Dear readers,
A dive into the past to scrutinize the future or more realistically tell the present. This is Metternich, the newsletter of international topics that you will receive every week, if you want, patience and a little curiosity.
Why is it called Metternich? Simple, because I was fascinated by this figure reading years ago “A world restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems o Peace, 1812-1822”, By Henry Kissinger. The Austrian Klemens von Metternich is the man of Realpolitik and the theorist of the balance of power between nations as a guarantee for stability and peace. With the Congress of Vienna he was the restorer of the European order shaken by Napoleon, all nations had to give and have something. A simple concept in itself, difficult to apply, impossible to maintain for a long time (just look at the rise of Otto von Bismarck and the Italian unity that Metternich himself rejected, on the contrary he said: “The word Italy is a geographical expression, a qualification that it concerns language, but it does not have the political value that the efforts of revolutionary ideologues tend to imprint on it … ”). And yet if after two centuries, still today the great debate between analysts and politicians is, “idealism or realism?”, The fallacious Metternich also left something.
Then maybe (or rather remove the maybe) if this newsletter is called Metternich it is also for a personal, almost sentimental reason. I love the “Wiener Schnitzel mit pommes frites und salat” from a small Gasthaus in Kufstein in Austria on the border with Bavaria, the Gulash Suppe and the Sachertorte from the Viennese café of the same name; I like the vestiges of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and as a child I loved traveling on the Europabrücke descending from Brenner to Innsbruck. I come from a region close to Austria set in the Dolomites; and then summing up, in a simplistic way, here we are at Metternich summa of everything, culture, passion, history, identity, reached in adulthood. (I swear: as a child and a boy I had football idols and rock stars, a passion for Subbuteo and I didn’t talk about old and boring diplomats or keep their portraits as posters in the room. The main wall was occupied by Springsteen and Clarence Clemons, in the reproduction of Born to Run cover).
That’s why we called this newsletter that looks to the world. Marianna (no leaf falls on the web of La Stampa that she doesn’t want) blessed the name.
Small guide to reading. Each thematic paragraph has a title linked to the name of a great man of the past. They are there for personal taste, almost (but not entirely) haphazardly. I’ll explain them to you in a few words:
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) he was the theorist of the Monroe Doctrine and of the American preventive war when for the Americans the danger was hidden in the immense prairies of the West (here a beautiful essay by John Lewis Gaddis). Let’s extend our borders and protect them before anyone attacks them, was the vision of John Quincy Adams, secretary of state before becoming the 6th US president. With his lens we will read the agenda of the week.
Joseph De Maistre (1753-1821): the French political philosopher and conservative and reactionary diplomat who died in Turin. Supporter of the Pope’s sovereignty and temporal power, hostile to the French Revolution. It will help us understand what happened this week.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965): British Prime Minister of World War II, the man who coined the expression “Iron Curtain” (here the speech in Fulton, Missouri). An absolute protagonist of the 20th century. He will “choose” the 3 men and women of the week.
George F. Kennan (1904-2005): the diplomat par excellence, the American Mister X who was the father of the containment of the USSR in the Cold War. It will guide me to the geopolitical point of the week. The correspondents of La Stampa and the analysts of Iai will help me and not only to identify the key issue. Pills to understand the far corners of the world. Just as from 1930 Kennan understood and decrypted the USSR and its mysteries.
Madeleine Albright (1937) chooses “the out of the blue”, the surprise character what you do not expect, for better or for worse. Why Albright? Because she was America’s first female secretary of state. After her Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Big pieces that made the glass ceiling less unapproachable.
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) he is the Latin American “Virgil” who will take us to reportage or to the reportages and great stories of “La Stampa”, of the weekly Specchio or to the main newspapers of the world.
Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), the dissident Czech playwright, soul of Charta ’77, the first president of post-communist Czechoslovakia, will instead be the prompter of the book of the week. Not necessarily the one just released, on the contrary. But the one that most intrigues or has within it the categories or a narrative thread to understand the events of the moment.
And then still more, things that will be born and will die in an amen: minutes of glory. Or even particular photos. And great interviews caught here and there. We will find out together.
Metternich will have his fixed points – the balance of power of his columns – and some impromptu flickers. Follow me, any suggestion will be welcome.
Metternich himself points the way: “It is useless to bar the doors to ideas, they overcome them”
And as Prince von Metternich would still say now that he is leading you in his newsletter:
“Have fun while reading”
Happy reading, I wait for you
Alberto Simoni