Book Review: Polish Encounters, Russian Identity
Book Review: Polish Encounters, Russian Identity

Summary/Abstract: "Polish Encounters, Russian Identity" edited by David L. Ransel and Božena Shallcross. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005. 218 pages. ISBN 0253217717. "This collection of essays is based on a series of papers originally presented at the conference “Polonophilia and Polonophobia of the Russians,” held on the campus of Indiana University in September 2000. The essays discuss the creation and development of Russian national identity in light of the influences of their Polish neighbor. Poland has always presented a strong cultural and political problem for the Russians. While the other boundaries touching upon Russia are distinctly non-Russian in their culture (Finnic peoples to the north; Turkic peoples to the south; and Asiatic peoples to the east), Poland, as a fellow Slavic nation, shares a number of cultural traits, among them linguistic, with Russia. In this way, Poland has been more accessible and, as some Russians have argued and continue to argue, therefore presents more of a threat to Russia, both politically and culturally. Thus Russia has often felt the need to define itself as distinctly non-Polish.[...]"

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