1. IS RUSSIA IN ITS HEART STILL EUROPEAN?
SUMMARY
Russia’s roots are unmistakably European. From the river traders of the Kievan Rus linking the Baltic to Byzantium, to the conversion to Orthodox Christianity in 988 under Vladimir the Great, the foundations were laid firmly within the European world.
Even the Mongol period did not break that trajectory. Moscow rose in power under the Golden Horde, but the civilisational orientation remained westward. That choice became explicit under Peter the Great, who built Saint Petersburg facing the Baltic and embedded Russia into European culture and diplomacy.
For centuries, Russia was not outside Europe but one of its major poles - sometimes rival, often uneasy, but undeniably part of the same system.
The real question today is not whether Russia is European, but whether Europe and Russia still recognise each other as belonging to the same civilisation.
Twelve moments in The Story of a European Civilisation
2. Origins – Kievan Rus And The European Frame
Until 2022 - and certainly before 2014 - Russia had largely seen itself as part of Europe. That instinct runs deep in its history. It goes back to the origins of the Kievan Rus, founded by Scandinavian traders and warriors, often linked to Sweden, who sailed down the great river systems and established Kyiv as a trading post between the North and the Byzantine and Islamic worlds.
“Rus” is usually associated with these groups, sometimes linked to rowing crews ("rus" means "oar"), though the exact meaning is debated. What matters is the direction of travel. From the beginning, this was a civilisation plugged into European and Mediterranean trade networks, not an isolated eastern outpost.
3. Christianity - A Strategic And Civilisational Choice
The Rus converted to Christianity in 988 under Vladimir the Great, drawing from the Byzantine Empire and therefore the Eastern Orthodox Church. This was not just a spiritual step but a strategic one. It brought legitimacy to a Moscow elite ruling over ethnically diverse lands, it strengthened trade links, and it aligned the state with a powerful and sophisticated civilisation.
As with the Roman Empire before it, adopting Christianity helped unify different ethnicities and cultures into a common defining Order - that sacralised political authority, that imposed a shared moral and legal code, that embedded the state within a wider Orthodox civilisation, that gave Russia a sense of providential mission. It also placed Rus firmly within the wider European world, albeit on its eastern, Orthodox side rather than the Latin Catholic one.
Providential mission - belief that a state or people has a purpose guided by divine will
Messianic role - sense of being chosen to fulfil a larger historical or spiritual destiny
4. The Mongol Period – A Shift In Power, Not Identity
I’m not entirely sure how deep the Mongol influence ran, but under the Golden Horde, descendants of Genghis Khan, the princes of Moscow were granted authority to collect taxes on behalf of the Mongol rulers. They used this position to build wealth and authority, and little by little Moscow emerged as the dominant centre of the Russian lands.
Some historians argue that this period shaped Russia’s later centralised and autocratic tendencies. Others see continuity with earlier European patterns. The evidence allows both readings. What we could say is that though the Mongols were military strong, they were culturally weak and this left a vacuum with the Russians looking for an identity.
5. Medieval Europe – Integration With A Difference
In medieval times, Rus elites intermarried with European royal families and participated in a shared aristocratic culture. They were clearly part of Europe, even if not of Latin Christendom. Politically and religiously they belonged to the Greek and Eastern Orthodox world, which gave them a slightly different trajectory.
There is a long-standing argument that this eastern outlook explains later authoritarian tendencies. Another view, associated with Emmanuel Todd, is that political culture grows more from family structures and social organisation bottom up, rather than from religion or elite preferences alone. On that reading, Russia is not unique, and comparisons with countries like Germany are not out of place.
6. Westernisation – A Conscious Turn Towards Europe
Then came a decisive moment with Peter the Great. By building Saint Petersburg facing the Baltic, he made what can only be described as a civilisational choice. Russia would look west.
From that point on, the direction is unmistakable. Western technology was imported, elites adopted Western dress and customs, and by the 19th century Russian high society spoke French, the language franca of diplomacy, and moved fully within European cultural and political life.
Western Europe was the benchmark. Even those who argued that Russia was something separate, something Slavic, were arguing against that benchmark, which rather proves the point.
