The "Russian world" (Russian:русский мир,romanized: rússkiy mir) is a concept and apolitical doctrine usually defined as thesphere of military, political and cultural influence ofRussia.[1][2][3][4][5] It is a vague term, mostly used to refer to communities with a historical, cultural, or spiritual tie to Russia.[6] This can include allethnic Russians andRussian speakers in neighboring states, as well as those who belong to theRussian Orthodox Church.[7] The concept of the "Russian world" is linked toRussian neo-imperialism.[8] PresidentVladimir Putin established the government-fundedRusskiy Mir Foundation to foster the idea of the "Russian world" abroad. The concept is sometimes also called thePax Russica,[9][10] as a counterweight to thePax Americana afterWWII.[11]
PhilologistAndrey Desnitsky [ru] analyzed theNational Corpus of the Russian Language and established that the expression "Russian world" was used only sporadically before 1830s. Later the term started being used more frequently, as he wrote, "They seem to be characteristic of the romantic European nationalisms of that period when people within the same nation state (or longing for such a state, as was the case in Germany) started to look for a common identity based on ethnicity and culture. Similar concepts can be found in other languages, likeDeutschtum in German orHispanidad in Spanish. Still later, up untilWorld War I the term became a commonplace, mostly used as an apposition to other nations, "usually without any jingoism". After theRussian Revolution the expression became nearly obsolete, only to resurface inKremlin propaganda since the early 21st century.[12]
The "Russian world" is a vaguely defined term, mostly used to refer to communities with a historical, cultural, or spiritual tie to Russia.[6] This can include allethnic Russians andRussian speakers in neighboring states, as well as those who belong to theRussian Orthodox Church.[7][13] Its proponents believe Russia is a "unique civilization" and a bastion of "traditional values" andnational conservatism.[13] The "Russian world" idea is linked toRussian neo-imperialism.[8] Jeffrey Mankoff of the Institute for National Strategic Studies says that the "Russian world" embodies "the idea of a Russian imperial nation transcending the Russian Federation's borders" and challenges "neighboring states' efforts to construct their own civic nations and disentangle their histories from Russia".[8] A number of observers see the "Russian world" concept asrevanchist, with the goal of restoring Russia's borders or its influence back to that of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.[14][15][16]
In the 1990s, Russianneo-fascist philosopherAleksandr Dugin began writing about Russia as a uniqueEurasian civilization.[13] Dugin was later an adviser to Russian presidentVladimir Putin.[13] Other authors behind the development of the concept in post-Soviet Russia includePyotr Shchedrovitsky [ru], Yefim Ostrovsky,Valery Tishkov, Vitaly Skrinnik, Tatyana Poloskova andNatalya Narochnitskaya.[citation needed] In 2000, Shchedrovitsky presented the main ideas of the "Russian world" concept in the article "Russian World and Transnational Russian Characteristics",[17] among the most important of which was theRussian language.[2] Andis Kudors of theWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, analyzing Shchedrovitsky's article, concludes that it follows ideas first laid out by the 18th century philosopherJohann Gottfried Herder about the influence of language on thinking (which has become known as the principle oflinguistic relativity): those who speak Russian come to "think Russian", and eventually to "act Russian".[2]
Observers describe the concept as a tool of Russiansoft power.[2] According to assistant editor Pavel Tikhomirov ofRusskaya Liniya [ru], many Ukrainians see the "Russian world" asneo-Sovietism under another name.[18] TheFinancial Times described the "Russian world" as "Putin’s creation that fuses respect for Russia's Tsarist, Orthodox past with reverence for the Soviet defeat of fascism in the Second World War. This is epitomised in theMain Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, 40 miles west of Moscow, opened in 2020".[19]
The Economist says that the "Russian world" concept has become the basis of a crusade against theWest's "liberal" culture and has fed a "new Russian cult of war". It says thatPutin's regime has debased the "Russian world" concept with a mixture of obscurantism, Orthodox dogma, anti-Western sentiment, nationalism,conspiracy theory and security-stateStalinism.[20]
Eventually, the idea of the "Russian world" was adopted by the Russian government under Vladimir Putin. In 2001, he said "The notion of the Russian World extends far from Russia's geographical borders and even far from the borders of the Russian ethnicity".[13]
