MAJOR MAINTENANCE – Russian history oscillates between openness to the West and a return to Slavic traditions. Historian Marie-Pierre Rey deciphers the current distance in the light of this swing.
Marie-Pierre Rey is Professor of Russian and Soviet History at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, author of Russia facing Europe from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin (Collection Champs Histoire) and A Tsar in Paris. 1814 – Alexander 1st and the fall of Napoleon (Collection Fields History)
LE FIGARO. – Throughout history, Russia has wavered between Westernism and Slavophilia. How did this oscillation forge Russian identity?
Marie-Pierre REY. – These two currents of thought are structured around the years 1830-1840 in Russia, but this balance begins to appear within the Russian elites from the 18th century, in the wake of the reign of Peter the Great. It was necessary to define a model of political and social development for the modernization of the Empire. The question crystallized in the middle of the 19th century and went through all of Tsarist and Soviet history, until today.
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