FOREWORD

Abstract

When reflecting on Russia in general and before the 24 February 2022, sooner or later the perhaps most well-known in the West verse by “poet-philosopher” Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev comes to your mind:

You cannot grasp Russia with your mind Or judge her by any common measure, Russia is one of a special kind – You can only believe in her.

These lines that successfully contributed to a mythologisation of Russia are from 1866. Tyutchev spent almost half of his life in Germany as a diplomat, he was married first to a German countess, then, after her death, to a German baroness. He was a Russian patriot and believed in Russia’s cultural and spiritual superiority. In his political essays, he fiercely opposed the European critics of the Russian absolutism and argued against the “Russo- phobic demagoguery” of the Western intellectuals and politicians.1 His position sounds familiar still today, it appeared to have either survived one and a half centuries or it was successfully revived by Vladimir Putin and his demagogues.