Limitrof

Initially, the word limitrophy denoted the border region of the Roman Empire , which was obliged to contain the special units of the imperial troops standing on its territory - the Limitans .

Webster's Dictionary defines the etymology of the word English. limitrophe as French, which goes back to the late Latin limitrophus - “bordering on”, literally, providing the border troops with accommodation - unsystematically formed from lat. limes, limitis (border) and Greek. τροφός (breadwinner). The word is registered since 1763 ^[4] .

Dictionary D. N. Ushakova (1938) repeats the definition of the Small Soviet Encyclopedia (1929) in essence, but does not mention Poland:

LIMITROF , a, m . (Latin. limitrophus - borderline) (polit. nov.) The name of the states that formed after the October Socialist Revolution on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire : Estonia , Lithuania , Latvia , and also Finland .

- ^[1]

In the Explanatory Dictionary of Foreign Words (1998), L. P. Krysin tries to combine both versions of the list of limitrophs:

LIMITROF , a, m . East. 1. The border area of ​​the Roman Empire, which was supposed to contain troops standing on the border. 2. In the 1920s and 1930s: the name of one of the states that formed on the western edge of the former Russian Empire after 1917. Limitrophic - which is a limotroph. | Limitrophies were Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and Finland.

- ^[5]

however, taking into account the reactivation of the term, it does not quite correctly attribute it as " source. ", And it is not quite justifiable that he presents the list of limitrophs as exhaustive.

Variations with Poland and Finland (possibly caused in the 1930s not by “oversight” of the editors, but by the intricacies of the foreign policy environment) do not exhaust the divergence of sources regarding the list of limitrophs.

The term "limitrophic states" was used not only in the USSR. Thus, in the “Directive on the Unified Preparation of the Armed Forces for the War of 1939-1940” approved by Hitler on April 11, 1939, it was stated that after the defeat of Poland, Germany should take control of Lithuania and Latvia:

The position of the limitrophic states will be determined solely by the military needs of Germany. With the development of events, it may be necessary to occupy the limitrophic states to the border of the old Courland and include these territories in the empire.

- ^[6]

As a geopolitical fact, which first emerged in the late 1910s. the concept of limitrophic states goes into the category of historical ones by the end of World War II : the victory over Germany returned the western borders of the USSR, mainly to the borders of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the First World War (with the exception of Finland and Poland, as well as the Kars region ).

Applying this already known term to the same geopolitical totality that was meant by the term limitrophic states in the period 1917–1945, V. L. Tsymbursky again using it did not introduce a new concept ^[7] , but merely modernized its definition by linking it to formulated by him the concept of "inter-civilization belt" ^[8] . This previously known term was re-activated in the vocabulary of modern Russian political science - now with reference to new states that declared their sovereignty during the collapse of the USSR.

Between World War I and World War II

B. A. Kushner uses the term as the title of the 2nd chapter of his travel notes, “One Hundred and Three Days in the West,” describing his trip in 1926. This book was published in 1928 and was reprinted in 1930. In the second chapter, the author describes Latvia and its capital Riga:

Chapter 2. Limitrof

Limitrophic country - Latvia from the industrial Russian suburbs became an agrarian state. The social composition of its population has changed dramatically. Before the war, there were one hundred and fifty thousand industrial workers alone, now they barely number forty thousand together with artisans. Previously, urban residents made up forty percent of the total population, now barely twenty-five percent.

- Journal Hall - Neva, 2008 No. 8 - Entrance Hall of Europe.

Kushner explained the changes in demography by the fact that industry was partially evacuated by the tsarist government and partially destroyed by the war. ^[9]

Limitrofov is mentioned by I. Ilf and E. Petrov in the novel “The Twelve Chairs ” (1928):

And friends, dreaming of what they would buy when they became rich, left Passanaura . Ippolit Matveevich vividly imagined himself buying new socks and leaving abroad. Ostap's dreams were more extensive. His projects were grandiose: either the Blue Nile barrage with a dam, or the opening of a gambling mansion in Riga with branches in all limitrophies.

- ^[10]

After 1991

The revival of the term " limitroph " in the 1990s is associated primarily with the name of the philosopher, orientalist and political scientist V. L. Tsymbursky . Also, the concept of the Great Limitrof since 1994, independently of Tsymbursky, has been developed by the Voronezh historian S. V. Khatuntsev ^[11] .

The term in the interpretation of Tsymbursky entered the modern scientific revolution. For example, the authors of "Pseudo-states as harbingers of a post-modern geopolitics ...", published by the University of Colorado (USA), write ^[12] :

However, the use of the concept of “limitrophs” - geopolitically unstable spaces between civilization platforms ( Tsymbursky , 1997) - will be very useful for the purposes of our discussion².