7. Rivalry Does Not Mean Exclusion
There followed a long period in which Russia was considered by the United Kingdom to be its principal rival. Yet rivalry is not exclusion. On the contrary, it confirms Russia’s place within the European system of great powers.
Even after the Soviet Revolution, Russia did not somehow leave Europe intellectually. It remained part of a European tradition of political thought and industrial modernity. After all, Karl Marx was himself a European thinker, and his ideas - that history is driven by class struggle, that capitalism contains the seeds of its own collapse, that the state is an instrument of class power - shaped Russia profoundly.
8. The Modern Break – Competing Readings
The more recent period is where interpretations begin to diverge sharply. The post-Cold War "unipolar moment" (a phrase coined by Charles Krauthammer in 1990), particularly under Bill Clinton, marks the moment when the West turned away from Russia, with key steps in the Bucharest Summit of 2008 when Ukraine and Georgia were told by America that they will at some point become members of NATO, and especially 2014 when Kiev began shelling the Donbas and as a result Russia took back Crimea. (The Donbas was created by Catherine, wife of Peter the Great, at the end of the 18th century and was populated with Russian people who have retained their identity to this day.)
So after a stormy 1990s, with the arrival of Putin, Russia made a number of overtures towards integration with the West, including discussions around NATO and closer ties with the EU, although there is disagreement over how feasible these could be and whether the subsequent breakdown was driven more by Western expansion or by Russia’s own "strategic choices".
“Russia’s strategic choices” - actions in Russia's near abroad and its response to NATO expansion, but not any evidenced plan to invade Western Europe or recreate the Soviet Union.
9. Power, Strategy And The Question Of Exclusion
A longer pattern can be observed in which Britain first, and later the United States, sought to push Russia out of Europe. Thinkers such as Halford Mackinder certainly framed Eurasia as the key to global power, with his "pivot of History" being a buffer zone from Baltic to Black Sea separating sea and land powers - that way of thinking influenced strategic policy.
Whether this amounts to a deliberate exclusion of Russia, or whether Russia’s own behaviour produced that outcome, remains a matter of interpretation.
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world.
10. Putin And The European Idea
It is also worth recalling that Vladimir Putin, particularly early in his presidency, did signal an interest in closer integration with Europe, including discussions around NATO and economic alignment with the EU.
Some see missed opportunities here. Others see fundamental human rights and legal incompatibilities that would have surfaced sooner or later. Again, both readings are present in the literature.
It is argued that Clinton and subsequent American presidents marched NATO east up to within a few hundred kilometers of Moscow, weaponising this former buffer space including introducing nuclear weapons, and encouraged and finance colour revolutions, thereby creating anxiety and generating security concerns that obliged Moscow to eventually call a halt at Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
11. A Civilisation In Question
So historically, Russia has not been an outsider to Europe. It has been one of its major poles, sometimes aligned, sometimes in rivalry, but always part of the same broad civilisational space.
The real question now is not whether Russia is European. It is whether Western Europe and Russia still recognise each other as belonging to the same civilisation at all. And beyond that, where the boundary between West and East now lies, and whether the current settlement is stable or simply a pause before the next shift.
12. Reorientation East
Against that backdrop, Russia has, perhaps contrary to its long European orientation, been pushed into a gradual rebalancing towards the East. Strategic alignment with China has deepened across energy, finance, and security, while alternative frameworks such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation have taken on greater importance. At the same time, Russia’s role in West Asia has expanded, from its intervention in Syria to its growing ties with Iran and engagement with Gulf states. The result is a geopolitical posture that looks increasingly Eurasian rather than European — less a natural destination than a strategic adjustment to shifting pressures and constraints.
Glossary
- Kievan Rus - early medieval state linking Northern Europe with Byzantium and the Islamic world.
- Orthodox Christianity - Eastern branch of Christianity rooted in Byzantium.
- Golden Horde - Mongol polity that dominated Russian lands in the medieval period.
- Westernisation - deliberate adoption of Western European culture, technology, and institutions.
References
- Franklin & Shepard – The Emergence of Rus 750–1200
- Orlando Figes – Natasha’s Dance
- Geoffrey Hosking – Russia and the Russians
- Dominic Lieven – Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals
- Britannica – entries on Kievan Rus, Vladimir I, Peter the Great
