Abstract
For many analysts the term
Russky mir, or Russian World,
epitomizes an expansionist and messianic Russian foreign policy, the
perverse intersection of the interests of the Russian state and the
Russian Orthodox Church.
Little noted is that the term actually means something quite
different for each party. For the state it is a tool for expanding
Russia's cultural and political influence, while for the Russian
Orthodox Church it is a spiritual concept, a reminder that through the
baptism of
Rus, God consecrated these people to the task of building a
Holy Rus.
The close
symphonic relationship between the Orthodox Church and state
in Russia thus provides Russian foreign policy with a definable moral framework,
one that, given its popularity, is likely to continue to shape the country's
policies well into the future.
"For us the rebirth of Russia is inextricably tied, first of all,
with spiritual rebirth . . .and if Russia is the largest Orthodox power [pravoslavnaya
dershava], then Greece and Athos are its source." —Vladimir
Putin during a state visit to Mount Athos, September 2005.2
Foreign policy is about interests and values. But while Russia's
interests are widely debated, her values are often overlooked, or
treated simplistically as the antithesis of Western values.
But, as Professor Andrei Tsygankov points out in his book
Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin, Russia's relations with the West go through cycles that reflect its notion of honor.
3
By honor he means the basic moral principles that are popularly cited
within a culture as the reason for its existence, and that inform its
purpose when interacting with other nations.
Over the past two centuries, in pursuit of its honor, Russia has
cooperated with its European neighbors, when they have acknowledged it
as part of the West; responded defensively, when they have excluded
Russia; and assertively, when they have been overtly hostile to Russia's
sense of honor.
Sometimes a nation's sense of its honor overlaps with present-day
interests; but it cannot be reduced to the national interest alone,
because political leaders must respond to existential ideals and
aspirations that are culturally embedded. A nation's sense of honor,
therefore, serves as a baseline for what might be called the
long-term national interest.
According to Tsygankov, in Russia's case the long-term national
interest revolves around three constants: First, sovereignty or
"spiritual freedom;" second, a strong and socially protective state that
is capable of defending that sovereignty; and third, cultural loyalty
to those who share Russia's sense of honor, wherever they may be.
4
All three of these involve, to a greater or lesser extent, the defense
of Orthodox Christianity, of the Russian Orthodox Church, and of
Orthodox Christians around the world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin succinctly encapsulated Russia's
sense of honor during his state visit to Mount Athos in 2005, when he
referred to Russia as a
pravoslavnaya derzhava, or simply, an Orthodox power.
Putin on the Moral Crisis of the West
Little noted at the time, in retrospect, the phrase seems to presage
the turn toward Russian foreign policy assertiveness that Western
analysts first noticed in his February 2007 remarks at the Munich
Security Conference.
5
Since then, Putin has often returned to the dangers posed by American
unilateralism, and even challenged the cherished notion of American
exceptionalism.
6
But, until his speech at the 2013 Valdai Club meeting, he did not
explicitly say what values Russia stood for, what its sense of honor
demanded. It was at this meeting that Putin first laid out his vision of
Russia's mission as an Orthodox power in the 21st century.
Putin began his speech by noting that the world has become a place
where decency is in increasingly short supply. Countries must therefore
do everything in their power to preserve their own identities and
values, for "without spiritual, cultural and national self-definition . .
. . one cannot succeed globally."
7
Without a doubt, he said, the most important component of a country's
success is the intellectual, spiritual, and moral quality of its
people. Economic growth and geopolitical influence depend increasingly
on whether a country's citizens feel they are one people sharing a
common history, common values, and common traditions. All of these, said
Putin, contribute to a nation's self-image, to its national ideal.
Russia needs to cultivate the best examples from the past and filter
them through its rich diversity of cultural, spiritual, and political
perspectives. Diversity of perspectives is crucial for Russia because it
was born a multinational and multiconfessional state, and remains so
today.
8
Indeed, pluriculturalism is potentially one of Russia's main
contributions to global development. "We have amassed a unique
experience of interacting with, mutually enriching, and mutually
respecting diverse cultures," he told his audience. "Polyculturalism and
polyethnicity are in our consciousness, our spirit, our historical
DNA."
