What Kind of ‘Other’? Identity and Russian–European Security Interaction in Eurasia

This research has been conducted with the support of BeIPD Marie-Curie Fellowship.

Abstract

The aim of the essay is to explain the mixed record of Russian–European interaction in the Balkans and the Black Sea region from the mid-1990s onwards. The essay attempts to modify Iver Neumann’s work on Russia and the idea of Europe in two main ways. First, instead of Neumann’s longue durée approach, the essay focuses on one generation of Russian policymakers to understand the role that the idea of Europe occupies in the mindset of the contemporary Russian elite. Instead of Neumann’s ‘True/False Europe’ dichotomy, the essay does furthermore offer a denser web of Russian Selves and European Others, in order to explain with greater precision the mixed record of Russian–European security interaction.

Notes

This research has been conducted with the support of BeIPD Marie-Curie Fellowship.

¹ For some interesting generalisations and their critique see for example, Nitoiu (2017).

² Some analyses produced in this paradigm and criticised for anti-Russian bias include Asmus (2010), Hewitt (2011).

³ These terms have been chosen as they seek to encapsulate many relevant features of their respective labels: for this reason, they will be used throughout this essay with a minimal, yet somehow necessary, degree of approximation.

⁴ The mass conversion of the early Slavonic population of the region into Christianity is described in Russia as the ‘baptism’ of the Kievan Rus. This term specifically adds to the discourse that identifies the Black Sea region as the cradle of the Russian nation.

⁵ ‘Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Visits the 14th International Bike Show in Sevastopol’, Press Release. Moscow: Press Service of the Government of the Russian Federation, 24 July 2010, available at: http://archive.premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/11488/print/, accessed 23 May 2018.

⁶ ‘Parlament Britanii Odobril Maastrihtskie Soglashenya’, Izvestiya, 22 May 1993.

⁷ ‘OSCE Istanbul Summit 1999: Statement by President’, Report, Government of the Russian Federation, 18 November 1999, available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/russian-federation/osce-istanbul-summit-1999-statement-president-yeltsin, accessed 23 May 2018.

⁸ ‘Strategiya Razvitiya Otnoshenii Rossiiskoi Federatsii s Evropeiskim Soyuzom na Srednesrochnuyu Perspektivu (2000–2010)’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 22 October 1999, available at: http://docs.cntd.ru/document/901773061, accessed 23 May 2018.

⁹ ‘Kontseptsiya Natsional’noi Bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 10 January 2000, available at: http://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/589768, accessed 23 May 2018.

¹⁰ ‘The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 28 June 2000, available at: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/econcept.htm, accessed 7 February 2018.

¹¹ The use of this term in the Russian–European context comes from a century-long tradition of Soviet pedagogy, which suggests that in the process of education, teachers and mentors are also being taught and socialised (Lifshit & Lifshit 1975).

¹² The selection of an appropriate terminology, distinguishing between ‘socialising’ or ‘educating’, transcends its purely linguistic and conceptual framework. It thus reveals a serious normative asymmetry in the relations between Western Europe and its ‘periphery’.

¹³ ‘“Memorandum Kozaka”: Rossiiskii plan ob’’edineniya Moldovy i Pridnestrov’ya’, Regnum News Agency, 23 May 2003, available at: https://regnum.ru/news/458547.html, accessed 12 June 2018.

¹⁴ ‘Obzor vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation’, 27 March 2007, available at: http://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/378188/, accessed 15 June 2018.

¹⁵ ‘Russia Re-States its Commitment to Transdniester Solution’, RFE/RL News, 3 September 2008, available at: https://www.rferl.org/a/Russia_Committed_To_Transdniester_Solution/1196098.html, accessed 23 May 2018.

¹⁶ ‘Glavny Diplomat Evrosoyuza Havier Solana: “V Otnoshenii Tsvetnykh Revolutsii Ya Nemznozhko Daltonik”’, Izvestiya, 13 December 2005.

¹⁷ ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Abkhazia, Georgia’, UN Secretary-General, S/2008/633, 3 October 2008, available at: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/07E8C6478CDF01C0852574DA006FBBD1-Full_Report.pdf, accessed 7 February 2018.

¹⁸ ‘Rossiya Podderzhala Nemetskii Plan Gruzino-Abkhazskogo Konflikta’, Federal Post, 21 July 2008, available at: http://fedpost.ru/sobytiya/27475-rossiya-podderzhala-nemeckij-plan-gruzino-abxazskogo.html, accessed 10 January 2016.

¹⁹ Interview in the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brussels, 12 December 2012.

²⁰ ‘Otvet Ofitsial’nogo Predstavitelya MID Rossii A.V. Yakovenko na Vopros Rossiiskikh SMI po Pridnestrovskoi Problematike’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Press Release, 18 July 2003, available at: http://www.mid.ru/ru/maps/md/-/asset_publisher/dfOotO3QvCij/content/id/512970, accessed 20 June 2018.

²¹ Interview with experts at the Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, Brussels, 12 November 2006.

²² ‘Kak chitat’ shest’ punktov’, Izvestiya, 9 September 2008.

²³ Interview with a former member of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia, Council of the European Union, Brussels, 20 April 2017.

²⁴ The English translation of the speech on the presidential website has no reference to ‘Great Powerhood’.

²⁵ ‘A Conversation with Russia’, Brussels Forum, 21 March 2009, available at: http://www.gmfus.org/brusselsforum/2009/docs/BFDay2_ConversationRussia.doc

²⁶ ‘Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation’, Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, 29 June 2015, available at: http://rusemb.org.uk/press/2029, accessed 7 February 2018.

²⁷ For a more detailed critique of this conventional interpretation see Samokhvalov (2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vsevolod Samokhvalov

Vsevolod Samokhvalov, University of Liege, Quartier Agora, Place des Orateurs, 3, boîte 10, 4000 Liège, Belgium. Email: [email protected].