward“ foreign policy and, therefore, it has a real but not only potential influence on international relations and global (world) politics.[iv]
  6. A Great Power is a state (at least according to the 18th-century concept) that could not be conquered even by the combined might of other Great Powers.[v]

Russia surely belongs today to the club of key global powers having powerful nuclear weapons, a growing economy, and prospective economic capacities, being one of the leading BRICS members. However, what is most important and different to others, Russia possesses almost endless natural resources (many of them are probably still even not discovered). For instance, in September 2025, the Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia has reserves of coal for the next one thousand years. From a geopolitical viewpoint, Russia is occupying the crucial segment of the Heartland – the focal geopolitical part of the world.[vi] Russia, with its rich history and national traditions, is today in the process of defining its new political role in the current century. Behind Russia’s policies, there is a comprehensible strategy based on a firm vision of the contemporary world and the protection of the Russian national interests.  

The six factors of Russian power in IR

A contemporary history of Russia starts after the dissolution of the USSR by Mikhail Gorbachev (according to the agreement with Ronald Reagan in Reykjavík in October 1986),[vii] which marked at the same time the beginning of the political and economic turmoil in the 1990s, when Russia under Boris Yeltsin and his pro-Western liberals was a puppet state of the Collective West. However, the country gradually emerged from the period of instability since 2000 mainly due to the well-combined six factors, which a new administration of President Vladimir Putin skilfully exploited to the full extent:

  1. Substantial mineral resources, particularly of oil, gas, and coal.
  2. Significant military power, based on the second greatest nuclear potential in the world.
  3. Relatively well-educated, productive segment of the population.
  4. A high-quality scientific and technological base that survived in several industries.
  5. Permanent membership in the UNSC, the G8, and the G20.
  6. Important political and economic influence on the territory of the former Soviet Union.                                     

It is predicted that Russia will remain in the future as one of the focal and strongest international actors on the same or above level of influence, together with the US, EU, China, and rising Islamic cultures, especially Iran and Turkey. Russia’s natural resources and capabilities may allow it to follow an independent line in foreign policy and security national interests, both in the post-Soviet regions and in some key areas of the world: Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Predictably, however, Moscow’s interests will inevitably clash with those of other major actors – especially the US and its European clients. That is for sure that world order in international relations is going to continue to function according to World Systems Theory: a variant of structuralism that conceptualizes world order as being structured into 1) A rich and developed core, 2) Poor and underdeveloped periphery, and 3) A number of intermediary or semi-peripheral states. Russia is going to improve its own position within the first (leading) group, which includes all Great Powers who are hopefully (after the 2025 meeting of the Shangai Cooperation Organization-SCO) going to govern international relations and global politics according to the principle of Balance of Power which refers to a mechanism whereby Great Power’s states collaborate with each other in order to maintain their interests against threats from those who would seek systemic dominance.

Why study and respect Russia?

There are at least four focal and most important reasons for both studying and respecting Russia’s importance in global politics and international relations today:

  1. Geopolitical position and the size of the country: Russia is the largest country in the world, stretching over 17 million sq. km and covering 11 time zones. Russia borders the Baltic Sea in the west, the Black Sea and Caspian Sea (in fact, the lake) in the south, the Arctic Ocean in the north, and the Pacific Ocean in the east. Russia is both a European and Asian country, which, in fact, occupies the crucial geopolitical position in the world – the core of the Heartland. Russia shares borders with six NATO member states (Poland, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Latvia), faces a seventh one across the Black Sea (Turkey), and is geographically separated by only 85,30 km wide Bering Strait from the USA (also a member of NATO). Russia borders 16 internationally recognized states, which is the largest number of neighbors that one country has in the world. A geopolitical factor of Russia can be shortly understood if we know that anything that is happening on the territory of Eurasia from Central Europe to Japan is affecting to a certain extent Russia and, therefore, Moscow has to react by some means to that.[viii]
  2. Regional power: Russia is surely a regional power within the perimeter of Heartland, which is striving to realize its own political, economic, national, and security interests. Russia, after 2000, succeeded in developing its own independent policies toward other states, including NATO and the EU’s members. The “problems” with Russia in global politics and international relations started when, since 2008, Russia’s foreign policy did not in many segments correspond with the strategic interests of the USA and its European and other clients of NATO and the EU. To the full level of dissatisfaction by Washington and Brussels, Russia maintains friendly relations with the three main American enemies and competitors – North Korea, China, and Iran. The most “problematic” issue of Russian foreign policy in the region for Washington is the fact that Moscow is continuing its efforts to build multi-state economic and political coalitions with neighboring countries, including super-powerful China, followed by rising powers of Iran and India. Russia, China, and India are already members of the international bloc, the BRICS, together with Brazil and South Africa as founders, followed by newly accepted member states.[ix] The Collective West finally 2008 recognized Russia’s claim to have “privileged interests” within the post-Soviet territories, except in those countries that joined the EU and NATO before (the Baltic States).[x]       
  3. Military power: With the total dissatisfaction by the Pentagon and Brussels, Russia still even during overwhelming economic, financial, and other sanctions by the Collective West introduced since 2022, remains a very strong military state with stable economic growth, respectful military and nuclear capacity, and developing potentials which are keeping it as one of the Great Powers (even a Super Power) in global politics. It is quite understandable that even after Cold War 1.0, when bare American imperialism received its full expression at least till 2008, Moscow continues with its security policy based on the priority of having strong military capacities. Historically, for the Russian authorities is quite clear that after NATO’s establishment in 1949, Russia’s survival, independence, and sovereignty depended only on its military power, especially the nuclear one.[xi] Russia (at that time the USSR) started to produce nuclear weapons in 1949 when the US created its imperialistic military bloc of Western puppet states and reached nuclear parity with the US at the beginning of the 1970s. Russia is today maintaining a nuclear arsenal and delivery systems that are comparable to the arsenal of the US.[xii] Unfortunately, due to the US’ policy of open gangsterism in international relations after the end of the Cold War 1.0, the so-called Western liberal democracies (the EU and NATO) are still an enemy to both Russia’s and global security and, therefore, one of the most important tasks for the near future in global politics has to be the creation of new reliable policies of common security based on justice, democracy, and friendship – a kind of multilateral global politics or at least the international relations founded on the form of the balancing power among the Great Powers.  
  4. Economic power: Russia remains a global economic power with a growing economy index higher than many Western countries, having a population of some 142 million, which makes it one of the ten most populous states in the world. Her GDP per annum is selecting Russia among the world’s top 10 economies. In 2007, the private sector, with 5 million private enterprises, contributed 65% of Russia’s GDP. Although an economic slowdown is possible, Russia is most likely to continue with its economic growth in the near future, regardless of the harsh economic and other sanctions imposed by the Collective West since 2022 onward. The main source of revenue (80%) is the exploitation of natural resources (and selling them to the world market), followed by a wide range of different industries. The most important Russian export of natural resources is oil, gas, coal, timber, and metals. We have to keep in mind that, for instance, Russia has 23% of the total world’s forested land[xiii] and is in the 8th place in the world according to the oil reserves (the first is Venezuela). After 2000, Russia became as well as one of the biggest world’s energy suppliers and the exporter of weapons (among the top 3). The potential economic power of Russia comes from the fact that this country possesses vast reserves of natural resources on its territory, for example, 30% of global gas reserves. The country is quite near to the Arctic’s gas and oil reserves, a large but still unexplored source of energy, which is probably going to be mainly under Russian exploitation in the future. It is not so difficult to claim that energy resources are going to be the focal reason for the conflicts in international relations.        

