Why study Russian?

A friend and fellow Slavist on Facebook recently expressed despondency over the need to respond to the question: "Why it's important to study Russian now?" This follows on a question from Niklaus some years ago, probably around Putin's invasion of Ukraine or some particularly egregious bit of anti-gay legislation or action in Russia or the assassination of an opponent like Boris Nemtsov or... Niklaus basically asked, what the fuck is up with the Russians, do they have any redeeming features?

Reasonable questions all, and I was reflecting on them while running in the woods yesterday. Aside from the obvious national security imperative, which fell away following the seeming end of the Cold War but which has been thrust back in our faces all too urgently of late, there are lots of reasons.

The thing that came back to me while running is the intensity and purity of the intellectual tradition of the resisting Russian intelligentsia. Just look at Navalny and his team today. They aren't fucking around. Some of them will end up dying for their beliefs but they don't care. They are incredibly smart and industrious and maniacally dedicated to the cause of freedom and better governance. And they are the heirs of a long tradition going back to the 19th century of intellectuals putting themselves in the way of harm for the greater good.

Moreover, there is deep kinship between American and Russian intellectuals. Just read Emerson's 1837 "The American Scholar" and Piotr Chaadaev's 1826-1831 Philosophical Letters next to one another and the parallels are obvious: both America and Russian intellectuals found themselves in a servile position before European thought. Each had to figure out a way to become its own. America went broad with commerce, Russia went deep with the novel and associated forms. 

Lastly, we need to care about Russia for the same reason we care about the people of China, India, Africa and everywhere else in the world. If we honestly believe that liberal democracy and capitalism checked by the state offer the best context for aggregate human flourishing, we have to work to make it happen. Our system of higher education exists as it does to facilitate a fine-grained division of labor across a web of complex global value chains striving to help more humans live better lives. Nobody said it would be easy.