Description
As multilateral relations between Western states and the Russian Federation increasingly deteriorated especially after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, strong anti-Western narratives and sentiments in Russia have once again caught the attention of the Western audience. The Western academia and the media, however, took Russian hostility as old news, a remnant from the Cold War era and failed to pay much attention. This paper argues that the contemporary anti-Western narratives in Russia significantly diverge from the prevailing anti-Western narratives during the Soviet period as well as the Tsarist period. There is a case to be made that the Western reckoning of its past and traditions in the last decades triggered a "postmodern anti-Westernism" in Russia where the Western Other is condemned for failing to preserve their Western heritage while a Russian image that continues to uphold "Western values" is promoted.
Anti-Western rhetoric in Russia has its roots in opposing the Westernising socio-political reforms of Peter the Great. Since then, those who were skeptical of the West and its values categorically rejected the idea that the Russian people belong to the Western civilisation, whether it be defined as Catholic or Capitalist. The anti-Western rhetoric of today, on the other hand, fundamentally argues that "Russia is a part of the Western civilisation", that refuses to follow the trajectory of West European and North American states. Hence, the dominant narrative of Russian anti-Westernism has shifted from pointing out the irredeemable corruption of "the West" as a concept to pointing out the irredeemable corruption of Western socieites.
All in all, during the Putin era Russia has embraced the idea of being a part of the Western family and this is in fact reflected in the contemporary narratives of anti-Westernism. Indeed, unlike Islamist anti-Westernism, for instance, where any cultural affiliation with the West is renounced, the Kremlin promulgates a narrative where Russia is the representative of an alternative or even the authentic Western civilisation vis-à-vis a so-called Western world who is actively in rejection of its moral and cultural roots.
