Part III: Manifestations of Russophobia as projections of a discredited metanarrative of Western civilisation
Cancelling Russian culture, I feel sorry, pity for these people I can't even understand who could think of canceling Tchaikovsky I think these are shallow narrow-minded politicians who make decisions like that.Makhar Vaziev, Bolshoi Theatre, Ballet Artistic Director, Interview with Al Jazeera (2023)
Part III: Manifestations of Russophobia as projections of a discredited metanarrative of Western civilisation
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OPINION
By Michael Kakooza, PhD (Wales)
Following the launch of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, Russophobic sentiments were weaponised in the Arts industry of Western capitals. Ideologically-informed political decisions were made to cancel scheduled festivals and concerts by Russian artistes; individual artistic celebrities being rejected on grounds that they had not demonstrated an acceptable level of political distance from Vladimir Putin. It was on these grounds that the UK’s Royal Opera House Convent Garden, banned the London tour of the world-famous Bolshoi Theatre.
This cancel culture is a symptomatic projection of the ongoing vulgarisation of the Western cultural tone, seen in the contemptuous attitude towards high art and the merits of cultural diplomacy. A particularly unflatteringly low point in this Western cultural vulgarisation was struck when France, once designated the Eldest Daughter of the [Catholic] Church, presented an anti-Christian drag scene tableau, parodying ‘The Last Supper’, as part of the closing festivities of the 2024 Summer Olympic games.
Much as accounts of the horrific anti-Semitic actions perpetrated against the Jews in Europe by the German Nazi ideologues are well-documented and well-publicised, it is not always remembered that Nazi anti-Semitism was part of a wider racist ideological framework, which identified categories of the Untermenschen [sub-humans]. Significant among these Untermenschen were the Slavic peoples, [that is, Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Poles, Czechs, and Serbs].
In his autobiography, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler declared:
This colossal empire in the East [Russia] is ripe for dissolution. And the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state. We are chosen by destiny to be the witnesses of a catastrophe which will afford the strongest confirmation of the nationalist theory of race."
Hitler’s ill-fated launch of Operation Barbarossa, the code name for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the largest and costliest military offensive in human history to date, was ideologically motivated and driven by three major reasons: to eradicate communism; to eliminate the Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide and to conquer the western Soviet Union as living space [lebensraum] for the German population. Lennart Lens (2019) notes that over 11 million Slavs were murdered at the hands of the Nazi killing machine, and he refers to this horror as “the forgotten holocaust”.
Following the end of the Second World war, another Russophobic development reared its ugly ideological head, but this was across the Atlantic Ocean, in the USA. In Part I of this article, Richard Hofstadter’s argument about a consistency of conspiracy theories in US history was briefly referred to. One such conspiracy theory, shamelessly manifesting Russophobia, is the phenomenon of what has come to be described as McCarthyism or the “Red Scare” in the USA. In the USA of the 1950s, the Republican Senator for Wisconsin, Joseph R. McCarthy (1908-1957) became the leading fearmonger of the threat of Communist takeover, and a firebrand of anti-Communism.
The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful, potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this nation. It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer -- the finest homes, the finest college education, and the finest jobs in government we can give. … This is glaringly true in the State Department. There the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been worst.
Many a career of actual or mostly perceived-to-be Communist spies with the US political establishment was destroyed by the allegations of “Commie” levelled against them by Senator MacCarthy. The sense of paranoia that swept through the corridors of power in Washington suggested that behind the productivity and statistics of the post-war US economy, the country was politically vulnerable, ideologically incoherent, and historically uncertain of its future direction.
Much as the scientific collaboration between the USA and USSR on the Russian Mir Space Station (1994-1998) appeared to point a way out of dead-end Russophobia, and establish a stabilizing platform for scientific diplomacy, history demonstrates that this was not to be. The political collapse of the Soviet Union only served to reinforce neo-liberal ideological attitudes and the push for an aggressively-imposed US unipolar hegemony in the world. Francis Fukuyama’s discredited work, The End of History and the Last Man (1992), is evidence of the folly of an intellectual surrendering objectivity, being seduced by the myopia of ideology, and then playing priest sacrificing at the altar of neoliberalism.
Fast-forwarding in US political history, Russophobic scare-mongering continues to be a demonstrably-disturbing trend of well into the 21st century, as seen in the allegations of Russian interference in the US presidential election of 2016 that ended in the victory of President Trump 1.0. Even though current findings by the office of the Director, National Intelligence appear to challenge the substantiality of the so-called Russia-gate, it is remarkable that there has been such an exposure of ideological and moral erosion of trust in the integrity of the US political system. Entertaining the very possibility that Russia has exploited weaknesses in the political structure of the USA as a world superpower and world leader in information technology is a stunning declaration of political impotence, loss of technological primacy, and surrender of national pride.