9
Polyculturalism is also one of the driving factors behind the
Eurasian Union, a project initiated by the president of Kazakstan,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, that Putin has wholeheartedly embraced.
Designed to move Eurasia from the periphery of global development to
its center, it can only be successful, Putin says, if each nation
retains its historical identity and develops it alongside the identity
of the Eurasian region as a whole. Creating a culture of unity in
diversity within this region, says Putin, would contribute greatly to
both pluralism and stability in world affairs.
But, in a jab at the West, Putin notes that some aspects of
pluriculturalism are no longer well received in the West. The values of
traditional Christianity that once formed the very basis of Western
civilization have come under fire there, and in their place Western
leaders are promoting a unipolar and monolithic worldview. This, he
says, is "a rejection . . . of the natural diversity of the world
granted by God. . . . Without the values of Christianity and other world
religions, without the norms of morality and ethics formed over the
course of thousands of years, people inevitably lose their human
dignity."
10
The abandonment of traditional Christian values has led to a moral crisis in
the West. Russia, Putin says, intends to counter this trend by defending Christian
moral principles both at home and abroad.
Putin's call for greater respect for traditional cultural and religious identities
was either missed or ignored in the West. One reason, I suspect, is that it
was couched in a language that Western elites no longer use.
For most of the 20th century, Western social science has insisted
that modernization would render traditional cultural and religious
values irrelevant. The modern alternative, which pioneer political
scientists Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba labelled "civic culture,"
gravitates toward cultural homogeneity and secularism. These qualities
lead to political stability and economic progress. The pattern is
exemplified by Anglo-American societies which, they conclude, form the
optimal model for a modern society.
11
Half a century later, with the rise of China and the collapse of the
Soviet Union, it no longer seems so obvious that secularism and
homogeneity are the only paths to national success. Scholars
increasingly speak of multiple paths to modernity, and even a resurgence
of religion.
12
Another reason why Putin's message was overlooked is that he is
calling upon the West to re-connect with its Byzantine heritage, a
heritage that it has often dismissed as non-Western. In Putin's mind,
reincorporating Eastern Christianity into Western civilization reveals
Russia as a vital part of Western civilization, and requires that Russia
be part of any discussion of Western values.
Putin's speech in 2013 was an assertive and optimistic statement of
Russian values, and the cultural and spiritual reasons why he felt that
Russian influence in the world was bound to grow. By 2014, however, the
world had changed. A major reason is the conflict within Ukraine, which
many in the West define as a conflict over world order stemming from a
profound values gap between Russia and the West.
Russia, by contrast, sees itself as defending not only vital
strategic interests in Ukraine, but also its core values of honor, such
as spiritual freedom, cultural loyalty, and pluralism. It may seem
strange to many in the West, but Russia's attitude on the Ukrainian
crisis is inflexible precisely because it sees itself as occupying the
moral high ground in this dispute.
A key reason why Western moral criticisms of Russian actions have so
little traction among Russians is that the Russia Orthodox Church has
regained its traditional pre-eminence as the institution that defines
the nation's moral vision and sense of honor. Looking beyond Russia's
borders, that vision has come to be known as the
Russky mir or Russian World.
Russian World or the Communities of Historical Rus?
It is important to distinguish how this term is used by the Russian state from how it is used by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The use of this term as a "community of Orthodox Christians living in
unity of faith, traditions and customs," goes back to at least the beginning
of the 19th century, but it was re-purposed as a political concept in the early
1990s by Pyotr Shedrovitsky, an influential political consultant interested
in the role that cultural symbols could play in politics. He believed that creating
a network of mutually reinforcing social structures in the former Soviet states
among people who continue to think and speak in Russian—the "Russky
mir"—could be politically advantageous to Russia.
13
Its practical foreign policy appeal stemmed from the fact that, by claiming
to speak on behalf of nearly 300 million Russian speakers, a weakened Russia
would instantly become a key regional player, as well as an influential political
force within the countries of the former Soviet Union.
This notion resonated within the Yeltsin administration which, in the
mid-1990s was already searching for a "Russian Idea" around which to
consolidate the nation and promote a new democratic consensus.
