Tarık Çelenk wrote: Why are Russians ahead of us in science and art?

For a long time, a profound despair regarding the ideal of democracy has prevailed worldwide. Indeed, the nearly 100-year history of democracy's implementation no longer represents a decisive period in human history. The rise of autocratic and populist leaders effectively confirms Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis in reverse. The question "What type of authoritarianism brings development and prosperity?" is now being increasingly debated in the social sciences. The examples of China, India, and South Korea frequently come to the fore in this context.

Last week, the effectiveness of Russian firefighting aircraft was being discussed in the forest fire news. What caught my attention was how Russia, built on Soviet ruins and governed by an authoritarian statism, could still be a production benchmark even in such sensitive areas. In advanced technologies such as space science, war technology, and software, Russia, carrying the legacy of the Soviets and Tsarism, is still competitive with the West. Not only China and South Korea, but also Russia—with the exception of us—are among the countries actively challenging Daron Acemoğlu's recent theses. Meanwhile, while the "energy resources" thesis, which could be put forward as a counterargument, may explain sustainable autocracy , it seems inadequate to explain the reality of Russian superiority in science and art.

This interest led me to the moment when the Russian national anthem was sung in a large concert hall, attended by Putin. Composed by Aleksandr Aleksandrov in 1939, this anthem, unchanged from the Soviet era, was both emotional and moving. I paused for a moment to ponder: Could it be that Russian leaders, with the spirit of this romantic and epic anthem, are able to lead thousands of young people into war and death? Putin was on stage, surrounded by priests, muftis, farmers, students, and artists. This scene opened my mind to great Russian artists like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Mussorgsky, who, in a country where death is so easy, had led me to profound existential and conscientious questions.

My grandmother’s memories of the Russian occupation, my grandfather’s observations of the technological superiority of the Russian army in Sarıkamış, the engineering of the Catherine Palace in Sarıkamış, and the Russian-Armenian stone building craftsmanship from the more than 40-year occupation of Kars came flooding back to me.

We suffered greatly from the Russians militarily. Only in 1711, with Baltacı Mehmet Pasha, did we seriously corner the Russians at Purut. Despite the insistence of Charles V, King of Sweden, who was Baltacı's side, we missed that historic opportunity when Baltacı refused to press the Russians. Charles V, saying, "Don't let them go; they'll come back in later years and destroy you." Indeed, they did return later. When the plump and ugly Catherine of Lithuania, wife of Peter the Great, who was at the head of the army, bribed Baltacı with all her husband Peter's gold and jewelry, and Baltacı personally accepted this bribe as a symbol of our local and national malaise—and was later beheaded—the Russians narrowly escaped the brink of history.

And I returned once again to that fundamental question: What made Russians superior to us in science, art, and culture, including during the Tsarist, Soviet, and Putin eras?

Yet, the sociology and history of the two peoples shared significant similarities. Even Putin once stated in a speech, "In reality, we are the descendants of the Tatar Empire, the legacy of Genghis Khan." However, they were Turani, while we were Rumi. In both societies, the state and death, not survival, are sacred; the search for and assumption of a strong center has been a common sentiment throughout history. The security of identity and community, not the individual, was paramount. In fact, Russians have enjoyed even less democratic and constitutional traditions than we have over the last 200 years.

We must recognize that Tsarist Russia was geographically and culturally intertwined with the West. We must remember that the Tsars and Tsarinas were closely related to contemporary European imperial families, and that they shared the same court aristocracy rules. It is known that the reformist Tsarinas spoke German. The official language of the Russian bureaucracy was French for 200 years. The Tsar-Tsarina families always maintained a continuous connection with the Renaissance tradition. Thus, investments in science and the arts were always made at the state level (the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the Bolshoi Theater, universities). Unfortunately, in our country, even today, the bourgeoisie or the mentality to encourage science and the arts have not yet developed sufficiently. Only 100 years after Catherine the Great founded the Harbiye did we conceive of establishing the Harbiye. The Russian aristocracy possessed the cultural heritage to support literary and artistic production. In Türkiye, intellectuals are generally of bureaucratic origin; literary and scientific production has remained the activity of the "elite minority." Our reforms were in the hands of a bureaucracy that lacked philosophical depth and flexibility.

