Deconstructing Constructivism in Order to Understand Russia

Abstract

The article examines the factors that often make French and other Western scholars misunderstand the meaning and position of ethnicity in academic and social discourses in Russia and post-Soviet states. There are historical reasons for this misunderstanding as well as more recent ones having to do with the general reassessment of values that has been under way. National elites are desperately trying to snatch at anything that would set them apart from others. Thus, in France, the language of human rights is becoming a new ideology; while in Russia, it is the language of patriotism colored in imperial tones. Today, when we are facing the dire need to arrive at a common understanding of causes and expressions of social and geopolitical conflicts, it is crucial that we attempt to inquire into the reasons for different approaches to otherness that exist in the frameworks of primordial and constructivist paradigms in Eastern and Western Europe.