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The ideas of Civilizationists and Eurasianists started penetrating official statements in the 2000s, especially after the attempt at rapprochement with the West, and further drifted apart after.
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The discourse of Civilizationism has started to dominate official Russian policy since the authority of Vladimir Putin was established. For Civilizationists, the Russian civilization is seen as superior, and this approach is connected to the ‘Third Rome’ dictum, and the ‘gathering of Russian lands’ (Tsygankov 2006, 7). Statists basically think of defending the status quo and play the geopolitical game, they are not against negotiations with others. Their response to the issues of the security of Russia was more aggressive than the Statists’. Civilizationists, on the other hand, saw Russian values as distinct from the West, and they wanted to spread these values around the world. The statist main purpose though was pragmatic, defending the Russian national interest by geopolitical means. Statists, in contrast, chose the values of stability, power and sovereignty over freedom and democracy.
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CIVILIZATION 5 RUSSIA FREE
Westernizers placed the emphasis on Russia’s similarities with the West, the importance of liberal values such as human rights, democracy and free market. The opinion leaders and policymakers of Russia could be divided according to their foreign policy attitudes into Westernizers, Statists and Civilizationists. Relevant for our times is the experiment with democracy of the 1990s, when the authorities of Russia undertook radical reforms at home, and took a pro-Western course in foreign policy. Later on, in the nineteenth century, the debate between Slavophiles and Westerners dominated the intellectual debate in Russia. One famous attempt of modernization and Europeanization was undertaken by Peter the Great in the eighteenth century. There were several attempts to modernize Russia during the course of history. The West was either positive or negative, but it is always present in the visions of national identity and national interest (Tsygankov 2006, 17). It is important to note here that the Russian identity has always been defined in opposition to the ‘significant other’, and this other has always been the West. At the same time, according to Huntington, Russia is a torn country with its identity in permanent crisis (Huntington 1996, 164). Huntington considers Russia creating a bloc with an Orthodox heartland. Samuel Huntington cites Carroll Quigley in distinguishing the Orthodox (Russian) civilization as emerging from the Classical (Mediterranean) one, but taking on a separate path later (Huntington 1996, 49). To the East of Narva, the vast plains stretching through the Ural Mountains to the coasts of the Pacific Ocean form the territory of the Russian state. This conflict also exists inside the Estonian society, as a large minority of Russian speakers reside in Estonia. Has this new phase arrived? This article will argue that the Estonia/Russia border is indeed a fault line between the Western and Russian civilizations, and it leads to simmering conflict. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. The question is: Is it also the fault line between two distinctive civilizations (Western and Orthodox)? According to Huntington in his 1993 article ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, the great division among humankind in the new phase will be cultural, the ‘clash of civilizations’ will dominate global politics. These castles are a powerful symbol of the border between Russia and Estonia, a border that, in our times, also separates the European Union and NATO from Russia. If you stand on the banks of the river Narva in North-Eastern Europe, you can see two medieval castles facing each other on both sides of the river. This is an excerpt from The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ 25 Years On: A Multidisciplinary Appraisal. Download your free copy here