“Russian World” (“Russkiy mir”) is a theoretical idea amongst some Russians that there is a broader area beyond Russia that is, or should be, under Russian influence.
See the wikipedia article:
The concept seems to be taking a hit, according to this Bloomberg article, as a direct result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The invasion of Ukraine was thought by some to be an example of that ideology, but apparently some former Soviet republics/former parts of the Russian Empire aren’t that willing to re-enter Russkiy mir. Plus, those former Soviet republics who have been relying on Russia for a security alliance, such as Armenia v Azerbaijan, are discovering that Mother Russia may not have the resources any more to come to their aid.
Big winner may be Erdogan of Turkey, who might be able to fill the void left by Moscow’s silence.
(Mods, I thought about putting this in the Russian invasion thread, but I think it’s more a political topic about the implications that the invasion is having for other former Soviet republics, so started a new thread. Can this be a current news thread for developments in this area?)
“Russian World” (Russkiy mir - Русский мир) is closely related to the imperial German concept of Lebensraum, an expression of an expansionist attitude that later morphed naturally into nazi ideologyy, I am glad it is taking a hit too, and about time it was! It is a wrong, immoral and perverse idea. It will be defeated for the same reasons nazi Germany was: hubris. Pity the human cost and suffering. Again.
“Russky mir” reminds me of a phrase I encountered in a novel set in early 20th century Europe. A character, when asked his nationality by an official, responded with “muss Preussen”, or as the dictionary now renders it, “obligatorisch preußisch” - in other words, “obligatory Prussian”.*
A bunch of eastern Europeans must be concerned about being forced into “Russky mir”.
Or from elsewhere in the (Prussia-created) German Empire, quite likely Bavaria (I’ve seen plenty of jokey references in Munich along the lines that “we’re NOT Prussians”).
The trouble with reverting to the kind of “natural spheres of influence” geopolitical thinking is that anyone can play that game - Poland and Hungary are two possible candidates with old grievances and territorial claims, for starters, and I recently stumbled across an account of even Finnish cultural/political irredentism..
‘Zactly. If each country gets to pick which century is their baseline, then each country will “naturally” and “properly” own a bunch of their neighbors’ territory. That way lies chaos, resentment, and recurring war.
One of the large points behind the EEC now EU was to draw a line under the recent past and say “European borders prior to 1945 are forever renounced as irrelevant.” As the project gathered steam the goal morphed into “And current borders are meant to slowly fade to historical curiosities, even if it takes us 500 years to get there. Peacefully.”
Absolutely, but at least the acceptance of current borders was much more widely shared, in the Helsinki agreements, than just the EU concept. Thr USSR signed up to that and post-Soviet Russia not only inherited that commitment, it signed up to other agreements along similar lines. It wasn’t anybody outside the USSR that dissolved it, it was the leaders of the successor states. It’s beyond idiotic that Putin expects to convince anyone but the gullible to revert to mystical magical thinking. But circumstances seem to have made gullibility the default for some large proportion of Russians.
This is something deeply baked into Russian thought; Putin is just the current proponent. It’s also a product of Russia’s history and geography, namely:
Their history of being invaded and
The geographical and logistical fact that Russia in its current borders is undefendable against conventional invasion.
Of course, the absolute fact is no one is invading Russia when it has nukes, but it’s really quite hard for me to overstate how deeply the issue of defensible borders is buried in Russian statesmanship.
Manifest Destiny. The US version.
Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent
Try convincing most Americans that “American exceptionalism” is pure BS. That ain’t gonna work. Regardless of the factual merits of your argument, it’s not going to be persuasive against something that is very core to people’s self-identity.
“Russian world” and the paranoia stemming from enduring backwardness & weakness are the equivalent Russian ideas: deeply entrenched aspect of a peoples’ identity.
There is another aspect to the entrenched paranoia. Russia absorbed the shock of the Mongol invasion, and spared Europe. Russia defeated Napolean and put his forces in retreat, sparing Europe. Russia defeated Hitler! The majority of Germans killed in WW2 were killed in Russia. The largest battles in history were fought there. Sparing Europe. But Europe always treats them as an outcast, not really European. They would rather side with the US, half a world a way. Please bear in mind this is the Russian nationalist view of history, not my own.
We keep on hearing this, but Russia has no more history of being invaded than any of the rest of the world, and in the past century or more, they’ve been much more often the invaders.
I’ve been poking around about Kazakh - Russian relations, and it’s interesting. It looks like Kazakhstan is trying to thread the needle of staying on good terms with Russia, but moving to shore up its relations to the west. For example, they publicly stated at a meeting in St Petersburg that they would not recognise the two breakaway Donbas republics, and that they stand by the UN principle that borders can’t be changed by war.
Other Central Asia republics appears to be making similar moves:
And, Russia has been making noises about Kazakhstan that are similar to their statements about Ukraine. Former President and Prime Minister Medvedev made a post on the social media site Telegram in August, in which he called Kazakhstan an “artificial nation” and that there was no-one in the northern parts of the country until Russians colonised it.
The post was taken down shortly afterwards, and blamed on hackers, but not before it was widely disseminated in Central Asia. Problem for Russia is that even if it was a hack, the language and attitudes displayed in it seemed to ring true, especially in light of similar statements made by Putin to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
And it’s not literally true, anyway. Russia has lost rather a lot more people to more invasions than have, say, the USA or Canada (as most Americans or Canadians and their apparatus of state define it; indigenous people have a very different view.)
To follow up on this, this illustrates why the ridiculous “NATO caused this” story is horseshit. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was absolutely inevitable in any scenario except Russian political puppetry of Ukraine. If NATO had not expanded, that would not have saved Ukraine; instead, the Baltics and Poland would have been invaded by now, and Ukraine would just be next.
Not to excuse the atrocities done to the Russian people by the Nazis and other invaders - but especially the Nazis - but it’s hard to deny that the casualty levels always seem to be exacerbated by the utter indifference to Russian deaths displayed by any and all Russian governments and, it seems at times, the Russian people themselves.
That’s basically the history of Europe from the dawn of time until 1945. I get confused by Jeopardy! European history questions - WHICH war are they asking about?
In The Great Patriotic War, I guess Stalin wasn’t having enough mass casualties to suit him, so he purged the military and starved the populace. 50 million dead, and Stalin going “We’re number 1! No one has suffered more than us!”