Russia's History vs. the West . . . Comparable?

[Elisabeth]

 But these things are not mutually exclusive.  Rather they are intertwined.  I suspect Russia developed late precisely because it was so thinly populated, the climate was harsh, etc.

One story will illustrate how far behind Russia was even in the late nineteenth century. When the Russians liberated Bulgaria from the Turks in 1877-78, Russian soldiers were very upset to discover that even the poorer Bulgarian peasants lived in good-sized brick houses, as opposed to the ramshackle wooden izbas of the Russian peasant. The Bulgarian peasantry farmed cash crops and lived like prosperous bourgeoisie compared to their Russian counterparts. So the Russian soldiers wanted to know: "What are we liberating them from?"

I'm not sure I disagree with the points Tsarfan is making. Of course every country goes through tumultuous times. But RichC is right that Russia labored under certain distinct disadvantages from the beginning. I've heard many Russians complain that their country is cursed by its geography. It has a terrible climate with a very short growing season and not very good land except in Ukraine (which was cut off from Russia proper for centuries and is now of course independent). Crop yields were notoriously low in central Russia well into the nineteenth century. Also, until the time of Peter the Great, Russia had no warm-water port, which deprived the country of many cultural and trade opportunities.

[Silja]

The rurual and town populations of the German states were subjected to massive violence and destruction (on a per-capita par with what the Russians experienced in the Mongol invasions) during the 16th-century religious wars.  Yet Germany in the early 19th century was in the vanguard of liberalism

.

I think you are referring to the 30-Years-War of the 17th century, in which a third of the population of the German states was eradicated, rather than to the religious wars of the 16th century? Anyway, I think you cannot really equate the results of these religious wars with those of  the Mongol rule over Russia in that these wars rather confirm the existence of this European culture of "difference of opinion", here in its most devastating form, over religion and politics. Under the Mongol yoke however Russia was no longer an independent country which could develop its own political structures or ideas.

It's not at all a contradiction that you would find these liberal structures in Germany even though there had been these religious wars. Quite the contrary. In Germany the cities and political unities  had always defended their independence against any efforts to dominate them. So this kind of autonomy and diversity really favoured a liberal culture, at least in a way and for some time it seems.

[rskkiya]

    Well there is a great deal more to all this than a simple "Z had the Roman legal code and A did not" or that "Z is ignorant of A 's history" ... I do think that the experience of significant religious differences with "Europe" (Catholic vs Orthodox) as well as the cultural scars of multiple invasions from the Mongols and Tatars may have some part in this deeply complex question.
   Various European 'semi-nations' (by "semi nation" I mean that curious condition prior to the realization that the people living in a wet little island were English as opposed to "German or French" is an example) also experienced invasions and diverse questions of faith but these seem to have had a different affect on the individual ...Or are we asking the wrong question altogether ... Is the very notion of "history" being misread here?

Ohh I have a headache!
rskkiya

[Robert_Hall]

What is wrong in finding positive aspects of the Mongol rule in Russia. The influence from the East, although some find their rule barbaric,  at least organization and autonomy. The Russian eagle faces both East and West, so I think their are influences to be attributed from both influences. Also, through various means, Russian rulers came to eventual peace [admittedly at time tenuous] with the Islamic peoples. Sadly this has now been shattered with the breakup of the old USSR. Another inluence,. perhaps of taking a "western" approach to dealing with diversity ?

[Tsarfan]

I don't know that the Mongols "ruled" Russia in the conventional sense.  The indigenous political and social systems were left largely intact, including the native princes who essentially purchased the Mongols' protection of their right to rule by paying tribute.

[Robert_Hall]

I think that is what I was trying to get accross. The suzzerainty [?] being accomodatable. I am just now exploring this chain of thought but am readily accepting of  the powers of the East having un-credited influence on the West.

[Tsarfan]

I think you are referring to the 30-Years-War of the 17th century, in which a third of the population of the German states was eradicated, rather than to the religious wars of the 16th century?

You're right . . . and thanks for the catch.

Sometimes I write these messages at work with phones ringing, people dropping by, and e-mail pouring in, and I don't edit myself well.  (I know I should wait for a calmer moment to write but, hey, I'm addicted to this site.)

[Tsarfan]

It's not at all a contradiction that you would find these liberal structures in Germany even though there had been these religious wars. Quite the contrary. In Germany the cities and political unities  had always defended their independence against any efforts to dominate them. So this kind of autonomy and diversity really favoured a liberal culture, at least in a way and for some time it seems.

I didn't mean to imply it was a contradiction.  I was trying to make the point that the subjection of a society to massive violence doesn't necessarily derail its evolution and sentence it to perpetual suffering or stasis.  And the point you made about German liberalism supports my point, I think.

