The Origins of Russophobia

An excerpt from, “The British Russophobia in the first half of the XIX century: the Military Aspect” By Evgeniy V. Kryzhko, Petr I. Pashkovsky,  Nickolay N. Chemodurov, Timofey A. Charusov, Bylye Gody, 2019, Vol. 52, Issue 2:

The article considers the problem of the military aspect of the British Russophobia in the first half of the XIX century. It is established that in this period the foreign policy strategy of Great Britain was guided by the logic of the need to counter the growing military-political power of the Russian empire, demanding the development of appropriate ideological tools to give legitimacy to such a course and reach a public consensus on its implementation. Therefore, the British elites are beginning to develop and implement a large-scale anti-Russian information campaign, contributing to the emergence of the phenomenon of Russophobia, an important component of which was the military aspect. At the same time, the views of the military, on the one hand, seem to be rather restrained, reflecting the positive image of the Russian soldier, which was probably the result of the memory of the British-Russian allied relations during the Napoleonic wars. On the other hand, the first resident reports are being published on the possible directions of Russian aggression against British India and the need to neutralize this threat by diplomatic and military methods. Based on the analysis of a broad source base and numerous studies, it is revealed that in the period under review, the genesis and spread of Russophobic sentiments among the political elite of Great Britain and their projection regarding the foreign policy aspirations of the Russian empire in the context of their interpretation as a direct or indirect threat to British society, the state and Europe as a whole can be traced. Such imperatives, which emanated from the British officers, were directed to the formation of stable Russophobic attitudes among the population of Great Britain so that the people would support the government’s political line to increase geopolitical pressure towards the Russian Empire.  

An excerpt from, “The Origins of Russophobia in France: 1812-1830″ By Raymond T. McNally, The American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 17, No. 2, April 1958:

In the second two decades of the nineteenth century the picture of Russia presented in French journalistic writing was fear-inspiring. In particular, during the Napoleonic Wars and, even more pronounced after the advent of Nicholas I to the throne, French publicists initiated anti-Russian campaigns, which were destined to culminate later in the mid-nineteenth century as one of the catalyzing causes in the final alignment of France against Russia during the Crimean War. The purpose of this article is to trace the origins of this Russophobia in French pamphlets, travel books, and other popular works about Russia, as well as in diplomatic reports, before 1830. In the critical years of Franco-Russian relations, 1814-15 and 1825-26, I have also utilized the newspaper accounts of these times in tracing the roots of Russophobia.

The traditional view is that widespread fear of Russia in Western Europe was caused by the attitude and actions of Nicholas I when the liberal revolutions broke out in France, Belgium, and especially in Poland in 1830.1 However, it will be seen that a detailed study of the popular writings in France from 1812-30 requires us to make a serious modification of this traditional view held by most historians concerning the rise of Russophobia in the early nineteenth century.

In October, 1812, appeared one of the most influential works in the entire history of Russophobia: Des progres de la puissance russe by Charles-Louis Lesur (1770-1849), founder of the L’annuaire historique. In this book Lesur published the infamous and much misquoted “Testament of Peter the Great.” Napoleon I had issued an order to publish a series of articles to show that “Europe is inevitably in the process of becoming booty for Russia.” This “testament” was thus published through the designs of the French ministry of foreign affairs. The “will” was circulated again during the Crimean War; Napoleon III ordered it posted on public buildings in Paris and in the whole of France. Adolf Hitler had it republished during the last war. There appears little doubt that the “testament” was a forgery. Harry Breslau in the Historische Zeitschrift (1879) was the first to prove this.

The true writer appears to have been Michael Sokolnicki, a Polish general who presented the document to the French Directory on Oct. 19, 1797, with the title Aperqu sur la Russie. His text is substantially the same as Lesur’s, which purported to be a resume of the original document.