by Egor Kholmogorov
Russian publicist, member of the Writers' Union of Russia. Author of works devoted to Russian nationalism, the history of Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church, conservative thought; documentary filmmaker and film critic.
[Regnum] Why is Europe hostile to Russia? - such a question was asked in 1867 in his work "Russia and Europe" by a biologist and philosopher, a wonderful Russian thinker Nikolai Danilevsky . He pointed out the hypocrisy of Western politicians and society, who unleashed the Crimean War against Russia in 1854, accusing our country of violating the European order, and when Prussia and Austria attacked little Denmark in 1864 to take away two provinces from it, no one in " enlightened Europe" was not indignant at such a robbery.
"What's the difference?" Danilevsky asked. Russia will always remain a stranger to the West.
“An unconscious feeling, a historical instinct makes Europe dislike Russia. Where does the impartiality of the gaze go? Everything that is distinctively Russian and Slavic seems to her worthy of contempt... A Russian in their eyes can claim the dignity of a person only when he has already lost his national image...
Read articles about Russia in European newspapers that express the opinions and passions of the enlightened part of the public; finally, trace the attitude of European governments towards Russia. You will see that in all these various spheres the same spirit of hostility reigns, taking, according to circumstances, the form of incredulity, malevolence, hatred or contempt ...
A satisfactory explanation of both this political injustice and this public hostility can only be found in the fact that Europe recognizes Russia and the Slavs as something alien to itself, and not only alien, but also hostile.
Danilevsky gave an answer to his own question: the difference is that Russia and the West are two separate, in many respects alien to each other civilizations. It is to the Russian thinker that the honor of a great discovery in historical science belongs - the idea of the plurality of human civilizations and the multilinear nature of historical development .
Rejection of Russia as a different civilization
Gradually, this idea of the multiplicity of variants of historical development was also mastered in Western historical science, which refused to level the whole world according to the Western standard. However, this did not lessen the Russophobia of the West - while reluctantly recognizing the right to independent development of China, India, the countries of the Middle East, the West still denies Russia's right to be itself.
This has to be connected with the fact that Russia has always thought of itself not just as one of the civilizations, but as the guardian of the sacred world order, the heir to the Roman and Byzantine Empires, the Third Rome. And this position of Russian civilization is contrary to the plans of the West for the eternal retention of world hegemony.
It is no coincidence that the main motive of anti-Russian propaganda in the world is the imaginary “unworthiness” of Russia, its inferiority and inferiority in comparison with the West and the alleged threat to the world coming from it.
So, at the heart of Western Russophobia lies the rejection of Russia as a different, independent civilization compared to the West and the rejection of Russia as a threat to the world domination of the West.
The development of European Russophobia begins with the era of the formation of the Russian national state , when Orthodox Moscow, under Grand Duke Vasily II, rejected the Florentine union with Roman Catholicism, and under Ivan III turned into a great power.
"Amazed Europe, at the beginning of Ivan’s reign, barely aware of the existence of Muscovy, squeezed between the Tatars and Lithuanians, was stunned by the sudden appearance of a huge empire on its eastern borders, and Sultan Bayezid himself, before whom Europe trembled, for the first time heard the arrogant speech of a Muscovite," Karl Marx wrote, who himself held Russophobic views.
At first, the West's acquaintance with Russia in the reviews of Western travelers was dominated by balanced, interested, and sometimes commendable reviews. However, there were forces in Europe that were directly interested in the spread of Russophobia - these are the countries neighboring Russia: the Polish-Lithuanian state and the Livonian Order, which owned the lands taken from Rus' in the difficult XIII century and feared demands for their return.
The invention of "Muscovy"
The Polish king Sigismund I , after Russia returned Smolensk to its structure in 1514, began to distribute propaganda materials in Europe, which claimed that Poland was a defensive line of Europe, protecting it from the threat from "Moscow barbarians, Asians and heretics."
Polish propagandists launched the term "Muscovy", trying to prove that Russia has nothing to do with Rus. They tried to force authors in European countries to apply the term "Russia" only to Galicia, which was in the possession of Poland, and to call our country and people exclusively "Muscovy" and "Muscovites."
Rus is a Russian poetic rendering of the name Russia, similar to calling the United States America.
