A Seemingly Obvious Topic
At first glance, the topic of the discussion organized last week in Kyiv by the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation and the Kyiv Institute of National Interest doesn’t appear particularly original—it seems everyone has already spoken about Russia in the context of the now-obvious fact that it is our existential adversary. The contrast between the current and previous levels of interest in the topic is such that, sometimes, considering the consequences of our “blindness,” there is a temptation to ironically remark, “We told you so.”
However, the perceived unoriginality of the topic might either be a mistaken impression or result from an aberration of the type where, if something is frequently discussed, it seems like it’s being discussed adequately, even excessively. Not at all. The first proof of this is the number of topics that were brought to light during the almost two-hour discussion. Intelligence, economy, techniques for corrupting elites both in the collective West and post-colonial Africa, the subjugated peoples of Russia, Ukrainians in Russia, and the prospects for their decolonization, mechanisms for recruiting elites, possession of Eastern European intelligence archives from 1940–1980 with troves of compromising material… Finally, the impact of the striking fact, noted by one of the participants, that the upper limit on the value of gifts a European official can accept without legal repercussions is essentially negligible for a Russian oligarch. This, too, obviously affects the level and manner of Russia’s penetration into global elites.
Existential Threat Beyond the Frontlines
Due to the breadth of the topics, each deserving multiple discussions and numerous studies, it’s evident that Russia is indeed an existential threat. This term is usually understood as synonymous with “a threat to life itself.” However, from the simple list of topics, another dimension of existential confrontation becomes clear—the simple, though complexly understood fact that this confrontation persists in virtually every sphere of life: not only in military and political arenas but also in international relations, economy, public affairs, arts, science… The list goes on.
Participants in the discussion casually mentioned half a dozen everyday situations, like studying at a university or changing places of residence, which Russia uses as tools to advance its interests or recruit future agents of influence at best, or “moles” at worst. Essentially, it only remains to voice the conclusion—the confrontation with Russia is existential not only because defeat threatens the very existence of the vanquished, but also because it is present in practically every sphere of life. Simply because for Russia, everything is a weapon—potential or actual.
And all these statements will remain relevant as long as Russia exists in its current form. Considering that hundreds of years of history and developed culture, particularly political culture, cannot be easily erased, and we are geographically close not just to Russia but to its core, from which the imperial expansion actually began, there is reason to assume that these statements will remain relevant for a long time. Given the longevity of human life, it is practically a lifelong perspective.
Why we have not studied Russia for so long
After such an introduction, it becomes clear that Russia needs to be studied, at least by the principle of “know your enemy by sight.” However, as the participants in the discussion rightly noted, for a long time, Russian studies remained on the sidelines: some believed that they already knew everything about Russia and Russians, while others simply were not interested. I dare to assume that for the simple reason that during its presence as a politically dominant element, Russians and Russian culture were partly terribly annoying and partly perceived as an integral element of existence. And their presence, such as the prevalence of the Russian language or the dominance of Russian series on television screens, was seen as a completely natural element of everyday life. This raised an unconscious yet quite logical question: why delve deeper into something that already forces itself upon you?
And now Ukrainian Russian studies, in the context of “knowing your enemy by sight,” face quite a natural reluctance stemming from the memory of the invasion and, ultimately, hatred of Russia as an enemy.
All these diagnoses made by the discussion participants are entirely fair. However, this is just the top layer, a sort of tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lies the unpleasant truth that there was no talk of the systematic study of Russia as a political, cultural, social structure and system.
What was called the study of Russian literature in secondary education was essentially a mixture of solving the purely practical problem of employing school Russian specialists after the declaration of Independence, the formal loss of Russia’s dominant position, and the inertia of the colonial paradigm. In this last context, it was not about mastering a specific subject, but primarily about forming a paradigm in which Russian culture and literature were by definition superior, better, and association with them automatically guaranteed recognition as belonging to the circle of modern, educated, sophisticated, and so on people.
