The collapse of the Soviet Union
Hello everyone, I'm Lantai.
Today I would like to talk to you about how the Russians view the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
In 2020, the Russian Satellite News Agency reported that a poll conducted by Russia's prestigious Levada Center showed that the most humiliating and distressing event in Russian history for the Russian people was the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Seeing this, some people may ask, what is the origin of this Russian Levada center? It won't be an official Russian investigative agency.
It's not.
Because in 2016, Russia also included the Levada Center on the list of "foreign agents", when the Russian Ministry of Justice said in an interview with TASS that the Levada Center meets the characteristics of non-governmental organizations performing the functions of "foreign agents".
In other words, the Levada Center is definitely not a polling center with an official Russian background.
In this poll in Levada, the main question of the poll is "What events in Russian history have made the inhabitants of the country proud and which have made Russians feel ashamed and sad?" ”
As a result, 49 percent of the people surveyed said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the most humiliating and painful for Russians.
The ratio of 49% is also the highest index of the Levada Center since its establishment in 2003.
In addition, another question in the investigation is "What is the historical event that russians are most proud of?" As a result, 89% of the people surveyed chose to win the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.
In fact, if we comb through the relevant polls of the Levada Center over the years, we can see that the Russians' nostalgia for the collapse of the Soviet Union has grown with the passage of time. Especially after the Crimean incident, the Russian people regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union and missed the old Soviet era more and more.
Russians lined up to lay flowers
Why is that?
According to Professor Zhu Xiaozhong, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Russian Institute of Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, when the Soviet Union collapsed, both the Russian elite and the ordinary people had an unrealistic illusion about the European Union and the United States, believing that the Soviet Union had disintegrated, and Russia was already the same as Europe and the United States in the system, so Europe and the United States should accept Russia unconditionally.
Both Yeltsin and Putin have a more romantic idea. It is to gain the recognition or acceptance of Russia by the West through the overtures to the West, but in fact, because Russia is a nuclear power and because Russia has an imperial tradition, Western countries, including the European Union, have always been wary of Russia's political, economic, and military development.
Professor Zhu Xiaozhong's statement, Lan Tai believes is correct.
Because Russia is too big, if the EU wants to accept Russia, is Russia willing to "one person, one vote" with small countries such as Croatia and Austria?
Will Russia demand that the EU give it treatment that is consistent with its status as a great power?
Most crucially, the Russian people, including the Russian people, are still viewing the 21st century EU with the backward geopolitical concept of the 19th century, such as "spheres of influence".
To put it bluntly, the two sides have different concepts, and due to the outbreak of the Crimean incident, the Russian people have presented a confrontational cognition of Europe and the United States.
A 2009 Russian poll illustrates what kind of Europeans Russians like.
In that poll, the Russians' favorite people in European countries were Italians, and Russians preferred the wasteful, politically ill-sighted people of Italy.
Knowing this background knowledge, and looking back at this poll, it is not difficult to understand why Russians are increasingly nostalgic for the former Soviet Union, and why more and more Russians think that the collapse of the Soviet Union is a shame.
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