Demythologizing of America

By Vestnik Kavkaza

The "Public Opinion" Foundation conducted a public opinion survey on Russian-American relations. “One of the themes that we track is the image of America in Russia,” Alexander Oslon, Director General of "Public Opinion", says. “Of course, the most interesting point is the dynamics.”

2001: 36% of respondents spoke of friendly relations between the U.S. and Russia. This is understandable: this was after 9/11, when in Russia there was a surge of sympathy for America and empathy for the misfortunes that had happened.

2008: the number of those who said that Russian-American relations were not friendly increased dramatically. There were 67% of them. The Russians in many polls blamed America for the global crisis.

2011: we saw a surge of friendliness - this was the reset.

2012: The post-reset. Rates decreased. At the same time, in 2012, there were many events that negatively affected the attitude of Russians, especially the so-called question of adoption.

Views on the USA role in the world also have been changing. “There is another factor that is very important. This is not something that happens in the world with the participation of America, and Russia is looking at what is happening, but what is going on in Russia, what is happening in the Russian soul, what the situation in Russia is and what the attitude of the Russians to themselves is,” Oslon says. “The self-esteem of the Russians, above and below  self-esteem, a sense of stability, development, power, energy and so on, have a very significant impact on how Russians look at the world. If in the 1990s, especially in the early 1990s, America was an unattainable model to aim at for Russians, not talking only about  material things - clothing, food, and sausage, and health, and technical achievement - all of this was there, in America. In the 1990s, there was not just an image of America, but a mythical image of America, which was then for us like a far unattainable planet. The first crack in this image took place in 1999, in response to the bombing of Yugoslavia. For 12 years, the self-esteem of Russians became normal.”

If in 2001 46% of Russians believed that American society is generally fair, now it is 34%. If 48% believed that American society is fairer than the Russian one, now it is 30%. “This means a re-evaluation, a more sober understanding of the demythologizing of America in the views of Russians; on the other hand, our own self-esteem increased, I would say, the maturity of Russian public opinion in relation to themselves grew. Therefore, this model became closer, and something that was unattainable became closer and attainable. The better what is happening in Russia is, the more sober, more normal the attitude of Russians to America is,” Oslon states.

Sergei Markov, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, concludes that “the Russians do not have clearly defined requirements for the political leadership of Russia concerning the relationship with the United States. And, from this point of view, they entrusted foreign policy in general and in relation to the U.S. in particular to the Russian political leadership, which imposes on it a special responsibility. So I think further developments will be on the plane of more subjective decisions not just lying on the plane of public opinion, and they may lead to an improvement or a deterioration of relations. I think the next developments will turn Russia to improve relations with the United States for several reasons. First - it's hard to imagine much worse relations. Second, I think that the current deterioration has a largely subjective tactical nature, not because of the powerful strategic disagreements between Russia and the United States. We even see the United States distanced itself from several former Soviet republics. And even their constantly advertised policy in the Pacific also suggests that, accordingly, there will be little interest in Ukraine, Georgia and other points that irritated us, where there was more or less real confrontation.”

“The U.S. in all the global polls in recent decades is amongst the five countries with the worst image, and sometimes it is in the top two or in the top three,” Vyacheslav Nikonov, deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, says. “Clearly, Israel always comes first by a wide margin. Russia is sometimes higher and sometimes lower than the United States. The U.S. has one of the worst images in the world. What determines the attitude of Russians to the United States? My analysis shows that the attitude of Russia to the United States is, to a great extent, defined by U.S. foreign policy, specifically military-political activity. But, at the same time, the survey shows that the attitude of only 18% of Russians towards the United States is bad today. This is one of the lowest rates in the world. That is, in fact, there are no strong anti-American sentiments in Russia.”