A. O. Chubarian, Director of the Institute for World History (the Russian Academy of Science), academician of the Russian Academy of Science, President of the State University for the Humanities, Dr. Sc. (History), Professor
Russia and Europe: Mutual Images and Ideas, Historical Experience and Traditions
In the overall complex of problems connected with the place of Russia in Europe an important place is occupied by the stereotypes which influence the image of Russia abroad. Very often the sense of these stereotypes consisted and consists in denying and minimizing the contribution made by Russia to the formation and evolution of all-European cultural and political area. That is why the task of overcoming these clichés and stereotypes does not lose its importance and acuteness. This task is directly connected with the issue of cross-cultural dialogue in Europe, of principles and forms of formation and evolution of all-European cultural space.
The real historical events, the lag and alienation of Russia from Europe in the 13th–16th centuries, Russia’s belonging both to Europe and to Asia coupled with geopolitical and other interests of the Western world influenced the attitude of Europeans to Russia and led to the formation of settled stereotypes and even mythologization, which made a significant impact on Europeans’ political thinking and political culture, on their commonplace mass consciousness concerning their perception of Russia.
In the 20th century due to the efforts of mass media these ideas also had a great influence on the political sphere and became embedded in the sphere of mass consciousness.
A significant number of modern specialists – historians and experts in literature, ethnologists and psychologists, political scientists and sociologists – concern themselves with studying the attitude of the West towards Russia on the level of elites as well as on the level of commonplace mass consciousness. The research on this topic is now made easier by the fact that over the last 10 years in Russia a great number of travel writings, memoirs and works about Russia have been published and republished, which came out in Europe during the 15th–19th centuries.
The above-mentioned research is carried out not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg but also in many Russian regional centres and universities.
In the world science the problem that has been under discussion for many years is the problem of ‘The image of the other’; this discussion includes theoretical questions, discovery of the mechanisms of these images’ formation, based upon the materials within this or that country and upon the relations between peoples inhabiting different states.
With regard to the topic of ‘Russia and Europe’ it can be said that the framed and widely-spread in the West ideas of Russia and Russians still make a significant impact not only on the attitude of countries and peoples of Europe, of the European public thinking towards Russia but also to a great extent influence the debates in Russia concerning Russia’s belonging to Europe; any disapproval, criticism or censure of Russia causes discontent and even protests in Russia and gives an additional argument to the ones who in Russia caution against too close connections with Europe and insist on the profound difference in the ways of development of Russia and the West.
Stereotypes of this kind are often rather settled; they are passed on from one generation to another and are quite difficult to be done away with in politics and consciousness. Based upon real separate facts and displays they at the same time become the footing for the formation of the entire system of mythological conceptions and ideas.
The system of images, which often become settled stereotypes, mostly negative ones, influences the entire complex of relations between the countries and peoples of Europe including the cultural and psychological sphere.
To understand the real content of the images of Russia and the reasons of their mythologization and dissemination we should turn to the history of their appearance and to the modifications which they experienced in the course of the centuries-old history of the interconnection of Russia and Western Europe.
In the ancient period for many early authors who lived in the western part of Europe the population living far in the east was associated as a rule with the nomadic world and with those ‘wild’ and ‘barbarian’ tribes which posed a threat to Europeans.
The Slavic ethnos in concrete practice was often contrasted with the classical west European standards. And even the process of baptism, of Christianization of Russia and the widespread dynastic connections of Russian princes with west Europeans could do little to change the existing ideas about people living in ‘Russian steppes’.
At the same time we should admit that in reality the ancient and medieval Russia developed according to the Byzantine pattern.
Certainly, at that time these ideas were to a large extent based upon the lack of knowledge of the western society about the events which took place in the distant and mysterious East; the entire population of this region was identified with nomadic world.
In the 16th–17th centuries Russia gradually began to appear at the proscenium of European life and became involved in the rivalry of European Powers in the Baltic and in the southern outlying districts. As has been mentioned before, in the west Russia competed with Livonian Order, and in the south it waged long wars with the Turks.
In the 17th century Russia’s relations with Western Europe grew to become more active both in political and economic spheres. The deliveries of Russian grain in the ’30s of the 17th century in many ways made it possible to stabilize the situation in France and in Holland.
In England Cromwell and his rivals tried to enlist Moscow’s support. In a number of countries of West Europe they kept discussing the ideas of the possibility of Russian market development.
