Myths about Russia

Vladimir Medinskiy

• Publisher: Glagoslav Publications B.V.
• ISBN:
  9781782670896
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

Russia's rich history is full of secrets: there's not another country in the world with so many skeletons in its closet. Vladimir Medinskiy's new book offers the reader the opportunity to get better acquainted with some myths about Russia in an quick, easy and entertaining way. The book covers some of the most interesting, colourful and controversial debates in Russian history and the most popular myths about Russia: vodka and its role in some incredible adventures, Russia's problems (apart from the roads and having too many fools), some lessons from the Bastille and the Civil War, the last testament of Peter the Great, amongst many others. In his book the author tackles some of the most pressing questions about Russia: whether you can trust Russians, the meaning of progress in Russian terms, who really won at the Battle of Borodino two hundred years ago, why Russians call Napoleon 'the consummate liar', and also whether Russians are the true originators of petrol, mobile phones and the cinema. Myths About Russia is Medinskiy's original and humorous take on the subject: in this book, he diligently unravels the myths surrounding this vast and complex nation, picking them apart to uncover the truth about Russia and her fascinating history.
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Vladimir Medinskiy is a Russian statesman, professor, essayist and novelist. Since May 2012 he has held the post of Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation. Although he is the author of several popular books on advertising, PR and history, his Myths About Russia series is Medinskiy's most famous, having been the bestselling Russian popular history series of recent years. In 2012 he published his first work of fiction, The Wall, which critics have called one of the best examples of the revival of the historical novel in Russia today. Medinskiy studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and graduated with honours from the Faculty of International Journalism. During his university years, he also participated in the activities of student journalist associations, worked as a press service intern at the Soviet (and then Russian) Embassy in Washington, D.C. From 1992 to 1998 he was head of the PR agency Ya Corporation. After gaining his degree at the Moscow State Institute in 1997, Vladimir Medinskiy began his teaching career in the university's Faculty of Journalism. He gained his doctorate in 1999 and since then has taught as a professor at the same university. From 2010 to its liquidation in 2012, Medinskiy was appointed as a member of the Presidential Commission to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests. In July 2011, he became a member of the board of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, which aims to promote Russian language and culture through various programs internationally.

Chapter 1

Foreword

There is no people about which so many lies, absurdities and slander have been made up as the Russian people.

Catherine the Great, née German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg

A great many books have been published in the West, with various degrees of impartiality and historical credibility that look at not only the history of Russia but also what has been called the Russians’ “national character”. Unfortunately, in such literature one can hardly hear the side of the Russians themselves. It is precisely for that reason that we have decided to offer the English-speaking reader an overview of the opinions — that have developed over the centuries — about the Russians, their strong points and their flaws, an overview made, as it were, “in the first person”.

Every country has a certain image in the eyes of its citizens and of foreigners. Swedes call themselves a calm, reasonable people for whom democratic values, social equality, and nature are foremost. The English are convinced that their nation is one of the most civilized, if one is speaking of good manners and knowing how to carry oneself in society. They consider themselves to be law-abiding, polite, magnanimous and gentlemanly, steadfast and just. They are also extremely proud of their self-deprecating sense of humor, holding it to be unquestionable proof of their magnanimity.

The Germans consider themselves to be a humble, simple and honest people. They are to some degree Romantics, to some degree philosophers, and they are undoubtedly a highly educated nation.

Also Russians have an image of themselves. Russians consider themselves to be a proud and hard-working people with a sense of joie de vivre, able to survive in difficult circumstances, and they are also complicated, spiritual, and creative.

Unfortunately, as can be seen in practice, a people’s self-identification sometimes has nothing to do with how those in neighboring countries perceive them. Just think of how many myths have arisen about Russia and the Russian people! Among these myths, some are fairly reflective of reality, while others are silly, uninformed, or even completely ridiculous. For a long time, especially during the Cold War, stereotypes about Russia came down to bears, vodka, ballet, and icons. Today these myths have slightly changed, and now Russia is seen as a country ruled by the mafia, where crime and criminals flourish, and drunkenness is widespread. If one trusts the results of studies carried out by the North Sweden European Office under the title of Våga satsa på Ryssland! (Don’t Be Afraid to Do Business in Russia), a Russian person’s working day begins as follows: they wake up in the morning, play the accordion, drink a glass of vodka, eat porridge, and head off to work. There is still another cliché, that Russia is cold and terribly dirty.

