The Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire

The Russian imperial region and the Ottoman imperial region have always had a rather strong internal debate about that ambiguous or ambivalent identity. What you've got in the Russian case is a kind of envy, desire to emulate and fear of Europe at the same time. The problem with that debate is that it doesn't understand as well that the political regime is not westernizer or slava file. It's trying to compete with the west, not become the west, but protect Russia's own self-imagined identity.