It was in the 15th–17th centuries when the first diplomats’, merchants’ and travellers’ detailed notes appeared, these laying a certain tradition in the description of the Russian state and Russians.
These notes also drew the attention of many Russian researches and became the subject of study especially in the 19th–20th centuries.
The appearance of the notes about the distant Muscovy resulted from a great interest of the political and social circles of Europe in the far and to a large extent unknown country. Cardinal Richelieu in France, the Queen of England Elizabeth I and Cromwell, Philip II of Spain showed a keen interest in Muscovy, trying to use it in their own political and economic interests.
But also in the spiritual sphere of West Europe the interest in Russia was apparent. It was mentioned by Shakespeare and Rabelais, Cervantes and other great writers of that epoch, by scientists Jean Bodin, Thomas More, Michel de Montaigne and others. In European projects and treatises of the 15th–17th centuries the records of Russia and Muscovy were not infrequent.
The rising interest in Russia to a great extent stimulated official representatives’, merchants’, literary men’s, architects’ and ordinary travellers’ trips to Muscovy. The range of their national origin was broad and various.
At out disposal there are notes and memoirs of the Germans, French, Englishmen, Swedes, Italians, Austrians, Dutchmen and Poles.
Their whole set constituted voluminous literature, the wealth of sources which were probably the main source of information of the ideas of West Europeans about Russia. The overwhelming majority of these works were published in West Europe, later they were translated into Russian and became the common property of researchers and the public both in European countries and in Russia.
It is quite natural that the compositions of West Europeans about Russia were estimated in different ways in Russian historiography. For some historians it was first of all an important source of the history of that time in which the numerous facts and descriptions of Russian life, of the state system, of the geography, of the nature, of the climate, of the way of life and of the mood of people were of particular value. Other historians emphasized the political and religious bias of the authors, criticized them for tendentiousness and negative assessments given to Russia and its people.
Let us stop at some most significant notes which made an impact on the ideas about Russia, on the formation of its image in official circles and in the public opinion in the countries of West Europe.
In this context we should mention the notes of a Venetian diplomat Ambrogio Contarini who visited Moscow at the end of 1476 – at the beginning of 1477. Contarini visited Moscow with an official mission, he met Ivan 3 of Russia, Grand Duchess Sophia Palaiologina and others, he in many ways promoted the origin of Russian – Italian relations.
The greatest interest at that time was provoked by the work of Sigismund von Herberstein. He was born in Carinthia and communicated with the Slavs since his childhood; this fact determined his goodwill towards the Slavonic world and towards Muscovy. He also performed an official mission in Muscovy. Habsburg Emperor wanted to draw Russia into the fight with the Turks and to re-establish the normal relations between Russia and Poland.
Herberstein visited Muscovy twice, in 1517 and in 1526 and he met Vasili III Ivanovich, the Grand Prince of Moscow, and many representatives of Russian nobility. On coming back to Europe he wrote a book ‘Notes on Muscovite Affairs’ which was published in 1549. This work may have played a more important role than other works in providing Europeans with information about life in the distant and for many people largely unknown Russia.
The 16th-century Russia is described quite fully and objectively in the work of S. Herberstein. The author gave a geographical description of the Russian state, told about the history of the appearance of Old Russian state (about the ancient tribes which lived on that territory and came from without), about the state structure (including the description of the ceremony of coronation of the Grand Prince), about Muscovy’s neighbours – Lithuania, Poland, Belorussia, Russia, about family affairs of the Russian Grand Prince, about the way of life and customs of nobility and ordinary citizens.
The work of Herberstein, so to say, discovered Russia of the 15th century for Europe; it played a significant role in the ideas of the West about Russia in the period when it gradually became a more important element of European international life.
In the 16th century grew the number of notes and other records about Russia. During that period the Englishmen became particularly active. Out of the considerable number of notes we should single out the ones made by Jerome Gorsay. He was not an official representative; he came to Moscow at first as a clerk – trainee of the English Moscow company.
In the 17th century the notes of French captain Margeret became the most famous work. He was on of the first Frenchmen not only to visit Russia but also to be in the Russian service.
Before that, in France, Margeret took part in religious wars on the side of Protestants – Henry III. Later he fought against the Turks in the Balkans and joined the army of the Polish king. In 1600 Margeret enlisted for service in Russia; at that at first he fought against False Dmitry I, and when the latter came to Moscow the captain went over to his service. In 1611 he participated in the repression of the rebellion of Muscovites against the Poles, in the arson and plunder of Moscow. Before it, being in Paris, Margeret wrote a book about Russia.
