CAPTURING HISTORICAL DIMENSION OF RUSSIA’S FOREIGN POLICY STRATEGIES (1993–2023)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/2524-2679-2024-03-258-274Keywords:
war, Ukraine, Russia, politics of memory, historical politics, historical trauma, domestic and foreign national strategies, political discourse, use of history, historical narrativeAbstract
The article focuses on the analysis of Russia’s official foreign policy Strategies and its correlation with the declared historical narratives. It is a well-known fact that historical narratives have an essential influence on the historical conscious- ness formation. It is noted that Russian historical politics and the politics of memory, with its ideological dimension, went far beyond the domestic political course and turned into an important foreign policy imperative. It is emphasized that Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has a historical, ideologically marked dimension and is a natural continuation of the memorial discourse that the Rus- sian Federation has been forming for many years. It is emphasized that the cult of victory in the World War II and the subsequent ideas of a special mission of Russia in the international arena which were declared in the 2023 foreign poli- cy Strategy resulted in major foreign policy priorities positioning Russia as the global power providing multipolar international system building. It is noted that the policy of positioning the USA as an adversary, which was a common practice during the Cold War, was introduced nowadays to modern Russian society, and the Euro-Atlantic choice of Ukraine’s foreign policy became a powerful trigger for the emergence of anti-Ukrainian sentiments not only within the Russian so- ciety, but also in normative foreign policy documents.
In the process of analyzing the stated topic, it was established that historical nar- ratives became the ideological basis for strengthening neo-imperial ideas, which the Russian Federation promotes in all the post-Soviet countries, considering them as its own zone of influence. Ukraine’s rejection of the policy of maneuve- ring between the two major centers of gravity – the European Union and Russia, – and the clear declaration of a course for European and Euro-Atlantic integra- tion disrupted the Russian geopolitical strategy and determined the beginning of open expansion. The historical, ideologically marked dimension of the foreign policy strategy actually justified the attack on Ukraine.
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