O IMAGINE DE ANSAMBLU ASUPRA RELAȚIILOR UE – RUSIA
AN OVERVIEW OF EU – RUSSIA RELATIONS

Summary/Abstract: The current EU-Russian conflictual dispositions are intensified by the existence of the historical background of mutual „othering”. As has been demonstrated, both Russia and Europe have historically relied on each other as the figures of the Other, which served to constitute, maintain and establish the identity of the Self in various ways. While the Russian discourse on Europe desperately sought to align the Russian identity with Europe by fragmenting the very figure of Europe into a multiplicity of opposed stands (monarchical, liberal, revolutionary, socialist Europe, etc), in relations to which Russia could practise association or dissociation, the European discourse on Russia has been considerably more uniform in consolidating European identity through a manifold exclusion of Russia as non-European in geopolitical, ideological or cultural terms. the contemporary EU-Russian conflict therefore unfolds under the weight of the historical tradition of the discourses of othring, which stands as a „reserve”, from which both parties draw concepts and arguments for deployment in present-day communication.

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