That stereotype is WAY older than the 90s. Russians were perceived as stoic going back to the 19th century (with a good bit of the ol' racism involved), because in many cases they were seen as too brutish to feel cold and privation. The Cossacks were both feared and romanticized in Western Europe, as both "savage hordes" and "the last free men".
As to why? Russia has always been seen as a half wild land, caught between "the civilized West and the savage Orient". This is mostly due to simple geographic isolation - Moscow is way further from any other European capitol, and even St Petersburg was far away as well. So Western Europeans exoticized them (not sharing a common language, script, or religion definitely helped that).
True, I'm not familiar enough with how granular was the Western European understanding of Cossacks as semi-independent bandits versus believing them to be under the control of the Russian state.
A while back I read something that speculated Russia's cultural apathy and learned helplessness came from living under autocratic rule for so long. Tsars considered themselves "the little father" of the masses, thus the masses are their helpless children. That's bound to have an effect after living under tsardom for so long
That stereotype is WAY older than the 90s. Russians were perceived as stoic going back to the 19th century (with a good bit of the ol' racism involved), because in many cases they were seen as too brutish to feel cold and privation. The Cossacks were both feared and romanticized in Western Europe, as both "savage hordes" and "the last free men".
As to why? Russia has always been seen as a half wild land, caught between "the civilized West and the savage Orient". This is mostly due to simple geographic isolation - Moscow is way further from any other European capitol, and even St Petersburg was far away as well. So Western Europeans exoticized them (not sharing a common language, script, or religion definitely helped that).
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True, I'm not familiar enough with how granular was the Western European understanding of Cossacks as semi-independent bandits versus believing them to be under the control of the Russian state.
A while back I read something that speculated Russia's cultural apathy and learned helplessness came from living under autocratic rule for so long. Tsars considered themselves "the little father" of the masses, thus the masses are their helpless children. That's bound to have an effect after living under tsardom for so long