Russophobic hysteria in Europe became especially active in the era of the Livonian War of Ivan the Terrible, when Russia liquidated the Livonian Order and advanced on Poland, liberating the Belarusian lands. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden and Denmark were simultaneously in a state of hostilities against Russia. In Europe, Russophobic “flying sheets” began to actively spread, which depicted “Moscow barbarians” who were cracking down on Livonian inhabitants, shooting women hanging from trees with bows.
To deny Russia's rights to Livonia, the thesis began to spread that power in Russia is a "tyranny," headed by a "cruel despot" Tsar "Ivan the Terrible," who tortures both his own and other people's subjects. However, sympathy for the subjects of the imaginary tyrant was also not shown, since they were declared "slaves", unworthy of freedom and statehood.
During this period, the main line of European Russophobia was formed - Russia is a country with a barbaric people and a cruel government, which does not have the right to pursue its own policy in Europe and must be restrained in Asia by the forces of its neighboring countries, which should be helped by all of Europe.
However, attempts to resolve the Russian issue by force, with the help of direct intervention in Russia in the era of troubled times, failed. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, Russophobia in Europe did not have a pronounced character. While fighting with Russia for Ukraine, Poland was never able to win even Catholic Europe to its side.
The propaganda attempts of Charles XII during the Northern War to appeal to the “barbarism of the Muscovites” were not successful, although in Sweden itself, Russophobia went through the roof during this period.
"Nature itself gave them a base and slavish disposition," the Swede Johan Jerne, who visited Russia, gurgled.
"Testament of Peter the Great"
A massive surge of Russophobia in Europe was associated with the policy of the French cabinet in the middle of the 18th century.
"You know, of course, and I repeat it very clearly, that the sole purpose of my policy towards Russia is to remove it as far as possible from European affairs. Everything that can plunge her into chaos, the former darkness, is beneficial to me," King Louis XV reported in a dispatch to a French agent in St. Petersburg.
With the outbreak of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, hostility towards Russia, the main opponent of France's revolutionary and imperial conquests in Europe, only intensified. The caricatures in the French press of that time on Alexander Suvorov look especially absurd, in which the Russian field marshal was portrayed as a huge bearded cannibal.
The famous fake was launched into the world press - "The Testament of Peter the Great", in which, on behalf of the Russian emperor, plans were laid out for Russia to establish world domination through continuous wars.
The appearance of this fake in Europe was attributed to the French transvestite spy Chevalier de Eon, who performed spy missions, including at the Russian court during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. However, the final form of the fake was given by the Polish Russophobic ideologue Mikhail Sokolnitsky (who first launched the term “Empire of Darkness” in relation to Russia). Sokolnitsky's fakes were useful to Napoleon Bonaparte for the propaganda justification of the invasion of Russia in 1812.
"Napoleon planned to throw back the colossal power of the tsars to Asia in order to make Moscow the gates of European civilization and place there the revived and powerful Kingdom of Poland as an advanced guard," said propaganda brochures during the invasion of Russia by the combined forces of Europe led by Bonaparte .
The behavior of the French in Moscow, the looting and desecration of churches, terror against civilians directly followed from the postulates of Russophobic propaganda. However, the French army suffered a crushing defeat in Russia. Now it was the turn of the Russian cartoonists to ridicule the crow-eating French.
And the French press needed to explain the coming of the Cossacks to Paris, as well as the fact that the Russian army was humane and disciplined. The explanation was found in the fact that the most severe discipline reigns in Russia, which only allows the Russians to achieve victories, besides, the Russians fought dishonestly - "General Frost" was on their side.
"Russia in 1839"
During the period of Russian hegemony in Europe after the Patriotic War of 1812, Russophobic propaganda needed to undermine its authority. Its most notable product was the extensive book of the French Marquis Adolphe de Custine (one of the most famous open homosexuals in Europe at that time) Russia in 1839.
Custine's book is a paradoxical fusion of hateful Russophobic declarations (“Russia is a camp discipline instead of a state system”, “However vast this empire, it is nothing but a prison, the key to which is kept by the emperor”) and enthusiastic descriptions of his immediate observations.
Here, for example, is how Custin described Moscow and the Kremlin:
"A huge number of church domes, sharp as needles, spiers and bizarre turrets burned in the sun above clouds of road dust ... Each dome is crowned with a cross of the finest filigree work, and the crosses, sometimes gilded, sometimes silvered, are connected with the same chains to each other.
