Putin's Sense of Russian History

president vladimir putin has described

russia's military objectives in ukraine

as quote noble

and we uh

aware that today our officers are

participating in the special operation

in donbass in ukraine

there are many ways of thinking about

history and today i want to talk about

putin's sense of russian history in

comparison to an assumption about

history that we often adopt in the west

i think ironically it's our sense of

history that's often misguided and while

putin draws the wrong conclusions his

diagnosis of history the model of

history he's a product of

contains some surprising truths

russia's difficult relationship with

europe and its strained and unique

relationship with its own identity has a

long history that goes back long before

putin of course

but it's one i think he kind of believes

in

and he's strengthening some of its

elements it has a rich tradition as

we'll see in philosophy poetry

literature in

anti-rationalism in romanticism

but i think

if we approach it carefully

it can teach us a lot about what our

model of history often leaves out

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we often adopt a model of history in

europe and america that historian

timothy snyder calls the politics of

inevitability

it's come in various forms

hegel and marx's dialectics the idea of

an ever-progressing linear historical

path what used to be called wigish

history

francis fukuyama's the end of history

the argument that after the fall of the

soviet union the liberal model was the

endpoint of historical progress

the assumption

often is that progress is inevitable

automatic

out of our human hands

snyder says that it's a sense that the

future is just more of the present that

the laws of progress are known that

there are no alternatives and therefore

nothing really to be done

if history is something that happens

automatically the politics of

inevitability doesn't need anyone to do

anything it doesn't need ideas it

doesn't need action it doesn't need

fighting for or defending history like

an escalator to freedom or a journey

floating along a river just

is

snyder continues that the politics of

inevitability is the idea that there are

no ideas those in its throat deny that

ideas matter proving only that they are

in the grip of a powerful one the cliche

of the politics of inevitability is that

there are no alternatives to accept this

is to deny individual responsibility for

seeing history and making change life

becomes a sleepwalk to a pre-marked

grave in a pre-purchased plot the

politics of inevitability gives the

impression that once certain conditions

are met

markets property rights freedom of

speech class consciousness maybe freedom

will then flourish automatically

this idea comes from many places you

could say it goes back to the biblical

idea of millenarianism that life on

earth will get progressively worse until

christ returns and reigns over a golden

age of a thousand years

but in its modern form its roots can be

found in the idea of universality during

the enlightenment

there again it was interpreted in many

ways voltaire believed in commerce

expanding across the world the global

businessman leibniz believed in a

universal language emmanuel kant thought

that there was a universal model of

morality that everyone should adopt

hegel thought that the rational was real

that anything that happened was rational

and marx believed in a universal concept

of history

moving forward scientifically

they believed that these things were

inevitably true independent of

individual people

author pankaj mishra writes that the

rationalist idea of the enlightenment

which we're all a product of presented

quote a unified project of individual

emancipation inaugurating the necessary

and inevitable passage of humankind from

tradition to modernity immaturity to

adulthood

what this meant was that when each

nation each country each group or

individual discovered understood and

accepted these universal truths they

would inevitably catch up with countries

like england and france who were already

on the road of inexorable progress

and as snyder argues most of us in the

west still tacitly accept this model

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but on a parallel track

but still with roots in the

enlightenment runs a different model

a counter model a powerful critique

one that might be summarized as

anti-rationalist

or anti-universal

the adherents of this model were people

like rousseau herder dostoevsky and

nietzsche and they all criticized the

idea of the universal history in

different ways

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take just one part of an opposing view

