Westernizers

WESTERNIZERS

The word Westernizers appeared in Russia at the turn of the eighteenth century as the antonym to Easternizers and was used to denote Russian religious figures who minimized the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Easternizers interpreted the term West as "sunset," "decline"; hence for them Westernizers embodied decline and darkness. In the 1840s, in the course of a heated discussion held in the Russian press as well as in St. Petersburg and Moscow literary salons, Russian thinkers discussed the specific character of Russian culture, the interrelation of Russia and Europe, and the further development of Russia—either with Europe or along its own special path. Those who advocated rapprochement between Russia and Western Europe and adoption of the European way of life were called Westernizers. Those who defended a nativist course for Russia's development were called Slavophiles. These terms born in polemics were widely used in the press, literature, and everyday language of the intelligentsia. They were used for the division of people into allies and opponents. They were also used to mobilize the public under one banner or the other. After the 1860s, the term Westernizers was applied to the representatives of a variety of ideological trends whose pedigree could be traced to the Westernizers of the 1840s.

In modern scholarly literature, the term Westernizers is used in both a broad and a narrow sense. In its broad meaning the term denotes all people of a pro-Western orientation, irrespective of historical period, from the ninth century to the present time who, unlike Slavophiles, regard Russia and western European countries as indivisible parts of a united Europe, with common cultural and religious roots and a common destiny. In the narrow sense the term is used to denote Westernizers of the first post-Decembrist generation of the 1830s through the 1860s, and in this case they are called classical Westernizers.

Classical Westernizers had European education and largely belonged to the privileged nobility estate and intellectual elite—publicists, literary men, scientists, and university professors. In St. Petersburg of the late 1840s, some of them formed a group known to society as the Party of St. Petersburg Progress, which mainly consisted of young officials.

The philosophical views of Westernizers were formed under the influence of Western enlighteners and philosophers such as Georg Hegel, Johann Herder, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, Johann Fichte, and Auguste Comte. As a way of thinking, Westernism was based on the recognition of the leading role of human intellect. Intellect pushed back faith, offering an opportunity to conceive of the world (including the world of social relations) as a system of cause-and-effect relations, governed according to laws common to animate and inanimate nature. The historical views of Westernizers were largely derived from the contemporary western European scholars Henry Buckle, François Guizot, Barthold Niebuhr, Leopold Ranke, and Auguste Thierry. Westernizers perceived historical process as the progress of society, a chain of irreversible qualitative changes from worse to better. They asserted the value of the human being as the carrier of intellect. They opposed individualism to traditional social corporatism (korporativnost ) and defined a just society as one that held all the conditions for the existence and self-realization of the individual.

The views of the Westernizers cannot be contained in a single work or document because these views had numerous shades and peculiarities. Some views differed substantially. As early as the 1840s two trends took shape among Westernizers: a radical one (A. I. Gertzen and N. P. Ogarev were its brightest representatives) and a liberal one comprising the overwhelming majority of Westernizers. Representatives of the first trend were not numerous. Some lived as emigrants and justified the use of violence for changing the existing political system. Representatives of the second trend were advocates of peaceful reforms. They advised bringing the pressure of the public opinion upon the government and spreading their views in society through education and science. Despite differences, however, the Westernizers' sociopolitical, philosophical, and historical views shared common features. They denounced serfdom and put forward plans for its abolition. They demonstrated the advantages of hired over serf labor. They criticized censorship, the absence of legal rights, and persecutions on ethnic and religious grounds. They contrasted the Russian autocratic system with the constitutional orders of western European countries, especially those of England and France. They advocated civil rights, democracy, and representative government. They called for a speedy development of industry, commerce, and railways, and supported the replacement of protectionism with a free-trade economic policy. Nevertheless, many Westernizers maintained a critical attitude toward the sociopolitical system of western European countries, which they regarded as a point of reference and not an ideal for blind imitation.

During the reign of Nicholas I, when practical political activities outside the frame of official ideology were impossible, Westernism was a purely ideological trend. Under Alexander II, Westernizers seized new opportunities for practical work: They played an active role in the preparation and implementation of the Great Reforms of the 1860s and early 1870s. In the post-reform era, Westernism provided the theoretical basis for the politics of liberalism. It also became the ideology of radical theories, which promoted ideas for changing an unjust society, based on belief in the value of the individual and the inadequacy of the official Orthodox religion.

After 1985 Westernism experienced a rebirth in Russian social thought. Polemics between supporters and opponents of Russia's rapprochement with the West continue to rest on arguments first articulated by the classical Westernizers and Slavophiles.

See also: great reforms; intelligentsia; slavophiles; thick journals

bibliography

Edie, James M.; Scanlan, M. P.; and Zeldin, Mary-Barbara, eds. (1965). Russian Philosophy, Vol 1: The Beginnings of Russian Philosophy: The Slavophiles; The Westernizers. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.

Roosevelt, Priscilla R. (1986). Apostle of Russian Liberalism: Timofey Granovsky. Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners.

Treadgold, Donald. W. (1973). The West in Russia and China: Religious and Secular Thought in Modern Times, Vol. 1: Russia, 1472–1917. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Walicki, Andrzej. (1975). The Slavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought, tr. Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka. Oxford: Clarendon.

Walicki, Andrzej. (1979). A History of Russian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Marxism, tr. Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Boris N. Mironov