Many Americans and Europeans have for centuries viewed Russia as a
despotic country in which people are inclined to accept suffering
and oppression. What are the origins of this stereotype of Russia
as a society fundamentally apart from nations in the West, and how
accurate is it?
In the first book devoted to answering these questions, Marshall
T. Poe traces the roots of today's perception of Russia and its
people to the eyewitness descriptions of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century European travelers. His fascinating account --
the most complete review of early modern European writings about
Russia ever undertaken -- explores how the image of "Russian
tyranny" took hold in the popular imagination and eventually became
the basis for the notion of "Oriental Despotism" first set forth by
Montesquieu.
Poe, the preeminent scholar of these valuable primary sources,
carefully assesses their reliability. He argues convincingly that
although the foreigners exaggerated the degree of Russian
"slavery", they accurately described their encounters and correctly
concluded that the political culture of Muscovite autocracy was
unlike that of European kingship. With his findings, Poe challenges
the notion that all Europeans projected their own fantasies onto
Russia. Instead, his evidence suggests that many early travelers
produced, in essence, reliable ethnographies, not works of exotic
"Orientalism".
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