[Elisabeth]

What is wrong in finding positive aspects of the Mongol rule in Russia. The influence from the East, although some find their rule barbaric,  at least organization and autonomy.

This is a very old argument, made mainly by a few Russian historians like Vernadsky, that Mongol rule was in some ways beneficial, or at least not as damaging to Russia as previously believed. It has been largely discredited. True, the Mongols may have encouraged trade with the Orient, because it was in their own interests to do so (the Orient was under their domination anyway), but it’s of more significance that they discouraged trade and other important contacts with Western Europe and Byzantium. A severely weakened Russia also led to the rise of Poland-Lithuania during this period, which in turn further contributed to Russia’s isolation.

Indeed, we can’t overlook the enormous negative cultural impact that Mongol rule had on Russia. As previously mentioned, the country was isolated from the West while Europe was undergoing the major transformative changes of the Renaissance, including the spread of humanism, which encouraged both individualism and critical thinking. Perhaps even more terrible, when the Mongols invaded Russia in 1237-40, they destroyed every major library they could find in the cities of the Dnepr’ valley, Russia’s cultural matrix. Imagine virtually one’s entire cultural inheritance in the form of books going up in flames overnight (the only city spared was Novgorod, which as Silja has pointed out, remained unconquered). Not surprisingly, it is during this period that you see the rise of illiteracy among the royal family and a decline in architecture. Culturally the Mongols themselves had little or nothing to offer: they were "Arabs without Aristotle or algebra," in the famous words of Pushkin. One of the few things they may have contributed to Russian culture was the practice of locking up upperclass women in the confines of the terem. That can hardly be considered progress.  

As administrators, the Mongols were inefficient and venal, fostering corruption and waste (the office of Grand Prince was sold to the highest bidder). They exacted enormous tributes and taxes and conducted periodic raids for slaves among the native Russian population, all of which drained the economy. Yes, the Mongols were generally tolerant of the Orthodox faith, but that is the best that can be said for them. Surely it is significant that contemporary Russian writers all portrayed the Mongols as the scourge of God. They did not view them as fellow countrymen (!) but as a hostile and alien occupying force. Some historians estimate that the Mongol yoke put Russian development back by two centuries.

[Robert_Hall]

I think that was a rather negative and overly harsh assesment of Asian influence.  And you actually think that the accomplishments of Europe were laudatory ?

[Tsarfan]

This discussion of Russian history is the most interesting and intractable I've seen on this board.  (And, Elisabeth, I thought you once told me you didn't know much early Russian history.  Lordy, I'd hate to take you on when you felt well-informed.)

One aspect of later Russian history that stands out is that in Russia, the very classes that, at least after Peter I, had the most contact with the West -- the monarchy and upper nobility -- were those who were most resistant to liberalizing forces.  Indeed, by the time of Nicholas II, the ruling dynasty in Russia was essentially German and northwest European in bloodline.

In my view, the dynasty made choices that were not compelled by the attitudes of the Russian masses.  Instead, they exploited those attitudes as excuses to hang onto autocratic power and as a counterweight to the liberalizing forces that were growing in the Russian intelligentsia and other pockets of indigenous Russian society.

To beat an almost dead horse . . . that's why I feel that early Russian history did not foreordain her subsequent history.  Her later history was more a function of choices made by the elements in Russian society that were least influenced by the legacy of Mongol occupation, retardation of trade and humanism, etc.

To argue that Russia cannot find herself in the modern world because of events reaching back centuries is to take the Romanov dynasty off the hook for abandoning its own European heritage to engage in a prolonged orgy of self-indulgent material and political excess justified by the supposed Russian nature of self-denying Orthodoxy.

For Alexandra Feodorovna to have been born and raised in Western Europe only to end up in the thrall of a Siberian muzhik whose advice she took in trying to undermine Russia's most progressive ministers and to preserve autocracy at almost any cost indicates just how absurd the situation became.

But I gotta tell 'ya . . . I do love those palaces and hope they keep restoring them.

[RichC]

I think that was a rather negative and overly harsh assesment of Asian influence.  And you actually think that the accomplishments of Europe were laudatory ?

This is not a comparison of European culture with Chinese or Indian culture.  This is about the Mongol invasion of Russia.  The Mongols did not bring with them the best that Asia had to offer.  They were a nomadic, uncultured people who invaded a country that was already far more culturally advanced then they themselves were.  

What specific benefits do you see Russia having gained from the Mongol invasion?

[RichC]

To argue that Russia cannot find herself in the modern world because of events reaching back centuries is to take the Romanov dynasty off the hook for abandoning its own European heritage to engage in a prolonged orgy of self-indulgent material and political excess justified by the supposed Russian nature of self-denying Orthodoxy.

