Russia’s Ontological Absence

Conrad considered Russia to be a non-Western space. He also saw Russia as Other both to the West and to other non-Western spaces. Unlike their engagement with Russia, as Conrad’s characters engage with other non-Western spaces, they discover that the West is not founded on transcendental truths but rather on contingent truths, just as is the non-West. These characters come to recognize in the non-West and its inhabitants the ability to function effectively in a space and system different from that of the West. Russia, though, is different. Conrad saw viable alternative systems of society or values from the West in the space of Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, but he sees no such alternative system in Russia. Nor do his Russians. For Conrad, Russia lacks both transcendent and contingent truths and is instead simply a void that cannot be filled with transcendent truths nor even with contingent truths.