Russian and Jewish self-conceptions both claimed exemption from ordinary historical laws

Evidence

The closeness of these concepts to each other may be seen in the following coincidence to which many other examples could be added: Steinberg, op. cit., says of the Jews: their history takes place outside all usual historical laws; Chaadayev calls the Russians an exception people. Berdyayev stated bluntly (op. cit., p. 135): “Russian Messianism is akin to Jewish Messianism.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2436

Categorization

• XREF: Closely parallels the reader’s toolkit on the construction of the ‘Other’ and chosen-people exceptionalism — useful backbone for later readings on how excluded peoples internalize exceptionalist self-narratives.
• DEEPTHINKING: Arendt reading Jewish self-interpretation as structurally parallel to Russian Messianism complicates the simple victim/oppressor binary — both peoples narrate themselves as outside usual historical laws. This has implications for how colonized and stateless peoples craft identity.