Try to imagine this picture, which cannot even be conveyed with paints, and not what our poor language has! The play of light reflected by this airy city is a real phantasmagoria in broad daylight, which makes Moscow the only city that has no equal in Europe ... The Kremlin is worth a trip to Moscow!
This is not a palace, of which there are many, but a whole city, having, as they say, a mile in circumference. And this city, the root from which Moscow grew, is the line between Europe and Asia. Under the successors of Genghis Khan, Asia rushed to Europe for the last time; leaving, she hit the ground with her fifth - and from here the Kremlin arose.
Do you know what the Kremlin walls are? The word "walls" conjures up in the mind the idea of something too ordinary, too small. The walls of the Kremlin are a mountain range… If the giant called the Russian Empire had a heart, I would say that the Kremlin is the heart of this monster."
Almost everything in Russia arouses interest and admiration in Custine, he is especially attracted by something that does not look like Europe, which speaks of an original Russian civilization. However, the French writer drowns this admiration in strained and aggressive Russophobic declarations.
However, in the 19th century, the capital of Russophobia was not Paris, but London.
"There are no measures against the plans of the British against us"
English Russophobia was closely associated with racism and colonialism. The idea of the British about the "burden of the whites", which allegedly gives them the right to rule the world, spread a sense of racial superiority not only to the colored peoples of Asia and Africa, but also to white Russians.
"Every Russian is the sweetest person ... like an Asian, he is charming. And only when he insists that the Russians be treated not as the most western of the eastern peoples, but, on the contrary, as the easternmost of the western peoples, does it turn into an ethnic misunderstanding, which, really, is not easy to deal with," said the English poet- mason Rudyard Kipling .
He was the closest associate and like-minded of another prominent Russophobe - the oligarch Cecil Rhodes , the creator of the Round Table, an organization of the British elite that sought to strengthen the rule of the British Empire on the basis of Masonic ideology.
England perceived the Russian Empire as the main threat to its geopolitical power.
“There are no measures against the plans of the British against us, and if the execution stops in this, then this is nothing more than powerlessness to harm us,” Emperor Nicholas I emphasized.
And then he invaded the Balkans in 1854.
Russophobic rhetoric dominated the English press. Demonstrative contempt for Russia and the Russians, exploiting the image of the "Russian bear", in her side by side with the fear of increasing her power.
British Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston was credited with the phrase: "How hard it is to live when no one is at war with Russia." Even if this saying is legendary, Palmerston's authentic letters reveal his fear of Russia:
“Sooner or later, Russia will become a power as powerful as the ancient Roman Empire. She will be able to become the mistress of Asia (with the exception of British India) whenever she wishes. When ... the railways shorten distances, her power over people will become enormous, her funds will be gigantic, and her ability to transport troops over long distances will be awe-inspiring, ”the English politician complained in a letter in 1865.
A feature of the Russophobic propaganda that was spreading in the Anglo-Saxon countries was the active use of revolutionaries from Russia for it.
"A smart nation would conquer a very stupid one"
Beginning with Alexander Herzen, the publisher of Kolokol, who was financially supported by the banking house of the Rothschilds, Western Russophobic propaganda is increasingly beginning to penetrate into Russia itself. Russophobia becomes an indispensable part of the views of a “progressive” person who is hostile to Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.
The great Russian poet Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev wrote to his daughter Anna in 1867, that is, after the reforms of Alexander II :
“It would be possible to give an analysis of the modern phenomenon, which is acquiring an increasingly pathological character. This is the Russophobia of some Russian people - by the way, very revered.
They used to tell us, and they really believed that in Russia they hated lack of rights, the lack of freedom of the press, etc., that it was precisely because they love Europe so dearly that it undoubtedly possesses everything that is not in Russia. And what do we see now?
As Russia, seeking greater freedom, asserts itself more and more, the dislike of these gentlemen for her only intensifies. And on the contrary, we see that no violations in the field of justice, morality and even civilization, which are allowed in Europe, did not in the least reduce addiction to it. In a word, in the phenomenon that I have in mind, there can be no question of principles as such, only instincts act here.