the idea of a national identity

it's the idea that what defines a

people's character that essence their

spirit is not reason or enlightened

individualism or rational individuals

approaching the world with a cold logic

but a presupposed integral national

identity that grounds them in the first

place

the sociologist leah greenfield has

argued that in fact more than the

escalator of expanding rationalism and

freedom

nationalism national identity is the

most fundamental factor for

understanding how the world we live in

developed and ironically there's a logic

to how national identities have

developed imagine two countries france

and england during the enlightenment say

a few french thinkers argue that england

is ahead of france economically

spiritually culturally

there are two main ways that france can

respond

first they could argue that england is

on the right track the one universal

track forward and emulate england in a

bid to catch up

alternatively they could argue that

while england is admittedly ahead france

is on a different track a better track

they could argue that history has

multiple tracks going in different

directions

that there's no right or wrong track and

in fact our track may be behind now but

once we develop it a little bit it will

be a superior track a stronger and a

faster track

in her now celebrated study greenfield

argues that rather than the first

universal model comparison and

resentment between developing nations

has been a central force driving history

resentment she says following nature is

a psychological state resulting from

suppressed feelings of envy and hatred

she argues that nations have often

interpreted the values of stronger

nations as inappropriate for them

wrong-headed dangerous and that this in

turn has fueled the development of new

internal national values this has

happened many times across history of

course but most significantly it

happened during the period of

modernization during the enlightenment

in germany and russia

germany and russia both came late to

modernity and they both looked westward

for emulation and inward for inspiration

throughout the 18th century the russian

czars peter the great and catherine the

great were both modernizers

they imported european ideas strategies

political models philosophies and

sciences while also purposefully

fostering a new sense of russian

national identity

peter the great was the first monarch to

refer to russia as a fatherland he built

secular schools reformed many of

russia's institutions imported european

military tactics and even enforced dress

codes and etiquette implementing attacks

on beards to encourage a western style

many of peter's officers traveled abroad

and were introduced to european

enlightenment ideas the poet and

playwright alexander sumarkov wrote

you travelers who visited paris and

london tell me do people there crunch

their nuts while watching drama and when

the performance is on the stage do they

whip drunken and quarreling coachmen

causing alarm to the floors balconies

and the whole theatre

catherine the great continued peter's

project wanting to develop an

enlightened russian middle class

catherine corresponded with voltaire and

met deidre when paid dalembe to tutor

her heir she read montesquieu and became

known along with peter as enlightened

despots

voltaire wrote that russia under peter

the great represented perhaps the

greatest epoch in european life since

the discovery of the new world

catherine let the philosophers publish

their work in russia when they were

banned in france she argued for equality

under the law and she founded new

schools and universities

but it was the french philosopher john

jack rousseau who first became critical

he wrote that peter wished to introduce

at once germans or englishmen when he

should have begun by making russians he

prevented his subjects from ever

becoming what they might have been by

persuading them that they were what they

were not it's in this way that a french

tutor trains his pupils to shine for a

moment in childhood and then to be

forever a non-entity

in russia intellectuals began having a

strained relationship with their own

sense of inferiority to the countries

they were attempting to emulate

greenfield argues that a feeling of

inferiority can only last so long and

can quickly turn to resentment

she argues there are two common

responses to any socio-political

problems within a nation

shame

and denial

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she writes that shame is a rare reaction

given how singularly unpleasant this

feeling is it must be difficult to

sustain it over a period of time of any

length

instead many russian intellectuals and

politicians denied that they were

further behind on the same singular path

for example the playwright dennis

ivanovich von vazin asked how can we

remedy the two contradictory and most

harmful prejudices

the first that everything with us is

awful while in foreign lands everything

is good

the second that in foreign lands

everything is awful and with us

everything is good

the writer and father of russian

socialism alexander hudson wrote like

janus or like a two-headed eagle we were

looking in different directions while a

single heart was beating in us

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if the example set by europe was to be

rejected russians had to turn inwards

and develop a russian consciousness a

russian spirit a different path for

russia

and so the russian language was

developed through literature and poetry

pride was fostered through the church

slavic that distinguished eastern

orthodox christianity from the latin

that was used in churches in europe

national histories were written

karamzin wrote look become equal to them

and then if you can

surpass them

he continued we had our own charlemagne

vladimir our own louis the eleventh

zarlowan our own cromwell god enough and

in addition such a ruler whose like is

nowhere to be found peter the great

many intellectuals became critical of

european standards arguing that they

shouldn't be emulated at all

after a trip to paris von vicine wrote

that one has to renounce all common

sense and truth to say that there is not

much of what is very good and deserving

of imitation here

he said a frenchman would never forgive

himself if he ever missed an opportunity

to cheat his god is money dalam bears

deed rose in their own way are as much

charlatans as those i meet every day on

the streets

all of them are cheating people for

money and the difference between a

charlatan and a philosoph is only such

that the latter to his greed adds an

unparalleled vanity

he recommended instead that russians

feel pride in their own ways he said a

cattle yard in the holdings of our

honest gentry is much cleaner than

streets in front of the very palaces of

the french kings

karamzian said so let us honor and

glorify our language which in its

natural richness almost without any

alien admixture flows like a proud

majestic river roars thunders and

suddenly if need be softens murmurs like

a tender brook and sweetly pours into

one soul

forming all the rhythms which may be

contained in the falling and rising of a

human voice

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of course this phenomenon was not unique

