LONDON — The coronation of Dmitri Medvedev as Vladimir Putin's anointed successor, by means of a presidential election on Sunday whose outcome was a foregone conclusion, has unleashed the usual deluge of stereotypes about "the Russians" in the Western media. They are backward, they cannot ever escape their dreadful history, they are "different from us." They are "reverting to type," and the next stop is a new Cold War.
A striking example of this kind of reporting is provided by British journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, who spent 18 weeks traveling in Russia for his new book "Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People." In a newspaper piece promoting the book, Dimbleby writes: "I have returned more aware than ever before that the Russian people are not like 'us.' In a fundamental way, they neither belong to the West nor share Western values."
In a fundamental way, Dimbleby is talking nonsense, but it's true that the Russians have been through a very bad time recently and that their scars are showing. That's why the election of Medvedev as the new president amounts to a coronation, and why most Russians wouldn't have objected if Putin had simply declared that Medvedev would take over without a vote.