The so-called East and West themselves are geographically relative concepts: Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe 500 years ago confirmed that the Earth is round, which effectively means that East and West are not absolutized concepts in the first place. Europeans habitually defined Asian countries such as China, India, and Japan as the East, but Columbus made ingenious attempts to reach the "East" in European minds by sailing west. Although Columbus eventually discovered the American continent by accident, we know that if he could continue to walk, he could reach China, India, Japan and other places.
Since you can go west from Europe to China, India, Japan and other places, why call these places the East? The name "Japan" itself means "the land of the sunrise in the east", but this is actually relative to the western Asian continent, if the Japanese meet the Hawaiians, can they still claim to be the sunrise land of the east? East and West as geographical concepts are relative, because we subjectively define European and American countries as Western countries, so we are Eastern countries, but if we go all the way east, can't we also reach Europe and America?
The division of East and West with Asia as the East and Europe and the West as the West is just a long-standing convention. Sometimes, however, this conventional division can be awkward in the face of a particular country – Russia is a case in point: in the eyes of the Eastern countries, Russia's national identity seems to belong to the Western way, while Russia has long been excluded from the mainstream Western system. So far, Russia has maintained this situation of no Europe, no Asia, no east and no west.
About three-quarters of Russia's vast territory is distributed in Asia, and the European part only accounts for about a quarter of Russia's land area. It may seem like Russia should be an Asian country, but it's not that simple: three-quarters of Russia's population lives in parts of Europe, its economic centers and major industrial bases are located in Europe, and major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg are generally concentrated in Europe. The history of Russia originated in the Grand Duchy of Moscow on the plains of Eastern Europe.
The history of Russia is, in a sense, a history of expansion from west to east, and it can be said that the birthplace of the Russian nation was in Europe. The main ethnic group in Russia, the Russian ethnic group, belongs to the Slavic-speaking ethnic group and has general kinship with Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and other countries in Eastern Europe. In the long course of historical succession, Russia converted to the Orthodox Church (one of the branches of Christianity), and Russia was thus incorporated into the Circle of Christian Civilization. In the eyes of the Eastern countries, Russia's national traditions and living habits are Western.
Westerners, however, have their own views on this. Today's Europe as a geographical concept is clear: with the Americas by the Atlantic Ocean, with Africa by the Mediterranean Sea, and with Asia by the Ural Mountains. Historical Europe, however, is not a clear concept, and its border extension has undergone a change: Europe is the abbreviation for Europa, and the word "Europa" comes from a figure in ancient Greek mythology. Originally Europa referred to mainland Greece, and later the Aegean islands were included.
During Alexander the Great's crusades, the scope of Europe once extended eastwards, including Asia Minor, which is now classified as Asia. It is clear that Europe at this time was not so much a geographical concept as a cultural concept—referring to the regions that accepted Greek culture. In the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy used the Don River as the dividing line between Europe and Asia, a concept that remained until the 17th century. The plains of Eastern Europe, which stretch from the western foothills of the Ural Mountains to the Danube, have been since ancient times a natural geographical passage for nomadic peoples such as the Huns, Bulgars, and Mongols to invade Europe.
In a fairly long ancient history, the Eastern European Plains, where Russia is located, have shown very different civilizational characteristics from Western Europe, so this region has long been excluded from the mainstream European civilization system. The Slavic lineage to which the Russians belonged was called the three barbarians alongside the Celts and Germans during the Roman Empire. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Germans poured into the lands of the former Western Roman Empire and gradually merged with the local Latin civilization. Therefore, the countries of Western Europe today are mainly ethnically and culturally formed by the fusion of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations by the Germanic people.
However, Russia is a typical Slavic country, so Russia is ethnically and culturally distinct from Western European countries. The idea that "the minds of non-chinese races must be different" exists not only in the thinking consciousness of our Eastern peoples, but also in the minds of Westerners. Of course, some people may say that countries such as Poland are also Slavic countries, but Poland and other countries are geographically closer to Western Europe than Russia, and have also converted to the Roman Catholic school that is widely believed in western European countries.
