Anti-Russian sentiment

Anti-Russian sentiment or Russophobia is a diverse spectrum of negative feelings, dislikes, fears, aversion, derision and/or prejudice of Russia, Russians and/or Russian culture.

A wide variety of mass culture clichés about Russia and Russians exists. Many of these stereotypes were developed during the Cold War, and were used as elements of political war against the Soviet Union. Some of these prejudices are still observed in the discussions of the relations with Russia. Negative representation of Russia and Russians in modern popular culture is also often described as functional, as stereotypes about Russia may be used for framing reality, like creating an image of an enemy, or an excuse, or an explanation for compensatory reasons. Decades after the end of the Cold War, Russians are still portrayed as "Hollywood's go-to villains".

On the other hand, Russian nationalists and apologists of the politics of Russia often use the allegations of "Russophobia" as a form of propaganda to counter the criticism of Russia.

On 19 October 1797 the French Directory received a document from a Polish general, Michał Sokolnicki, entitled "Aperçu sur la Russie". This became known as the so-called "Testament of Peter the Great" and was first published in October 1812, during the Napoleonic wars, in Charles Louis-Lesur's much-read Des progrès de la puissance russe: this was at the behest of Napoleon I, who ordered a series of articles to be published showing that "Europe is inevitably in the process of becoming booty for Russia". Subsequent to the Napoleonic wars, propaganda against Russia was continued by Napoleon's former confessor, Dominique Georges-Frédéric de Pradt, who in a series of books portrayed Russia as a "despotic" and "Asiatic" power hungry to conquer Europe. With reference to Russia's new constitutional laws in 1811 the Savoyard philosopher Joseph de Maistre wrote the now famous statement: "Every nation gets the government it deserves" ("Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite").

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