Current reality of Russo-Western relations in IR

Questions about the nature of Russia’s political and economic systems and Russia’s policy after 2000 are of crucial importance in understanding its place in both Eurasia and the world (BRICS+), and assessing the prospects for dealing with some of the focal challenges to regional and global security. The policymakers of the Collective West understood this truth only after Russia’s military intervention in the Caucasus in August 2008, which was intended to clearly demonstrate that further incorporation of areas of special interest to Moscow into the Western client zone was totally unacceptable. What the same Western policymakers also understood was that this intervention was a clear counterpunch to Western-sponsored Kosovo’s proclamation of “independence” in February of the same year. 

Russia is a leading political subject, a strong economic and military power, a rich energy producer and supplier, an extremely important player in global politics, which is still building its position in the post-Cold War 1.0 era (that, in fact, is already the era of the Cold War 2.0). Russia is and is going to be for a long period of time in the future both one of the crucial players in international relations and one of the most important decision-makers in global politics. However, up to 2022, Russia’s post-Cold War 1.0 geopolitics was forced to be accommodated to the behavior of NATO.[xiv] Nevertheless, since February 2022, when the SMO of Russia started, in fact, against the Collective Western Russofrenic imperialism, on the territory of the Soviet (Greater) Ukraine, NATO and the rest of the Collective West are forced to accommodate their politics on the global arena to the Russian behaviour.

Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity, which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution. 

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Ex-University Professor

Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies

Belgrade, Serbia

© Vladislav B. Sotirovic 2025

http://www.geostrategy.rs

sotirovic1967@gmail.com

Endnotes:

[i] On this war, at least from the Western perspective, see in [Roger E. Kanet (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 101−178].

[ii] Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West, London‒New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

[iii] Andrew Heywood, Global Politics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 7.

[iv] About world politics, see in [Jeffrey Haynes et al, World Politics, New York: Routledge, 2013].

[v] Richard W. Mansbach, Karsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, Second Edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2012, 578.

[vi] About geography and history, see in [Halford John Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History”, The Geographical Journal, 23, 1904, 421−437; Pascal Venier, „The Geographical Pivot of History and Early 20th Century Geopolitical Culture“, Geographical Journal, 170 (4), 2004, 330−336].

[vii] About R. Reagan and M. Gorbachev’s relations, see in [Jack F. Matlock Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, New York, Random House, 2005].

[viii] On Eurasia and Great Powers, see in [Roger E. Kanet, Maria Raquel Freire (eds.), Key Players and Regional Dynamics in Eurasia: The Return of the Great Game, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010].

[ix] The BRICS is an acronym first used by the investment firm Goldman Sachs in 2003 (as the BRIC). Taking their rapid economic development, Goldman Sachs predicted that these economies are going to be wealthier by 2050 than the world’s current economic powers.

[x] About the foreign policy of Russia in the 21st century from the Western perspective, see in [Robert Legvold (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century and the Shadow of the Past, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007; Roger E. Kanet (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011].

[xi] About this issue, see in [Richard Pipes, Survival is not Enough: Soviet Realities and America’s Future, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984].

[xii] Robert Legvold, “The Russian File: How to Move Toward a Strategic Partnership”, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2009, 78−93.

[xiii] World Resource Institute: http://www.globalforestwatch.org/english/russia (2009).

[xiv] About the post-Cold War 1.0 geopolitics of Russia, see in [Срђан Перишић, Нова геополитика Русије, Београд: Медија центар „Одбрана“, 2015]. About the new Cold War 2.0, see in [Robert Legvold, Return to Cold War, Cambridge, UK−Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016].

On Ukrainian Identity: Ukraine as a Buffer Zone

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Editors note: If you’re like me and you love history this will give you some historical context as to what’s going on in Ukraine.

