Show notes
本期节目对谈伦敦大学玛丽女王学院（Queen Mary University of London）政治思想史教授、政治思想史研究中心联合主任 Georgios Varouxakis，讨论他的新书《The West: A History of an Idea》。这本书最核心的问题是：我们今天口中的“西方”，究竟是什么？它真的是一个从古希腊一路延续至今、稳定存在了两千多年的文明共同体吗？ 本期对话为英文进行，普林斯顿大学出版社编辑将为本期访谈配上字幕并上传b站，方便大家观看。 独树不成林特意制作“西方四部曲”，帮助对听众为本期访谈做好知识储备： 334-俄罗斯如何逼迫欧洲人开始把自己定义成“西方人”？ 335-德国人是西方人吗？ 336-冷战是西方阵营对战东方阵营吗？ 337-冷战后福山、亨廷顿、哈贝马斯如何重新界定“西方” 本次访谈内容ai总结： 00:00:00 西方概念的起源与现代政治话语重构 西方真的是一个自古以来就存在的文明共同体吗？Varouxakis教授在播客中指出，西方其实是19世纪早期为了划分世界而发明出来的政治语言。从德国在文化上曾被排斥在西方之外，到现代美国校园里对西方文明课程的存废之争，这个概念始终处于变动中。它不仅挑战了萨伊德的东方主义视角，也让我们重新思考日本、俄罗斯等国在现代化进程中如何界定与西方的关系。 00:06:05 西方概念的起源及其对俄国的边界界定 为什么在19世纪，欧洲人开始频繁使用西方这个词？通过研究孔德及其追随者的文献可以发现，这一术语的兴起并非单纯为了证明帝国主义的合理性，也不是为了对标东方。实际上在拿破仑战争后的法国，思想家们迫切需要将西欧和中欧与俄罗斯区分开来。即便大家同属基督教文明，但在地缘政治上，西方这一概念成为了界定自身独特性的关键工具，从而修正了以往将西方等同于帝国主义产物的看法。 00:10:21 西方概念的起源及其对他者的界定 在19世纪以前，欧洲文明的界限曾是以南北划分的，意大利等南方国家代表文明，而德国等北方地区则被视为荒蛮。本期播客揭示了一个重要的学术视角：西方这一概念在19世纪初便已成型，并迅速演变为一种排他性的工具。这种划分将俄罗斯置于他者的核心地位，使其从北方的邻居变成了东方的威胁。这种视角不仅重塑了欧洲版图，甚至让俄罗斯内部的西化派也内化了这种被排斥的身份认同。 00:14:32 俄罗斯与西方身份的界限演变 沙皇亚历山大一世在1815年维也纳会议上的强势表现，让当时的德法各国感到前所未有的威胁。虽然彼得大帝曾耗费巨资修建圣彼得堡并强推西方化改革，使俄国精英阶层甚至能说一口比俄语更流利的法语，但这种文化融合并未消除欧洲人的焦虑。为了应对一个庞大且统一的俄罗斯，孔德与斯宾格勒等思想家开始在著作中明确区分欧洲与西方这两个概念。本期播客揭示了西方这一身份认同如何通过将俄罗斯标记为他者，在恐惧与防御的心理背景下最终确立。 00:18:25 启蒙思想家对中国与俄罗斯的形象建构 伏尔泰曾高度赞美中国，将其视为挑战基督教叙事的典范，而卢梭却在《社会契约论》中预言欧洲将被俄罗斯征服。播客详细分析了18世纪欧洲思想家如何利用中国形象来反思本土政治。随着孟德斯鸠和黑格尔的出现，中国逐渐被贴上专制标签。与此同时，奥古斯特·孔特为西方概念引入了反殖民主义的规范性内涵，使西方不再仅仅是防御俄罗斯的地理概念，而转变为一种普世价值。 00:22:20 历史视角下西方对俄罗斯的认知演变与孔德构想 1760年前后，奥利弗·高德史密斯就在作品中预警俄罗斯是欧洲的最大威胁，这比19世纪的普遍恐俄情绪早了许多。随着尼古拉一世时期的专制统治和波兰起义被镇压，大批极具影响力的波兰流亡贵族在伦敦和巴黎游说，进一步恶化了俄罗斯的国际形象。本期播客指出，尽管奥古斯特·孔德认为俄罗斯当时处于落后状态，但他的普遍主义计划旨在先让拥有共同历史文化纽带的西方世界完成社会重组，最终再逐步接纳全球其他成员。 00:26:34 孔德的西方构想与人道教 19世纪的欧洲正面临一种被称为西方病的危机。奥古斯特·孔德认为，过度的个人主义和对权利的盲目追求正在瓦解社会。他提出建立一个以巴黎为起点、最终迁往君士坦丁堡的人类共和国，以此象征欧亚统一并彻底废除帝国主义。孔德不仅发明了利他主义一词，还创立了人道教，主张用对人类整体的崇拜取代传统神灵。他强调通过工业发展和对祖先的尊重来实现社会进步，将死亡的慰藉从追求天堂转向为人类做出贡献并被后世铭记。在这档播客中，我们重新审视这种超越国界的社会理想。 00:30:38 普遍主义视角下的西方定义与双重特质 为什么孔德要在历法中致敬孔子和佛陀？这位思想家在19世纪就尝试打破欧洲边界，甚至提议将首都迁至君士坦丁堡。本期播客提到，西方文明自诞生起就包含双重性：一方面追求进步，另一方面则是孔德为对抗个人主义而提出的利他主义。从日本明治维新到中国五四运动，非西方国家在引入西方概念时常在这些矛盾中摇摆。希腊、俄罗斯和土耳其等国，至今仍处于这种文明定义的边缘。 00:34:43 非西方国家的现代化转型与西方文明叙事 为什么凯末尔要强力推动土耳其的西方化？这场播客揭示了土耳其、日本和中国在现代化进程中的相似轨迹。阿塔图尔克受孔德启发，试图通过激进改革加入西方。思想家格卡尔普甚至提出，土耳其可以在保留伊斯兰信仰的同时，从东方文明转向西方文明。这种转型与福泽谕吉和梁启超的思想遥相呼应。作者指出，西方文明并非单一的概念，而是一个被政治人物频繁借用且充满复杂遗产的叙事框架。 00:39:11 重新定义西方：警惕西方价值的政治陷阱 当人们把民主、言论自由或法治称为西方价值时，无异于在提醒其他文化背景的人这些是外来品。本期播客通过历史谱系的视角揭示，将普遍观念标签化会落入政治陷阱，不仅暗示了某种文明优越论，更给了部分国家以反对新帝国主义为名排斥这些价值的借口。历史是流动的，重新定义话语权至关重要。 00:43:35 普世价值观与古典文明的世界归属权 自由与平等不应被冠以西方的名号，而应被称为普世价值。在这期播客中，嘉宾指出无论是柏拉图还是中国、印度的古典文献，都不属于特定民族，而是全人类的共同遗产。即便希腊人拥有语言优势，也不意味着对思想的垄断。此外，美国对西方的定义深受德国学术影响。在20世纪初，美国尚未建立完善的博士培养体系，学者们必须前往海德堡或哥廷根大学深造，这种深厚的德国渊源最终重塑了美国的学术叙事。 00:47:51 美国如何从局外人转变为西方定义的引领者 19世纪初的美国学者必须前往德国哥廷根或海德堡深造才能获得认可。当时的美国作为首个后殖民国家，极力撇清与欧洲君主制的联系，自视为更纯洁的共和国。直到弗朗西斯·利伯等德国移民将社会科学引入美国，西方这一概念才逐渐生根。本期播客揭示了一个令人意外的事实：美国曾是最后一个承认自己属于西方的国家。随着两次世界大战爆发，美国从边疆扩张转变为西方文明的定义者，却也引发了欧洲对其物质主义和文化稀释的深深忧虑。 00:52:08 战后西方模式的演变与对文明批判的反思 二战后以北约和冷战为标志的西方阶段是否已经走向终结？随着美国霸权地位的改变，欧洲国家逐渐意识到不能再过度依赖美国的军事防御。在当下的学术语境中，针对西方文明的批判往往走向极端，甚至出现了全盘否定其价值的倾向。这种做法无异于在倒掉洗澡水时连同孩子一起扔掉。播客中指出，历史学家应保持必要的审视距离，明确区分政府的具体过失与文明核心价值之间的关系。毕竟，在整个人类文明史中，没有任何一种文明是完全脱离暴力或奴隶制而存在的，全盘否定并非理性的治学态度。 00:56:40 警惕对西方文明概念的政治化工具化 当大学里的觉醒议程过度批判西方文明，而特朗普与班农等人又将其作为爱国主义口号时，西方这一概念彻底沦为政治工具。本期播客中，作者指出其著作旨在通过梳理西方概念的历史脉络，为严肃思考者提供应对左右两翼极端言论的资源。思想史学家如同蚯蚓，通过松动僵化的词汇土壤，揭示语言背后的复杂性，防止西方被简化为选举时的口号。 01:01:00 修正西方神话：历史学家的现实使命 历史学家欧内斯特·勒南曾指出，严谨的历史研究往往会消解国家的凝聚力，因为真实的过去远比神话复杂。在本期播客中，嘉宾提出历史研究并非要彻底摧毁叙事，而是通过揭示复杂性来改善人们赖以生存的神话。例如，书中对斯宾格勒《西方的没落》等观点的剖析，展示了西方这一概念如何逐渐僵化。面对来自中国知识分子的质疑，即为什么要打破美国作为自由灯塔的理想，嘉宾认为历史学家应在社会共识与学术严谨间寻找平衡，用更优质的历史逻辑去优化那些过于简化的文明叙事。 01:05:12 以智识勇气与理性批判完善西方文明 理查德·赖特曾尖锐指出，西方政府往往未能践行其宣称的理想。本期播客提出，批判文明并非为了摧毁，而是通过审视使其更趋完善。雷蒙·阿隆作为典范，在研究核武战争之余，更以临终前出庭为友辩护的举动诠释了知识分子的勇气。真正的文明精神在于拥有批评与改进它的自由，唯有像施特劳斯那样在历史中寻径，西方价值才能名副其实。