² The term "limotroph" is very similar to the term shatterbelt 〔≈ belt of crumbling fragments〕 in the definition of Cohen (1963).

Original text

However, the concept of "limitrophs" - geopolitically unstable spaces between civilisational platforms (Zimbursky, 1997) - is very useful in our discussion².

²The concept of limitroph is very similar to that of shatterbelt as defined by Cohen (1963) ^[12] .

As the newly introduced scientific category (with the second “priority” of Tsymbursky), the term “limitrophs” is also recognized by the international scientist, professor of MGIMO, A. D. Bogaturov , emphasizing the neutrality of this term:

within the meaning of the neutral word is “limitrophs” (from lat. limitrophus - border), which began to denote the states that arose on the outskirts of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as a result of the 1917 revolution and the collapse of the USSR ^[13] .

In recent years, the term has been actively used not only in scientific circulation, but also in Russian journalism and in the media to refer to states that have declared their sovereignty during the collapse of the USSR , usually with a derogatory connotation. ^{[14] [15] [16] [17]}

Example:

a standard geopolitical term for territories along the outskirts of an empire , mediating its relations with an alien world and often having a dual, blurred status. ^[18]

The Doctrine of the Great Limitroph of Tsymbur

V.L. Tsymbursky considers the belt of the limitrophs adjacent to Russia as "the limitroph giant, which, dissecting Euro-Asia, isolates Russia and gives it the features of a peculiar island within the continent."

Tsymbursky claims that "the great inter-civilization belt (limitroph), which stretches from the Baltic states through Eastern Europe and encompassing the Caucasus , post-Soviet Central Asia and the so-called old Tibeto - Xinjiang - Mongolian Central Asia , ends in Korea ." He states that this “belt of straits-territories distances Russia from power centers established on the platforms of other civilizations”. ^[nineteen]

V. L. Tsymbursky considers the most important geopolitical task to ensure the ties between the Far East and the Urals - Siberia with the civilizational core of Russia with the help of a well-thought-out tariff system and demographic policy that restrains China's border pressure.

We are always worried about some nonsense, such as whether Chechnya and Dagestan will remain in formal citizenship in a country that is not looking for anything beyond overwhelming survival. Then, what else needs to be thought of: to preserve the integrity of our platform, to increase our authority throughout the entire Great Limitrof, to shift the economic center to the east, not in the order of colonial rush , but in the future a fundamental change in the geopolitical image of Russia. It’s not scary that some guys in the Volga region are dreaming of “ Turkic Eurasia” - it’s scary when the Far East and Ural-Siberia lose their ties with Euro-Russia . It is terrible when the largest part of the country that fell out of European geopolitics is flooded with European imports, and the Far East , cut off from the "metropolis" by tariffs, turns into a Chinese commodity province. It is terrible to read about unemployment in the eastern regions, that is, about the redundancy (!) Of the population in the regions, where it is not enough to soften external pressure and where, according to normal demographic logic, one should channel all refugees flocking to Russia with every conceivable benefit.

- ^[18]

According to Tsymbursky, there is a danger of forming a sanitary cordon from the limitrophes with a tendency to turn into a “sanitary empire” hostile to Russia, however, he sees interaction with Asian regions as the main geopolitical direction on the continent for Russia. ^[20]

Conference of Historians in Moscow (December 2007)

On February 12, 2007 , in Moscow , a round table was held entitled “ Russia and the Baltic States : Competent Answers to Limitrophs' Historical Claims”, following which a working group of historians prepared a collection of speeches and documents. The group began to research the “white spots” in the history of the Baltic states and its relations with other republics of the USSR . REGNUM published the final recommendations of the round table, which were prepared by the scientific director of the Center for the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Doctor of Historical Sciences Oleg Rzheshevsky and President of the Foundation for Historical Perspective , Doctor of Historical Sciences Natalya Narochnitskaya .

Historians have called for counteracting political and ideological speculations on historical grounds in the Baltic states, combating “falsifiers of history and creators of the negative image of Russia abroad”, including at the state level, as well as revising the Decrees of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR of December 24, 1989 in part the situation surrounding the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty of August 23, 1939 and its secret protocols , to put the debunking of historical myths on a state and scientific basis ^[17] .

• Sanitary Cordon

• O. Ken. System error? Moscow and western neighbors in the 1920s and 30s // “The untouchable reserve” , 2002, No. 4 (24) - S. 29-35.
• Berezovsky N. Yu. On the fight against the "Limitrophs" // Military History Journal , 1993, No. 4.
• Bondar R. D. On the Danube Limes of Lower Moesia