Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

156 Erhard Stölting
encompassed the difference between Russia and Germany. Second, this dichotomic
construction reveals a further specific trait of identity constructions.
The dichotomic opposition of East and West has, indeed, been of paramount
importance for cultural life in Russia. But this contrast consists of quite diverse
elements which are still stored up in the arsenal of ideas to be used in intellectual
and political debates and in the construction of self-identifications. I would like to
concentrate on the most important elements which have been in use since the
nineteenth century.
As a rule, they contain a strong normative element: either we are good and
they are bad, or they are good and we are bad. But these normative ascriptions may
exist independently of their descriptive contents. The value judgements can be
reversed while at the same time their descriptive basis remains recognisable. In
the Russian case, the distinction between an evil West and a good East which
characterised the Slavophile tradition could be inverted by representatives of
Westernism, as the example of Pëtr ¤aadaev shows most impressively (¤aadaev
1991: 546–9). On a basic descriptive level the differences appear to be very similar
– as seen, for example, in the opposition of rationality and feeling, of legal
constitution and spiritual unity, etc. (Stölting 2000: 23–38).
If value judgements can be inverted without changing the descriptive content
to which they refer, they are only rarely held in an equilibrium. More often than
not it is possible to distinguish dominant and minority tendencies and traditions.
In this way Russian culture and self-identifications have been under the influences
of ‘Westernising’ social and intellectual ideas at least since the end of the eighteenth
century, although the orthodox Slavophilism seems to have had the upper hand
in most times. Both traditions continued to coexist although they were not equal in
strength.
One of the most important historical elements used in the construction of Russian
self-definitions is the ‘Tatar yoke’ and the alleged liberation by the princes of
Moscow who later were to become Czars (Beevor 1998; Werth 1964: 441–564).
This tartar yoke has been used in quite diverse ways:
1 It was used as one of the founding myths of the Russian state and empire.
According to it, the oppressed Russian nation freed itself under the guidance of
its hereditary leaders. In this way the insurrection against Tatar rule served to
characterise the Russian people as one of freedom-loving and valiant warriors.
2 Slavophile and Westernisers alike have defined the Tatar yoke as responsible
for the economic backwardness of Russia and even the alleged political
submissiveness and apathy of the Russian populations.
3 Westernisers have also used the Tatar yoke to characterise some of the special
Russian characteristics beside submissiveness, as for example Russian excessive
despotism and bureaucracy. The non-Russian qualities of the Tatars revealed
during the time of their rule over the Russian lands were those of backwardness,
cruelty, and ignorance. If Russians were backward by comparison to the West,
they were so because of the Tartar yoke. In principle, and by comparison with
the Tatars, Russians were progressive, civilised and intelligent.