Highlighted moments
“the West was not invented against Asia or in contradistinction to Islam or anything else as people would assume but rather it was needed against in order to differentiate Western and Central Europe from Russia”
“the word Europe has to be struck out of history out of politics and history it's this word Europe that has confused people and make them think that Russia is part of us Russia is not part of us that's why we are Occident”
“don't call them western values call them by universal names call them liberal egalitarian utilitarian whatever you like call them by those names as opposed to western nobody has ownership of these ideas”
Transcript
0:00大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 这是一期英文采访 是我和普林斯顿大学出版社一起合作的 《政治哲学思想录》系列第二期 和我对谈的是思想史学者 Georgios Varoukzakis教授 他目前是伦敦大学玛丽女王学院 政治思想史教授 同时也是政治思想史研究中心的联合主任 他长期从事政治思想史和概念史的研究 之前出版过多部有关 John Storm Mill 密尔的著作 这次我们围绕他2025年出版的新书
0:33The West The History of an Idea 西方一部观念史展开了一次深入对谈 这部书的核心问题是 我们今天习以为常的西方到底是什么意思 Varoukzakis在书中指出 西方并不是一个自古以来就存在的文明共同体 而是一个在19世纪早期特定政治语境中 逐渐形成的概念 换句话说西方是被发明出来的 一种用来划分世界组织联盟 界定敌友的政治语言 在访谈中 我们从19世纪欧洲
1:04如何在俄罗斯崛起的压力下 开始发明西方这个概念谈起 讨论了为什么像德国这种 在文化上如此处在西方核心的国家 反而在相当长的一段时间里 并不被视为西方的一部分 语言到底是在描述现实 还是在创造现实 西方这个概念 是否本身就塑造了 我们今天划分世界的方式 Georgios Vargasakis的研究 同时挑战和反驳了 大众层面和学术层面 对于西方理所当然的主流理解
1:34在大众层面 今天我们说西方的时候 通常把它想象成是 美国人宣称自己要捍卫的那个东西 在学术象牙塔的层面 西方这个概念通常是和 萨伊德的东方主义紧密绑定 我在采访中问他 为何认为这两种 就大众层面和学术层面对于西方的理解 在思想史上来说就是不准确的 我也问他 如果有人批评你说你这样子做 是在给所谓的西方敌对势力递刀子 你会如何回应 在一些非西方语境中
2:06经常会有人被攻击说 他是和西方境外势力站在一起 如果这个所谓的西方本身就是自相矛盾的 这种攻击又有什么意义 我们也讨论了从俄罗斯到明治维新之后的 日本到土耳其到希腊之类很难被归为西方 但是又确实在他们各自的现代化路径中 试图西化过的国家 对于这些西方边缘的国家来说 西方又意味着什么 普林斯顿大学出版社的编辑和B站 会给本期访谈加上中文字幕上传到
2:37这个大概可能要等一个月左右的时间 因为我们在对话中确实说了很多 术语和专有名词 需要麻烦在编辑加字幕的时候核实 上传视频版本之后 我也会更新本期播客节目的简介 在这里我给大家预告一下 从下周开始我要给自己放暑假了 因为我会忙着举办 阿伦特人的境况和心智生活 两个新译本的新书活动 下个星期我会来北京参加理想国读者节
3:07未来三个月不要来催我更新播客 等到暑假结束之后 我会和普林斯顿大学出版社 以及哈佛大学出版社继续推出更多的新书作者访谈 敬请期待 接下来让我们进入这段对话 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 大家好 欢迎来到《读书不成零》 I'm extremely honored today to have Giorgios Varoukzakis here to talk to me about his new book The West History of an Idea Giorgios is professor in history of political thought
3:38at Queen Mary University of London and he also is the co-director of the Center for the Study of the History of Political Thought He has written multiple books on John Stuart Mill It's worth mentioning that he teaches in London but he is Greek So, you know, in any dominant narrative of the West at least from where I am in the United States it is often traced back to ancient Greece So I look forward to discussing how you challenge it
4:09and you disagree with it But you have also challenged so many things about the West in your book I guess I'll just start by briefly saying that there is a popular conception of the West and an academic conception of the West both of which you challenge in your book In China and in America when we talk about the West most people think that they know what they're talking about I am a political theorist trained in the American Academy
4:40you know, Western Civ hey, hey, ho, ho Western Civ's gotta go has been a chant on campus since the 60s and now recently with the election of Donald Trump there's also a revival of the West in a lot of the university on a lot of the university campuses there are academics and politicians and state legislators actively trying to revive whatever the West is in the civic centers of American universities
5:11and also for these people that are trying to do that they see China as quintessentially non-Western like I have friends who have podcasts on the Western Civ and when they're asked what is non-West they say China China seems to be the only non-Western place in this narrative and you challenge all of that in your book and I look forward to really getting into it and also of course there is the academic conception of the West that comes out of the theory of Edward Said