During ceremonies to mark the 40th anniversary of the surrender of the German High Command to the Allies in 1985, the then president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Richard von Weizsäcker, said:
May 8 is a day of remembrance. Remembering means recalling an occurrence honestly and purely so that it becomes a part of our very being. This places high demands on our truthfulness. Today we mourn all the war dead and those deaths caused by National Socialist tyranny. In particular we commemorate the six million Jews who were murdered in German concentration camps.
We remember all nations who suffered in the war, especially the countless citizens of the Soviet Union and Poland who lost their lives. As Germans, we mourn our own compatriots who perished as soldiers, during air raids at home, in captivity or during expulsion. … Remembrance is the source of faith in redemption. The experience creates hope, creates faith in redemption, in reunification of the divided, in reconciliation. Whoever forgets this experience loses his faith. … We, of the older generation, owe to young people not the fulfillment of dreams but honesty. We must help younger people understand why it is vital to keep the memory alive. We want to help them to accept historical truth soberly, without one-sidedness, without taking refuge in utopian doctrines of salvation, but also without moral arrogance. … What is asked of young people today is this: do not let yourselves be driven into enmity and hatred of others, of Russians or Americans, of Jews or Turks, of those who call themselves” alternatives” or of conservatives, of blacks or whites.
The speech of Von Weizsäcker, a second World War veteran officer, was a heartfelt rallying call for the recovery of authentic moral leadership and moral responsibility within post-Second World War German society.
It is soberingly instructive to note that within just a space of another forty years following this speech, the current German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in a fit of moral amnesia and latter-day teutonic heroism, could so militantly declare recently:
We have quickly initiated important laws to strengthen the Bundeswehr. And we have already set the course for faster and better procurement of weapons and equipment. At the same time, we are pursuing active peace diplomacy to end the killing in Ukraine and safeguard our security interests. We are contributing to unity in Europe. We stand firmly by Ukraine's side and we are striving to strengthen the transatlantic partnership. All this is necessary, but it is not sufficient because Russia has long been conducting hybrid attacks against us through sabotage, cyberattacks, and targeted disinformation.
The militarism that is openly championed by Germany’s current political leadership represents the collapse of the Post-Second World War Peace in Europe. It marks the death sentence of the surviving vestiges of Western diplomacy, sacrificed at the ideological altar of German Russophobia. It should not be overlooked that the aggressively-militant stance of the German chancellor is fundamentally a theatrical posturing behind a hollowed-out leadership, emptied of vision, direction and ethical/ moral responsibility. It is unsurprising that the current leaders in the West fare as low as they do in the opinion polls.
Russophobia in the United Kingdom is one of the oldest strains of this Western pathology. According to scholars like John Howes Gleason (1950), British Russophobia emerged historically as a British political establishment response to the competing imperial-economic interests of both countries in Asia. In other words, British Russophobia was politically-engineered and positioned as part of the mainstream national ideological narrative.
Before exploring the James Bond film series as a unique British Russophobic cinematic export, it is informative to take note of two British developments that highlight the irrationality of Western Russophobia as an ideology. The first instance was the lionization of Yuri Gagarin, the first man to successfully orbit the earth, during his wildly-popular and successful tour of England in July 1961. The ordinary British people received and celebrated the Russian cosmonaut with open arms, his Russian identity being of no consequence. Realising that there was political leverage to be gained, the British establishment also exploited Gagarin’s popularity, and both the Queen and Prime Minister hosted him. The second instance is when the current British king’s father, Prince Philip, provided his DNA to help identify what were considered to be the exhumed remains of the slaughtered former Russian imperial family, to which the prince was related from both his parents. The historical irony is that though Britain continues to peddle an official establishmentarian Russophobia, its credibility is undermined by the historical fact that the royal family, guarantor of Britishness, is paternally descended from the Russian Tsars.
Much as the James Bond film series have gone down in history as the UK’s most celebrated cinematic export to the world, the Russophobic dimension to these films is often overlooked. 16 of the films were produced and released in a period of 27 years during the Cold War (1962-1989). The general motif in all the films is the classic binary opposition between good and evil. James Bond, the British eponymous hero of the series, is the desacralized 20th century secular version of the European medieval knight in shining armour, who, in addition, is invested with the qualities of a testosterone-charged alpha male, pandering to the changing tastes of an -increasingly permissive Western cinematic audience. The evil world that James Bond, the MI6 agent, must confront and overcome is one that is continually destabilized by Soviet/ Russian crime, intrigue, and duplicity.
