The Russia That We Have Lost: Pre-Soviet Past as Anti-Soviet Discourse

Khazanov’s detailed research focuses on the “anti-Soviet discourse on the pre-Soviet past.” Based on the work of the late Soviet thinkers, writers, poets, and filmmakers, he discovers that, as early as the 1950s, following Stalin’s death, Russian cultural elites sought to valorize, “rejoin,” and even identify with imperial Russia. The very regime condemned by Marxist-Leninist ideology appeared to the Russian intelligentsia as a realm of kulturnost (culturedness), decency, and normality. As Khazanov emphasizes, the pre-Soviet past appealed to both liberal and conservative Soviet intellectuals. The author’s attempt to project this pursuit of reconnecting with pre-Soviet Russia into more recent times is less convincing. Unlike the Soviet state, which continued, until its collapse, to celebrate the overthrow of tsarist Russia, President Vladimir Putin proclaims the 1,000-year history of Russia as a continuum of impeccable greatness with the Soviet victory in World War II as the pinnacle of Russian glory. Besides, in today’s Russia, the empire is embraced as a symbol of formidable force rather than cultural refinement.