With Russian history in the history departments, it was somewhat different — this subject was perceived as something between a mass of facts and data, without which the knowledge of the past, particularly of the Central-Eastern European region, would not be complete, and, on the other hand, a register of crimes of Russia as an empire from a somewhat different perspective than traditionally Ukrainian, including stories of imperial enslavement and oppression of other peoples. There were obviously problems with the study of Russia in the faculties of international relations, as noted by the discussion participants when comparing how different countries were studied. If, for example, Western countries were studied structurally, Russian studies portrayed Russia as, following the discussion participants, a Moloch. Not the perspective that allows for deep understanding and clear reflection on what one is dealing with.
In this context, it is good not only that the question of systematically studying Russia is raised, but also that the conventional circle of “knowing Russia” consciously includes not only the political-military sphere, which is obvious in the ongoing war conditions, but also the less visible sectors, at least on a daily basis, such as economics, diplomacy, social practices, tactics of special services, and more.
Studying as a Change of Perspective
This shift is categorically fundamental for two reasons. First and foremost, because the very framing of the issue of studying Russia, its research implies a radical change in the world view. The point is that studying presupposes an object of interest, that is, what is actually being studied. And in this, there is indeed a tectonic shift.
Because on the level of Russia specifically and our historical experience with it, it is not just about filling an obvious gap (after all, even if in some ideal world Russia were not an enemy—it would be a neighbor, and it is worth having a structured understanding of neighbors), but about a radical change in positioning. Existential, so to speak.
For what is specific Russia to a specific living Ukrainian? The embodiment of almost all of Ukraine’s woes. Both on a symbolic level (through the images of destroyed Baturyn, the ruin of Sich, Shevchenko’s drama, the endless prohibitions on national language and culture popular in the public imagination) and on a very tangible level: starting with the memories of grandparents about the Holodomor, the realities of Sovietization in Western Ukraine, and the practices of fighting the liberation movement, including burned villages and mass deportations to Siberia, and through the entirely modern impressions of those who were unlucky enough to be on occupied territories or who had to break through, for example, from besieged Mariupol or to Kyiv via the bridge in Romanivka.
And every single such episode left the impression of Russia as a cruel, ruthless force that cares about nothing, whose representatives indeed seem to hail from hell. The most important aspect, however, was not even the atrocities themselves, but the fact that they completely shattered all notions of acceptable human behavior, even in wartime, and almost left no room to resist them in the “here and now” mode. These two features specifically turned Russia into the embodiment of Moloch in the eyes of its victims and reliably blocked attempts to view it not as something infinitely terrible, from hell, but as something that can be an object of knowledge and structured conscious study.
Accordingly, when we set out to study Russia, we essentially perform a Copernican revolution in our brains, fundamentally changing the previous modus operandi.
Return of the “Serious” Spheres
The second fundamentally important detail is the concentration on those spheres that for a long time were not fully perceived as “ours”—strategic planning, economics, political culture, and others. This was a consequence of the imperial practice of reserving such spheres exclusively for itself, embodied, for instance, in the structure of ministries in the USSR when, for example, heavy industry, the army, and special services were exclusively focused on Moscow. Those centers in Ukraine around which, for example, missile production was concentrated, turned into closed cities with direct access to the “center,” which was again Moscow. The brightest example is Soviet Dnipropetrovsk with its “what is Kyiv to us, Moscow is behind us.”
And to enter the “big league” of the economy, industry, and the military, one inevitably had to become a “Soviet person” — read, to become politically and culturally Russified completely. By acknowledging the study of Russia in these areas, we affirm a simple obviousness: now, to be an equal player and participant in traditionally-stereotypically “serious” areas, where big money circulates and fateful decisions are made, it is not necessary to sacrifice one’s identity in favor of the empire.
Why Now
Indeed, after this, one might be tempted to ask: why is the topic of systematically studying Russia only now coming to the forefront — was it not previously obvious that this was truly necessary? Of course, it was. And indeed, those who say that Russia’s invasion highlighted this simple idea for everyone will be right. However, another fact is significant, namely the experience of successful military resistance.