Although Russia is also a member of a Christian civilization, it embraces the maverick Orthodox Church. Russia is not only an Orthodox country, but also the only great power among the Orthodox countries, so Russia has always considered itself the leader of the Orthodox Alliance, which inevitably intervenes in the dispute between the Orthodox Church and the Western sects. Historically, Russia was ruled by the Chincha Khanate established by the Mongols for more than two hundred years, so Russia was mixed with Mongolian blood in the eyes of other European countries, which led to psychological estrangement between Western European countries and Russia.
Because it was conquered and occupied by the Mongols for more than two hundred years, Russia lost the great navigation movement and the Renaissance between Russia and the countries of Western Europe. The countries of Western Europe, which considered themselves to be more advanced in civilization, regarded Russia as a Barbarian state of Mongolization. To this day, many Westerners still have a sense of superiority over Russia in their bones. In the eyes of some Westerners, Russians are barbaric and backward "white Tatars" . Western European countries looked at Russia with the feeling that the princes of the Central Plains regarded Qin and Chu as Western Rong and Southern Barbarian during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Russia itself has, in a sense, an admiration for Western civilization. Russia has a history of learning from the West for hundreds of years: in 1697, the Dutch port of Zaandam welcomed a Russian mission, in which there was a corporal named Peter Mikha Ilov, and to the confusion of the Dutch, the whole mission was full of respects from top to bottom, and many years later people learned that this corporal was actually the Russian Tsar Peter I at that time. In Russia, Peter I quickly set off a wave of comprehensive learning from the advanced political, economic, and military systems of the West.
In 1712 Peter I moved the capital of Russia from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and since then it has become a window for Russia to Western Europe. Peter the Great's wave of learning from the West made the Russians keen to imitate Western European countries in terms of clothing and architecture, and the court in Petersburg became so keen to speak French that we can find many French words in the original War and Peace today. While committed to Westernization reforms, Russia is also actively expanding abroad, especially to gain access to the sea for Russia in order to better integrate into the international system.
Russia's Westernization reforms increased its psychological identity with the countries of Western Europe relatively, and as Russia expanded westward, its geographical distance from the center of Europe was shortened day by day, and eventually Russia became one of the five decisive forces in the Balance of Power in Europe (Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, austria). The geographical extension of Europe also advanced with the rise of Russia from the Don River to today's Ural Mountains. Russia has transformed from a marginalized country excluded from the mainstream European system to an important player in European affairs.
Russia can be seen in the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the Napoleonic Wars. In particular, during the Napoleonic Wars, Russia became an important decisive factor in determining the outcome of the war, so that the international status of post-war Russia in Europe was unprecedentedly enhanced, and Russia was able to penetrate deeper into European affairs by dividing Poland with Prussia and Austria and forging a holy alliance. In 1848, when revolutionary movements broke out in various European countries, Russia intervened in the revolutionary movements of Hungary, Romania and other countries in order to maintain the feudal autocratic order and its own hegemony.
Tsarist Russia was thus known as the Gendarmerie of Europe and was regarded as the bulwark of Feudal Despotism in Europe. However, the new way of life and way of thinking will inevitably have a certain impact on Russia: in the process of learning from the West, the children of the Russian aristocracy gradually came into contact with Western civilization. They thus began to think about the current situation in Russia. In the late Napoleonic Wars, when the Russians counterattacked all the way to Paris, russian officers and soldiers who were in contact with Western civilization on the ground began to increasingly question the autocracy.
Tsar Alexander I, who defeated Napoleon on 19 November 1825, died of a sudden illness. Since Alexander I left no heirs, the throne should be succeeded by his second brother Constantine. Constantine was appointed Russian governor in Poland, and Alexander I and Constantine's brother Nicholas were in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg. In our traditional way of thinking, the temptation to power under despotism is enough to overcome family affection—Nikolai, who is in the capital, can completely block the news and declare that his brother has identified himself as the heir before his death.