The work of Margeret reflects the contradictoriness of the figure of the author himself, which influenced the content of his book. On one hand in the book there is wealth of information about the state power in Russia, about Boyar Dumas, about Prikazes, about the military forces in Russia, about the financial system. But on the other hand the adventurism of the author, his participation in the fight against Russians in many ways caused his clear tendentiousness and hostility towards Russia and the Russians.
Subsequently, if the personality of Margeret aroused disapproval and blames, his work itself was estimated in different ways. It contained wealth of information and in this context it continued the outlined line of giving information about the system, the life and the lifestyle of the Russian state and its citizens in the 17th century to a western reader.
Margeret’s book contained a considerable number of critical attacks upon the lifestyle of Russians, upon their character and inclinations, upon the state policy of Russian rulers. In this sense it made its ‘contribution’ to shaping those stereotypes which were formed about Russia.
In conclusion let us mention one more work of the 17th century, belonging to a German Adam Olearius, published under the title ‘Travels of Ambassadors sent by Frederic, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the king of Persia’.
Adam Olearius was born in 1599 to a poor German family. He obtained education and a degree in one of the best universities of Germany. His truly encyclopaedic knowledge became the reason of his inclusion in the embassy sent by Frederic III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to Moscow in 1633, and then in 1635 again to Moscow and to Persia.
The outcome of the embassy missions was receiving important information about Russia and its spread in Europe. A great role in it was played by the book by A. Olearius about Russia which was written and published by him in 1634 and in 1636. Later – in 1643 Olearius visited Russia again.
His encyclopaedic knowledge gained Olearius respect and recognition in broad circles of Europe. It was this encyclopaedic knowledge which was shown in his work about his travel to Muscovy and Persia.
In the work of Olearius many various aspects of Russia’s life are dealt with. Olearius writes about the benevolent attitude of Russians towards foreigners. ‘They,’ the author writes, ‘have no lack in good heads for learning. Among them there are people who are quite talented and lit up with good intellect and memory.’
In the work of Olearius there is also a considerable number of critical attacks and assessments. As a protestant, Olearius does not accept many of Orthodox norms and guidelines.
The 18th century came, and it radically changed the position of Russia in Europe. The reforms of Peter I led to the transformation of Russia and its turn into a powerful European state.
Russia of the 18th century showed not only political domestic consolidation and impressive international activity, but also a rapid development of sciences, education, Enlightenment.
The principles and forms of the European Enlightenment became widespread in Russia with due regard to Russian traditions and peculiarities of Russian everyday life and lifestyle.
In Europe of the 18th century Russia was viewed as a strong and dangerous competitor. On this basis new ideas of Russia and Russians began to be formed. The previous ideas of Russian people as of illiterate and uncivilized ones did not vanish but gave way to the point of view that though reforms had started in Russia it still considerably lagged behind European standards.
Here we should take into account the fact that at that time in the West the process of formation of class-representative system was under way (the French General States and the English Parliament had begun functioning); what was dubbed ‘Enlightened absolutism’ was developing. West Europe entered into the age of Enlightenment.
Russia was unaware of all this and that is why the European elite, though with some modifications, continued speaking about retarded peoples and archaic state and political system, about ‘wild customs’ and lack of education in Russia.
However, in West Europe there were quite a number of people who saw Russia in a different light, as a developing country, which was rapidly reaching the European level. They noted, in particular, the growth in the number of gifted and educated people in Russia.
At the same time it was in 18th century, at the time of Catherine II, when a number of famous French enlighteners and first of all Voltaire and Volney, to a smaller degree d’Alembert and Diderot admired the Russian empress and her policy; they did not doubt the success of Russian culture and the growth of education in the Russian society.
There is no doubt that these French enlighteners in many ways promoted the popularization of Russia in Europe and evoked interest in it both in France and throughout Europe. But, unfortunately, the brilliant works of Voltaire and others did not reflect the views of the majority of people in France (for instance those of J.-J. Rousseau), and on the whole the image of Russia as of a retarded and uneducated country continued to spread in Europe.
For the overall characteristics of the image of Russia in European conceptions of 18th and 19th centuries we will note two compositions which can serve as some symbols of the image of Russia in the West of Europe.
Both of them belonged to the pen of Frenchmen. The first work was written by a French priest Ch. D’Auteroche (A Journey into Siberia), who travelled to Russia in 1761, and visited not only Moscow and St. Petersburg but reached Tobolsk. And the other work is well-known; it was written in the middle of the 19th century and it belongs to marquis de Custine, whose work for many decades secured a certain image of Russia among European elites and in the mass commonplace consciousness.
