Cultural and Social History on Total War's Global Battlefield

Abstract

Since the nineteenth century, foreigners have been fascinated by the geography of Russia, sprawled across the world's great landmass, naturally both Asia and Europe. Some have looked back to make the core of Russian culture a Mongolian inheritance. Others have projected forward to predict either Moscow's dominance in Asia or an Asiatic conquest of Europe under Russian auspices. In short, for non-Russians this duality has largely inspired fear. For Russians, on the other hand, the Eurasian fact has been more ambivalent. For some it was creative schizophrenia, an inability for Russia and Russians to find their place either here or there. For others, it was the ultimate opportunity for the Third Rome to rule from sea to shining sea or, to add Zhirinovskii to the heady mix of metaphors, to wash its boots in the Indian Ocean. The Russo-Japanese War put an end to these fine speculations, revealing no grand perspectives, but only that it was human blood that would be washed from both Eastern and Western boots, when they met at close quarters. The gap between visionary affinities and the brutal reality of international contact suggests that the role of social and cultural factors in explaining war needs to be carefully circumscribed. In times of war, images of the other are mainly propaganda, telling more about what the state wants its people to think than about what they actually think. The study of popular images antebellum will not tell us why war occurred, although conflict and attendant propaganda may well create views of the other that are available as memories for generations to come. How long will you remember the name and nationality of the enemy who killed your son, husband, or father? In the realm of memory, the cultural historian's sensitivities are essential to track the interplay of event remembered and changing social context over the course of decades.