14
Members of the Institute of Philosophy at the Russian Academy of
Sciences were tasked to research this concept, but although it
influenced sections of Russia's first foreign policy doctrine in 1996,
it ultimately ran out of steam. As those involved in this project later
explained to me, there were simply too many disparate "Russian Ideas" to
choose from, and no consensus within the presidential administration or
the Institute of Philosophy on which version to support.
More than a decade would pass before the term was used by the head of
the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. This occurred in 2009 at
the Third Assembly of the Russian World, when Patriarch Kirill spoke of
how the
Russky mir, or
Holy Rus as he also called it, should respond to the challenges of globalization.
15
The Church, he said, emphasizes the importance of spiritual bonds over the
divisions of national borders. It therefore uses the term
russky not
as a geographical, or ethnic concept, but as a spiritual identity that refers
to the cradle civilization of the Eastern Slavs—
Kievan
Rus.
This common identity was forged when Kievan Rus adopted Christianity
from Constantinople in 988. At that moment the Eastern Slavs were
consecrated into a single civilization and given the task of
constructing Holy Rus. That mission persisted through the Muscovite and
Imperial eras. It survived the persecutions of the Soviet era, and
continues today in democratic Russia.
16
The core of this community today resides in Russia, Ukraine, and
Belarus (at other times, Kirill has added Moldova and Kazakhstan), but
can refer to anyone who shares the Orthodox faith, a reliance on Russian
language, a common historical memory, and a common view of social
development.
17
In June 2007, President Putin established the Russky mir Fund, tasked
with support of the Russian language and cultural inheritance
throughout the world.
18
Much of this effort was clearly aimed at preserving the use of the
Russian language in the former Soviet Union, and with it the
popularization of Russia's image. But while there is clearly a great
deal of overlap between the religious and political uses of this term,
let me highlight several important differences.
As used by the state,
Russky mir is typically a political or
a cultural concept. In both senses it is used by groups working for the
Russian government to strengthen the country's domestic stability,
restore Russia's status as a world power, and increase her influence in
neighboring states. From the state's perspective, the Russian Orthodox
Church can be a useful tool for these purposes.
As used by the Church,
Russky mir is a religious concept. It
is essential for reversing the secularization of society throughout the
former Soviet Union, a task Patriarch Kirill has termed the "second
Christianization" of Rus.
19
The Russian Orthodox Church sees the Russian government, or for that
matter, any government within its canonical territory, as tools for this
purpose.
Reaction to the patriarch's use of the phrase
Russky mir,
which was familiar mainly in its Yeltsin-era political context, was
mixed, both inside and outside of Russia. It aroused considerable
controversy in Ukraine, where the Greek-Catholic church and the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kievan Patriarchate dismissed it
outright. On the other hand, the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church of
the Moscow Patriarchate, which serves approximately half of all
Christians in Ukraine, has been cautiously receptive.
In light of this controversy, Kirill returned to the topic in 2010, to clarify his views of what the
Russky mir meant specifically for Ukraine. He reiterated that the
baptism of Kievan Rus was an instance of Divine Providence.
20
The Russian Orthodox Church has defended the religious and cultural
bonds established by this miraculous event for more than a thousand
years, and will always continue to do so.
21
Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are all equal successors to the inheritance of
Kievan Rus, therefore all three should be coordinating centers in the development
of the Russian World. To this end, Patriarch Kirill introduced the idea of "synodal
capitals"—historical centers of Russian Orthodoxy which would regularly
host meetings of the Holy Synod, the Church's chief decision-making body. One
of these capitals is Kiev. It is interesting to note that archpriest Evgeny
(Maksimenko), a cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate,
has called upon the patriarch to take the next logical step and move the seat
of the Patriarchate of Rus from Moscow back to Kiev.
22
Christianity, says the patriarch, does not seeks to destroy that
which is unique in each nation, but rather to motivate local cultures
toward greater appreciation of Christianity's transcendent meaning. Long
ago, the ideal Orthodox society was the Byzantine Empire.
23
Today, in the context of national sovereignty, however, Orthodoxy
proposes itself as a spiritual complement to national sovereignty, and a
harmonizing resource in a globalizing world.