Katerina Lawless (2014) writes about the Russian male characters in the James Bond series:
Russian male characters are usually described as tough and ruthless people who often act mad and psychotic and are usually involved in killing, stealing and betraying their countrymen. General Orlov is a common thief who wants to satisfy his personal paranoia (Octopussy, 1983), General Koskov is a defector who betrayed the Russians, the British and even Kara (The Living Daylights, 1987), while General Ourumov is not just a criminal, but a traitor who killed a lot of innocent Russians (Goldeneye, 1995).
The cinematic caricature of a toxic Russian masculinity is contrasted with that of an aesthetically-sensuous Russian femininity, which James Bond, living out a toxic masculinity, is unembarrassed to sexually exploit:
Unlike Russian men, who are associated with power and threat, Russian women are associated with art. Tania is one of the most beautiful girls Bond has ever seen who had three lovers and trained for the ballet (From Russia with Love, 1963), Ania has a figure hard to match and was more than friends with one of Russian agents (The Spy who Loved
Me, 1977), Pola danced with Bolshoi Theatre (A View to a Kill, 1985), Kara is a talented scholarship cellist (The Living Daylights, 1987), while Camille had a beautiful Russian mother, a dancer (Quantum of Solace, 2008).
Other than becoming a winning cinematic project that served to provide ideological and moral arguments for shoring up the discredited myth of an invincible and imperial Britain, the Russophobia of the James Bond series could not mask the harsh reality of the post-imperial British condition.
For all the cinematic fantasies about Britain’s geopolitical role, the alleged superiority of its intelligence agencies and technology, as well as the claim of British cultural sophistication, the real Britain of the latter half of the twentieth century was harshly different. Other than the media spectacle of religiously-observed imperial pageantry of royal functions, the former empire had been reduced to a small island on the margins of a Europe, dominated by a resurgent Germany and France, a small island nation that looked to the USA for ideological and moral relevance, and an island where “Made in England” no longer described the vibrant hub of world quality industrial production, but rather, drew attention to the vulnerable economy of a country that, crippled by cumulative waves of industrial action, was forced to take up an IMF loan in 1976. The Russophobia of the James Bond Film Series did not hide the Ozymandian lesson in the rise and fall of pretensions to imperial grandeur.
Rasputin (1978), the Boney M hit, rose to the top of the charts in Germany, Austria and Australia, taking second place in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and it even enjoyed popularity in the Soviet Union.
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen
They put some poison into his wine
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine
He drank it all and he said, "I feel fine"
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen
They didn't quit, they wanted his head
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine
And so they shot him 'til he was dead
Final Chorus of Rasputin (1978), Boney M
The song hit the airwaves at the height of the 1970s disco culture in the West which combined hedonistic expressions of a no-holds barred freedom and fun-loving lifestyle choice on the one hand, and the sensual syncopating rhythms cum use of electric synthesizers on the dance floor, on the other. It should also not be forgotten that the song was released during the Cold War period.
The story of the historical figure of the Russian monk, Rasputin, is a shadowy, certainly not mainstream, episode in the complex history of the Russian imperial court in its last days, before the advent of the Marxist-Leninist Revolution of 1917. In the Boney M. song, the character of Rasputin is magnified in prominence, making him a historical parody. The song then thrills its audience by conjuring up a steamy atmosphere revolving around an intoxicating cocktail of sex, politics, power intrigues and murder.
The popularity of the song, Rasputin, was not premised on a discovery or re-appreciation of Russian history. Rather, the song captured the disco spirit of the age in its anti-authority and anti-establishment subversiveness. That the song was about a Russian subject was only of incidental significance as a backdrop: the Russia in the world of the disco hit was one that was exotic, sexually-liberating, life-defying and establishment-challenging. In short, Boney M’s song validated the lived experiences of the then disco generation and thus served to provide ideological and moral legitimation to the trend of cultural decadence in the West.
A Russophobic sideshow was staged at the Alaska Summit of August 2025, discussed in Part I above, which, even if it never succeeded in eclipsing the geopolitical significance of the event, still deserves to be discussed because of the ideological and moral high ground it purports to take. During the Summit, President Trump delivered a personal letter addressed by the US First Lady, Melania Trump, to President Putin on the theme of protection of children.
Melania Trump wrote:
A simple yet profound concept, Mr. Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation's descendants begin their lives with a purity - an innocence which stands above geography, government, and ideology. … In protecting the innocence of these children, you will do more than serve Russia alone — you serve humanity itself.
Melania Trump’s letter, which was predictably “shared” on Truth Social, and was ostensibly in response to an earlier one written to her by her Ukrainian counterpart, Olena Zelenska, drew attention to the official Western-supported Ukraine narrative about the alleged abduction of at least 19,500 Ukrainian children by Russia since the launch of what it calls the special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. To date, no detailed evidence has been submitted to substantiate the allegations.
