Război sau pace

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi looks at war and peace. She asks where Europe ends and Russia begins. She traces 35 years of change in Moldova, Bucovina, and Ukraine. The book blends travel tales and memories with history. It also looks at states and power. It is for readers seeking to grasp the region and Ukraine’s war.

The story starts with a CNN call in August 1991. CNN called her parents’ home in Iași during the Moscow coup. Its Moscow reporter could not leave Boris Yeltsin’s side. Soviet tanks stood below them. CNN asked her to find out what was happening in Kyiv. She crossed into the Soviet Union in a yellow taxi from Bucharest.

She follows the fall of the Soviet Union. She then looks at the worlds that took its place. She recalls how Soviet troops arrested her. She recounts UN missions in Crimea and the Caucasus. She visits places north of the Black Sea. Genoese, German, and Jewish people once had settlements there.

Her work shifts from news reports to research. As it does, she moves from memories to close study. She makes field visits and studies the past. She tests current views and challenges common biases. She reviews forecasts that later proved true. She weighs paths ahead and ways to solve the problems.

She argues that peace needs a clear border between Europe and Russia. That border must also have a defence. She sees Ukraine’s fate as part of this wider debate. The West and Russia place the border in different places. She looks at the Dniester, Sevastopol, and Batumi in this dispute. In her view, borders from Soviet times cannot settle it.

She calls for border talks like those after the Second World War. Without such a deal, she argues, even a ceasefire cannot last. The book ends with a question. How much choice is left between war and peace?