The "Russian soul" and Putin's expansionism

It sounds a bit strange to speak of the "Catalan soul," or the "Spanish soul," or the "Swedish soul." And yet, it's taken for granted that a "Russian soul" exists, that "dark place" spoken of by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, and almost all the other writers of the golden age of Russian literature. Vladimir Putin also frequently appeals to the "Russian soul," in opposition to the supposed soullessness of Western Europe.

It's a matter that's taken for granted without much thought. Just as it's taken for granted that Europe and Asia are separate continents, even though there has never been a reasonable scientific consensus about where the hypothetical border would lie.

Let's assume that the geographical reality is Eurasia, a large landmass, and that this immense continent has, from one end to the other, a great deal of shared history.

In the small European subcontinent, we tend to think that only horrors have reached us from Asia: Attila the Hun in the 5th century; Genghis Khan, the Mongol, between the 12th and 13th centuries; Tamerlane, the Tatar-Turk, in the 14th century. We identify the nomadic empires that arose from the steppes of Central Asia with the utmost barbarity.

In reality, there is an earlier nomadic empire that, in a way, unifies the continent, except for the remote western coasts. The first to intuit a common link was René Grousset, in his classic The Empire of the Steppes (1939). Grousset detects a series of gaps in ancient Eurasian history that can only be explained by the existence of a "phantom empire," little known and, until the 20th century, considered a mere mosaic of mobile and dispersed tribes: the Scythian Empire.

In 2023, Christopher Beckwith completed the puzzle with his work The Scythian Empire, the key civilization in the birth of the Classical AgeThe Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BCE) already indicated that the Persian Empire had Scythian roots. Beckwith demonstrates, with an overwhelming amount of linguistic and archaeological evidence, that between the 8th and 2nd centuries BCE, the Scythians, an original and creative civilization, had a profound influence on what is now China (Qin Shi Huang, the "first emperor," was of Scythian origin) and on what we now call the Near East, and throughout the vast expanse between these regions. The brief empire of Alexander the Great served as a bridge between the Scythian tradition and what we call "Western culture."

The Scythian legacy lasted a long time. What was interpreted as a Scythian tribal system was in reality an efficient feudal system, identical to that established on the European subcontinent after the fall of Rome.

From the Scythians to the Mongols and the Ottomans, the territory that is now Russia was swept, for centuries upon centuries, by the Asian steppe forces. And, from the modern age onward (let's say the 15th century), it was threatened by the technological and military superiority of the smaller European nations.

Russian history is a continuous upheaval that generates two, I believe, undeniable traits: a mixture of resilience and resignation, on the one hand, and on the other, an obsessive concern for security and stability.

Straddling the western edge of Europe (Saint Petersburg), the harshness of the Siberian north, the almost infinite and culturally alien south (Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, Korea), and the new powers of its east (Japan and North America), the largest country in the world has always needed to feel like an empire to feel secure.

And it has needed to invent a series of myths (Moscow as the "Third Rome" and "spiritual reserve," the "Russian soul," etc.) to create both an identity and a destiny, not unlike the "manifest destiny" that underpins American imperialism. Both "manifest destinies" are based on religion and continuous expansion.

It is understandable that two fervent imperialists like Donald Trump (note his fixation on Greenland and the operation of the last few hours in Venezuela) and Vladimir Putin (bent on conquering Ukraine), both kleptomaniacs, both obsessed with accumulating wealth, understand each other well. It is equally understandable that both are seen as a threat to the rest of the world.