According to sociologists, a myth is a firm idea arising in the depths of individual or mass consciousness and making one’s own desires true or making the impossible possible. A myth is the self-delusion of a person or a nation, a freely-held individual or collective illusion. In a practical sense myths, or rather stereotypes, are supposed to lessen one’s discomfort in encountering a foreign culture, they describe people’s expectations and the rituals they perform that allow them to relate to what is “foreign”. However, myths also prevent us from looking impartially at how things really are; myths lead to mistakes and sometimes to tragic consequences.

The publicist and social activist Ivan Solonevich wrote in his book National Monarchy (1991) about how German “Soviet experts” looked at the USSR before the Second World War: “The background of all foreign understanding about Russia has been set by Russian literature, such as Oblomov and Manilov, useless people, poor people, idiots and barefoot people... Against this background emigration has left its own mark, first the pre-World War I revolutionary emigration and then the post-war counter-revolutionary emigration. They both told lies. The pre-World War I emigrants went on about Asiatic despotism, which reduced the nation to miserable slavery, the post-war emigration went about an Asiatic barbarity among the people who tore down their aristocratic estates, which were the only toehold of European culture on the vastness of the Tartar steppes.” By depicting Russia as a “giant with feet of clay”, Hitler made the same mistake that Napoleon did, with the same predictable result.

The history of Russia is inseparable from the history of Europe. Therefore, in considering various events that lay the foundation for the emergence of a myth, we could not help but trace historical parallels, we could not help but show how similar events served as a source of pride to one nation and shame to another. However, this book is not historical research, especially since, as one man quipped, “History is sometimes what never happened, written by people who were never there”, and historical evidence tends to be highly contradictory.

Let’s leave history to historians. This doesn’t mean that I as an author don’t care about historical accuracy, but Myths about Russia is historical journalism. In this book I have relied on famous works by Russian historians as well as the testimony of foreign observers, but the facts described in these sources have been chosen according to a certain sequence and from a certain point of view.

Alexandre Dumas wrote that for him, history is only a nail that he hung his paintings on. I will carry this idea further: for me history is only the frame for the painting. The main events in my book are not happening in the distant past but right now, in our own minds, and beyond them in the social consciousness of Russia and the world.

Let’s try to figure out what the origins are of myths about Russia, let’s try to evaluate the facts with the impartial view of an interested and curious reader. I would be happy to hear what you think on the forum at the address: forum.medinskiy.ru

Vladimir Medinskiy

Chapter 2

Myth 1: On criminality, the merchant’s word and official corruption

Criminality in earlier times meant any illegal action: arson, pimping, forgery of documents, crimes against the state, etc.

Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic, 1892

It is often thought that a general criminality, corruption and bribery has distinguished the Russians since the formation of the Moscow state in the 15th century, and that no one in the country has ever challenged this. The fact that Russia hasn’t been completely ransacked means only one thing: it’s too rich a country. Any outbreak of corruption is nothing new, only the continuation of a venerable national tradition. But is this really true?

The roots of the myth

As in practically every case, the genesis of this myth goes back to the accounts of foreigners who visited Russia in the 16th to the 18th centuries. “They have a strong tendency to do evil, they readily lie and steal,” claims Barberini. [1] “They are distinguished by a deceitful character. Muscovites are considered more sneaky and deceitful than all the other Russians,” Siegmund Freiherr von Herberstein was convinced. [2] Naturally there’s no sense in asking who exactly “considered” them more sneaky and deceitful than other Russians.

Some certainty was brought to this matter by the German adventurer Heinrich von Staden [3], who had become an officer of the Tsar’s political police. Staden assumed that the merchants and businessmen of Muscovy “lie constantly and readily cheat people,” that one should not loan them money as they will not repay it, and any valuables which one leaves unattended for even a second will be immediately stolen. But as the Russian saying goes, “The good deeds a man does are not talked about while his bad deeds become widely known,” and the myth about the ineradicable criminality of the Russians came to be repeated again and again, without caring about the grounds for it. We recall however that Siegmund Freiherr von Herberstein wrote his Notes on Muscovite Affairs after he had spent a total of nine months in the country as part of a diplomatic mission, acting as an intermediary in peace negotiations between Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in 1517 and 1526, and both times his efforts proved unsuccessful. As far as Heinrich von Staden is concerned, he came to Muscovy and talked a lot of rubbish to the local officials about his own war exploits and his great political importance at the finest courts of Europe. Staden left Muscovy with several business partners’ shares, which he shamelessly admits in his writings. In his assessment of Staden’s work, the Russian historian Vladimir Korbin notes that “The author of this account is so devoid of morality that he feels no shame about his most depraved deeds.” Meanwhile, there are completely opposed accounts by other foreigners on the moral qualities of the Russians — nothing even slightly resembling the stream of hostility and accusations of criminality that arose after the 18th century.

