Thread by @yermolenko_v

some thoughts on Russian culture and the debate around it. And why i think that we won't understand Russian aggressive stance towards democracy and the West without analyzing some deep topics in the Russian literature and intellectual history. A thread 1/6

I think Russian culture should be approached in the same critical manner as Western academics approach Western culture. Pushkin and Dostoyevsky should be approached in the same critical way as Flaubert or Kipling etc. 2/6

if you cross this mental barrier, you suddenly realize that "great Russian culture" has no less (or even more) imperialism than any other culture backing an empire. Suddenly you realise how imperialistic is Pushkin's "Poltava" and how xenophobic is Dostoyevsky's messianism 3/6

Or you realize that the origins of today's Russia mad anti-European and anti-democracy mood are precisely in the "great Russian culture". For example, that Dostoyevsky's "Demons" are addressed against "corrupt" influence of Western ideas. 4/6

Or that Tiutchev was thinking that democratic revolutions in Europe are the utmost evil, and Russia's cruel autocracy is Europe's only chance to save itself. Or that Tolstoy was thinking (together with some French authors like Proudhon) that the war is a "divine fact". 5/6

the problem is that the world hasn't looked at the Russian culture critically. It adopted Russian self-narration as an "alternative" to the West but failed to critically analyse how imperialistic and xenophobic this "alternative" often is 6/6