5:41so like I've said in my intro your book by tracing really the history of the West as a concept as an idea you debunk almost all of the above popular and academic narratives so I guess I'll just start by asking you the question how did you form the idea of the book? I mean it's so amazing and it covers so much Thank you well one thing brings another no doubt and serendipity had a lot to do with it but as I had studied Auguste Comte
6:14and the British Comtes the followers of Comte the positivists as part of my study of the context of 19th century political thought and not least his relationship with John Stuart Mill that as you said I had worked a lot on I noticed a very strong emphasis on the West definitions of the West books, articles the Western Republic was always on top of every book or encyclical or letter that Comte sent as of 1848
6:45until he died and then his followers would follow on the same track so when I read some books and articles and literature on the history of the idea of the West as a self-description by academics and they were saying correctly the West is a completely misunderstood topic because people anachronistically call the West everything we consider as part of the West or its history but the people
7:16in the past who now are seen as the West called themselves different names much of that time that's correct so then these people go on to say the West actually was invented in the very end of the 19th century in order to justify imperialism British imperialism and high imperialism more generally that's where I thought oh oh wait a minute that's not surely that's not true especially because they name a particular thinker Benjamin Kidd
7:46a social Darwinist in the 1890s and early 20th century with a number of books on Western civilization and so on and I thought wait a minute but Kidd was obsessed with Kant he had read everything Kant had written as had everybody else of course so I realized the most crucial missing link in that story was no doubt Kant once I started researching that and writing the book I realized there was of course there is no Parthenogenesis
8:17Kant was not alone there were other people in France who as of the early decades of the 19th century especially after the Napoleonic Wars started using L'Occident the West and Occidental Occidental Western much much more than before and it was deliberate I noticed that they were worried about Russia and its importance in Europe and so one of my first arguments in the book
8:48is that the West was not invented against Asia or in contradistinction to Islam or anything else as people would assume but rather it was needed against in order to differentiate Western and Central Europe from Russia so since you mentioned Edward Said my story and his theory are at cross purposes I don't deal with him much because my argument is no matter
9:19whether he was right or wrong or to what extent he was right that the Europeans or Westerners as he calls them created an idea of themselves and an identity by othering by exoticizing the East whatever they meant by the East he's in general right about that although many people have challenged some details of his scholarship that's not my job I'm not a literary historian anyway he's right about that but where I come in is to say yes but they were very happy