Scandinavians visiting the old state of Rus’ spoke highly of certain qualities of the Russians that, in their view, they themselves lacked. Russians are depicted as honest and reliable people, who can be taken at their word, whom one could entrust with large amounts of money and who know how to do business — on a large scale and sensibly. [4] Muslim accounts also say this about Russians. [5]

The 17th century was the height of the glorious age of discovery, a transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era, when European countries established their influence over other continents. By this time the New World, India and China, Australia and New Zealand had been discovered by Europeans. Following on Portugal, France, England and, slightly later, Holland became colonial empires too. There was a marked increase in the flow of gold and precious metals brought to metropolitan centers. During this time, there was not so great an increase in the production of goods. In the 18th century European society underwent a crisis that affected the majority of countries on the continent and impacted the economies of many of them.

A revolutionary overthrow of feudal states and the development of a capitalist manufacturing began in Western Europe. At the same time as the English bourgeois revolution, revolutionary movements arose in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Poland, and other countries. However, feudalism remained on the European continent. For an entire century the rulers of these states would continue to apply a feudalistic policy of “stabilization”. Nearly everywhere throughout Europe feudal or absolute monarchies were preserved, and the aristocracy remained the dominant class of society.

Absolute monarchy was strengthened also in Russia. At the same time, Russia in the 17th century continued to conquer the vast spaces of Eastern Europe and Siberia. The 1654 union of Ukraine with Russia dates from this era. The political position of Russia became stronger. In the 17th century Russia rose up in international relations as a great power, extending from the Dnieper in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. The powerful Russian state turned into a serious competitor in trade as well, as a result of which the great tradition arose of complaining about the difficulty of doing business in Russia. As usual, the myth was not without foundation, but the reality was distorted like in a funhouse mirror, taking on a truly epic character. There was a basis for the myth: together with the strengthening of absolute rule, the positions of state officials were also strengthened, which led to more abuse of power.

Alas, the myth about every Russian being a criminal emerged not without some help from Russian writers. Russian classics are full of stories about money-grubbing, thievery, and embezzlement. Let’s take, for example, the novels of Leo Tolstoy: the criminality of his characters is depicted as something commonplace, as a matter of course. In the Sevastopol Sketches many places are simply frightening to read. While some Russians heroically defend Sebastopol during the Crimean War, spilling their blood on the ramparts, others calmly embezzle funds meant for the army to buy food, clothing and weapons. They steal to such an unbelievable degree that it just takes one’s breath away.

Also Stepan Oblonsky in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina was hired on one condition, that he would not steal much. Such a man was sought after — he may know nothing of the workings of the railway, for as long as he did not have a habit of stealing.

In Alexander Ostrovsky’s A Profitable Position the whole plot turns on the fact that the main character, full of lofty ideals, doesn’t want to accept bribes, and the people around him think him an idiot. They put pressure on him, and when his beloved wife threatens to leave him, he gives up and goes to his father-in-law, asking him to find him a “cushy place”. [6] However, by that time his father-in-law gets caught in the act and is disgraced.

In Ostrovsky’s works all the wealth of the merchants is either obtained by taking some off the top, or through other dishonest means. His characters declare fictional bankruptcies, marry women from wealthy families, expropriate orphans’ funds, or make shop clerks cheat their employers. In works of this great Russian dramatist there’s not a single honest entrepreneur who would make money in an honest way. For Ostrovsky, a merchant is a zhulik, a swindler.

There’s no need to prove something that’s obvious, so I won’t try to convince the reader that hard work is the basis for every single fortune created out of nothing, whether large or small. That said, if the estates of Ryabushinksky, Morozov, Mamontov, and Tretyakov had been built up solely through scheming and cheating, there would not have been such a huge development in the Russian economy in the second half of the 19th century. But it is as if the classic Russian authors made an agreement: if someone is at the court, he’s embezzling from the treasury; if someone is a public servant, he’s taking bribes; and if someone is a merchant, he’s a swindler and thief. If we take this position found in Russian literature seriously, we end up concluding that “they steal” is really the most honest, picture-perfect definition of the essence of Russian life. But as we all know, the task of literature is to “lance the boils of society”. As the noted Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “A poet in Russia is more than just a poet.” The poet (and the writer, we might add) in Russia is the foremost of all a citizen.

A poet in Russia is more than just a poet.

[Only those have been destined to be born poets in Russia

in whom a proud spirit of citizenship wanders

and does not find comfort or rest.]

In this way the myth was formed about the extraordinary perennial criminality of the Russians, and about the fact that among the people themselves there has never been a distinction between an honest, hard-working man and a thief.

But let us look at Russian history impartially, let us look at how Russians use t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Notes