westernizer
Etymology
From westernize + -er.
westernizer means A member of a group of 19th-century intellectuals who believed that Russia's development depended upon the adoption of Western European technology and liberal government. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “westernizer” is a great word
WESTERNIZER — [Noun] A 19th-century Russian intellectual who advocated for national progress through the wholesale adoption of Western European technology, liberal institutions, and ideals. From westernize ("to make western in character") + -er (agent noun suffix). Unlike a Slavophile (who championed Russia's unique, spiritual path as superior to a decadent West) or a general modernizer (who may seek progress from any source), the Westernizer prescribed a specific, borrowed blueprint for a society deemed backward. He is the fervent study of French constitutions in a St. Petersburg salon, the petition for German rail gauges across a landscape of serfdom, the imagined silhouette of a parliament against the Byzantine domes of the Kremlin—a believer in a future already built elsewhere, forever translating a present into a borrowed future.
noun
- A member of a group of 19th-century intellectuals who believed that Russia's development depended upon the adoption of Western European technology and liberal government.