An imagined community

Ukraine is an Eastern European territory that was originally part of the western part of the Russian Empire and the eastern portion of the Polish Kingdom in the mid-17th century (the division according to the 1667 Peace Treaty of Andrusovo). That is a present-day independent state and separate ethnolinguistic nation as a typical example of Benedict Anderson’s theory model of the “imagined community” – a self-constructed idea of the artificial ethnic and linguistic-cultural identity [see, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, London‒New York: Verso, 1983]. Before 2014, Ukraine was home to some 46 million inhabitants of whom, according to the official data, there were around 77 percent who declared themselves as Ukrainians.

Nevertheless, many Russians do not consider the Ukrainians or Belarusians/Belarus as “foreign” but rather as the regional branches of the Russian nationality. It is a matter of fact that, differently to the Russian case, the national identity of Belarus or the Ukrainians was never firmly fixed as it was always in the constant process of changing and evolving [on the Ukrainian self-identity construction, see: Karina V. Korostelina, Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power: Self-Imagination in a Young Ukrainian Nation, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2014].

The process of self-constructing identity of the Ukrainians after 1991 is, basically, oriented vis-à-vis Ukraine’s two most powerful neighbors: Poland and Russia. In other words, the self-constructing Ukrainian identity (like the Montenegrin or Belarusian) is just able to claim so far that the Ukrainians are not either the Poles or the Russians, but, however, what they really are is under great debate, and still it is not clear. Therefore, the existence of an independent state of Ukraine, nominally a national state of the Ukrainians, is of very doubtful indeed from both perspectives: historical and ethnolinguistic.

National self-determination

The principle of the so-called “national self-determination” became popular in East-Central, Eastern, and South-eastern Europe with the proclamation of Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” on January 8th, 1918. However, as a concept, the principle was alive since the French Revolution, if not even before. The French Revolution itself supported a principle of national self-determination, which was already used in practice since the American Revolution (started in 1776), followed by the American War of Independence (ended in 1783) against the United Kingdom as a colonial master. In short, the concept is based on a principle that the source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. Therefore, the idea of a plebiscite was introduced as the political support for either independence or annexation of certain territories. For instance, France organized a plebiscite in order to justify the territorial annexation of Avignon, Savoy, and Nice in the 1790s. The same principle was used for the Italian and German unifications in the second half of the 19th century or for the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in Europe by the Balkan states in 1912‒1913.

The new European political order after WWI was established according to the principle of national self-determination as the territories of East-Central and South-East Europe were fundamentally remapped. The new national states appeared, while some have been enlarged by the inclusion of their nationals from neighboring countries. Exactly using this principle, the four empires were destroyed: the German, the Ottoman, the Russian, and Austria-Hungary.

However, the same principle of national self-determination was not applied to all European nations for different reasons. One of them was that certain present-day known nations at that time were not recognized as such, at least not by the winning Entente powers. That was, in fact, the case of Ukrainians, or better to say, of those Ukrainians left behind the borders of the USSR. Those trans-Soviet Ukrainians were one of the losers of the Versailles System after 1918. While a large number of the smaller nations (compared to the Ukrainians), from Finland to the Balkans, were granted either state independence (for instance, the Baltic States) or inclusion into the united national state (for example, Greater Romania), Ukrainians were deprived of it.

Diferently to many other European nations, there were several Ukrainian political entities (state or federal unit) established during the years of 1917‒1920, either by the Germans or Bolsheviks. The Germans created a formally independent Ukrainian state in 1918, while the Bolsheviks established not only one Soviet Ukraine as a political entity within the Bolshevik state (later the USSR).

To be honest, there were several focal reasons why the Western winners did not create an independent Ukraine after WWI: 1) It could be considered as a German political victory on the former Eastern Front; 2) The country could be run by the nationalists close to the German concept of Mittel Europa and, therefore, Ukraine can become a German client state; 3) Independent Ukraine would be anti-Polish and anti-Semitic; 4) Independent Ukraine could become inclined to the Soviet side for the matter of the creation of a Greater Ukraine; 5) Many Westerners did not recognize an independent Ukrainian nation as a separate ethnolinguistic group; and 6) Ukraine as a federal entity already existed within the Soviet state.

Therefore, for all of above mentioned crucial reasons, the victorious powers after WWI decided not the sponsor the creation of an independent Ukrainian state as a national state of the “Ukrainians” applying the principle of national self-determination. Moreover, applying the historical rights, in 1923, the Entente powers gave reborn Poland Galicia and some other lands considered by the Ukrainian nationalists to be “Western” Ukraine. The Ukrainians within Poland did not get any national autonomy (differently to the case of the Soviet Ukraine) for the very reason they have not been recognized as a separate nation, i.e., an ethnolinguistic group.

Ukraine?

The Slavonic term Ukraine, for instance, in the Serbo-Croat case Krajina, means in the English language a Borderland – a provincial territory situated on the border between at least two political entities: in this particular historical case, between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as the Republic of Both Nations (1569−1795), on one hand, and the Russian Empire, on another. It has to be noticed that according to the 1569 Lublin Union between Poland and Lithuania, the former Lithuanian territory of Ukraine passed over to Poland.

A German historical term for Ukraine would be a mark – a term for the state’s borderland which existed from the time of the Frankish Kingdom/Empire of Carl the Great. The term is mostly used from the time of the Treaty (Truce) of Andrusovo (Andrussovo) in 1667 between Poland-Lithuania and Russia. In other words, Ukraine and the Ukrainians as a natural objective-historical-cultural identity never existed, as it was considered only as a geographic-political territory between two other natural-historical entities (Poland [-Lithuania] and Russia). All (quasi)historiographical mentioning of this land and the people as Ukraine/Ukrainians referring to the period before the mid-17th century are quite scientifically incorrect, but in the majority of cases politically inspired and colored to present them as something crucially different from the historical process of ethnic genesis of the Russians [for instance: Alfredas Bumblauskas, Genutė Kirkienė, Feliksas Šabuldo (sudarytojai), Ukraina: Lietuvos epocha, 1320−1569, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras, 2010].