24 Kirill has said that this same principle can be found in the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
25
But while the Church respects state sovereignty, it takes no position
on its merits. Nation-states are neither good nor bad, but merely the
current framework within which God intends the Church to accomplish the
restoration of Holy Rus. It is therefore the Church's duty to make each
nation, at least in part, "a carrier of Orthodox civilization."
26
Over the course of the past decade, the purely pragmatic, secular version of
the
Russky mir has slowly yielded to the growing influence of the Church
in Russia's political life. Among the many examples, let me highlight just one—President
Putin's address in Kiev on the occasion of the 1025th baptism of Rus in 2013.
27
This was also Putin's most recent visit to Ukraine.
His remarks at the time reflected every one of the motifs of the
Russky mir
in its religious context, including: the decisive spiritual and
cultural significance of the baptism of Rus; the uniqueness of Orthodox
values in the modern world; deference to Kiev's historical significance
(before the revolution, he says, it was known as "the second cultural
and intellectual capital after St. Petersburg," even ahead of
Moscow[!]); and public recognition of Ukraine's right to make any
political choice it wishes which, however, "in no way erases our common
historical past."
28
Conclusions and Prognosis
Having drawn a distinction between the objectives of the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church in promoting the
Russky mir, it is important to stress that these two institutions are not in conflict, at least not in the near future.
29 The classical formulation for Church-State relations in Eastern Orthodox Christianity was and remains
symphonia,
or harmony between Church and State, not the Protestant Western ideal
of separation. The establishment of broadly harmonious and mutually
supportive relations between Church and State in Russia, for the first
time in more than a century, therefore has significant implications for
Russian politics.
The first is that Vladimir Putin's high popularity ratings are
neither transient nor personal. They reflect the popularity of his
social and political agenda, which are popular precisely because they
have the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church. A few years ago, then
president Medvedev referred to the Church as "the largest and most
authoritative social institution in contemporary Russia,"
30
an assessment reinforced by more recent surveys showing that Patriarch
Kirill is more often identified as the "spiritual leader [and] moral
mentor" of the entire Russian nation, than he is as the head of a single
religious confession.
31
The success of the Putin Plan, the Putin Model, or Putinism, is thus
simple to explain. This Russian government understands that it derives
enormous social capital from its public embrace of the Russian Orthodox
Church. So long as Russia remains a broadly representative (not to be
confused with liberal) democracy, there is little reason to expect this
to change.
Some analysts, however, suggest that this embrace may lead to
conflict between the state and other confessions. The potential for such
conflict is widely recognized, especially by religious leaders, and led
to the creation in 1998 of the Interreligious Council of Russia. Its
purpose is two-fold: First, to defuse conflicts among the various
religious communities. Second, to present a united religious agenda to
politicians. It has been quite successful on both fronts, and its
activities now cover not just Russia, but the entire CIS (Commonwealth
of Independent States).
32
If my assessment of the importance of the religious underpinnings for
the current regime's popularity is correct, then it follows that
attempts to undermine the unity of the
Russky mir will be
widely viewed as an attack on core values, not just in Russia but
throughout the Russian World. Economic, political, cultural, and other
sanctions will intensify this effect and sharply undermine intellectual
and emotional sympathies for the West within this community. While this
may not be permanent, I suspect that few in the current generation of
Russian leaders retain much hope for the possibility of building a
lasting partnership with the West.
Moreover, the Russian Orthodox Church will continue to shape Russia's foreign policy agenda in several ways.
First, it will use the influence of the state to advocate for the
concerns of Orthodox Christians throughout the world, even if they are
not Russian citizens. This is in keeping with the transnational
character of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Second, it will promote Christian moral and social values in
international fora, either by itself or in conjunction with other
religions. Indeed, close ties on these issues have been forged with the
Roman Catholic Church, and with Islamic clerics in Egypt and Iran. Where
it does not have direct access to these, it will turn to the Russian
media, and to popular international outlets like RT and Sputnik to
promote this agenda.
Third, wherever Russian state and civic organizations promote Russian
culture and language abroad, the Church will also seek to tack on its
religious agenda. While the state promotes the national interests of the
Russian Federation, the Russian Orthodox Church will promote the larger
cultural identity it sees itself as having inherited from Kievan Rus.