to russia in fact it started in france

with russo spread to germany through the

romantics and to england as well and it

could be argued that it found its most

distinctive form in russian culture but

it can be found all over the world

rousseau's emphasis on feeling on

emotion on localism on culture and on

the community was picked up by young

discontented provincials in a not yet

unified germany that was lagging behind

the rest of europe

mishra writes that german writers like

herder and feechter simmered with

resentment against a largely

metropolitan civilization of slick

movers and shakers that seemed to deny

them a rooted and authentic existence

romantics in germany who felt resentful

of french dominance and enlightenment

rationalism responded by imagining an

authentic german culture a volk

the german philosopher johann gottfried

herder criticized the rationalist

philosophs writing that

as a rule the philosopher is never more

of an ass than when he most confidently

wishes to play god

when with remarkable assurance he

pronounces on the perfection of the

world wholly convinced that everything

moves just so in a nice straight line

that every succeeding generation reaches

perfection in a completely linear

progression according to his ideals of

virtue and happiness

instead of following the philosophs he

asked germans to spew out the ugly slime

of the sane speak german oh you german

the discontented romantics throughout

europe responded to a modernity where as

marx came to argue everything that solid

melts into air and instead they

emphasized national myths and fables

religion emotion local culture poetry

and song by

romanticizing local landscapes and

emphasizing the feelings of the

downtrodden commoners trampled on by the

swift steel boots of modern commerce

modern factories and modern assumptions

the romantics contrasted the cold

calculations of reason and logic and

reflection with the very

real feelings and experience of everyday

life with the immeasurable with the

qualitative with the spontaneous

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in russia many turned to and emphasized