The role of the Vatican and the Union Act

It was the Roman Catholic Vatican that was behind the process of creation of the “imagined community” of the “Ukrainian” national identity for the very political purpose of separating the people from this borderland territory from the Orthodox Russian Empire. Absolutely the same was done by Vatican’s client Austria-Hungary in regard to the national identity of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian population when this province was administered by Vienna-Budapest from 1878 to 1918 as it was the Austro-Hungarian government created totally artificial and very new ethnolinguistic identity – the “Bosnians”, just not to be the (Orthodox) Serbs (who were at that time a strong majority of the provincial population) [Лазо М. Костић, Наука утврђује народност Б-Х муслимана, Србиње−Нови Сад: Добрица књига, 2000].

The creation of an ethnolinguistically artificial Ukrainian national identity and later on a separate nationality was part of a wider confessional-political project by the Vatican in the Roman Catholic historical struggle against Eastern Orthodox Christianity (the eastern “schism”) and its churches within the framework of the Pope’s traditional proselytizing policy of reconversion of the “infidels”. One of the most successful instruments of a soft-way reconversion used by the Vatican was to compel a part of the Orthodox population to sign with the Roman Catholic Church the Union Act recognizing in such a way a supreme power by the Pope and dogmatic filioque (“and from the Son” – the Holy Spirit proceeds and from the Father and the Son).

Therefore, the ex-Orthodox believers who now became the Uniate Brothers or the Greek Orthodox believers became, in great numbers, later pure Roman Catholics and also changed their original (from the Orthodox time) ethnolinguistic identity. It is, for instance, very clear in the case of the Orthodox Serbs in the Zhumberak area of Croatia, from the ethnic (Orthodox) Serbs to the Greek Orthodox believers, later the Roman Catholic believers, and finally today the ethnic (Roman Catholic) Croats. Something similar occurred in the case of Ukraine.

The 1596 Brest Union

On October 9th, 1596 it was announced by the Vatican a Brest Union with a part of the Orthodox population within the borders of the Roman Catholic Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth (today Ukraine) [Arūnas Gumuliauskas, Lietuvos istorija: Įvykiai ir datos, Šiauliai: Šiaures Lietuva, 2009, 44; Didysis istorijos atlasas mokyklai: Nuo pasaulio ir Lietuvos priešistorės iki naujausiųjų laikų, Vilnius: Leidykla Briedis, (without year of publishing) 108]. The crucial issue, nevertheless, in this matter is that today Ukraine’s Uniates and the Roman Catholics are most anti-Russian and of the Ukrainian national feelings. Basically, both the Ukrainian and the Belarus present-day ethnolinguistic and national identities are historically founded on the anti-Orthodox policy of the Vatican within the territory of the ex-Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was in essence an anti-Russian political construction.

The Lithuanian historiography writing on the Church Union of Brest in 1596 clearly confirms that:

“… the Catholic Church more and more strongly penetrated the zone of the Orthodox Church, giving a new impetus to the idea, which had been cherished since the time of Jogaila and Vytautas and formulated in the principles of the Union of Florence in 1439, but never put into effect – the subordination of the GDL Orthodox Church to the Pope’s rule” [Zigmantas Kiaupa et al, The History of Lithuania Before 1795, Vilnius: Lithuanian Institute of History, 2000, 288].

In other words, the rulers of the Roman Catholic Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the GDL) from the very time of Lithuania’s baptism in 1387−1413 by the Vatican had a plan to Catholicize all Orthodox believers of the GDL, among whom the overwhelming majority were the Slavs. As a consequence, the relations with Moscow became very hostile as Russia accepted the role of the protector of the Orthodox believers and faith, and, therefore, the 1596 Church Union of Brest was seen as a criminal act by Rome and its client, the Republic of Two Nations (Poland-Lithuania).

A buffer zone

Today, it is absolutely clear that the most pro-Western and Russofrenic part of Ukraine is exactly Western Ukraine – the lands that were historically under the rule of the Roman Catholic ex-Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the former Habsburg Monarchy. It is obvious, for instance, from the presidential voting results in 2010 that the pro-Western regions voted for J. Tymoshenko while the pro-Russian regions voted for V. Yanukovych. It is a reflection of the post-Soviet Ukrainian identity dilemma between “Europe” and “Eurasia” – a dilemma that is common for all East-Central and Eastern European nations, who historically played the role of a buffer zone between the German Mittel Europa project and the Russian project of a pan-Slavonic unity and reciprocity.

In general, the western territories of present-day Ukraine are mainly populated by the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Uniates. This part of Ukraine is mostly nationalistic and pro-Western (in fact, pro-German) oriented. Contrary, Eastern Ukraine is, in essence, Russophone and subsequently “tends to look to closer relations with Russia” [John S. Dryzek, Leslie Templeman Holmes, Post-Communist Democratization: Political Discourses Across Thirteen Countries, Cambridge−New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 114].

Since WWI up to today, the Germans have been the principal sponsors of the creation of the national state of Ukrainians for different geopolitical as well as economic reasons. Subsequently, different kinds of Ukrainian nationalists were siding with the German authorities. For instance, whereas the victorious Entente powers after 1918, supported by Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, or Czechoslovakia, were executing the policy of preservation of the Versailles System, the Germans during the interwar period were opposing it and fighting against it. It is from this viewpoint that explains why the Ukrainian nationalists accepted the Nazi policy of a “New European Order” in which a Greater Ukraine could exist in some political form, in fact, as a buffer zone [Frank Golczewski, “The Nazi ‘New European Order’ and the Reactions of Ukrainians”, Henry Huttenbach and Francesco Privitera (eds.), Self-Determination: From Versailles to Dayton. Its Historical Legacy, Longo Editore Ravenna, 1999, 82‒83]. Finally, even today, the main Ukrainian supporter and sponsor in its conflict with Russia is exactly Germany. Nevetheless, we have to keep in mind that after 1991, Russia left at least 25 million ethnic Russian outside the borders of the Russian Federation, a huge number of them in the post-Soviet Ukraine [see more in, Ruth Petrie (ed.), The Fall of Communism and the Rise of Nationalism, The Index Reader, London‒Washington: Cassell, 1997].

Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity, which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution. 

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

Ex-University Professor

Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies

Belgrade, Serbia

http://www.geostrategy.rs

sotirovic1967@gmail.com

© Vladislav B. Sotirović 2025

Former British Colonies (incl. US) Belong to Rothschilds

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From Henrymakow.com

All countries with Rothschild central banks are not really independent. National sovereignty is a hoax. 

WORLD GOVERNMENT TYRANNY SIMPLY SEEKS TO ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT ALREADY EXISTS.

“The Federal Reserve Act is approximately 1500 pages and places the currency and finance for the United States Corporation under a private corporation called, “The Federal Reserve.” The Federal Reserve is owned lock, stock and barrel, by the Sabbatean/Rothschild Banking Empire and not by the people or the corporate government of the United States. 

“The Great Depression of 1929, like so many other catastrophes before and after this date was actually a staged event, concocted by the Sabbatean/Rothschild and Rockefeller Banking Empires; the Queen and British Parliament; the US President and Congress; the Vatican and numerous Elite families to steal America’s gold and silver reserves and replace it with, “Negotiable Debt Instruments” or Script money. “American citizens are defined as, “an enemy of their government” and this is the reason why Lincoln’s Declaration of War is renewed yearly by Congress and the President! 

Excerpt (p.36)  from a 92-page document “The Great American Adventure” by a “retired Judge Dale”

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james-alexander-hamilton-1.png

[And the introduction of a new legal system.]
On March 9, 1933, House Joint Resolution No. 192-10 by the 73rd Congress, was voted into law, which is the Emergency Banking Act. This Act declared the Treasury of the United States, ‘Bankrupt’, which is an impossible feat since the U. S. Treasury was secretly closed by the Congress twelve years earlier in 1921. 
The Emergency Banking Act succeeded in abrogating America’s gold standard and hypothecated all property found within the United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank. 
All Sovereign American Citizens residing within the Republic of States suddenly and falsely were expatriated from their Sovereign American status without their knowledge or consent and their labor, souls, children, property, sweat equity and credit became the financial collateral for the public debt, which had then been converted into a Public Trust, which had been scripted after the ancient Roman Trusts. 
“Script” money or [negotiable debt instruments] was issued by a private corporation, which is owned by a group of Sabbatean European Jewish Bankers and which is known to everybody as: “The Federal Reserve System.” These promissory notes were called Federal Reserve Notes and our future treatment by the U.S. Government was to be redefined under USC Title 50, ‘The Trading with the Enemy Act’ in which American citizens are defined as, “an enemy of their government” and this is the reason why Lincoln’s Declaration of War is renewed yearly by Congress and the President! 
In the same year President Roosevelt closed THE VIRGINIA COLONY CORPORATION and opened a new Government Corporation called: THE UNITED STATES, INC. “The Federal Reserve Act” was designed and written by a German National who was repatriated into the United States in 1903 through Ellis Island of New York. His name was Paul Warburg, and who was a carbon copy of Alexander [Levine] Hamilton (LEFT.) 
Mr. Warburg was a Sabbatean German Jewish Banker and CFO of the Rothschild Banking Empire. Mr. Warburg’s assignment was to craft a 

piece of legislation designed to control the finances of the United States Corporation from Europe. 

The Federal Reserve Act is approximately 1500 pages and places the currency and finance for the United States Corporation under a private corporation called, “The Federal Reserve.” The Federal Reserve is owned lock, stock and barrel, by the Sabbatean/Rothschild Banking Empire and not by the people or the corporate government of the United States. 

The Great Depression of 1929, like so many other catastrophes before and after this date was actually a staged event, concocted by the Sabbatean/Rothschild and Rockefeller Banking Empires; the Queen and British Parliament; the US President and Congress; the Vatican and numerous Elite families to steal America’s gold and silver reserves and replace it with, “Negotiable Debt Instruments” or Script money. 

Their theft was ingenious and by allowing the public to fall on hard times, the public soon began to demand that the government fix the problem by any means necessary! This was like self mutilation being repaired with a band-aid! 

NOTE: While everyone struggled in this Country to survive, President Roosevelt and the Congress were making interest bearing loans to Foreign Governments, using the very money they publicly swore did not exist! 

Germany used that money to enlarge their War Chest. The American public however was so self-indulged about their own personal fate that they never considered or asked how it was possible that all of the above government individuals, never personally lost a dime during the Great Depression and how they all continued to enjoy their family estates and personal wealth! 

Remember the term, “functional illiterates?” Need I say more? We all have been trained to believe that someone not born on American soil is an alien however we forget to consider that the Declaration of Independence was written completely by aliens and not one adult Colonist or Founding Father was born on American soil! 

The Immigration Laws of the United States are contrary to the Declaration of Independence and the biggest Terrorist on the planet is now the United States Government! This fact will be further discussed later on. 

Following the 1933 bankruptcy; most American’s were not aware that HR 1491 or HR 4960 had been secretly passed, wherein the US Congress actually relinquished our right to have or accumulate gold and silver. The Congress eventually repealed part of this legislation to accommodate jewelers but all Americans’ are still prohibited from having or accumulating solid gold and silver. 

