Iranians, according to their Russian “benefactors,” are unable to rule over themselves and to achieve any development, therefore they have to be brought to “civilization” by the Russians. However, compared to other Westerners, Russians have an additional reason to degrade Iranians in such a severe and almost uncontrollable way – their own carefully concealed semi-Asian affinity.
Perhaps the innate feeling of affinity with Asians and the subconscious rejection of that feeling intensified Russians’ attempts to hide their uncertainty. Lack of self-confidence and obsessive desire to be considered European makes the authors grossly overdo the “conventional” debasement of the Orientals. In fact, the effect of doing so is opposite to the one they are trying to achieve so hard – it often makes them look ridiculous and betrays their ambivalence about their divided national identity.
An additional motivation for their overwhelming debasement of the Iranians was a desire to cover the fact that Russia itself had many problems similar to those of Iran which were nonexistent in most other European countries, especially in Britain. The development of capitalism was slow in Russia, especially in the countryside; the serfs were only freed in 1861 and the resulting reforms did not bring about a thorough development of Russia’s backward agriculture.
Basic rights and freedoms were lacking in Russia, which did not have a parliament or constitution till the revolution of 1905–07. Russia’s economic and military weakness culminated in the humiliating defeat in the war of 1904–05 against Japan, another “Oriental” country.
This peculiar presentation of the “travelees” by the Russian travelers forms the second main component of Russian Orientalism, along with the specific features of their self-representation.
Cultural Biases and Ethnic Misunderstandings