Nikolai did not do so, however: he sent his second brother Constantine in Poland to inform him of the death of his brother, who was the Tsar, and asked Constantine to return to Beijing immediately to take the throne. Even more dramatically, Constantine explicitly refused to return to Beijing to succeed to the throne, and it turned out that he was in love with a Polish commoner woman who was willing to give up the throne and his title of nobility for her to live in Poland, so he replied to his third brother Nikolai: he would give up the throne and ask Nikolai to succeed him. Nikolai did not succeed to the throne after receiving a reply from his second brother, but led the officials of the capital to swear allegiance to the second brother Constantine.
At the same time, however, Constantine, who was in Poland, led his subordinates to swear allegiance to Nicholas. Tsarist Russia, which was regarded as the bastion of European despotism, had the phenomenon of abdicating the throne. Constantine and Nicholas' fraternal giving up the throne led directly to the Decembrists' uprising: a group of Russian officers and soldiers on an expedition to Western Europe launched an uprising on December 14 of the Russian calendar after witnessing the national democratic revolutions in France, Germany, Italy, etc., with dissatisfaction with Russian serfdom and absolutism.
Because Constantine, who was in Poland at the time, strongly supported the Polish Constitution, he was regarded by the insurgents as a person who advocated constitutional rule. They wanted Constantine to inherit the throne, and then transformed the Russian absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy, so they put up the slogan "We want Constantine, we want the Constitution." The Decembrists' revolt ended the reciprocal abdication between Constantine and Nicholas, who immediately declared his succession to the throne and immediately set about suppressing the Decembrists' revolt.
Although the Decembrists' uprising was quelled, it dealt the earliest blow to Russian autocracy, after which Russia entered a period of revolutionary age. The seeds of the February And October Revolution were actually planted in the first place by the Decembrists' uprising. The history of 19th-century Russia is, in a sense, the history of revolution and expansion. Russia's territorial expansion has always been in both the east and the west, but russia's advance in the east is much smoother than in the west.
Historically, both Poland and Sweden were strong rivals for Russia's westward expansion. The largest country in Europe at that time was not Russia, but the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which covered an area of 1 million square kilometers. At that time, Poland was punching Russia and stepping on Germany, known as the pingdu town of Lu Dabobo. Sweden at that time was also a major European power that occupied what is now Finland and the Baltic Sea region. From 1558 onwards, Russia repeatedly competed with Poland, Sweden, Denmark and other countries for access to the Baltic Sea, but it was not until the end of the Great Northern War in 1721 that Russia realized this long-cherished wish.
It took Russia 163 years to realize its long-cherished wish to obtain access to the Baltic Sea, and during the same period Russia's eastward advance was much faster than this. Because the climate in Siberia was too harsh, it has not been able to form a strong indigenous people, but is widely distributed with many primitive fishing and hunting tribes. Today's Russian census shows that there are as many as 176 ethnic groups, large and small, most of which are distributed in Siberia and the Far East, but the population of each ethnic group is very small.
The indigenous peoples of Siberia were sparsely populated and still in a relatively primitive form of fishing and hunting tribes, unable to confront the Russians who were already armed with arquebusiers, so the Russians were able to advance eastward to the Pacific coast relatively smoothly. By 1637 the Russians had advanced to the sea of Okhotsk. In 1697 the Russian expansion in the Far East had advanced to kamchatka. The vast expanse of Siberia was thus conquered by Russia. As a result, about three-quarters of Russia's territory is now located in Asia.
In the process of rapid eastward expansion, Russia's national strength also increased, so the Russian people's national consciousness began to rise. Russia is only one of many great powers in Europe, far from being able to stand out from everything; yet its continued expansion in Asia has multiplied Russian confidence. The Late 19th Century Russian writer Dostoevsky wrote in his work What Asia Is for Us: "Russia must be liberated from the bondage of European imperialism. In Europe we are clowns and slaves, but in Asia we are masters."