Hence, our coins are no longer solid gold or silver but are tin and nickel plated, carbon filled coins. Pennies are tin and copper plated carbon filled coins. These Acts also established the requirement of licensing and then with the enactment of ‘The Trading with the Enemy Act’ under War and National Defense; the Confiscation Act, the Reconstruction Act and the Lieber Code were all tied together to create the secret fascist government of the United States.

—-
Related – The US is a Crown Colony

—————-  More Extracts from this DOCUMENTJoshua Stylman – America LLC – The Corporate Takeover You Were Never Taught

——————————– The Corporate Transformation of America

1971 the Year Humanity Became Enslaved

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This is a really good video that shows you how everything in America changed around 1971 and by 1973 there were gas lines and runaway inflation that was just beginning. This was due in large part to then President Nixon taking America off of the gold standard. This meant the dollar was backed by virtually nothing except Saudi oil which is the only reason the dollar is still alive today.

You can support this ministry and keep us on the internet using the links below.  Patreon is gone so now we have PayPal, Cash App and Buy me a Coffee as our online options.  The buy me a coffee link is below.

Free Ebook on Spiritual Warfare

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Land of Israel” and Palestine:

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The First Phase of the Creation of Der Judenstaat

Guest Post by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine (the Palestine Mandate) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews, although formally not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians. Nevertheless, it became in practice the focal problem to keep an appropriate balance between these stipulations to be acceptable to both sides – the Jews and the Palestinians.

The people and the land

Since the time of the Enlightenment followed by Romanticism, in Western Europe emerged a new trend of group identification of the people as ethnic or ethnocultural nations different from the previous feudal trends from the Middle Ages based on religion, state borders, or social strata belonging.[i] Over time, a new trend of people’s identification as a product of the capitalistic system of production and social order became applied across the globe following the process of capitalistic globalization.[ii] As a direct consequence of such development of the group identities, the newly understood nations, especially in the areas under colonial foreign rule, started to demand their national rights but among them, the most important demand was the right to self-rule in a nation-state of their own. In other words, the ethnic or ethnic-confessional groups under foreign oppression demanded the rights of self-

21st Zionist Congress Geneva 1939

Since around 1900, both the Jews and the Arab-Palestinians became involved in the process of developing ethnonational consciousness and mobilizing their nations for the sake of achieving national-political goals. However, one of the focal differences between them regarding the creation of a nation-state of their own was that the Jews have been spread out across the world (a diaspora) since the fall of Jerusalem and Judea in the 1st century AD[iv] while, in contrast, the Palestinians were concentrated in one place – Palestine. From the very end of the 19th century, a newly formed Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement had a task to identify land where the Jewish people could immigrate and settle to create their own nation-state. For Th. Herzl (1860‒1904),[v] Palestine was historically logical as an optimal land for the Jewish immigrants as it was the land of the Jewish states in the Antique.[vi] It was, however, an old idea, and Th. Herzl in his book pamphlet which became the Bible of the Zionist movement was the first to analyze the conditions of the Jews in their assumed to be “native” land and call for the establishment of a nation-state of the Jews in order to solve the Jewish Question in Europe or better to say to beat traditional European anti-Semitism and modern tendency of the Jewish assimilation. But the focal problem was to somehow convince the Europeans that the Jews had the right to this land even after 2.000 years of emigration in the diaspora.  

However, what was Th. Herzel’s Eretz Yisrael in reality? For all Zionists and the majority of Jews, it was the Promised Land of milk and honey but in reality, the Promised Land was a barren, rocky, and obscure Ottoman province since 1517 settled by the Muslim Arabs as a clear majority population. On this narrow strip of land of East Mediterranean, the Jews, and the Arab Palestinians lived side by side at the time of the First Zionist Congress some 400.000 Arabs and some 50.000 Jews.[vii] Most of those Palestinian Jews have been bigot Orthodox[viii] who entirely depended on their existence on charitable offerings of different Jewish societies in Europe which have been distributed to them by the communal organizations set up mainly exactly for that purpose.

Palestine

Palestine is a historic land in the Middle East on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the River of Jordan and the Mediterranean seacoast. Palestine is called Holy Land by the Jews, Christians, and Muslims because of its spiritual links with Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam.

The land experienced many changes and lordships in history followed by changes of frontiers and its political status. For each of the regional denominations, Palestine contains several sacred places. In the so-called biblical times, on the territory of Palestine, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea existed until the Roman occupation in the 1st century AD. The final wave of Jewish expulsion to the diaspora from Palestine started after the abortive uprising of Bar Kochba in 132−135. Up to the emergence of Islam, Palestine historically was controlled by the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, the Roman Empire, and finally by the Byzantine Empire (the East Roman Empire) alongside the periods of the independence of the Jewish kingdoms.

The land became occupied by the Muslim Arabians in 634 AD. Since then, Palestine has been populated by a majority of Arabs, although it remained a central reference point to the Jewish people in the diaspora as their “Land of Israel” or Eretz Yisrael. Palestine remained under Muslim rule up to WWI, being part of the Ottoman Empire (1516−1917), when combined the Ottoman and German armies became defeated by the Brits at Megiddo, except for the time during the West European Crusades from 1098 to 1197.[ix] The term Palestine was used as the official political title for the land westward of the Jordan River mandated in the interwar and post-WWII period to the United Kingdom (from 1920 up to 1947).

However, after 1948, the term Palestine continues to be used, but now in order to identify rather a geographical than a political entity. It is used today, particularly in the context of the struggle over the land and political rights of Palestinian Arabs displaced since Israel became established.[x]

The Jewish migrations to Palestine in 1882−1914

As a consequence of renewed pogroms in East Europe in 1881, the first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine started in 1882 followed by another wave before WWI from 1904 to 1914.[xi] The immigration of the Jewish settlers was encouraged by the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and very much intensified since May 1948 when the Zionist State of Israel was proclaimed and established.