Blaming the liberal Westerners, Tyutchev wrote the lines: “No matter how you bend before her, gentlemen, / You will not win recognition from Europe: / In her eyes you will always be / Not servants of enlightenment, but serfs.”
This image of servility to "Europe", servility under it, became the key to the characterization of Western liberals by Russian patriots and Slavophiles. It was no coincidence that Fyodor Dostoevsky put the Russophobic passage that has become a classic in the mouth of the footman Smerdyakov:
“It would be good if these same Frenchmen conquered us then: a smart nation would conquer a very stupid one and annex it to itself. There would even be other orders, sir.”
The internal Russophobia of the liberal intelligentsia was seen precisely as a symptom of lackey consciousness.
"Society of Friends of Russian Freedom"
An important component of anti-Russian propaganda was the change in public opinion in the United States towards Russophobia. The Americans were friendly towards Russia, which supported the United States both during the war for independence and the civil war. However, since 1887, the activities of the American journalist George Kennan began to expose the "monstrous conditions of royal exile" in which the revolutionaries were.
The Russian representative in the United States, Botkin, described Kennan's Russophobic agitation as follows :
“He said that he came from Siberia, brought with him valuable materials to prove the inhumanity of the Russian authorities and the failure of the state system in Russia. Kennan began by placing sensational articles in newspapers and magazines about the life of convicts in Siberia. Then he began to travel around America and lecture. He went on stage in shackles, dressed as a convict, through a magic lantern he showed various horrors and weaved incredible nonsense about Russia.
Objective modern researchers have discovered Kennan's direct financial connection with the New York oligarchs who hated Russia, in particular Jacob Schiff, the future sponsor of Japan's war against Russia. At the initiative of Kennan in 1890-1891. in London and New York, the "Society of Friends of Russian Freedom" arose, which took over the coordination of anti-Russian propaganda in the West.
The most important role in them was played by Sergei Stepnyak-Kravchinsky , a terrorist who fled to London after the murder of the chief of the gendarme corps. Over time, the Society moved from propaganda to direct support for terrorism against Russia during the events of 1905-1907.
"Eradication of Asian Influence"
The October Revolution of 1917 made it possible to strengthen Russophobic propaganda, adding to it the exploitation of the fear of the Western inhabitants before the invasion of the Bolsheviks and the activities of the Comintern. And the death of the Russian Empire was used for statements about the inferiority of Russians, incapable of self-government, and therefore in need of external conquest.
“The Russian spirit as such, apparently, is not adapted to creative creative activity; almost everything that Russia has created in external and internal affairs, it owes to the Germans who were in the Russian service, or to the Baltic Germans, ” said a school textbook published in Germany in 1925.
And almost the same word for word was repeated in his essay “My Struggle” by the Nazi Fuhrer.
Russophobia was one of the most important components of Hitler's propaganda, unfolding especially widely with the German attack on the USSR. The goal of the war was openly proclaimed to be the destruction of the state (and not only the Soviet, but in general any statehood in Russia), and Russian culture, and the genocide of the Russian people.
The order of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau read:
"The main goal of the campaign is the complete defeat of state power and the eradication of Asian influence on European culture ... No historical and artistic values bin the East matter."
For agitation among German soldiers, brochures were published with portraits of Soviet prisoners under the characteristic title "Underhuman". “A Russian sees a higher being in a German,” the German Secretary of State Herbert Backe taught the future occupiers in June 1941.
"Moscow"
During the Cold War, Russophobic propaganda reached its highest intensity and sophistication.
Its principles were formulated by George Frost Kennan, the great-nephew of the ideologue of American Russophobia. In his "Long Telegram" to the US State Department, which formulated the ideological principles of the Cold War. Kennan called on the West to "contain" Russia from a position of strength.
A significant part of the Russophobic propaganda of the West was now directed at the Soviet Union itself - both to form pro-Western sentiments among the Soviet intelligentsia, and to provoke "titular" nationalism in the union republics.
In 1959, the US Congress passed the "Enslaved Peoples Act", in which the US administration was charged with supporting the "fight for freedom" from the "enslaved by the imperialist policy of Russia" peoples, among which were named Lithuania, and Ukraine, and the fictional Cossackia and Idel- Ural, and even Tibet.
During this period, not without the help of Western radio voices, Russophobia for domestic consumption began to actively spread in the Soviet Union itself, largely succeeding the pre-revolutionary “smerdyakovism” and official Russophobia of the first years of Soviet power.