The superiority of Russian social discipline over ours likely stems from the dedication of the vast steppes. Russian society became more disciplined as a product of long-term central planning, collective experience of suffering (war, famine, revolution), and the cultural internalization of "obedience." Turkish society, on the other hand, has historically developed a more pragmatic social mindset, dependent on local powers, positioned according to individual interests, and maintaining an emotional yet cautious distance from the state. This has limited long-term disciplined behavior.

The Orthodox tradition Russia inherited from Byzantium developed a strong aesthetic sensitivity through iconography , religious music (choral tradition), and architecture. This tradition fostered emotional intensity and symbolic expression not only in churches but also in folk culture. Orthodox mysticism, melancholy, and metaphysical depth are very prevalent in Russian Orthodox art. This is evident even in non-religious works. Art is perceived as a "sacred" realm. The Russian Orthodox tradition was deeply engaged with music and iconography (painting). Church choirs, polyphony, and religious musical culture became an important part of urban education. Both the Orthodox tradition and Soviet ideology emphasized the collective spirit, the people, and the community, rather than the individual. This deepened collective aesthetic perception in the performing arts (ballet, theater, choir) and orchestras.

Although urbanization in Russia came late, urban culture is not entirely disconnected from the countryside. Especially from the 19th century onward, urban intellectuals' nostalgic interest in the countryside brought folk culture into the city. This, in turn, fostered a deeply rooted cultural continuity.

Nineteenth-century Russian intellectuals (Slavophile thinkers, "Narodniks") viewed the people as an aesthetic and moral resource. Folk music, fairy tales, and rural life were romanticized and incorporated into academic music. With Soviet ideology, art was also seen as a right of the working and peasant classes. Cultural production ceased to be a class privilege.

In our country, however, the intellectuals of the Tanzimat and Republic viewed folk culture as a source of "backwardness" and "reaction." Peasantry and provincialism were portrayed as obstacles to modernization, preventing the artistic expression of the people from being reflected in academic culture. For a long time, art was subjected to the dual pressures of both religious tradition and secular-elitist modernity. Sufi music was long banned under the Republic; mystical sentiment could not be integrated with secular music. Art long remained the domain of the military-bureaucratic elite and the upper bourgeoisie. People's cultural production was deemed "popular" or "low culture."

Moreover, Russia's success in science and technology production stems not only from individual talents but also from the long-term, interdisciplinary interaction of state policies, cultural mindsets, educational structures, and intellectual heritage. To address this gap, Türkiye must build a systematic, disciplined, seamless, and unique scientific ecosystem.

In Russia, the concept of "Enlightenment," unlike the French and English traditions, developed intertwined with religious and metaphysical elements. This, beyond secularizing scientific thought, assigned it a spiritual and cultural function.

Russia has been able to build a strong tradition of intellectual and scientific production without possessing a Western-style constitutional democracy. This is underpinned by factors such as centralism, mystical-intellectual depth, educational discipline, collectivism, and a desire for a compensatory modernity. This also demonstrates that a non-Western modernity—like that of Japan or Iran—can exist.

Authoritarian regimes in Russia, while oppressive to society as a whole, offered strict discipline, long-term vision, and the ability to concentrate public resources in the fields of science, art, and technology. While this structure suppressed individual rights, it succeeded in achieving collective goals. This distinguishes it from the short-term, populist, and scattered models of cultural development seen in countries like Turkey. Modernization in Türkiye is not aesthetic or epistemic, but rather "state-saving" and "emulating the Western form." Art in Türkiye is seen as a "luxury," and science as a "technocratic specialization," preventing the emergence of a genuine intellectual culture.

Russian literature and art grapple with major metaphysical questions: good and evil, freedom, God, existence, death... This depth makes their art universal. Turkish literature, after the 19th century, has been more preoccupied with ideological and political issues. Ontological and philosophical issues have been either marginalized or superficial.

Tsarist Russia had a highly inclusive, multicultural, and imperial character. So much so that when the Tsar visited Kazan, he would stay with the Muslim Tatar-Turkish intellectuals of Kazan. However, the Russification policies that intensified during the reign of Nicholas II (1894–1917) soured the situation and paved the way for the October Revolution. This evoked the "analogy" policies we still insist on.

In short, Russian superiority in science, art, and culture can be explained by the continuity of the aristocratic tradition, the structural investments made in education by the totalitarian system, and the institutional support provided to the cultural elite. Turkey, on the other hand, pursued modernization with a defensive reflex against the West, frequently facing ideological conflicts rather than deepening its influence. Therefore, it sought to build not a "civilization of art and science," but rather a civilization of bureaucratic development .