The French priest Ch. D’Auteroche under the instruction of the French king Louis 15 travelled to Russia to inform the monarch of the events which took place in the distant and mysterious Russia.
The author scrupulously noted all the details of the journey, including even the smallest ones.
As a result, the priest’s notes, which came out in France in 1762, turned out to be distinctly anti-Russian. The author did not conceal his contempt for Russia and the Russian people as a whole. In pejorative expressions and tones he described the state system of Russia, its lifestyle and customs. The author disliked almost everything in Russia. He loathed various aspects of Russian life – bad roads and houses, the appearance of Russian peasants; he resented even the looks of Russian women.
All the pathos the French priest aimed at proving the fact that Russia and its people were a barbaric and uncivilized country, which had nothing in common with the enlightened and civilized Europe.
The book did not become wide-spread in France, and, moreover, in the rest of Europe, but it supported the opinions of those authors who tried to create a negative image of Russia in Europe.
D’Auteroche’s work to a large extent became well-known because the book got to Russia and Catherine II familiarized herself with it. The reaction of Catherine II was instantaneous and unusually sharp. The attacks upon Russia exasperated and insulted her. Soon in Russia a book called Antidote was published; it was the answer to the French priest’s composition.
For many decades heated discussions were held about the authorship of Antidote. Naturally, from the very beginning it was not called into question that Catherine II was fully aware of the content of Antidote. But gradually the ones who studied the problem became fully convinced that it was the empress herself who was the author of Antidote. In the book called The Empress and the Priest which was published in France not long ago a French historian, the permanent secretary of the French Academy of Science H. Carrere d’Encausse convincingly proved the authorship of Catherine II.
Catherine II refuted the priest’s attacks, protecting Russia, its structure and its place in Europe. A particular indignation of the author of Antidote was caused by d’Auteroche’s coarse attacks on the Russian people. Catherine II literally razed the priest’s statements about the wilderness and lack of education of Russia and its people to the ground.
The point of Antidote was to prove Russia’s parity among European states in its progress along the ‘enlightened path’. Simultaneously the author tried to ground the originality of the Russian people, the distinctive features of the spiritual aspect, of the lifestyle and of Russian people’s character.
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According to all signs the 19th century was to bring considerable changes to the European ideas about Russia and Russian people.
After the Patriotic war of 1812 and the Decembrist revolt the topic of ‘Europe and Russia’ was more often heard and it even prevailed in public discussions, which got its brightest expression in the debates between the Westerners and the Slavophiles.
Russian culture became an integral part of European culture and received general recognition.
It seemed that after Europe had familiarized itself with the works of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev, the ideas of Russian cultural and civilizational backwardness were supposed to change gradually. But in practice they continued to spread in the circles of European elites.
Certainly, Russia continued to lag behind many other countries of Europe when it came to political structure and democratic reforms; but the reforms conducted at the beginning of the 19th century promised further changes in Russian development.
In the 19th century another book was published in France; the book made a great impact on the forming Western stereotypes concerning Russia.
This book, Nikolai’s Russia published in 1843, immediately drew great interest; it was the work of French marquis A. de Custine. For the middle of the 19th century the overall number of the book’s printed copies of 200 thousand copies was an unprecedented phenomenon.
A. de Custine, the son of famous French royalists who were guillotined during Robespierre’s reign of terror, was going to Russia, as he said, in search of new arguments against the ‘representative government’. But after all, his book about Russia written in distinctly anti-Russian tones laid down the foundations of a number of further negative stereotypes which took root in the consciousness of many figures in Western Europe.
One of the main statements of his book was the proof of an extreme backwardness of Russia, of its ‘slave system’, of the ‘wild’ state and social system.
In this sense de Custine really described Russian ways of that time. His stories about the complete arbitrary rule of Russian officials and customs officers (when crossing the borders), about their total disrespect of the law and the norms established all over Europe also reflected the real state of affairs.
All this pathos of the French aristocrat did not become something unexpected for the Russian *****ssian literature, social and political journalism, and our country’s thought wrote about the same things; Russian authors criticized autocracy (as far as it was possible in the conditions of the gravest censorship), spoke about the grievous state of Russian peasantry who were in serfdom, which was a deep anachronism in terms of Europe of that time.