9:49to continue exoticizing othering the East and calling themselves for centuries Christendom or Europe as of the end of the 17th century beginning of the 18th why do they start needing another term the West in the 19th century and there the answer is because they needed some people in France and Germany started feeling the need to differentiate themselves from others who were also European and also Christian the Russians wow
10:21yeah that's great I think one of the most interesting in terms of scholarly contributions that you correct in the beginning part of your book is that the concept of the West emerges in the early 19th century and not in the late 19th century as many scholars have claimed but also for the popular reader what is most you know the greatest insight is maybe how important Russia has been in the entire
10:51narrative of the West it is really maybe like what Edward Said says the West is an othering concept it is meant to distinguish yourself from whatever is not you and whatever is not you is bad but we usually you know a learned reader is going to think the thing that's being othered is Asia or Islam and you put Russia at the center of the table and really and also when I was reading your book I was intrigued
11:21by how Russia in a way has internalized that othering a Chinese reader is going to be very keen to look I think most of the Chinese readers that I know they know about the the Islamophile debate and the western westernizer debate in Russia in the 19th century and the huge insight that I received from your book was how even that debate has internalized sort of how the whatever is
11:52non-Russian the non-Russian Europeans called themselves the west and then the pro-westerners in Russia just took that understanding to be whatever they want to imitate and an interesting shift that has come up with the idea of the west that you bring up is before the west really came up the distinction in Europe was between the southerners and the northerners for the longest period of time the southerners were the
12:23civilized people the greeks the italians were civilized and then the germans were uncivilized we kind of see you know mozart had to go down to the south to prove himself as a musical genius but really when the concept of the west was invented or it started to appear more in writings the distinction became the west civilized versus the east non-civilized yeah very much so and it's fascinating madame de stahl as i show in the book in her
12:5410 years of exile in the second decade of the 19th century begins to talk of russia and she says it's seen as a northern country but it's not a northern country it's eastern and she starts using this but in her case it was not in order to diminish it she was admiring the slavs and the east she was following herder the german thinker philosopher who had a positive view of the slavs
13:25and who believed in the in a kind of diversity and equality of cultures and the value of all cultures and diversity as a terribly important thing so in her case it was not yet axiological or normative but in the 1820s some people started using Russia as seeing Russia as eastern and proposing a western federation to defend western Europe and central Europe from Russia because they were very worried about Russia the thing is and I'm grateful
13:56that you mentioned this that was the first surprise the second surprise is that this went on until until today more or less so in the long duration that I study Russia is always seen as outside the west with the only exception being a few years during the second world war when it has to join the western democracies because Hitler invades it and it becomes extremely important to victory it loses of course millions of people so the prestige of the Soviet Union was so
