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Paper abstract:

The war in Ukraine shocked not only because of the scale of violence and barbarism but also because, at least, of silent acceptance, at worst, of applauding of a significant part of the Russian-speaking citizens in Russia and other countries. This paper tries to look for some reasons and factors that may explain this appalling phenomenon beyond the direct effects of official Russian propaganda. The main contention of this paper is that lack or absence of empathy caused by either “hardening of personality” and group/ cultural narcissism may explain the support of the war among the Russian-speaking people. Kazakhstan shares many similarities with Ukraine in terms of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet history (struggle for national identity, land, language, sovereignty); hence the view from Kazakhstan may offer some insights into explaining the justification and support for the war which Russian-speaking people may have.

I argue that the effects of “hardening of personality” (caused by many factors such as harsh parenting, the cult of violence, bullying, hazing, criminal subculture) and group/cultural narcissism (which can be embodied as racism, imperialism, and colonialism even in the 21’th century) should be counted in any thorough analysis of the war and violence in Ukraine. Overall, neither imperial Russian chauvinism and orientalism nor Soviet racism and supremacism (all premised on the unconditional dominance of the Russian language and Russian-centric world view) received a whole-hearted critique, re-appraisal, and condemnation in the Russian-speaking environment, except for in small circles of humanistic thinkers and writers like D.Bykov, S.Alekseyevich. Also, the factors leading to the “hardening of personality” at the family and mainstream education system level have been largely overlooked in the Russian Federation. The situation even worsened in the last decade after the geo-politicization of the concept of human rights in the Russian-speaking environment.