The following is partially based upon the book 'Creating Russophobia - From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria' by Guy Mettan.
Western political elites and the totality of western legacy media sees Russia in almost 100% negative terms. When you read of the last few centuries’ compilation of anti-Russian literature you rapidly come to understand that this is no new phenomenon. Russophobia is centuries old, as is the seeming constant inability of western elites to see beyond the stereotypes involved.
In centuries past the various tactical alliances involved within the sphere of great power politics, colonialism and imperialism meant that conflict was all but inevitable. Alliances created groupings of temporary ‘friends’ against a common enemy or common enemies at one moment in time, then at a later date an enemy would became friends with one or more protagonists they had formerly been at war with. Russia was deeply involved in this ‘game’ and indeed in ‘The Great Game’ where the British conceived themselves to be competing with Russia to maintain its empire.
In the case of the British, or better said, the English, the animosity in which Russia was held appears to have been founded only on the convenience of Russia as a political football where one political party could assert that the other did not hold an aggressive enough policy or stance on Russia. This of course became a contest of who could talk most tough on Russia with always a view to the general public for electoral approval. Much as it was in the USA in recent history.
Through all this talking about her Russia remains an enigma to most political elites in the West. Churchill put this common bafflement of western elites best when he said: “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” This ignorance of Russia however, never stopped all and sundry from roundly criticising her at every possible opportunity.
From the time when Russia adopted the Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity she was seen as suspect and more Asiatic than western. This added to all her other perceived failures by western elites who considered European culture to be the absolute and unassailable centre of civilisation and they to essentially be the proper masters of the world, put Russia in the worst possible light. She was always expected to bow down and be taught how to be civilised. Or else threatened with attack if she determines to carry on as she is and develop herself as she, not others, see fit.
One can imagine many of today's western political elites, at least those in Europe, having been steeped in the kind of anti-Russian literature that Guy Mettan meticulously lists in his book. Those who had, to some degree, an academic predisposition toward geopolitics/foreign affairs. Russia, apparently something of an obsession for European and the English political elites, extremely rarely escapes the stereotypes long pinned to it.
Within the literature there appears to have been two main viewpoints, that Russia was irredeemably flawed and dangerous or, marginally more positive, that it could be made tolerable by accepting to become civilised in all the ways shown at their best within western cultures.
The near perfectly encapsulated (in western elite eyes) archetype of Russia as hopelessly autocratic, barbaric, backward and slavish to authority as well as being too Asiatic and having a strange form of Christianity appears to have been inescapable for pretty much 100% of the western political class. Not surprising then that we have what we have now.
As the Soviet Union fell there was the phase of reconstituting Russia to as a nation with western liberal values, to be made civilised in effect, taking pity on the poor uncultured beast and teaching it how to be like the West, liberal and economically viable. Then with Putin coming along and rejecting 'all that' the other half of the Russophobic coin comes into its own with the same kind of criticisms seen down the centuries.
The tragedy is that Russia appears to remain terra incognita regarding anything approaching a detailed understanding of her. These extremely old stereotypes that generate both anger, fear and increased misunderstanding prevail constantly within western political elites and media with seemingly no incentive being perceived to look beyond them.
So it is that despite all the reforms that have transformed Russia since the days of Yeltsin, when the whole country appeared doomed to permanent chaos, poverty and constant decline, there is in essence no change to the two viewpoints held within the minds of western elites. Russia is expected to bow to the pressure applied to her to become a mirror image of all the West insists is the proper way to be. And if not then Russia will find herself attacked and every cliche from the long history of Russophobia relentlessly applied to her.
