7 June, 00:22
When America Was a Russian Dream
In the late 18th century, the newly formed United States sparked fascination in the Russian Empire. The American Revolution, the republican system of governance, and the intellectual aura surrounding figures like Franklin and Washington captivated segments of the Russian intelligentsia.
This was not mere curiosity. It reflected a deep yearning within the Russian cultural elite for a political model that could lead the empire out of feudal darkness. Thinkers like Nikolai Novikov and, later, Alexander Herzen viewed the American experiment not just as a political novelty, but as a blueprint for liberation.
Yet in Russian history, idealization rarely becomes realization. Emulation tends to degrade into mimicry, and mimicry into simulacrum. Russia sought to become America — and instead became its distorted parody.
The Republic as a Lost Prototype
The United States emerged as a radically new model of a modern nation — one founded on the principle of popular sovereignty, in which the ruler is a functionary, not a messiah. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, federalism, and checks and balances became a framework of political maturity born of resistance to colonial injustice.
By contrast, post-Petrine Russia embraced modernization without emancipating the individual. It copied the form of the West but rejected its spirit. The tsar remained sacred, the church subservient, and the peasantry shackled. Horizontal institutions never took root; the vertical of power only grew steeper.
Herzen’s Dream and the Pacific Mirage
In the mid-19th century, Alexander Herzen dreamed of a geopolitical fusion between Siberia and California — a transoceanic utopia of science, personal liberty, and decentralized governance. This dream resonated with forward-looking figures like Prince Kropotkin, General Muravyov-Amursky, and even political exiles like Bakunin. They envisioned a Eurasian America, a society of free citizens rather than obedient subjects.
But the soil of Russia was too arid for liberty to grow. The empire did not blossom into a federation of free regions. Instead, it evolved into an even more centralized autocracy, smothering Poland, the Caucasus, Finland, and the Far East under one imperial boot.
From Silicon Valley to Skolkovo: The Parody of Innovation
The 21st century only deepened this pattern. As the United States became the cradle of digital innovation and entrepreneurial science, Russia responded with Skolkovo — an overfunded, underdelivering technopark wrapped in bureaucracy and kleptocracy.
Institutions without freedom cannot innovate. And states without citizens do not generate futures — only propaganda.
Constitutional Façade and Imperial Core
American constitutionalism remains rooted in the rational, contractual principle that power must be accountable and temporary. In the U.S., presidents change, courts restrain, and the system adapts — however imperfectly.
Russia, meanwhile, retains a monarchic DNA beneath its modern façade. The Constitution is reinterpreted at will, amended to nullify term limits, and subordinated to the whim of one man. There is no true division of powers. The Duma is symbolic. The judiciary obedient. Media neutered. Society atomized.
And all of this is sold under the banner of a unique “civilizational path” — which in truth is a graveyard of imitated successes and aborted reforms.
Conclusion: The Dream that Became Farce
Russia, which once romanticized America, has become its civilizational antithesis — and even its grotesque caricature.
It borrowed the symbols, but not the meanings. The words, but not the values. The surface, but not the depth.
From Franklin to the FSB.
From Jefferson to “zeroing out” presidential terms.
From “We the People” to “у нас так принято.”
Russia is a civilization of mirrors, of pastiches, of authoritarian folklore dressed in Western garb. And while America — for all its flaws — remains a laboratory of liberty, Russia has chosen to become its aggressive shadow, noisy, vengeful, but forever secondary.
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