Putin visited theArkaim site of theSintashta culture in 2005, meeting the chief archaeologistGennady Zdanovich.[21] The visit was widely covered in Russian media, which presented Arkaim as the "homeland of the majority of contemporary people in Asia, and, partly, Europe". Nationalists called Arkaim the "city of Russian glory" and the "most ancient Slavic-Aryan town". Zdanovich reportedly presented Arkaim to the president as a possible "national idea of Russia",[22] a new idea of civilisation whichVictor Schnirelmann calls the "Russian idea".[23]
Putin decreed the establishment of the government-sponsoredRusskiy Mir Foundation in 2007, to foster the idea of the "Russian world" abroad. It "has largely served as a way to push a Russian-centric agenda in former Soviet states".[13]
The "Russian world" concept is promoted by many in the leadership of theRussian Orthodox Church.[24] On 3 November 2009, at the Third Russian World Assembly, newly enthronedPatriarch Kirill of Moscow defined the "Russian world" as "the common civilisational space founded on three pillars:Eastern Orthodoxy,Russian culture and especially the language and the common historical memory".[25][26] For the Russian Orthodox Church, theRussian world is "a spiritual concept, a reminder that through thebaptism ofRus, God consecrated these people to the task of building aHoly Rus".[27]
Patriarch Kirill's 2009 tour of Ukraine was described by Oleh Medvedev, adviser to Ukraine's prime minister, as "a visit of an imperialist who preached the neo-imperialist Russian World doctrine".[28]
In the wake of the February 2022Russian invasion of Ukraine, 1,600 theologians and clerics of theEastern Orthodox Church issued theDeclaration on the 'Russian World' Teaching, commonly known as theVolos Declaration. It condemned the "Russian world" ideology as being heretical and a deviation from theOrthodox faith.[29][30][31] This declaration called the "Russian world" aheresy that is "totalitarian in character".[32] They condemned six "pseudo theological facets" of the "Russian world" concept: replacing theKingdom of God with an earthly kingdom; deification of the state through atheocracy andcaesaropapism which deprives the Church of its freedom to stand against injustice; divinization of a culture;Manichaean demonization of theWest; refusal to speak the truth and non-acknowledgement of "murderous intent and culpability".[33]
Following this, among theOrthodoxPatriarchates from thePentarchy, two have condemned the ideology as contrary to the teachings ofChrist, linking it tophyletism, an ideology condemned as an heresy by aGeneral Synod inConstantinople in 1872.[34] The first to do so was theChurch of Alexandria and all-Africa and their Patriarch,Theodore II.[35][36][37] They were followed by theEcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the firstOrthodox Church in rank and honor.[38][39]
In their epistolary exchange of early 2023, theEcumenical Patriarch,Bartholomew I and theArchbishop of Cyprus,George III, discussed the issue extensively.[40][41]
InUkraine, the promotion of the "Russian world" became as early as 2018 strongly associated with theRusso-Ukrainian War.[42][43] TheRussian invasion of Ukraine is said to implement the idea of the "Russian world".[44][45][46] Putin referencedFyodor Ushakov, an admiral who is the Orthodox patron saint of theRussian Navy. Putin recalled Ushakov's words: "the storms of war would glorify Russia".The Economist also pointed toPatriarch Kirill's declaration of the godliness of the war and its role in keeping out the West's alleged decadentgay culture, and to the priestElizbar Orlov who said that Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine is cleansing the world of "adiabolic infection".[20]
On 25 December 2022, in an interview for national television, Putin openly declared that Russia's goal is "to unite the Russian people" within a single state.[47] In June 2023, Putin said that Russian soldiers killed in the invasion of Ukraine "gave their lives forNovorossiya [New Russia] and for the unity of the Russian world".[48] In 2025, he claimedRussians andUkrainians were "one people" and that in a sense, "the whole of Ukraine is ours".[49][50]
Orlando Figes defines the invasion as "imperial expansionism" and writes that the Russians' sense of superiority may help to explain its brutality: "The Russian killings of civilians, their rapes of women, and other acts of terror are driven by a post-imperial urge to take revenge and punish them, to make them pay for their independence from Russia, for their determination to be part of Europe, to be Ukrainians, and not subjects of the 'Russian world'."[51]
