Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer
“"About Russophilia" wrote Soti Triantafyllou in "Athens Voice" on April 6, 2018 on the occasion of the recent then - on February 22, 2018 proclamation of Vladimir Putin to an honorary doctorate of the University of Peloponnese, in the presence of Mr. Katrougalos. He was proclaimed for his contribution to Greek-Russian relations, letters, arts, society and democracy… 4 years and 2 days after that, on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Last week, in a joint open letter, 318 university professors demanded the removal of the honorary doctorate awarded to Vladimir Putin in 2001 by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. At the same time, they welcome the decision taken unanimously by the senator of the University of Peloponnese to remove the title of honorary doctor, which was awarded by the Department of History, Archeology and Cultural Heritage Management, in 2018, to the President of Russia.
It is worth remembering the climate of the time, the Greek Russophilia, and Putin's profile as the protector of letters, arts, society and democracy; and above all, to understand the historical irony.
…
"Faith in Russia - in its good nature, in its good intentions, in the value of its culture - is manifested in our political choices and in everyday speech. We seem to prefer the "Russophile" party to the "Americanophile", the "Anglophile" or the "Frenchophile" party, adopting the mythology about Greek-Russian relations. The first myth is - especially for the left - the October Revolution: The people who carried it out are considered wealthy. The whole history of Greek communism is based on Russophilia; and in most cases it ends in the replacement of the homeland. The communists loved Russia - the "Soviet Union" - with the illusion of internationalism; they were patriots of a country they did not know and which was their ideal, the Holy Grail of their ideology. For decades, their heroes and idols were Soviet leaders, scientists, astronauts, poets, actors, dancers and singers. The books they read were Russian; the left had its own literary rule from which "bourgeois" writers were excluded: strangely enough, the Russians were collectively considered revolutionaries, unless of course they were agents of reaction such as Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Nambo. It was of little importance to the Greek left that the great Russian writers fell one by one out the window after the Bolsheviks came to power. Ah, these sensitive Russian souls! If the communists were learning a foreign language it was Russian: the depth of the horizon was red and Russian.
For left-wing intellectuals, Russian pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary literature, Russian art (although he died around 1930), and Russian intellectual life (also anemic) demonstrated the deeper essence of the Russian soul. If for the anti-communists the Russians were the suffering people who were trampled on at Stalin's funeral and who drowned their grief in vodka, for the communists it was the fearless people who had defeated Hitler and built the great socialist homeland with the same hands . Hard work was a virtue only in socialist conditions, not in capitalist-boss conditions. Russophilia was far-fetched: the communists worshiped not only Lenin and Stalin, but also Peter the Great, setting aside the historical rifts and the Christian identity of the Russians. They saw the whole world as "atheists" as "atheists"; they did not understand the nature of the Soviet regime, nor did they want to see what was really happening and why what was happening was happening.
On the other hand, although they were communicating vessels, the Greek religious, that is, the majority of Greeks, felt related to co-religious Russia. The KKE took advantage of this affinity by referring to historical episodes such as the so-called Orlofika ― which it interpreted in its own manipulative way. The failed uprising of the Greeks in 1770, instigated by the Orloffs, officials of Tsarist Russia under Catherine II against the Ottomans during the Russo-Turkish War (1768-74), had painful consequences for the rebels. But as early as the Karlovich Treaty in 1699, when it became clear that Russia needed a crossing into the Mediterranean, the Greeks looked forward to an alliance with co-religion: their pro-Russianism was based on Christian Orthodoxy and a kind of crusade against Islam. There was, as it is today, an emotional charge of the Christians: then the Greeks were humiliated by the Turks; later by the great powers of the West and the domestic right; today by Germany. Thus, Hellenism turned to Russia. The "oracles" of Roditis Agathangelos, who in the 13th century referred to the "blonde race" which was to liberate the enslaved Greeks from the Ottoman yoke, also played a role. And later, in the 18th century, John Prigos, a national benefactor living in Amsterdam, called Russia "the common mother of the Orthodox and the only hope and refuge of our unfortunate race." Later, Andreas Metaxas's Russian party, although supporting Kapodistrias (in 1823, Kapodistrias was Russia's foreign minister; under Tsar Alexander I) owed its popularity to the priority it gave to Orthodoxy. The Russophiles (among whom was Kolokotronis) were not influenced by the western democracies; they were imbued with the cloudy dream of a Christian state without state structures.
In the meantime, Russophilia has evolved into a homopathy of homeopaths: Greeks, who consider themselves "polypaths", rush to align themselves with other "polypaths", victims of history and the powerful. According to stereotypes, Russians are hospitable and emotional, unlike Western Europeans who are cold, hypocritical and self-interested. Russia seems to be eliminating the differences between North and South: Although winter is heavy, Russian psychosynthesis suits the South; it is considered a mixture of Tolstoy asceticism and Slavic hedonism; a spiritual-religious community with rituals that transcend content. As usual, stereotypes contain some truth along with a number of contradictions.
There are Russian words that correspond to concepts unknown in the West but understandable in Greece, especially in the circles of communists and religious people: they are significant in terms of tax avoidance, overlapping in the face of the law, collective responsibility, power of the elders, with the patriarchy, with the anti-Western spirit. The latter is another factor of Russophilia: anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, which in turn are due to differences in mentalities and the complex of Russian and Greek superiority; a sense of historical injustice.
As for Russian Orthodoxy, like Greek Orthodoxy, it is strongly anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant, while, conversely, Catholics and Protestants do not deal with Orthodoxy at all; they do not judge it, they do not even take it into account. Sometimes, not unjustifiably, it is suspected of being too oriental, therefore more Islam-friendly - in terms of morality, not dogma. Anti-Westernism unites us with Russia by bridging left and right and forming a common ethno-religious identity that includes the Balkans and Slavs in general - and from which Poles are excluded as Catholics and anti-Russians.
Recently, Russophilia has intensified in response to the dominance of the "Teutonic race". Vladimir Putin was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Peloponnese, in the presence of Mr. Katrougalos. Among those present were various individuals who, apparently, are making a career in the fascist education of the Greek youth. They are not the first, nor the last, to confuse Russophilia with Sovietophilia, Tsarism with Communism. Why not? The historical continuity is obvious: old culture, nationalism, politics of pan-Russianism, authoritarian but popular leadership. Nevertheless, cooperation with Russia is desirable and necessary; the fatal mistake would be to rely on traditional pro-Russianism, the delusions of Kolokotronis, the KKE and the popes. Друзей держи вблика себя се, а врагов - еще κοντά: keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer; whom you should recognize ”.
Soti Triantafyllou was born in Athens (Fokionos Negri) in 1957. She is a historian and writer. He graduated from EKPA Pharmacy in 1979 and then studied French Philology at the University of Nice and Athens. He did doctoral studies in American History (Paris (EHSS)) and History of the American City (New York (NYU)), postdoctoral studies in the history of mathematics, Russian history and international relations. He specialized in the history of the Cold War. Her latest essay is "Alone in the World: European Writers, Anti-Americanism, and American Loneliness." Her latest novel is entitled "Sicilian Romance".