5 - Russia's national identity and the accursed question: a strong state and a weak society

Summary

The Russian people is not a people; it is a humanity.

Konstatin Aksakov

Before Peter the Great Russia was merely a people (narod); she became a nation (natsiya) thanks to the changes initiated by the reformer.

Visarion Belinskii

Our Fatherland is suffering, not from the incursion of a score of foreign tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in addition to the lawful administration, there has grown up a second administration possessed of infinitely greater powers than the system established by law.

Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

At first glance, the development of national identity in Russia and Poland appears to run along parallel lines. Both peoples converted to Christianity in the second half of the tenth century; the church helped to shape each country's national identity; for a long time both the Poles and the Russians saw themselves as bastions of Christendom, defending European civilization from Asiatic hoards; they have both felt at one time or another unappreciated by the West Europeans; and until recently the Poles and the Russians tended to characterize themselves as “civilizations” rather than narrow ethnic polities.

Despite these similarities, a tremendous gulf divides these two Slavic nations. For example, the founders of the Polish state embraced the Roman Catholicism of Western Europe, whereas the rulers of Kievan Rus adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine empire. The Asiatic hordes from which the Russians protected Europe were the Mongols, while the Asiatic hordes from which the Poles protected Europe were the Russians.