The liberation of Kyiv region and the Kharkiv offensive returned to Ukrainians as a community the sense of ability to defend themselves against an existential enemy and thus helped overcome the sense of imagined insignificance and inferiority compared to the Russian Empire, regardless of which guise it appeared in.
Thus, the very fact that we are beginning to study Russia is an important indicator on the path of overcoming our collective trauma inflicted by it. The deeper paradox, which arouses double interest, is that paradoxes of our postcolonial and post-genocidal state continue to manifest. This serves as an additional reminder that the story of collective trauma is not a story about a lack of virtue, competence, intelligence, or patriotism. Rather the opposite: the more intelligent, insightful, and virtuous a person is, the greater the chance that their personal piece of historical trauma will be deeper and sharper than the average.
From Moloch — to Explanation
This thought first occurs when hearing comparisons of Russia from the perspective of Ukrainian international studies with Moloch, referring to the figure of the Phoenician god to whom live children were supposedly sacrificed. Moreover, discussions repeatedly feature, more or less directly, the thesis about the fundamental abnormality of Russia — implying that wherever you look, there is some anomaly, at least from the observer’s point of view. And this impression is further intensified by stories about the practices of Russian special services or Russia’s fundamental orientation towards external expansion.
In fact, it is quite difficult to say what prevails here — whether it is our own genocidal experience, from which perspective Russia indeed appears as the embodiment of Moloch, or whether it’s an evident manifestation that culturally we are fundamentally different from it — and this could not be erased even by years of being under the control of the totalitarian form of Russia in the guise of the Soviet Union. This last aspect brings us closer to Europe, where the theme of the “enigmatic Russian soul” often merely masks the simple fact that Russian culture does not consider valuable what is considered valuable in European culture, and often, as practice shows, does not even consider valuable what is an indisputable axiom in virtually every culture in the world.
However, if we are already in the paradigm of studying Russia, thus its conscious, systematic, rational understanding, we cannot allow ourselves to stop at stating the aforementioned fact and cannot limit ourselves to comparisons with Moloch or similar notions, which have been abundantly supplied not only by Ukrainian but also generally Central European journalism throughout the 20th century. However accurate and fair these comparisons may be.
What We Need to Understand
We will inevitably have to get to the essence of what exactly made Russia the monster and Moloch it has shown itself to be repeatedly and continues to manifest as. Tracking and analyzing its practices in political, military, and economic spheres is essentially a description of the phenomenon. However, if we limit it to description, there is a risk of inadvertently overlooking the invisible “motor” that makes Russians behave as they do. And this motor is a specific type of culture.
A type that positions real, actual life as fundamentally dirty and, moreover, sinful, destined for destruction — and, accordingly, a person raised in such a culture is restrained by almost nothing. Moreover, their system of values will be completely overturned — for if life in all its manifestations is a gift from God and the highest value in a culture, then they will behave accordingly with living beings. Meanwhile, for a Russian, life is a vale of tears, and hence moral behavior and even just taking care of one’s well-being are meaningless, as this is all sinful and doomed.
In such a paradigm, the excessive level of aggression among Russians becomes clearer, their focus exclusively on external expansion, and ultimately, the repeatedly noted habit of turning absolutely everything into a weapon against the rest of the world. During the discussion, a number of examples were provided of how Russia uses entirely basic everyday things to advance its espionage networks and interests.
Of course, one could argue that this is the logic of intelligence services in general: despite the well-known phrase that intelligence work is the business of gentlemen, it often requires resorting to not entirely gentlemanly methods. But the point is, few intelligence services — and this was also mentioned in the discussion — extend their presence in the state apparatus to such absolute levels, and hardly any of them establish a system that, through the fundamental postulation of the material world as doomed to destruction, is potentially capable of leading society as such to complete disintegration.
Hardly anyone but us is able to resolve this task. Simply because few have suffered such powerful blows from Russia and survived as a nation and societal organism, and few have such a deep experience of interacting with Russia and Russians. And for us, this will be the final chord in healing our wounds inflicted by the empire.