It was on the basis of that narrative that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Children's Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the alleged unlawful deportation of children.
The narrative about alleged child abduction is psychologically compelling as it conjures images of vulnerability, innocence, abuse of power and trust. power abuse.
Anne-Marie McAlinden (2014) notes that the classic child victim narrative constructed by victimologists revolves around the ‘sacralisation’ of children or the ‘veneration of the innocence of childhood’ as the bedrock of moral politics of late modernity.
Far be it from me to impugn the motives of Melania Trump in writing her evidently high-minded letter to the Russian president. However, the timing of the letter suggests that nobility of sentiments for the innocent may only be part of the equation. President Trump is under a cloud of suspicion as to his documented role in the Jeffrey Epstein Case, the files on which are yet to be publicly released. By way of marital association, Melania Trump’s letter invests President Trump with the moral aura of defender of child innocence, conveniently diverting media focus away from the ugliness of the potential complicity of Donald Trump in child sex trafficking. Further, the gist of the letter would appear to reduce Putin to the morally-reprehensible character of a child-abuser or molester, effectively undermining any diplomatic leverage he may have gained during the Alaska Summit. Finally, the unsubstantiated allegations of Child abductions are once-again dusted off and brought back into the media spotlight to frame Russia as an immoral entity that no self-respecting Western nation should do business with, let alone engage with in a diplomatic encounter.
The reader should not be blind to the strained virtue-signalling in this case. Regardless of the moral calibre of Russia child protection credentials, child sex trafficking is a thriving industry in the USA. This is attested to, among others, by celebrated documentaries including Jim Caviezel’s Sound of Freedom (2023) and Jada Pinkett Smith’s The CNN Freedom Project: Children for Sale (2014).
The irrationality of Western Russophobia has even led to a grotesque case of historical revisionism in real time, and the surrender of intellectual integrity on the part of the academic establishment. January 27th is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In January 2025, the Western media beamed the celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. Despite the indisputable role played by the Soviet troops in bringing the full horrors of that Nazi concentration camp to light, no diplomatic overture was extended to a Russian delegation, regardless of the official argument of Vladimir Putin facing an ICC arrest warrant. Leaders of countries that for ostensibly pragmatic reasons had cooperated and collaborated with the German Nazi regime, including the Baltic States and Finland, were invited. The Ukrainian president, in whose country Nazi anti-Semitic atrocities were perpetrated with the assistance of local collaborators, and where there are documented accounts of contemporary neo-Nazi activity, was also present. The Polish president, Andrzej Duda gave an address, as the host, in which he demonstrated a remarkable degree of Russophobia by using the technique of damnatio memoriae, that is, he did not directly mention or even refer obliquely to the Soviet/ Russian role in the liberation of Auschwitz, and so, in effect, he erased its historicity of the Soviet liberation from the record.
Another Russophobic manifestation in the West that served to undermine the foundations of the rule of law was recently demonstrated in March 2025 when Europe's Court of Human Rights rejected the appeal of the former Romanian presidential candidate, whose win in the first round of the presidential election held in December 2024 had been overturned by the country’s Constitutional Court on claims of Russian interference. The decisions of both Romania’s judicature and Europe’s Constitutional Court demonstrate the extent to which Courts as structures of legal justice have been debased by ideological weaponization. The popular will as expressed in the presidential election is subverted and sacrificed to Russophobic sentiments, highlighting a fundamental contempt for democracy as concept and process.
Part III of this article has demonstrated that Western Russophobia is alive and well, and does not appear to be receding in force or influence. The vibrancy of Russophobia is the paranoid projection of a discredited metanarrative of Western civilization that can no longer achieve a consensus on any of the four pillars, that its construction had always rested upon. The legacy of the ancient Graeco-Roman civilizational legacy has been undermined by an intellectual anti-Western and anti-elitist temperament. Atheistic secularism has hollowed out the judeo-christian moral and value foundations of society. The establishment-supported Woke ideologies fly in the face of rationalist and humanist philosophies. The phenomenon of cancel culture, and the increasing legal and regulatory restrictions on citizen rights to self-expression and freedom of association, like the banning of pro-Palestinian protests, all cumulatively describe the severity of a pathological civilizational condition. Western Russophobia is not only an ideological deflection away from the required civilizational soul-searching. It is sinister and dishonest because it provides a vicarious means of claiming the myth of ideological and moral superiority, in the face of a discredited civilizational metanarrative.
Read Part 4 of this four-part series on Monday - You don't want to miss it!