I, for one, am not arguing that the Mongol invasion, or any of the other influences that have been mentioned, such as Russia's harsh climate, geography, Ivan the Terrible, Byzantium, the Orthodox faith, etc., mean that the Romanov dynasty is off the hook!

On the other hand, to dismiss these other influences, is also a mistake, in my view.  Perhaps the disagreement here is in apportioning blame?  You, Tsarfan, like to blame individuals but I wonder if things would have been much different with a different crew in place.  If one looks over the broad panorama of Russian history, one does tend to see patterns of behavior among those in power that repeat themselves over and over again.

You seem to like to blame the Romanovs for everything.  If you want to blame the Romanovs for decisions they made when they were in power, regardless of what came before, then why not blame Putin, Yeltsin, Stalin, Lenin, etc. for the decisions they made -- regardless of what came before.  We need to be consistent here.

[Elisabeth]

I think that was a rather negative and overly harsh assesment of Asian influence.  And you actually think that the accomplishments of Europe were laudatory ?

Robert, when Pushkin called the Mongols "Arabs without algebra or Aristotle" he was not demeaning the accomplishments of Arab culture, which in fact invented algebra and preserved the works of Aristotle while they were lost in Europe. Rather he was making an ironic statement about the type of Asiatic conquerors Russia had the misfortune to attract. In other words, not the Arabs who, with their advanced culture, might actually have contributed something to Russia, but a nomadic people from the steppes who had a written language and advanced military skills to commend them but not much else, at least from everything I've read.

As RichC says, the Mongols had no relationship to China, either, except in so far as they conquered it, too. But China was a truly ancient civilization, already stretching back three thousand years even at the time (they had a bureaucracy and cities of a million people while Europeans were still living in hovels). They could take foreign occupation in stride. In fact I believe they threw off the Mongols fairly quickly, unlike Russia, which endured 250 years of Mongol rule.  

[Elisabeth]

One aspect of later Russian history that stands out is that in Russia, the very classes that, at least after Peter I, had the most contact with the West -- the monarchy and upper nobility -- were those who were most resistant to liberalizing forces.

 

Tsarfan, I'm going to give you a hard time now, because I have to come to the defense of the Russian upper nobility. The first opponents of the tsarist regime came from its ranks. Many of the Decembrists were from prominent Russian aristocratic families. Even much later in the century, some of the leading proponents of liberal reform, such as Count Leo Tolstoy, came from ancient Russian noble families. When we use the term intelligentsia it can be misleading in the Russian context, because it sounds as if we are only referring to the middle class. But traditionally a goodly portion of Russian intellectuals always belonged to the upper nobility (like Tolstoy) and the gentry (like Lenin).  

In my view, the dynasty made choices that were not compelled by the attitudes of the Russian masses.  Instead, they exploited those attitudes as excuses to hang onto autocratic power and as a counterweight to the liberalizing forces that were growing in the Russian intelligentsia and other pockets of indigenous Russian society.

Again, I have to disagree, because IMO for centuries the Romanov ruler was the most civilizing force in the country. And again, Tsarfan, I regret to say it but I think your parallels with Western Europe get you into trouble because Russia was made up predominantly of peasants, and that population was not yet even literate, much less capable of formulating more sophisticated political concepts. It's arguable that even early twentieth-century Russia still needed some form of authoritarian government in order to be governable. It just did not have the resources available to Western European nations in terms of a large enough educated population that could be called upon for civil service and responsible political participation.

To beat an almost dead horse . . . that's why I feel that early Russian history did not foreordain her subsequent history.  Her later history was more a function of choices made by the elements in Russian society that were least influenced by the legacy of Mongol occupation, retardation of trade and humanism, etc.

To argue that Russia cannot find herself in the modern world because of events reaching back centuries is to take the Romanov dynasty off the hook for abandoning its own European heritage to engage in a prolonged orgy of self-indulgent material and political excess justified by the supposed Russian nature of self-denying Orthodoxy.

I don't think RichC, Silja and I are arguing that early Russian history foreordained subsequent history. I think all we are saying is that it made some outcomes more likely, and others less likely. Look at it this way: to argue that the West was not shaped to a large extent by the Renaissance and Reformation would be a mistake, would it not? And those phenomena were not initiated by any one person or great leader. I think therein lies the point.

On the other hand, I agree with you that the traumatic events of the twentieth century have had a much more immediate and damaging impact on the Russian national psyche (not to mention the country's infrasture itself) than the Mongol yoke or the reign of Ivan the Terrible. And here I do not speak of the Romanovs' (mis)rule but rather of the seventy years of Communist terror unleashed by Lenin and Stalin, not to mention the second world war.