Russkiy Mir has its origins from the medieval Russian times but in post soviet era, it has its rebirth from the early 90s but post the annexation of Crimea it was brought to the spotlight as Putin referred to it as “reunifying Russia” and its policy of “near-abroad”. There are cultural and religious commonalities of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian foreign policy on the concept of ‘Near abroad’ as the Church and the state considers that current region of CIS and Slavic countries as the areas of primary interests. Russia’s cultural and religious diplomacy is under the control of the state as in it remains fairly autonomous institutional if it plays in favour of Russia’s national interest. Patriarch Cyril and Putin also share the common ideas of unipolarity in the Global context and they are against the idea of American domination as they primarily see it as a threat to global peace and stability. The Church’s interest against the americanisation or westernization of the world is due to the usage of American values like individuality, lack of family values and its sphere of influence of the same concerns it and it propagates an alliance of “traditional civilization” against westernization which ultimately favours Russia in the International arena.
The first sphere of influence that the Russian Orthodox Church can have is on the Balkan countries and the next sphere of influence can be with Muslim neighbourhood with its alliance of muftiates, especially in the international context where Muslims are seen as the enemy by the west and often ‘otherize’ and associate everyone with Islamic terrorism. Russia’s image for harmony between both the communities need to be portrayed and this can be only put in term of aspirational alliances of Muslim nations against the western civilizations.
The paper tries to be realistic in understanding the limitations of such diplomacy when it comes to praxis of the same. The cultural or diplomacy of Russia has brought out a newer dimension in the Russian policy that has been long suppressed during the Soviet era and despite of the suppression of religion by the state in the Soviet Union the large number of population in the CIS seems to have practice it in certain ways that reflects on the pew research survey of 2017 on CIS countries and Orthodox Christianity. The Orthodox Christian Church remains to one of the back-bone of the policy of Russkiy Mir and its advocacies have paradoxes when it comes to state’s understanding of it and the Church’s understanding but there seem to be an understanding between the both on the importance of Russia’s Identity, Language and Culture and bringing it out in the world Arena.
“the universal nature of the Christian teaching makes us interested in various spheres of the life of society. The Church acts on equal footing as a subject of relations with different states and with international public and political organizations. We defend our values and promote the rights and interests of our congregations” – Patriarch Cyril
Understanding Russkiy Mir
The world Russkiy Mir plays an important role in Russia’s cultural diplomacy and it has its roots from the 11th century “Kherson and Russian World”. Although ideas like the russkii dukh – Russian Spirit, russki ideia– Russian idea, russkaia dusha– Russian soul were historically present. (Laruelle, 2015) Putin established the Russiy Mir foundation in 2007 for universalizing and promoting Russian Knowledge, Language and Culture and in the year 2009 the Russian Orthodox Church officially joined the foundation to construct the world view of the Russkiy Mir.Usually when we talk about the Russian World we usually refer roughly to the prime area of CIS states but more specifically to Ukraine, Belarus and sometimes Maldova and Kazakhstan. According to Patriarch Cyril Russkiy Mir States comprises of usage and development of Russian language, identity, culture and he is also of the opinion that the Nation-state boundary are the modern construct and the ideas of the Church predates all the existing boundaries today and that it transcends present boundaries and that it is a “project of integration”.
The construction of the the idea of Russkiy Mir is rather a biological one and writers world. Petr Shchedrovitsky, Efim Ostrovsky, Valery Tishkov, Vitaly Skrinnik, Tatiana Poloskova and Natalia Narochnickaja are among the foremost authors of this concept post the disintegration of the USSR in the 90s. The idea of Russkiy Mir is also evolved at the World Russian National Council(WRNC) in 1993 under the theme of consolidating societies post the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russkiy Mir in the present times is seen as an instrument of cultural and soft power through ‘compariots’ or the Russian Disapora and the 2001 speech of Putin reminds of the aspirational view on the concept of Russian world that claims the responsibility of Russians abroad and the same can be seen in National Security Strategy of 2015.
Russian Orthodox Church in Foreign Policy
After the disintegration of the USSR the Church found a new phase where it was able to interact with the stae and not be suppressed as before in the Soviet times. There were situations that claims how the Patriarch of Moscow was solely limited to it. Patriarch Cyril headed the Russian Orthodox Church’s Foreign Policy in 2009, immediately he visited Ukraine and Kazakhstan and there had been issues over the limitations of Russian Orthodox Church and Cyril emphasized on the borders are new creations and those should not be limited to the brotherhood of the orthodox Church and emphasizes on Russkiy Mir with former soviet republic flags on his throne and aims of integration of people and states. Few of the noted moments between the Russian Orthodox Churches diplomacy is recognizing good relations with the Ukrainian and Georgian Orthodox Churches and it had good relations with all the big leaders in the Ukraine and even supported the Georgian claims to the South Ossetia. Krelim’s support towards the Russian Orthodox Church is due to its similar policies in the neighbourhood and certainly ROC’s importance in the region is recognized by the Russian government despite minor discrepancies that is ROC usually accused of as well.
The ROC has given Russia a certain platform to regain its past glory by looking at imaginations of states from the traditional Russian Identity and the Russian Empire that is one the constant loggerheads with civilizational superiority than the West and the same has been implemented in certain ways today. The successes of its diplomacy in Ukrain and Georgia speaks on length for it and it provided the post Soviet Russia a banner to countries in the CIS under one banner. ROC and its connections with other national and local churches has beneficial for Russian strategies and in turn the Russian state despite its secular tendecies the ROC has challenged its seperation of powers especially in terms of soft power and diplomacy.
Conclusion
The cultural diplomacy can only boast many successes but few important amongst those would be promoting the so called expansionist policy of Russia through cultural and historical background that has been backed by the Russian Orthodox Church that has a significant diaspora abroad that reasonates to it. The Orthodox Church in collaboration with the Department of external Church Relations (DECR) has relations with Inter-governmental and International organizations as well that promotes the Russian interest in the Global Arena and the observer status at the OIC and extending relations with Iran is one of the vital success that gives it a doorway to the Islamic countries as the scope of United States and other western countries in matters to such cooperation is very limited.
The role of Orthodox Church in slavic nations and the CIS is incredible although though one of the major limitation for the Church is to construct a proper identity for itself that does not always reflect the ideals of Krelim that creates trust deficit especially when there are situations like Crimean annexation. Although there are various limitations for cultural diplomacy and the ideas of Russkiy Mir but it can be attributed in creation of alternative world that does not have to be necessarily dominated by the west and its hegemonic ideals. There are other important criticisms for the same Russkiy Mir that it propagates the idea of Russians being superior to everyone and creates enthno-nationalist claims that possibly seem redudant in the current International context that was obsessed with Nation-State boundaries and ideals.
Cultural Diplomacy and religion involved in Foreign Policy has been used since histories to establish relations with other states and to make alliances but in this neo-liberal world, Russia seems to have gone to the roots of civilizations and religion and want to tackle the western hegemony through it. Although the Russian World’s appeal is weaker outside the CIS, post the disintegration of the Soviet Union enhancing such alternative practices in Russian Foreign Policy indeed despite all its limitations.
