Window on Eurasia

Russians Complain Western Terms Distort West’s Image of Russia

Paul Goble

Vienna, July 13, 2006 – The application of Western social science terminology to Russian phenomena assumed to be equivalent often has
made it more difficult for Westerners to understand Russia, complicated
Russia’s post-Soviet transformation, and even exacerbated East-West
tensions, according to a group of Moscow commentators.

At the end of June, seven Moscow writers met to consider the problems
involved in finding Russian words genuinely and not just technically
equivalent to Western social science terms that have flooded into the
country and its intellectual community since the end of the Soviet
Union
[http://www.polit.ru/author/2006/07/12/tez/html].

When Westerners arrive in Russia with their own terminology and then
apply it to Russian conditions, participants in the June 27 meeting
said, they tend to evaluate what they see in terms of how far the
Russian reality departs from or even lags behind the Western reality
for which the terms were derived.

On the one hand, such an approach inevitably offends many Russians who
not only understand that many of the Russian phenomena being evaluated
in this way are significantly different from and hence deserving of a
distinct nomenclature for than the Western phenomena that Western
observers assume are equivalent.

And on the other hand, the discussants said, the application of Western
terms in this way not only means that Westerns are less able to
understand what in fact is in front of them but also that Russians may
draw conclusions about their own society that are fundamentally
incorrect.

One example that those participating in the June discussion provided
concerns measuring the number of poor people in any society. At the end
of the Soviet period, Soviet sociologists routinely assessed the number
of low-income people, but for a variety of ideological reasons, they
did not talk about poverty.

But when these same Russian sociologists had to apply for Western
grants in order to continue to work, they began talking about “poverty”
– the Russian equivalent of “nishcheta” – and thus contributed to
the idea that suddenly something entirely new had appeared on the
Russian social landscape.

Similar problems have obtained, the discussants suggested, when
Westerners and Russians have attempted to talk about bank operations.
Russians involved in this area have learned to say what Westerners are
accustomed to hearing in Western terms, but the words in this case do
not necessarily correspond to realities.

As a result, each side often concludes that the other is insisting on
its own point of view or attempting to deceive -- when nothing more may
be involved than an unwillingness on the part of one or both to
consider the ways in which Russian activities Westerns use one term for may not
only be more adequately described by another Western word but may be
entirely appropriate in Russian conditions.

In many if not most cases, the participants in this discussion
acknowledged, there are no such problems with translation. Most western
terms apply to Russian conditions, but when they do not, when Western
terms assume too much, then their use impedes Western understanding of
Russia and infuriates Russians.

In the current situation, the discussants said, Russians “do not want
to be like Papuans, the object of ethnographic study and a group where
the ideas of others are implemented.” Instead, they said, Russians
very much want to be a full and equal subject in all such discussions.

Such attitudes by Russian experts are part of a more general trend
among Russians upset by what many see as Western arrogance. But even if they
are nothing more than that, this discussion suggests that Russian
scholars may now be more assertive in demanding that Westerners
acknowledge just how distinctive Russia is.

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