Dostoevsky was not alone in this view: the composer Hayel Glinka drew inspiration from the life of the ancient Central Asian nomads for his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila; Alexander Borodin composed the symphonic poem "On the Steppes of Central Asia Minor". More and more Western Europeans, after listening to the Russian music of this period, almost all agree that the oriental charm of Russian music has become more and more pronounced. In the 19th century, Russia and Britain engaged in a geopolitical contest for the hinterland of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Persia, and China's Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Tibet.
This century-long geopolitical game has involved Persia, Afghanistan, China and other countries. With the annexation of Central Asia by Tsarist Russia, Russia became a nomadic country in western Europe. Of course, not all Russians adhere to the orientalist consciousness, in fact, in the second half of the 19th century, Russia almost became the meeting place of various new ideas in the East and the West: authoritarianism, constitutionalism, communism, anarchism... Almost any current of thought that existed in the world at that time can be found in Russia.
Russian writers criticize the decay of serfdom and absolutism with words, Russian musicians use melodies to express indictions of despotism, Russian scientists break through stereotyped superstitions in the spirit of exploration, and it is in this state that Russia contributes to the world Leo Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Mendeleev, etc., while Russian revolutionaries are eager to try to create a new world. In addition to studying the two currents of Thought of the West and Orientalism, a completely new trend of thought gradually emerged during this period.
At the heart of this trend of thought is the emphasis: "We in Russia belong neither to the West nor to the East." We are a unique presence in human civilization, and we are Russia." There is a proverb in Russia that "a great man or nation will never be bothered to play a supporting role on the stage of human history, or even to play a protagonist, but must play a unique role". Russia's geopolitical loneliness has, in part, given rise to a strong grand national complex – russians are eager to prove to the world that they are a unique player in the stage of human history.
Putin once said: "Russia has and only two allies – the army and the navy." The implication is that Russia is lonely internationally, so it cannot be relied on by anyone but itself. Russians have a similar concept of "God's chosen people" to Israelis: Russians consider themselves to be God's chosen people. Russians consider their culture unique and proud of it. Since 1472, when Grand Duke Ivan III of Moscow married the Byzantine princess Sophia, he called himself the "Third Rome".
Russians are proud to inherit the Orthodox tradition from the Byzantine Empire: Russia, as the only Orthodox power, is looked at differently by the West, but the Russians are distinguished by their very different humanistic qualities from Western Europe. The Russians also believe that they have saved Europe and the West three times in history: the first was the barrier played by Russia when the Mongol invasion of Europe saved the western European countries from the fate of being conquered by the Mongols; the second was to defeat Napoleon, who tried to annex all of Europe; the third was to liberate Europe under Nazi occupation.
As everyone knows, the first salvation of Europe in the hearts of Russians is precisely regarded by Western Europeans as ironclad evidence of Russia's conquest by the Mongols, so Western European countries have always believed that Russia is a country influenced by the Mongols in the East. As a Slavic family, Orthodox Russia and Western European countries are ethnically and sectarianly incompatible. More than two hundred years of Mongol rule led to a huge political, economic, and social divide between Russia and Western European countries: Western European countries prospered after the Renaissance and great voyages; Russia has long retained a tradition of feudal absolutism and serfdom.
For a long time, Western European countries have always held an inherent prejudice against Russia: Russia was only considered to have literature by Western Europeans until pushkin was born, Russia was only considered to have natural science by Western Europeans until the birth of the periodic table, and russia was not considered to have musical art by Western Europeans until the birth of Tchaikovsky. Today's Russia has a vast territory of 17,075,400 square kilometers and a rich reserve of resources on this vast territory. During the Tsarist and Soviet eras, the territory was even larger – Russia's territory reached 22.8 million square kilometers at its peak.
Mackinder's geopolitical doctrine refers to Russia as a country that occupies the heart of international geopolitics. Surrounded on three sides by mountains and rivers flowing into inland lakes or the Arctic Ocean, the heart of Eurasia is inaccessible by sea and is a natural fortress. However, before the advent of the era of mechanized large-scale industry, Russia was subject to the cold latitude and the lack of access to the sea, it was difficult to industrialize the vast permafrost belt of Siberia, and it was difficult to carry out economic and cultural exchanges with the outside world, and at the same time, Russia was also bound by feudal serfdom.