However, it was not de Custine’s pathos that aroused such sharp criticism and even indignation in Russia. The main point was that he transferred his contempt of Russian system over to the whole Russian people. De Custine was trying to prove that the retarded and servile, wild customs, etc. – all these had been deposited at the bottom of souls of the Russian population since remote ancient times.
Meanwhile, 1830s–40s in Russia was the time of Pushkin, Lermontov, and others, and ignoring this fact was unexplainable and unjustified for an enlightened European.
Identification of the people, the society and the power was evidence of de Custine’s narrow-mindedness and of the narrowness of his approaches to the analysis of Russian life. Brilliant literature and social and political journalism, including the literature in opposition to the government, totally disproved the author’s ideas.
Russian public took de Custine’s book with criticism. It was officially banned. The government initiated the publication of some critical books concerning de Custine: the books by N. I. Grech, who bitterly battered de Custine; at that, condemning Custine Grech wrote about the system in Russia and about emperor Nikolai I with admiration; compositions by Y. I. Tolstoy – a correspondent of the Ministry of Public Education (agent of the 3rd department) which also castigated de Custine; and the compositions of a Counsellor of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs K. K. Labensky which also contained severe criticism of the works of de Custine.
De Custine’s book was also condemned by Russian progressive-minded public. A. I. Herzen, A. I. Turgenev and P. A. Vyazemsky were indignant after the publication of de Custine’s book which was much spoken about in Petersburg salons.
‘I do not know any home where there is not de Custine’s composition about Russia,’ A. I. Herzen wrote in 1851. F. I. Tyutchev wrote about the intellectual shamelessness and moral corruption of the authors like de Custine.
But several years later and especially after the publication of Grech’s servile book the very same A. I. Herzen wrote: ‘Slavish, servile view and insolent familiarity, cynicism of a slave who has lost any respect for human dignity. Grech has committed to shame the matter in favour of which he raised his mean voice’. By denying the facts which are well-known to everyone Grech, according to Herzen, achieves the opposite result, he just intensifies the power of de Custine’s accusations.
A. I. Herzen and some other figures of Russian literary and journalistic intelligentsia bitterly criticized the activity of autocracy and the persecution of liberties in Russia, but they maintained their keenly negative attitude towards A. de Custine’s Russophobia.
Unfortunately, some of de Custine’s ideas and ‘arguments’ are used in the history of the 20th century at present. However, it was in the 20th century when Russia’s relations with other countries of Europe, with their public and with their ruling groups advanced.
In the West of the continent interest in Russian science, literature and art was constantly rising. Recently in Russia there have been published translations of many famous Western philosophers and figures of culture.
Russian avant-gardism has occupied a leading position in European modern. Wassily Kandinsky who in 1911 founded a school of ‘objectless art’ was conferred (though later, in 1925) professorship in Weimar.
A great number of Western artists and musicians have performed in Russia.
These phenomena served as bright corroboration for the words of Dostoyevsky that ‘a Russian person has two native lands: Russia and Europe’, and that any educated Russian thinks first of all about Europe.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia’s conversion to the track of liberal market economy and conducting deep democratic transformations and reforms in Russia, in fact the main arguments of some representatives of the public in Western Europe fell away; these were the arguments of those who spoke about incompatibility of Russian system with European norms and principles. In this way the conditions were gradually formed for Western Europe’s breaking from old anti-Russian and anti-Soviet stereotypes.
Certainly, they have greatly deformed, though, unfortunately, have not vanished from European ideas about Russia. There still are some accusations of Russia concerning the tendency to authoritarianism, human rights violation; from time to time old anti-Russian stereotypes are revived.
Apparently, what is in effect here is the inertia of the past, the pressure of previously settled stereotypes and clichés, which were formed many centuries ago and which have not left the ideas of certain Western elites.
The steadiness of negative stereotypes is based on certain traditions and the historical memory of centuries-old past; they are supported by the same idea that Russia belongs to both European and Asian civilizations and lifestyles; and, finally, it is based on the fact that in Russian reality, in its traditions, culture and mentality there are kept those signs and peculiarities which make Russia different from classical Europe, and add originality to Russian political and social thought, to Russian culture and the system of values.
The understanding of this specific character does not eliminate the indisputable fact of Russia’s belonging to All-European cultural area. The dialogue between cultures and civilizations in different spheres, affecting different strata of society, is now an important means of overcoming negative images and stereotypes, of forming the ideas of tolerance and respect for other values in elites and in mass consciousness, which in broader context will change the system of ‘the images of others’.