For example, the Church sees the conflict in Ukraine as a civil war
within the Russian World. From this perspective, it cannot be resolved
by splitting up this community, thereby isolating Ukraine from Russia
and destroying the unity of the
Russky mir, or by permitting
the forcible Ukrainianization of the predominantly Orthodox and
Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, which would result in the
destruction of the
Russky mir within Ukraine. The only
permanent solution is for the Ukrainian government to admit the
pluricultural nature of Ukrainian society and, in effect, recognize
Ukraine as part of the
Russky mir. From the Church's
perspective, this is the only way to achieve reconciliation among the
Ukrainian people and harmony within the
Russky mir.
Oddly enough, many moderate Ukrainian nationalists also ascribe to the
notion that some sort of symbiotic cultural connection exists between
Russia and Ukraine. The typical pro-Maidan Ukrainian intellectual
believes that Putin is out to undermine Ukrainian democracy first and
foremost because he fears it spreading to Russia. But they predict the
inevitable resumption of fraternal ties with Russia,
after the freedom-loving, pro-European values of the Maidan succeed in overturning Putin's authoritarian regime in Russia.
33
It is hard not to see the similarity between their aspirations for
close ties with Russia and those of Patriarch Kirill, only under a
completely different set of cultural assumptions.
In conclusion, what impact will the rise of the
Russky mir have on Russia's relations with other nations? I anticipate three responses.
In countries where the concept of Holy Rus has no historical context,
there will be a tendency to fall back on the Cold War context they are
most familiar with, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did when
she warned of efforts to "re-Sovietize the region." "It's going to be
called customs union, it will be called Eurasian Union and all of that,"
she said, "but let's make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is
and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent
it."
34
Among Russia's immediate neighbors, the response will be mixed. While
there are still many who view the Soviet era with nostalgia, and regard
the breakup of the USSR as more harmful than beneficial (by 2:1 margins
in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Russia),
35 it is not at all clear that the Orthodox Church's conservative social vision has a similarly broad appeal. In Ukraine the term
Russky mir
has become a rallying cry for both sides during this civil war, and is
now so hopelessly politicized that its religious and spiritual content
have all but disappeared. The unhappy result, as Nicholas E. Denysenko
puts it, is "a religious narrative becoming altered against the will of
its authors."
36
Even further from Russia, the popularity of the
Russky mir
will likely depend on whether Russia emerges as a global defender of
traditional Christian and conservative values. The values gap that some
in the West cite as justification for punishing and containing Russia
does exist, but it is not the whole picture. The same values gap exists
within the West itself.
37
Only recently Russia has realized that, while its conservative agenda
distances itself from some Europeans, it brings it closer to others. The
list of
Putinversteher probably now contains more politicians
and opinion leaders on the right end of the European political spectrum,
than it does on the left.
In the United States, Evangelical Christian social activists, and
even a few noted political commentators, have begun to take note of
these shared values.
38
Two years ago, former Nixon aide and Republican presidential candidate,
Patrick Buchanan, told fellow political conservatives that there is
much in Putin's rhetoric that makes him "one of us."
"While much of American and Western media dismiss him as an
authoritarian and reactionary, a throwback, Putin may be seeing the
future with more clarity than Americans still caught up in a Cold War
paradigm. As the decisive struggle in the second half of the 20th
century was vertical, East vs. West, the 21st century struggle may be
horizontal, with conservatives and traditionalists in every country
arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and
transnational elite."
39
The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in this struggle is crucial,
because it calls for the creation of a common framework of Christian
European values, in effect a new, pan-European civil religion. The
Russian state, meanwhile, is only too happy to support these calls
because it is only within the context of a common cultural and religious
identity ("shared values") that Russia can become a full-fledged
political part of the West. Intentionally or not, therefore, the Russian
Orthodox Church and its
Russky mir have emerged as the missing spiritual and intellectual component of Russia's soft power.
Someday it may even become like U.S. human rights policy, an awkward, but nevertheless
defining aspect of national identity, that the government will apply selectively,
but never be able to get rid of entirely.
