Russia – the “True Europe” or a “Unique Civilization”?: Towards a Genealogy of two Post-Soviet Ideas

Abstract

ABSTRACT “Russia as the true Europe” has become a popular idea in Russian political discourse and ideology production. However, it conflicts with another dominant commonplace idea: “Russia as non-Western” or “Russia as a unique, distinct civilization.” Yet “Russia as the true Europe” is an idea that has circulated frequently, especially since the conservative turn of the Putin regime from 2012 onwards. Here, Russia is represented as the defender of “true Christian values,” whereas the West has gradually abandoned this common ground. One key political thinker who has been instrumental in disseminating such ideas in post-Soviet Russia is Natal´ja Naročnickaja, who has developed this argument referring to classical Slavophile writings of the mid-nineteenth century. Slavophilism is a movement known for postulating a firm antithesis – a civilizational divide – between Russia and the West, but they also understood this conflict as having emerged historically. This article explores the genealogy of the idea of “Russia as the true Europe” by analysing the writings of Ivan Kireevskij and Aleksej Chomjakov. By implication, it makes also a contribution to the history of “Russia as a unique civilization,” since it shows that there exists a tension in classical Slavophilism itself in seeing Russia both as Europe and non-Europe. Moreover, it demonstrates that despite apparent similarities between Slavophile thought and contemporary ideas there are significant discontinuities between them.