Thread by @kamilkazani

That's a racist lie. It's also an important lie that helps to understand the worldview of Russian "liberals". In the Russian discourse and especially in the "liberal" discourse everything negative or evil always come from Asia. It's an axiom that requires no proof or evidence

Consider the following. Clueless people like parroting the idea about Russian despotism inherited from the Tatar Khanates. Ok. Let's assume this may be true. Then the question about the political & legal culture of the said Khanates should take central place in that discussion

The argument about the Russian absolutist practices being borrowed from the Tatar Khanates, depends on a question of how did those Khanates look like? Politics, law, institutions. Notice that this question strangely misses from the discussion. Because the entire argument is a lie

There are great studies on the politics and law of the Khanates but they never ever appear in this discussion because it is not an honest discussion at all. It is the endless affirmation of Russian superiority through belonging to the supreme culture/race whatever you like better

There is an axiom that Russians (as Europeans and thus a master race) could never build anything imperfect themselves. So if the political structure they built has imperfections then it must be the influence of Asiatics. Ok, but how did those Asiatic structures look like? Silence

The entire "Muscovite absolutism is derived from the Horde" argument is simply the affirmation of:

1. Russian superiority
2. Russians never holding any responsibility for how their country looks or what it is doing
3. Necessity of stricter ethnic/cultural purification in Russia

If there was even a grain of honest analysis in this discussion, they would first ask the question - what do we already know on the Khanates? What kind of research on them exists? They don't. Because it is simply a massive racist affirmation parroted by the clueless Westerners

If you want to learn about the Tatar political culture, you can find some real studies, based on primary sources in this thread. Krolikowska-Jedlinska who read the Crimean archives may be the most interesting. But Pochekaev and others also do a good job