American and Russian history have an interesting synchronicity dating to 1812, on which I shall discuss more in other postings, although the focus of this one shall be on America and Russia as children of 1812.

Before the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, the Russian elite mainly spoke French, not Russian.

This was the world Tolstoi portrayed in War and Peace, which Pushkin also portrayed in Eugene Onegin in his character Tatianna being barely able to write a Russian sentence.

Although the Russian language in its modern form had begun to be systematized by Lomonsov in the 1750's, the mass adoption of a common language in the end was driven by reaction against Napoleon.

Russias are thus a relatively young people, just like the Americans, both children of 1812.

For in 1812, America was on the edge of disintegrating.

The British had by their sponsorship of Ihostile Indians and restrictive trade policies pinned the United States still fairly close to the Atlantic seaboard.

The British alliance with Spain denied the states of Alabama and Georgia free access to the sea, and the demographic composition of New Orleans combined with this former fact meant that the American Old West as a whole had tenuous access to world markets, leading to intense sectional tension of the sort revealed in the treasonous conspiracy of Aaron Burr, a conspiracy which involved the clear treasonous conduct of General Wilkerson, and lured in the otherwise staunch American nationalist Andrew Jackson to an unclear extent.

As to the ongoing sectional tensions, Jefferson and Madison's embargo policies in response to the British impressment of ships and Napoleon's Continental System had driven New England to the brink of economic ruin and secession by 1812.

Thus, Madison faced a very dicey situation to which the Napoleonic invasion of Russia offered an out, namely, the opportunity once and for all to drive the British off the North American continent, and get John Bull's foot off the American neck, permanently, or so we thought?

Although Mr. Madison did not properly prepare the country for the War for 1812, thus bringing the country dangerously close to being dismembered by the British campaigns on Champlain, the Chesapeake, and New Orlearns, in the end, the United States finally united just enought to not only restore the status quo ante, but more importantly, demonstrate to British elites that the American Republic was here to stay.

Or so we thought?

Thus, both Russia and American emerged as the New Great Power Children of 1812, and continued now on the same team in a curious historical synchronicity.

Just as the British and French tried to restrain Russian power in Crimea in 1853 in Crimea, so too the studied ambiguity of the french and British during the American Civil War had the effect, whatever the intent, of being anti-American.

America and Russia even liberated their slaves and serfs at the same time under the Great Emancipator Lincoln and the Liberator Tsar Alexander II.

In WW I and WWII, the Americans and Russians of course were also on the same team; only Russian paranoia and overreaching and American overreacting made them enemies in the aftermath of that war.

Hopefully both powers will remmeber that they share much in common, and also that smaller powers often like to try to manipulate the bigger powers to their advantage by pitting them against one another.