There were historically two types of motives for the Jews to come to Eretz Yisrael (In Hebrew, the “Land of Israel”):

  1. The traditional motive was prayer and study, followed by death and burial in the holy soil.
  2. Later, since the mid-19th century, a new type of Jew being secular and in many cases idealistic began to arrive in Palestine but many of them have been driven from their native lands by anti-Semitic persecution.       

In 1882 there was the first organized wave of European Jewish immigration to Palestine. Since the 1897 First World Zionist Congress in Basel, there was an inflow of European Jews into Palestine especially during the British Mandate time followed by the British-allowed policy of land-buying by the Jewish Agency which was, in fact, indirect preparation for the creation of the Jewish nation-state – Israel.[xii] In other words, such a policy was designed to alienate land from the Palestinians, stipulating that it could not be in the Arab hands.

Even before the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Th. Herzl tried to recruit prosperous and rich Jews (like the Rothschild family) to finance his plan of the Jewish emigration and colonization of Palestine but finally failed in his attempt. Th. Herzl decided to turn to the little men – hence his decision to convene the 1897 Basel Congress where according to his diary, he founded the Jewish state. After the congress, he did not waste time in turning his political program into reality. Still, at the same time, he strongly disagrees with the idea of peaceful settlement in Palestine, or according to his own words “gradual Jewish infiltration”, which, in fact, already started even before the meeting of the Zionists in Basel.

At that time, Palestine as an Ottoman province did not constitute a single political-administrative unit. The northern districts have been parts of the province of Beirut, and the district of Jerusalem was under the direct authority of the central Ottoman Government in Istanbul because of the international significance of the city of Jerusalem and the town of Bethlehem as religious centers equally important for Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.[xiii] A vast majority of the Arabs either Muslims or Christians have been living in several hundred villages in a rural environment. Concerning the town settlers of Arab origin, the two biggest of them were Jaffa and Nablus together with Jerusalem as economically the most prosperous urban settlements.[xiv]

Until WWI, the biggest number of Palestinian Jews was living in four urban settlements of the most important religious significance to them: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. They have been followers of traditional, Orthodox religious practices spending much time studying religious texts and depending on the charity of world Jewry for survival.[xv] It has to be noticed that their attachment to Eretz Yisrael was much more of religion than of national character and they were not either involved in or supportive of Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement emerged in Europe and was, in fact, brought to Palestine by the Jewish immigrants after 1897. However, most of the Jewish immigrants to Palestine after 1897 who emigrated from Europe have lived of secular type of life having commitments to the secular goals to create and maintain a modern Jewish nation based on the European standards of the time and to establish an independent Jewish state – modern Israel but not to re-establish a biblical one. During the first year of WWI, the total number of Jews in Palestine reached some 60.000 of whom some 36.000 were settlers since 1897. On the other hand, the total number of the Arab population in Palestine in 1914 was around 683.000.

The second wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine (1904−1914) had many intellectuals and middle-class Jews but the majority of those immigrants have been driven less by a vision of a new state than by the hope of having a new life, free of pogroms and persecutions.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Ex-University Professor

Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies

Belgrade, Serbia

http://www.geostrategy.rs

sotirovic1967@gmail.com                                                                                                                                                                                                       © Vladislav B. Sotirovic 2024

Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution. 

References:

[i] About ethnicity, national identity, and nationalism see in [John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith (eds.), Nationalism, Oxford Readers, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Montserrat Guibernau, John Rex (eds.), The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, Malden, MA: Polity Press, 1997]. 

[ii] About globalization see in [Frank J. Lechner, John Boli (eds.), The Globalization Reader, Fifth Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014].

[iii] In the science of politics, self-determination as an idea emerged out of the 18th-century concern for freedom and the primacy of the individual will. In principle, it can be applied to any kind of group of people for whom a collective will is to be considered. However, in the next century, the right to self-determination is understood exclusively to nations but not, for instance, to the national minorities of confessional groups as such. National self-determination was the principle applied by the US’s President Woodrow Wilson to break three empires after WWI. It is included in the 1945 Charter of OUN, in the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples, and the 1970 Declaration of the Principles of International Law. However, self-determination, as taken to its most vicious extremes, leads in practice to phenomena such as, for instance, “ethnic cleansing” that was recently in the 1990s done, for example, against the Serbs in neo-Nazi-fascist Croatia of Dr. Franjo Tuđman or in NATO’s occupied Kosovo-Metochia after the 1998−1999 Kosovo War. In short, self-determination is the right of groups in political sciences to choose their own destiny and to govern themselves not necessarily in their own independent state [Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, London−New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2012, 583].

Sovereignty is the claim to have the ultimate political authority or to be subject to no higher power concerning the making and executing of political decisions. In the system of international relations (the IR), sovereignty is the claim by the state to full self-government, and the mutual recognition of claims to sovereignty is the foundation of the international community. In short, sovereignty is a status of legal autonomy that is enjoyed by states and consequently, their Governments have exclusive authority within their borders and enjoy the rights of membership in the international political community [Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, 714].  

[iv] About the fall of Jerusalem, see in [Josephus, The Fall of Jerusalem, London, England: Penguin Books, 1999]. Josephus Flavius (born as Joseph ben Matthias, c. 37−c. 100) was a Jewish historian, Pharisee, and General in the Roman army. He was a leader of the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire in 66 AD and was captured in 67. His life was spared when he prophesied that Vespasian would become an Emperor. Subsequently, Josephus received Roman citizenship and a pension. He is today well-known as a historian who wrote the Jewish War as an eyewitness account of the historical events leading up to the rebellion. Another of his historiographic works was Antiquities of the Jews – history since the Creation up to 66 AD.