14:27enormous that between the 1942 that is an ally and 1947 that the Cold War begins people were talking of Russia saving western civilization and as part of western civilization routinely especially from 1945 to 1947 with the Cold War it again becomes the enemy and the other so there is only that little exception but the thing I'd like to stress is I wouldn't call this Russophobia
14:58as many people do it was literally fear of Russia anxiety of Russia so obviously there might be some people for whom it was more but the general feeling I have through my sources is a genuine fear that this is an enormous monolithic country it has one government it has one army and we are divided and we will fall prey they will conquer each of us little by little that was an anxiety a very small number of people had in the 18th century
15:29including Jean-Jacques Rousseau but in the 19th century after the Napoleonic Wars it becomes very generalized because let's remind our listeners briefly what happened in the early 18th century Peter the Great makes Russia an enormously powerful modernized country and he imposes it as western he forces his people to shave and behave as if they're western he builds a capital in the Baltic Sea in Europe St. Petersburg at enormous
15:59cost to the people who built it who died in their thousands so he had money he brought great architects from Europe then he and his successors like Catherine the Great bring Diderot you know Diderot went to Russia and spent time with Catherine the Great Catherine was a friend of Voltaire all these things so Russia imposes itself not only as a political European power but culturally as part of Europe in the elite level the Russian elite spoke French probably better than Russian they
16:30become a major part of European culture as of the 18th century but suddenly with the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the end of the Napoleonic wars Russia is not just part of Europe it becomes the center of Europe Alexander the first the Russian emperor Tsar dominates the Congress of Vienna and then he creates the Holy Alliance so more and more people in France and Germany start worrying wait a minute wait a minute they're
17:02not just part of Europe now they dominate Europe that's why they start needing a new identity and they start talking of themselves as the West and this becomes completely explicit with Kant and his followers later in 1840s who say explicitly Europe is confusing because it includes Russia that's why we need to call it Occidental a century later in 1918 when the first volume of Oswald Spengler's famous book The Decline of the
17:32West comes out there is a long footnote in the introduction where he says the word Europe has to be struck out of history out of politics and history it's this word Europe that has confused people and make them think that Russia is part of us Russia is not part of us that's why we are Occident we are the West we are not Europe so it's a long story as you said and the other most of the time or the most significant other that
18:03creates this concept and gives it a reason for being is Russia otherwise the Europeans of course saw Asia or the Orient or other cultures as different but they didn't feel the need to call themselves the West and create a new identity they already had Christendom or Europe as their overarching identity yeah I have two questions to follow up the first one is you mentioned a period before the
18:34Congress of Vienna the enlightenment that we broadly call it I have a close friend of mine is writing a book on how the idea of China is transformed by European thinkers and what I learned from him was that you see a period of praising China without understanding it the Jesuits went to China to preach Christianity and they brought back travel books notes about China and then really in the time of Voltaire Diderot you
