Europe between Russia’s self and others: continuity and transformation in Russia’s perceptions of the European Union

This article aims at unpacking changing Russian attitudes towards Europe and the European Union (EU) over the past two decades. The idea of Europe has been an integral part of Russia's Self/Other identification process since imperial times. However, over the course of 20-plus years of growing East-West tensions, the meaning of 'Europeanness' in the Russian lexicon has changed; with it, Russia's perception of (relation with) Europe/the EU has shifted, too. By employing a constructivist framework, we argue that such image shift was triggered by crisis episodes, which exposed perception and expectation gaps that, in turn, prompted Russia(ns) to re-evaluate their attitudes towards Europe/the EU - yet not the fundamental pillars of the Russian identity. Notably, the changing dynamics of Russia's Self/Other identification were accompanied by outbursts of negative emotions, which layered up at each new crisis. This article delves into these processes at both the elite and popular level by drawing on primary narrative sources and rich polling datasets, including the Analysis of the Perception of the EU and of EU's Policies Abroad.