Russia’s Europe 1870-2025: Hated, Loved, Hated, and So It Goes

For most of the nineteenth century, the Russian state stuck closely to the concept of Official Nationality, which saw the foundation of Russia in autocracy, orthodox religion and people-mindedness (narodnost’). Russia saw itself as the mainstay of the ancien régime, as the mainstay of the old Europe that had been challenged by the French revolution and, we may add, industrialisation. Russia remained to perpetuate the traditions of true Europe, while post-revolutionary Europe itself had become a false and degenerate version of its true self. All this intensified with the defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856) and crescendoed in the 1870s. However, this position was inverted by the Bolshevik revolution. Where, in the nineteenth century, the Russian state saw itself as the keeper of the true Europe of the past, in the twentieth century, the Soviet Union saw itself as the true Europe of the future. Either way, Russia just kept on seeing itself as true Europe to contemporary Europe's false Europe. With the fall of the Soviet Union, there was yet again a full inversion. The Soviet Union was seen as a blind alley, from which it was imperative to escape; what was needed was a 'return to civilisation', by which was meant a turn to the West. From the very start, however, there was opposition. Sundry groups on the extreme left and right argued against westernisation. This xenophobic nationalist representation saw Europe as decadent and false, untrue to Christianity and its historical roots, whereas Russia was said to be vital and unspoiled, a true Europe. From around 2012 on, this became the position of the Russian state. What is striking about the debate since the fall of the Soviet Union, and indeed about the debate in its entirety, is its centrality to Russian political life at large, and the striking similarity of how Russia represents Europe.

Iver B. Neumann is Director at The Fridtjof Nansen Institute. He was Professor of Russian Studies at Oslo University 2005-2008 and Montague Professor of International Relations at the LSE 2012-2017.