19:05see these enlightenment philosophers praising enlightened despotism of the Chinese Mandarins and Voltaire has written plays to praise the Chinese Mandarins obviously that's a falsification of what real China is but China remained positive during the enlightenment and then it became super negative comes Montesquieu and then especially comes Hegel China becomes synonymous with despotism and also in Tocqueville so you
19:36really see China going from enlightened to despotism in the period of a century and I wonder this comes before your book it's the period a little bit before your book started so I want to ask you just out of genuine curiosity like during the 18th century during the enlightenment was Russia depicted kind of like how China was depicted as the model against whatever that they want to criticize in
20:06France especially the enlightenment philosophers and also I guess the second part of my question is more scholarly Auguste Camp is a central figure in your book and he is a French philosopher I guess the question seems to me that he introduces a new valence into your story of the West because before that it was like fear of Russia Russia is
20:37a threat and we don't want Russia to threaten us and then Auguste Camp comes and he brings in a anti-imperialist normative universalistic concept of the West in his book and that I mean those two stories seem to me there's a shift there in terms of where the idea of the West becomes after Auguste Camp so yeah those are my two questions very good questions very important questions so let me
21:07start with the first yes absolutely China was praised China was idealized Voltaire was notoriously praising China in normative terms and he was using China and beginning his histories of universal histories with China in order to expose and criticize the parochialism of Christian narratives of universal history like Boss U.S. because he wanted to hit the Christians and create a more secular
21:38history and he always reminded people the most ancient civilization is China in the process probably he didn't know enough but he needed to praise China clearly like other narratives as you say Russia in the 18th century no Russia had a positive image in the 18th century most of the time and there are very few exceptions like Rousseau as I said in the social contract date 1762 he says nobody notices it because there is so much to notice in that book
22:12we will all be devoured by the Russians we will be conquered by them and they will be conquered by the Tatars their neighbors and before we saw Oliver Goldsmith an Irish novelist extremely interesting novelist and philosophical thinker in many ways in a novel called Citizen of the World where he pretends to be a Chinese visitor to Europe a device of course that had been used by Montes with Persian letters so he pretends
22:43to be a Chinese man writing letters about Europe and in the process of course he finds a way to criticize European societies and their hypocrisies and their problems and in that novel he explicitly says the greatest danger of the peoples of Western Europe is Russia and they make alliances with Russia they use Russia against each other and they don't understand the greatest danger is Russia and Russia wants to conquer them that has always been his plan so it's as early as that 1860
23:13sorry 1760 61 that he says this but he was in the minority most people saw Russia positively then and that changes after as I said changes in the 19th century when Russia becomes too dangerous in the eyes of many people and then it becomes very unpopular after it's well Alexander I becomes people get worried about Alexander I