The ongoing war against Russia has its roots in the British Empire’s hatred of Hellenism and its love of the Roman Empire, which is fully expressed in the work of the British Father of Geopolitics, Halford Mackinder, in his infamous The Geographical Pivot of History, published in 1904, in which he expounds upon his Rimland and Heartland geopolitical theory as justification for the destruction of Russia and, later, the Soviet Union.
“It is probably one of the most striking coincidences of history that the seaward and the landward expansion of Europe should, in a sense, continue the ancient opposition between Roman and Greek. Few great failures have had more far-reaching consequences than the failure of Rome to Latinize the Greek. The Teuton was civilized and Christianized by the Roman, the Slav in the main by the Greek. It is the Romano-Teuton who in later times embarked upon the ocean; it was the Graeco-Slav who rode over the steppes, conquering the Turanian. Thus the modern land-power differs from the sea-power no less in the source of its ideals than in the material conditions of its mobility....”
Why was it a problem for history that Russia was civilized and Christianized by the Greeks and not the Romans? The Christianization of the Slavs was a project of the Patriarch of Constantinople Photius, the great Platonic scholar, who later was elevated to Patriarch. Photius conceived the idea of pacifying the Slavic hordes that were ravaging the Byzantine Empire, not through military expeditions but civilizing them through Christianization. Photius commissioned the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who had mastered the Slavic language to create the Slavic written language so as to translate the New Testament and other works. In so doing they incorporated many Greek words into the language in order to express the conceptions that the Slavs otherwise lacked the words to express.
The policy went one step further when Emperor Basil II offered his sister Anna in marriage to Vladimir in 988, in effect bringing Kiev Rus. After his marriage Vladimir I officially changed the state religion to Orthodox Christianity and into an alliance based on a common faith. This not only led to a rapid Christianization of Kievan Rus but also unleashed an artistic renaissance he expressed through the construction and decoration of numerous churches in the City of Kiev. The new “Hellenized” civilization with Greece itself would look east for its inspiration and expansion, often warlike and often cooperative, as much if not more than towards the west. Herein lies the threat to the British Empire. This attitude of the British is clearly part of what Russian President Vladimir Putin is referring to when he speaks of the West’s lack of understanding, if not respect, for Russian and other cultures.
MacKinder goes on:
