Is Russia evil?

As they say in the media, "the answer will suprprise you!"

Sorry for the clickbait in the headline, just couldn’t resist. Of course, it’s not about being evil. However, there are three things about Russia I want to discuss here. The first two are the most obvious: contemporary Russia is imperialist and revanchist.

How do I define these terms? As always, I try to make it simple. There are countries where the idea of “let’s invade someone” is considered outlandish and just wouldn’t fly in the elections. They are not imperialist.

However, there are countries where most of the public would actually say “great idea, let’s do it!”. Sometimes, their leaders invade someone just to IMPROVE their ratings! These countries are imperialist.

Is Russia the only imperialist country in the world? Of course not! But let’s agree first, this distinction is real and palpable. For instance, Canada and USA look very similar from the Eastern European perspective, and yet one is very much un-imperialist (the prime minister saying “let’s invade someone” would precipitate a snap no confidence vote), the other the exact opposite. It’s similar in Eastern Europe: while in Russia, invading someone always seems a good idea, it is not so in Czechia (and Russians, Czechs and the other Slavs use the same words to order “two beers” at the bar).

Back in a day, Portugal used to be an imperialist country - and their propagada was inciting national pride by the fact that they are colonies, hence “PORTUGAL IS NOT A SMALL COUNTRY”!

Having defined imperialism, let’s move to revanchism. Some countries USED TO be imperialist in their past. They used to own a lot of territories now owned by someone else - and yet they are cool with losing it all. Think of Sweden and Denmark, both used to own almost everything around the Baltic sea and a kitchen sink in Warsaw, and yet in either of them, the idea of “let’s reconquer Norway, it rightly belongs to us, because it used to be ours centuries ago!” wouldn’t fly in a stand-up comedy club, let alone the Rikstag.

But there is a country where the parliament would applaud the speech like “let’s invade Estonia, it is ours ever since the treaty of 1710!”. Can you guess which one? This is tricky. Estonia used to be owned by Sweden, Denmark and (partially) Poland!

But of course it’s not tricky. You know it already. In any non-revanchist country, this idea would have been rejected. In my country, it’s would be not even rejected by the parliament. Politicians saying “we need to reconquer what used to be ours!” are not in the parliament, and it’s not because they lost the election. They could not gather enough signatures to run in the election. In my country, revanchism is reserved for some social media troll accounts.

But obviously - there is acountry where the idea of “let’s reconquer Crimea, it has been ours ever since 1783!” will cause standing ovation in the parliament. Revanchism is not in the mainstream of Russian politics, it is THE mainstream. The late Alexei Navalny, murdered by Putin, used to be the opposition leader, and yet he supported Russian revanchism. His defenders claim he had to do it, otherwise he wouldn’t count in Russian politics - but that’s my point.

If you want to exist in Russian politics, you need to keep saying “we need to reconquer what used to be ours, from Finland to Armenia”. If you say in Russia “let bygones be bygones” - just like we, in the non-revanchist countries, talk about the realms our ancestors lost decades or centuries ago - you are bygone yourself.

“Nem! Nem! Soha!” maps are very popular in Hungary, asserting generations of Hungarians that their country will “NO! NO! NEVER!” accept the border changes of 1918

Russia is not the only revanchist country in the world. Hungary comes into mind, with their ubiquitous “Nem! Nem! Soha!” maps. However, they are not imperialist - not even Orban would do something as crazy as actually invading Croatia to “reclaim Zagrab”. That would finally tank him.

This combination of revanchism and imperialism is extremely dangerous - and just to make a long story short, I would call it “evil”. When you live next door to Russia, you never know when they will invade you. It’s not as simple as “don’t anger the bear and everything will be all right”. They might invade you anyway. The Baltic states in 1940 did all they could “not to anger the bear”. They signed treaties of friendship and cooperation, to no avail. It only makes the situation worse, because if you sign this kind of treaty, Russian troops can just roam freely in the country and you can’t even plan a coherent defense in case of invasion.

And it’s not like the invasion will be victimless. Estonia did not resist the Soviets and yet they committed a lot of senseless atrocities, such as shooting down the last civilian airliner leaving Tallinn Airport, Aero Flight 1631. Simply out of spite.

What I described above should be fairly obvious - it’s just facts and common sense. However, I’m old enough to know that the Jeffrey Sachs fans will just deny everything. Well, I’m glad to explore it further, if someone has any questions.

There is also a third aspect that could be a bit more controversial. While one can say about me that I am politically Russophobic (guilty as charged!), I am also a bit Russophilic meaning that I fell in love with Russian literature back when I was in high school (that was a long time ago). I will now make a sweeping generalization you might find controversial - and I would really love to argue about it with someone who reads more than I do.

“Durak” - “The Fool” is a 2014 Russian film, repeating the classic motiv of the triumpf of evil. The main protagonist (center) is the only decent person in town, trying to prevent a disaster: there’s a residential building that is bound to collapse! He tries to alert the authorities (who embezzled the money for the reconstruction, so they are interested mostly in the cover-up). Spoiler: he achieves nothing but more deaths, he destroys his own marriage, he ends up with nothing. If you know it’s Russia, it’s not a spoiler.

A frequent motif of Russian culture is the triumph of evil and nihilistic denial that virtues such as Truth or Justice even exist. Some Russian authors were true nihilists, like Eduard Limonov, the co-founder of the National Bolshevik Party (whose name was a cute wordplay on National Socialism; so apart from actual nazis, Russia also has nazbols). Some Russian authors were anti-nihilists (most notably Fyodor Dostoevsky), but they wrote about evil with such passion it created a kind of misaimed fandom. Some Russian authors were “good nihilists”, aiming to destroy the obsolete values in hope a new, better society will emerge from their ruins (Turgenev, Chernyshevsky).

You can actually draw a Russian nihilism scheme similar to the Dungeons & Dragons alignment table. There are characters being just pure evil, like Dostoyevsky’s Stavrogin. He is evil to the point where the good old Western villains would run away in tears on meeting him. Gogol excelled in creating characters of “likable evil” - they one that will kill you just like any other evil, but he will crack a joke or two, so you will laugh along as he prepares his torture devices. And probably the most dangerous are the “idealistic evil” characters, like Raskolnikov - who kill because they think they do it for the better good.

The hilarious comedy “The Government Inspector” by Nikolai Gogol is a proof that evil can be funny and quite likable. It tells a story of a town where everybody and everything is corrupt, essentially the same story as “Durak” above. This is 1836, and that is 2014, not much changed (Gogol’s own designs for his play, via Wikipedia).

Does it matter? Suppose for a while it actually does, just for argument’s sake.

Then if you are raised on Russian literature as a young person (and I can empathize with that for the reasons described above), the only choice for your adult life is what kind of evil do you want to become. Alternatively, you might choose a non-evil path, but in Russian culture this kind of character is bound to lose & die, for Evil must triumph in the end.

The mastermind of the first Russian invasion of 2014 Igor Girkin/Strelkov, is very well versed in Russian literature. Not only in the classic-classics, like Dostoyevsky - but also on the modern classics, like Strugatsky brothers. I frequently quoted him here.

I think Girkin very consciously shaped himself as the “idealistic nihilist”, doing the most horrible things, causing thousands of deaths, ordering to shoot down a civilian airliner, etc. - in belief he was bringing some kind of shining future for Mother Russia. The same is true about Lenin, who was inspired by the classic novel on “idealistic nihilism”, “What Is To Be Done” by Chernyshevsky.

The late Prigozhin was an epitome of the “likable evil”, straight from Gogol and Dostoyevsky. Of course, not because he read them, but because they based their characters on actual Russian types (Dostoyevsky’s inspiration was a guy he met in prison, who murdered his father for inheritance, and apart from that tiny detail, he was the nicest fella he ever met). And Putin - as I said many times, is a classic “pakhan”, pure evil feared by lesser evils.

Evil and nihilism in Russian literature are what Wild West and cowboys are for American literature. It’s their specialite de la maison. For Ukrainian literature, it’s freedom - beginning with Taras Shevchenko, a liberated serf, up to Serhij Zhadan.

But again, I don’t have a degree in literature studies, so while I’m fairly certain about the first two point that I made (“Russia is evil because it is imperialist and revanchist”), I’m open to discussion on the third one. In fact, I’d love to talk to a fellow Dostoyevsky afficionados.