Therefore, Russia's comprehensive national strength, which has a territory of more than 20 million square kilometers, has lagged behind the more advanced Western European and North American countries at the technical and institutional levels for a long time. The Second Industrial Revolution of the second half of the 19th century led to a leap forward in European and American civilization as a whole. In this process, the national strength of Britain, France, Germany, the United States and other countries has made a qualitative breakthrough. At this time, Russia lagged behind other powers in the development of mechanized large-scale industry under the constraints of the harsh natural environment and backward social structure, so Tsarist Russia became the "weak link of imperialism" at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Much of the inherent prejudice of Westerners against Russia was formed at this time. However, when the world shifted from a period of transition to a period of stable development, the primary factor determining the strength of each country was no longer innovation but volume. In the end, new technologies and new systems will always spread around the world – just as products such as the steam engine invented in Britain are bound to spread around the world. The global spread of new technologies has led to a certain gap between up-and-coming countries and advanced countries at the technical level, but the great narrowing of this gap has made there is no obvious generation gap between countries.
At this time, countries with large scale and volume, even if they are slightly behind in technology, can make up for their shortcomings through the model of insufficient quality and quantity. With the growing popularity of the Second Industrial Revolution around the world, Russia gained the ability to industrialize vast lands in a very short historical period of time: the Soviet Union transformed a huge agricultural stock into an industrialized country through two five-year plans. Even if only primary development is carried out in more than 20 million square kilometers, the scale effect of insufficient quality and quantity can be achieved.
As a result, Russia's national power has rapidly increased in a short period of time and has a subversive geopolitical advantage over its neighbors. Russia and the West have thus formed a competitive situation in which they catch up with each other: whenever there is a structural change in the world's political, economic, and military systems, Russia will be left behind by the West because of the lag of its own civilization and system; and when the world's political, economic, and military systems enter a stage of stable development, Russia's volume advantage will gradually make up for the lack of civilization, system, and technology.
The establishment of the Soviet Union created an ideological divide between Russia and the West. After the formation of the Cold War pattern, the so-called "Eastern countries" and "Western countries" are no longer just geographical concepts. At this time, "East" and "West" were more of a political concept. At this time, the so-called Western countries actually refer to the advanced capitalist countries that follow the United States politically, the corresponding Eastern countries refer to the countries of the Eastern European socialist camp with the Soviet Union as the core, and the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that do not follow the United States or the Soviet Union politically are called third world countries.
During the Cold War, the Western bloc and the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc sharply opposed each other for decades under their different ideologies: during this period, the countries of Western Europe were always full of fear of the steel torrent of the Warsaw Pact camp led by the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin naively thought that the reason why the West opposed the Soviet Union was due to the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism, and that the disappearance of ideological differences had cleared the obstacles to Russia's integration into the Western system. Russia in this period fully imitated the Political and Economic System of the West in its internal affairs, and repositioned the history of the Soviet era according to the logic of Western discourse.
At the same time, Russia is also actively working on a diplomatic line to improve relations with Western countries. Yeltsin's goodwill has also been echoed to some extent by the West: since 1991, Russian leaders have been observing as invited guests at the annual Meeting of the Group of Seven in the West. In 1997, then-US President Clinton invited Russian leader Boris Yeltsin to attend the meeting as an official participant and jointly issued a "Final Communiqué" in the name of the "Eight-Nation Summit" after the summit.
In 1998, Russia participated in the Birmingham Summit in the United Kingdom as a full member, and the Group of Seven officially evolved into the Group of Eight. However, the degree of recognition of Russia by Western countries is only that. After the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the original Warsaw Pact organization system no longer existed, and NATO, led by the United States, began to take the opportunity to expand eastward. NATO's eastward expansion has actually squeezed Russia's traditional geostrategic space, and Yeltsin, in order to avoid making Russia a target for Western countries to attack, proposed that Russia also wants to join NATO.
