Is Western Hostility Toward Russia a Repeated Pattern in History? From John Stuart Mill's 1836 Critique to the Present

Hector Berlioz's French composition 'Symphonie fantastique' was dedicated to him, and Franz Liszt was even awarded one of his decorations. This attitude reveals a double-sided stance: respecting Western culture while rejecting Western political systems.

When the war broke out, railways and communication networks were paralysed, and rampant corruption meant that soldiers' pay was embezzled by officers. The Russian army failed to fight effectively against Western advanced weapons systems and was defeated, showing that behind Russia's outward image of a great power lay serious internal problems.

After the Crimean War, the West fully deployed a strategy of demonising Russia, namely 'Cognitive Warfare'. This strategy brainwashes the public into taking sides, dividing opponents into good and evil with the goal of gaining psychological superiority. Such cognitive warfare was used even after the war ended to mobilise national sentiment continuously and entrench negative perceptions of a particular country.

Józef Piłsudski, Frédéric Chopin and Marie Curie formed an anti-Russian front, and the anti-Russian current that later passed through Zbigniew Brzezinski and John Paul II became deeply rooted across Western society.

From the seventeenth century, Britain pursued imperial expansion by extensively invading India. In the process it distorted Russia's southward policy by treating it as a threat to India. In reality the main aim was Britain's conquest of India, yet it used the pretext of a Russian threat to justify its own imperial expansion. One of the practical aims of the Crimean War was also closely tied to Britain's strategy for preserving India.

In 1836, John Stuart Mill, then an employee of the East India Company, strongly criticised the British Parliament. He pointed out that members of Parliament were infected with a 'Russophobia' epidemic, brainwashing ministers and using it as a pretext to increase military spending. Mill's critique reveals the hypocrisy of British society at the time, which fostered vague fears of Russia and used them to pursue its own military interests.

France also contributed to fuelling hostility toward Russia. The humiliating memory of defeat by Russia in Napoleon's campaign of 1812, and the entry of Russian troops into Paris in 1815, instilled deep anti-Russian feeling among the French. This historical background led to the circulation within France of malicious books and caricatures about Russia.

His illustrations linked Russia's serf system to the sale of land, creating a distorted image, and the public accepted them regardless of the truth. Sensational depictions, such as serfs being kidnapped and corpses hanging from city walls, spread negative perceptions of Russia.

However, the situation changed when diplomatic relations between Russia and France improved from 1861. The French government ordered Gustave Doré to withdraw all the Russia-related caricatures he had previously drawn, and Doré complied by removing those illustrations from every bookshop.

Just before his death in 1883, Gustave Doré was commissioned to illustrate 'The Raven', the poem by the American Edgar Allan Poe. At the time, British audiences were enthusiastic about the gloomy, melancholy and frightening atmosphere of the illustrations. Paradoxically, this shows that the West itself was projecting onto its own imagery the negative image it had once attached to Russia.

Britain and France regarded Russia's demand for a protective treaty as an act that destroyed the balance of power, even as they themselves pursued imperial expansion.

This clearly shows that the Crimean War was used as a means to satisfy Britain's imperial ambitions, going beyond simple containment of Russia.

Alexander II made efforts to fully modernise and liberalise Russia, yet Russia retained its own distinct identity. After the emancipation of the peasants, village communes and rural credit banks formed naturally, and there existed a distinctively Russian legal tradition emphasising popular judgement, such as the introduction of trial by jury. This shows that despite Western-style modernisation, Russia's communal character remained strong.

During this period the West formed its exceptionalism toward Russia and began applying a double standard. A prevailing view that defined European actions as good and Russian actions as evil became the historical origin of hostility toward Russia.

After the Second World War, the policy of restraining German rearmament failed. European countries such as France, Sweden and Finland hurried to rearm. This European rearmament can be read as a psychological gesture aimed at pressuring Russia, and it is closely connected to the Western policy of hostility toward Russia.

There is also analysis that, amid continued economic sanctions and security threats, Russia responded simply to make a point.

Since 2014, Russia no longer regards itself as Europe and is strengthening an Asia-oriented identity. Russians' self-identification as European has plummeted to below 20%, a huge shift in cultural identity.

This signals a firmer stance, a refusal to simply accommodate the West as it once did. As the possibility of changes in European policy is discussed within American institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations, a serious security situation is unfolding in which even the possibility of nuclear use cannot be ruled out.