Russia’s current distancing from the western part of the continent followed a period of rapprochement that lasted through the first two decades after the end of the Cold War. From that period, Moscow drew two main lessons, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Anton Bespalov.
Russian commentators often frame the current military and political situation on the European continent in civilizational terms—an “eternal” conflict between Russia and Europe—and reach for historical analogies stretching from the Northern Crusades of the thirteenth century to the Second World War. The trouble with these analogies is that calling Russia’s adversary “Europe” in all these conflicts, or claiming that Russia faced “all of Europe,” is simply inaccurate. One understands the desire for a neat emotional image, but that image has very little to do with the historical record. What is more, it is almost a mirror reflection of the story told on the other side of the barricades—and told by the worst of Russia’s enemies.
Historically, the “all of Europe against Russia” trope was most consistently deployed by the German Nazis. The idea of a “crusade against Bolshevism” did resonate among some populations in the countries under Nazi control. But the Nazi vision of a “civilized Europe”—racially pure, built on German domination—was, in the broader sweep of European history, deeply marginal. The Soviet Union, by contrast, cast its wartime mission as the defence of European civilization. When Stalin declared in 1944 that “by their selfless struggle the Soviet people have saved the civilization of Europe from the fascist vandals,” he was speaking squarely within the European mainstream of the time. That the Allies chose to forget this after the war is another matter.
To be sure, the Nazis were drawing on a centuries-old tradition of portraying Russia as an alien force, hostile to European civilization. The same rhetoric had been heard during the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars, and its roots go back to the struggle between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Muscovite Tsardom. But two caveats are in order. First, this rhetoric can be turned on and off. During the two world wars, when a catastrophic shift in the European balance of power suddenly seemed real, it fell silent. Even England—the self-appointed bastion of “European civilization” against “Russian barbarism”—began to talk very differently. Second, and more importantly, it was always specific states that spoke of the Russian threat on behalf of “Europe.” Sometimes a rogue state like Hitler’s Germany. Sometimes leading members of the Concert of Europe, such as the Entente powers after the October Revolution. But “Europe” as a single political or military-political entity has never existed.
This is precisely what makes the present situation so remarkable. Today, the European Union—which includes the vast majority of the continent’s states—positions itself as “Europe.” The few countries outside the EU either aspire to join or are tightly bound to it through mechanisms like the European Economic Area and the Schengen Agreement. Britain stands apart, but once you factor in NATO, Europe’s cohesion looks unprecedented by historical standards.
Post-war Western Europe embarked on economic and then political integration with a very clear goal: to prevent the continent’s internal contradictions from escalating into yet another catastrophic war. It succeeded—thanks not only to the conscious efforts of former enemies but also to the broader geopolitical context. After the Cold War, it set itself an equally ambitious task: to extend to Europe’s eastern periphery the institutions and mechanisms that had proven their worth in the West.
In the decades since 1989–91, a distinct “political Europe” has taken shape within the Western world. Even before the current frictions between the EU and the United States, its agenda was far from identical with Washington’s. That agenda marries the legacy of post-war integration with a spirit of unrestrained expansion; the defence of democratic ideals at home with heavy-handed pressure on dissenters within the European club; the foreign policy traditions of Europe’s great powers with the phobias of the states on its eastern flank.
Meanwhile, a profound mental shift is underway inside Russia. The current distancing from the western part of the continent followed a period of rapprochement that lasted through the first two decades after the end of the Cold War. From that period, Moscow drew two main lessons. First, that it cannot join political Europe in principle. Second, that political Europe is incapable of negotiating shared principles for coexistence on the continent: it speaks the language of domination, sincerely convinced that its own path has no alternative. The result is that today’s Russia, for the first time in several centuries, is ceasing to see itself as part of a specifically European system.
In the imperial era, this status meant competitiveness and a seat at the table not only in European, but also in global affairs. Russian Marxism—deeply Eurocentric by nature—set out to put Russia in the vanguard of world progress. In its early, revolutionary phase, Soviet Russia considered itself the leader of progressive forces in Europe, the most progressive part of the world. In its later, more stable phase, it saw itself in a more traditional role as a guarantor of the European order and a guardian of European civilization. Post-Soviet Russia looked to political Europe as a natural partner for its national development.
Closed borders, severed trade and economic links, and the attempts to “cancel” Russian culture (not especially successful)—all of this is part of a larger message from political Europe: the time for ideas like “from the Atlantic to the Urals” or “from Lisbon to Vladivostok” is over. There is no longer any demand for dialogue or cooperation between the two halves of the European continent. But Russia, perhaps for the first time, is realizing that it can live without political Europe—which it no longer sees as a benchmark and bulwark of progress, but merely as one form of political life in Eurasia.
This is the second factor—alongside the unprecedented cohesion of political Europe—that makes the present situation unique. The emergence of new centres of power across Eurasia with growing political, economic, and military weight means that the old coordinate system is becoming obsolete. The debates about Russia’s belonging to Europe, so central to Russian thought for centuries, are losing their meaning when Europe itself now sees itself not as a civilization but as a hermetic system with a unique and non-exportable set of characteristics.
But what has traditionally been called European civilization is another matter. The element of its identity that Russia regards as European, it can cultivate on its own, without looking over its shoulder at the western half of the continent. And it will. To quote Yuri Slezkine, “It is easier for Russia to say that it is defending Europe from itself than to say that it is no longer Europe.”