In fact, from Yeltsin to Putin, he has expressed his desire to join NATO three times, but the result of these three times is that the hot face is pasted on the cold ass of the other side. In fact, NATO actually treats Russia differently from other Eastern European countries on the issue of eastward expansion: NATO adopts a strategy of co-opting Eastern European countries, and the ultimate goal is to integrate these countries into NATO's framework system; however, Russia, a behemoth larger than other European countries combined, will undoubtedly greatly change the established power structure within NATO.
Even though Russia was in the throes of reform in the early days of the collapse of the Soviet Union, it could not be ignored by The West in terms of development potential. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia remained the largest country in the world by territory. Russia has a well-developed system of heavy industry and a good natural science foundation: the periodic table of chemical elements was invented by the Russians. Russia's mathematical genius is still sought after by major technology companies around the world. During the economic difficulties of the early days of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Academy of Sciences completed about 5,000 research projects.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's only superpower, and at this time the United States began to pursue a unilateral diplomatic line on a global scale, trying to maintain its hegemonic dominance on a global scale. For the United States as a world hegemon: the most taboo is the existence of regional hegemons, even if the United States as a global hegemon is stronger than the regional hegemon in terms of comprehensive strength, but after all, the strong dragon does not suppress the snake, if there is a regional hegemon in a certain region, then the regional hegemon can rely on natural geographical advantages to hinder the expansion of US interests in this region.
Russia has the strength of a regional hegemony due to its huge state size, strong military industry, and rich resource reserves. At the same time, the United States also needs to shape an external enemy to maintain a consistent position within NATO, and Russia is suitable for such a role. NATO not only refused to let Russia join, but also continued to expand into Russia's traditional strategic space, eventually squeezing all the way to Russia's doorstep. Putin, after recognizing NATO's strategic plan to blockade and encircle Russia, turned to maintaining a tough stance against Western countries to restore the self-confidence of the Russians as a great power.
The strategic squeeze on Russia by Western countries has always been a "two-legged walk": NATO squeezes Russia's strategic space politically and militarily, while the EU economically disintegrates Russia's traditional market range in Eastern Europe. Of course, the EU and NATO cannot be completely equated after all, and there is indeed a certain competitive relationship between EU countries and the United States, and Russia is not trying to win the support of EU countries: the Nord Stream project, as a typical project of cooperation between Russia and EU countries, has always been feared by the United States.
Despite the cooperative relationship between Russia and the EU, it is unrealistic for Russia to join the EU, at least for the time being. Although Russia is also a European country, it has always been regarded as an alternative by Western European countries, and peter the Great of Russia once carried out a comprehensive Westernization reform more than three hundred years ago, but Russia's unique geographical location and cultural history have made it an independent and independent state in Europe. To this day, Russia and Western European countries continue to have a historical state of distrust.
If Russia, a behemoth, is allowed to join the EU, is it the EU that has digested Russia? Or is Russia digesting the EU? At the same time, Russia's accession is bound to lead to a relative decline in the status of Germany, France and other major powers that originally occupied a dominant position within the EU, thus impacting the existing power structure within the EU, which is also what these countries do not want to see. What's more, although the EU and the United States objectively have a competitive relationship, in the end, the EU still needs to see the face of the United States in many aspects.
The question of whether Russia is an Eastern or Western country is not clear to the Russians themselves. As early as the 19th century, the famous Russian thinker Herzen called whether Russia was taking the Western or Eastern road the Sphinx mystery of the development of Russian history. Russia's coat of arms depicts a two-headed eagle, alluding to Russia's geography spanning two continents, East and West. In fact, it is this unique geographical location that spans east and west that shapes the unique national spirit of Russians.
In fact, it is difficult to say that Russia is an Eastern country, because its ethnic, religious, historical, and cultural Oriental genes are extremely small; but it is also difficult to say that Russia is a pureLy Western country. More than three hundred years ago, Peter the Great of Russia once carried out a comprehensive westernization reform, but Russia's unique geographical location and cultural history have made it an independent and independent state in Europe, so that many Western countries still regard Russia as a "white Tatar" with Mongolian blood, not to mention that there is still a practical interest between them.