There were two Jewish rebellions against the Roman power which inspired the Jewish diaspora from Palestine: in 66−73; and in 132−135 [Џон Бордман, Џаспер Грифин, Озвин Мари (приредили), Оксфордска историја Грчке и хеленистичког света, Београд: CLIO, 1999, 541−542].

[v] He was born on May 2nd, 1860 in Pest in the Austrian Empire at that time and was given the Hebrew name Binyamin Ze’ev, along with the Hungarian Magyar Tivadar and the German Theodor. In Pest, Th. Herzl attended the Jewish parochial school, where he became acquainted with some biblical Hebrew and religious studies. In 1878, he moved to Vienna where he studied law at the university and later worked for the Ministry of Justice. In 1897, Th. Herzl published his famous book Der Judenstaat, just a year before he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basle (Switzerland). In this book in the form of a political pamphlet, he wrote that: “The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish state” [Extracts from Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State, Walter Laqueur, Barry Rubin (eds.), The Israel-Arab Reader, London, 1995, 6]. According to him, the borders of Israel as Judenstaat had to be between the River of Nile in Egypt and the River of the Euphrates in Iraq. These two rivers, as the borders of Greater Israel, have been symbolically presented on the state flag of Israel since 1948 with the two blue strips (one above and another below Dawid Star).  

[vi] Present-day Israel (est. 1948) is the third independent state of the Jews in Palestine. The biblical Kanaan was a tiny strip of land some 130 km in length between the Jordan River, Mt. Tiber, East Mediterranean littoral, and the Gaza Strip [Giedrius Drukteinis (sudarytojas), Izraelis: Žydų valstybė, Vilnius: Sofoklis, 2017, 13].  

[vii] Ahron Bregman, A History of Israel, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 7.

[viii] The Orthodox Judaism is teaching that the Torah (the five books of Moses) contains all the divine revelation that the Jews as a chosen people require. In the case of Orthodox Judaism, all religious practices are strictly observed. When it is required the interpretations of the Torah, references are made to the Talmud. The followers of Orthodox Judaism are practicing strict separation of women from men in the synagogues during the worshiping. In Israel, exists only an Orthodox rabbinate. While a majority of the Orthodox Jews support the Zionist movement, however, they deplore the secular origins of it and the fact that Israel is not a fully religious state. The Orthodox Jews recognize one as a Jew only in two possible cases: 1) if he/she mother is a Jew; or 2) the person undergoes an arduous process of conversion. For the Orthodox Jews, it is prohibited to cut the beard, which probably originated in a wish to be distinguished from unbelievers. About Jewish history and religion, see more in [Дејвид Џ. Голдберг, Џон Д. Рејнер, Јевреји: Историја и религија, Београд: CLIO, 2003]. The Israeli Law of Return that is governing Jewish emigration back to Israel accepts all those with a Jewish grandmother as potential citizens of Israel. Alongside with the Orthodox Judaism exist Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism.    

[ix] [Geoffrey Barraclough (ed.), The Times Atlas of World History, Revised Edition, Maplewood, New Jersey: Hammond, 1986].

[x] About the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli authority, see in [Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications, 2007]. About the general history of the Jews, see in [Дејвид Џ. Голдберг, Џон Д. Рејнер, Јевреји: Историја и религија, Београд: CLIO, 2003]. 

[xi] The term pogrom from a very general point of view is used to describe organized massacres of Jews in the 20th century but especially during WWII in the Nazi-run concentration camps during the Holocaust.

[xii] However, overwhelming of those Jewish emigrants came from Central and East Europe as well as from the Russian Empire. About the Jews in Central and East Europe, see in [Jurgita Šiaučiunaitė-Verbickienė, Larisa Lempertienė, Central and East European Jews at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity, Vilnius: The Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews, 2006]. About the Jews in Russia, see in [Т. Б. Гейликман, История Евреев в России, Москва, URSS, 2015].

[xiii] The 1878 Ottoman census claims some 463.000 inhabitants of Jerusalem.

[xiv] The Ottoman population in 1884 was composed of 17.143.859 of which some 73.4% were Muslims [Reinhard Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, London‒New York: I.B.Tauris Publishers, 1995, 22].

[xv] From the mid-18th century till WWII, Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of the North” and was a center of Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish studies. Almost half of the city population have been Jews but according to Israeli Cohen, a journalist, and writer who visited Vilnius just before the beginning of WWII, around 75% of Vilnius’ Jews were dependent on the support of charitable and philanthropic organizations or private benefactors [Israeli Cohen, Vilna, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1943, 334]. In Jewish St. in the Old Town of Vilnius, it was established in 1892 the biggest Judaica library in the world – the Strashun Library (or the Jewish Library of Vilnius) by founder Mattityahu Strashun (1817−1885). The library was gone in 1944 as a consequence of the fight between the Germans and the Red Army. The Library collection reached 22.000 items by 1935 [Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Gintė Konstantinavičiūtė, Giedrė Polkaitė-Petkevičienė (compilers and authors), Houses that Talk: Everyday Life in Žydų Street in the 19th−20th, Century (up to 1940), Vilnius: Aukso žuvys, 2018, 97−100]. Vilnius up to WWII had and famous Great Synagogue. A well-known and respected Gaon of Vilnius – Elijah ben Salomon spent all of his life in Vilnius (1720−1797).

The importance of the Jewish Vilnius for the Zionist movement can be seen from the fact that the Zionist leader Th. Herzl visited Vilnius in 1903 when the Jewish representatives met him in the building of the Supreme Rabbi Board House of the Great Vilnius Synagogue [Tomas Venclova, Vilnius City Guide, Vilnius: R. Paknio leidykla, 2018, 122].