This phenomenon was described by academician Igor Shafarevich in his work "Russophobia". In particular, he made a selection of typical Russophobic statements: “Russia has brought more evil into the world than any other country”; "Byzantine and Tatar imperfections"; “The stench of messianic “election”, the centuries-old pride of the “Russian idea”; “A country that has been swelling and spreading over the centuries like sour dough”; “The fact that the Russians in this country are the worst of all is logical and fair” ...
And as a summary of everything: the only path available to Russians to happiness and freedom is the American occupation. However, Russophobia inside Russia is a separate big topic, let's not digress.
Washington-sponsored propaganda of Ukrainian separatism has reached a special intensity. It was the Ukrainian Nazi ideologists who made up the most aggressive detachment of Russophobia.
A typical example is the book by Pavlo Shtepa "Muscovite" published in 1968 in Canada, which became a real textbook of Ukrainian Russophobia. “Laziness and vagrancy of a Muscovite”, “Theft of a Muscovite”, “Godlessness, debauchery of a Muscovite”, “Slavery and despotism of a Muscovite”, “Creative barrenness of a Muscovite” - these are the headings of the chapters of this book.
Let us pay special attention to the thesis about the “creative barrenness” of Russians, which is repeated in both Nazi and Ukrainian propaganda, so contrasting with the reality of the great Russian culture, which gave the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the music of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, which led man into space. All the countless achievements of the Russians are declared to actually belong to representatives of other peoples or "meaningless historical accident."
The particular fixation of Russophobes on the idea of “Russian mediocrity” is due to the fact that the most important motive of Russophobia is the denial of the fact that Russian civilization is original and is not one of the subdivisions of the Western one.
"We did not let ourselves be robbed"
The end of communist power in Russia did not lead to the curtailment of Russophobic propaganda in the West. In this propaganda, only an additional contemptuous undertone appeared. Russia was seen as the "loser" in the Cold War and called for to finish it off.
Russophobic rhetoric became especially aggressive after the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014 and the imposition of Western sanctions.
US President Barack Obama proudly declared that the Russian economy was torn to shreds by the sanctions. And Republican Senator John McCain, one of the most prominent Russophobes, called Russia "a gas station pretending to be a country."
In 2022, “a gas station country with an economy torn to shreds” withstood the heaviest Western sanctions. However, Russophobic propaganda continues. There are fakes about “Russian war crimes” and calls to “cancel” Russian culture.
Back in the spring of 2014, Venice was hung with such posters: “Help fight the Russian Empire by abolishing culture”, “Russian culture has cherished superiority over other peoples for generations”, “Stop being fascinated by their culture: every Dostoevsky is followed by a rain of rockets”, “ Refuse the funding, the support that you provided to Russian artists and musicians. There should be no space for their work. The press should not mention them”, “Support the culture of Ukraine - a truly free European nation”.
Russophobia has been a constant phenomenon in world history for several centuries. It is based on fear of the greatness and power of Russia and hostility to the fact that it is a separate civilization, living and creating not at the behest of the West.
“One of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the undisguised malice of these Western elites towards Russia is precisely that we did not allow ourselves to be robbed during the period of colonial conquests, we forced the Europeans to trade for mutual benefit. This was achieved by creating a strong centralized state in Russia, which developed and strengthened itself on great moral values ... on Russian culture and the Russian word open to all, ” Vladimir Putin emphasized in his speech on September 30, 2022, dedicated to the admission of Donetsk to the Russian Federation. and Luhansk republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.
Western Russophobia has never been able to cause significant damage to Russia, except in those cases when the West has been able to successfully export Russophobia to Russia itself, undermining our values, destroying our home from within. It is precisely this, the most dangerous kind of Russophobia, that should be resisted first of all.
PS
Of course, in a short article it is impossible to cover the whole picture, so I refer the interested reader to other works: the book by Guy Mettan “The West is Russia. Millennium War. The history of Russophobia from Charlemagne to the Ukrainian crisis” and the book by Natalia Tanshina “Scary Tales about Russia. Classics of European Russophobia and not only. Well, do not forget about the classic study of our internal Russophobia, written by the wonderful Russian thinker Igor Shafarevich.