collective ideas ethnicity blood and

soil the russian soul the unified people

pan-slavism

the poet n.a lavov wrote that in foreign

lands all goes according to plan

words awaited steps are measured

there one sits hour upon hour and then

begins to think

having thought one rests having rested

once makes a pipe then thoughtfully goes

to one's work

there are no songs no pranks

among us orthodox however

work is like fire under our hands our

speech is thunder so that our sparks fly

and the dust rises in columns

the common theme was unity oneness

harmony

since the reformation western churches

had moved towards the individual with

their own singular relationship to god

they could read the bible themselves the

russian church instead emphasized

soberness quote the idea of unity in

multiplicity in the russian theologian

kamiyakov's words

the church is one he wrote her unity

follows of necessity from the unity of

god for the church is not a multitude of

persons in their separate individuality

but a unity of the grace of god living

in the multitude of rational creatures

submitting themselves willingly to grace

this thinking applied to russian

communes too

a commune wrote sergi aksakov is a union

of the people who have renounced their

egoism their individuality and who

express their common accord

this is an act of love in the commune

the individual is not lost but renounces

his exclusiveness in favor of the

general accord

and there arises the noble phenomenon of

a harmonious joint existence of rational

beings

there arises a brotherhood a commune a

triumph of human spirit

and before publishing his first major

work notes from underground

theodore dostoyevsky went on a tour of

europe

in london he visited the international

exhibition at the crystal palace a grand

fair of world products and the greatest

example of western commerce of

individualism of capitalism

he wrote you become aware of this

colossal idea

you sense that here something has been

achieved and here

there is victory and triumph

you even begin vaguely to fear something

he then wondered must you accept this as

the final truth and forever hold your

peace

it's also solemn triumphant and proud

that you gasp for breath

look at these hundreds of thousands

these millions of people humbly

streaming here from all over the face of

the earth people come with a single

thought

quietly relentlessly mutely thronging

into this colossal palace and you feel

that something final has taken place

here and something has come to an end

but then in the rest of london he saw

people quite half-naked savage and

hungry

he saw that liberty only existed for the

rich and he worried about quite a

principle of isolation of intense

self-preservation of personal gain of

self-determination of the eye of

opposing this eye to all nature and the

rest of mankind as an independent

autonomous principle entirely equal and

equivalent to all that exists outside

itself

he returned to russia with his mind made

up

russians shouldn't mindlessly import

these european ideals

nietzsche read the book dostoevsky wrote

next notes from underground which drew

from these experiences and from it

nietzsche derived his own idea

it wasn't reason or divine truth that

drove world history

it was resentment

mark the date well august 19 1991

historians are likely to be analyzing

the events of this day for generations

to come

military leaders and the soviet secret

police have taken control of the

government and now vice president

gennady yanayev is sitting in the

president's seat the hardliners say the

country has become ungovernable because

of perestroika tanks are moving into the

capital taking up positions near key

government buildings outside the russian

parliament building crowds began

gathering early this morning to hear

russian president boris yeltsin call for

a general strike to protest what he

calls an unconstitutional coup

first

no one knows exactly what putin is

thinking who he really admires what his

true motivations are and i'm not saying

he's consciously adopted this tradition

or this model of history or this

particular thinker

it's important though to understand the

trend that he's in many ways a part of

and is able to draw some kind of

strength and russian unity from

these anti-western anti-liberal

anti-rationalist there are many ways to

frame them sentiments became even more

fertile in russia during the crisis of

the 90s when russia was plunged into

internal conflict when gangs rose when

hyperinflation happened when the

provinces started to ignore moscow or

declared independence in short

russia was in chaos

in 2013 putin said the question of

finding and strengthening national

identity is of a fundamental nature for

russia

scholar sergey medvedev has written that

in the 2000s quote resentment was

transformed into state policy

he said it used a myth of geopolitical

defeats humiliation and pillaging of

russia by world liberalism and its

henchmen yeltsin gaidar and chubbiest

he continued all of russian society from

putin to the last appointment are all

equally the bearers of resentment for

putin the source of the non-recognition

of himself and of russia as equal and

respected players on the world stage for

the pointsman his helplessness in the

face of the police officials courts and

bandits

the resentment fantasies of the

authorities at a certain moment entered

into a strange resonance with the

resentment fantasies of ordinary people

in a conservative orthodox publication

asked in 2005

is it possible to satisfy the west is it

possible to ever be recognized as equals

and so we wait quietly for them to let

us become like they are to let us into

the club of equals but the answer is

never

this new wave of resentment has led to

the adoption of two new thinkers that in

some ways carry some of this historical

tradition into modern conservative

russian culture

they are even illian

and carl schmidt

the german philosopher carl schmidt was

a conservative and fascist thinker who

was a member of the nazi party and whose

work responded to the crisis of

democracy in weimar germany in the

interwar period before the nazis took

power

schmidt was to put it simply a

philosopher of order he saw liberalism

in interwar germany as leading to all

the things that some russians were

seeing in the 1990s hyperinflation

depravity chaos

he saw liberal democracy as

fundamentally flawed because it couldn't

deal with the political conflict that's

inherent in all politics

under liberal democracy no one single

person or party was strong enough to

prevent that conflict and in fact

schmidt thought that liberal rights

handed the enemies of liberalism the

tools that could be used to destroy

liberalism itself

he said the organizations of individual

freedom were used like knives by

anti-individualistic forces to cut up

the leviathan and divide its flesh among

themselves

instead he sought to homogenize the

masses through a single will of a

sovereign

he thought a strong leader could stand

above the law in a state of exception so

that disorder could be dealt with more

effectively

after the chaos of the 90s as political

theorist david lewis states karl

schmidt's influence became one of the

most important influences in russian

conservatism in the 2000s

the other philosopher that putin has

specifically quoted is the conservative

spiritual thinker even ilyan

a counter-revolutionary who admired

mussolini and hitler and putin even

re-buried him in a ceremony in 2005.

ilyan's philosophy looked backwards to a

time when god the world and the universe

were united in one

and like schmidt ilion criticized the

individualistic disjointed and morally

relative world view of liberalism

he thought that god had made a mistake

by dividing himself from the world and

dividing the world and people into parts

he wrote when god sank into empirical

existence he was deprived of his

harmonious unity logical reason and

organizational purpose

he continued the empirical fragmentation

of human existence is an incorrect a

transitory and a metaphysically untrue

condition of the world

ilion saw the nation as a single

harmonious organism but importantly

he simply thought russia was at the

center of the world

the center of this harmony god was

russian ukraine was of course russian

the truth of russia of god of everything

was singular and eternally in the past

and it was about reclaiming this and a

single leader must do that and lead for

the purpose for the glory of all

russians

anything from outside of this single

eternal truth is considered a threat

he said that mussolini hardens himself

in just and manly service he is inspired

by the spirit of totality rather than by

a particular personal or party

motivation he stands alone and goes

alone because he sees the future of

politics and knows what must be done

the russian filmmaker nikita mikalkov

introduced ilyan to putin mikalkov

himself wrote that russia was a

spiritual material unity that was at the

center of eurasia which was an

independent cultural historic continent

organic national unity geopolitical and

sacred center of the world

putin similarly has said that the great

russian mission is to unify and bind

civilization in such a state

civilization there are no national

minorities and the principle of

recognition of friend or foe is defined

on the basis of a common culture

like schmidt ilyan argued that por

israel the lawlessness of the leader

standing above the people in a state of

sovereignty in a state of exception was

better than a leader under the law the

leader was the exception to the law and

putin has also spoken of a dictatorship

of the law

this is obviously a complicated history

the linear universalistic rationalistic

model of history assumes that chaos

moves inevitably towards an ordered

enlightenment society

but i think what history actually shows

is that

chaos that arises from those very things

sometimes is just as likely to create

the conditions for this

nationalistic conservative

spiritualistic authoritarianism that we

see in parts of russian intellectual

life today

and to call a spade a spade

it's fascism

of course

much of what i've painted here is a

generalization and it's a snapshot of a

part of russian history there are many

sides to history russian and everywhere

else we have to take a nuanced view on

history like this we have to understand

that those things that don't fit in our

liberal rationalists

logical model

those romantic elements

national identity spirit feeling

localism language culture poetry there

are many elements but

they are part of us too

part of what's driven history and a big

part but they're also the things that

like bundles of sticks of latent tinder

can be twisted into

authoritarianism

into expansionism

into fascism

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thank you as always for watching and a

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