Russian Elite Research Articles

Lack and jouissance in hegemonic discourse of identification with the state

This article shows how hegemonic discourses are sustained through the play of lack and jouissance. Lack refers to the symbolic limits of discourse and is both the condition of possibility and of impossibility of hegemony: while it vitiates the realization of a full identity, it at the same time keeps spurring the search for it. Jouissance describes the paradoxical satisfaction in dissatisfaction that subjects procure from this lack, from the failure to attain the enjoyment that hegemonic discourse promises. Looking at how organizations become enmeshed with the formation of state subjects, the article considers identification with the discourse of a strong Russia at a Russian elite university as an empirical illustration. This discourse becomes hegemonic in students’ identification not only because it proposes a comprehensive project that unifies a range of diverse signifiers and promises enjoyment, but also because it fails to provide a full symbolic suture and subjects are unable to obtain the promised enjoyment. This constant lack forms the basis for repeated acts of identification that strive to overcome it and provides a jouissance that keeps subjects attached to the illusory quest for real enjoyment—and thus to identification with a strong Russia.

Is Russia Out of Step with European Norms? Assessing Russia's Relationship to European Identity, Values and Norms Through the Issue of Self-Determination

This article examines the question of European identity in Russian foreign policy through the notion of European norms. By considering attitudes towards the death penalty, it identifies different strands of thought in the Russian elite, and argues that an assertive Europeanism is now dominant as Russia seeks to be an equal participant in the development of common norms. However, there is a tendency for Russia's ‘Europeanness’ to be questioned because of behaviour that is considered out of step with European Union standards. I argue that even in an area of significant controversy between Russia and other European states, self-determination for national minorities, there is potential for the delineation of common principles, but only as an inclusive process on the basis of consensus.

The Image of Germany in the Russian Press and in the Eyes of The Russian Political Elite: Chapter Draft from 'Constructing Identities in Europe: German and Russian Perspective'

In recent years, Russia has intensified its economic, political and sociocultural contacts with Germany and with the European Union as a whole. The Laboratory for Political Research at the State University/Higher School of Economics has analyzed the image of Germany and the European Union as portrayed by the Russian media and Russian political elite. We have posed the following questions: – What is Germany’s place in the public consciousness, as shaped by the media? – How does the Russian press present Germany to its readers? – How do the Russian media correlate the image of Germany with ideas about the EU? – What does the Russian political elite think about the European Union?

Popular support for an undemocratic regime: the changing views of Russians

To survive, all forms of government require popular support, whether voluntary or involuntary. Following the collapse of the Soviet system, Russia's rulers took steps toward democracy, yet under Vladimir Putin Russia has become increasingly undemocratic. This book uses a unique source of evidence, eighteen surveys of Russian public opinion from the first month of the new regime in 1992 up to 2009, to track the changing views of Russians. Clearly presented and sophisticated figures and tables show how political support has increased because of a sense of resignation that is even stronger than the unstable benefits of exporting oil and gas. Whilst comparative analyses of surveys on other continents show that Russia's elite is not alone in being able to mobilize popular support for an undemocratic regime, Russia provides an outstanding caution that popular support can grow when governors reject democracy and create an undemocratic regime.

Istoriia Rossii: XX vek [A History of Russia: The 20th Century]. 1: 1894–1939 , and: 2: 1939–2007 (review)

Andrei Borisovich Zubov, ed., Istoriia Rossii: XX vek [A History of Russia: The 20th Century]. 1: 1894-1939. 1,023 pp. ISBN-13 978-5170593620. 2: ]939-2007. 847 pp. Moscow: AST, 2009. ISBN-13 978-5170593637. Istoriia Rossii is welcome addition to the debate over Russia's turbulent 20th century--if only because this new interpretation offers so much with which to disagree. These two massive volumes follow several relevant and recent milestones, such as the controversial teacher's manual Noveishaia istoriia Rossii, 1945-2008 (Russia's Contemporary History, 1945-2008) and the accompanying textbook Istoriia Rossii, 1945-2008 (A History of Russia, 1945-2008); the creation in May 2009 of the Presidential Commission to Counter Attempts to Falsify History; the release of the documents on the Katyn Massacre; and Russian legislation that has made it illegal to deny the results of World War II. A veritable battle is taking place in the post-Soviet world around the construction of public memory and the role that education plays in political socialization. Eventually, this debate will receive scholarly examination, and indeed some academic journals have already exposed it to scrutiny. (1) After two and half years of work, 43 contributors (most of them academics) have put together what Richard Pipes has called a refreshing contrast to previous Russian histories. (2) Indeed, quotations from his books eclipse all other Western authors, although the overt Orthodox bent of the project is clearly not something of which one would expect him to approve. With the exception of one foreign author, all the contributors are people of Russian background who teach or research in various Russian cities or at foreign universities) The project's organizer and chief editor, Andrei Borisovich Zubov--history professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO, Russia's elite diplomatic academy) and professor of religious at the Moscow Spiritual Academy--admits that the project was financed by people who prefer not to be named. (4) Originally released in 5,000 copies, this first non-Soviet history, in the words of the publisher's advertisement, has already undergone second edition of 10,000. (5) The controversial new interpretation and the high production quality-color maps, name index, and solid editing--amply reward the commitment needed to read the volumes. The factual density of the narrative makes this valuable reference volume rather than material for casual reading. The chapters are split into sections and subsections that number almost 370. The great advantage of the Zubov project is that it quotes from an enormous number of primary sources and includes list of suggested readings at the end of almost every section--mostly the latest Russian historiography, but also many Western works, although most of the foreign texts were published between 1950 and 1980. Istoriia Rossii claims to go beyond mere political by focusing on ethnic groups, religious minorities, and individuals caught up in the whirlwind of the 20th century. Instead of portraits of famous leaders, photographs of ordinary people adorn the covers of both volumes, emphasizing the central argument that political regime ought to be judged by its effect on ordinary citizens--specifically, on their spiritual and material formation. (6) Zubov himself intended Istoriia Rassii to become history of mistakes, of political speculations that encourages historical redemption. (7) Istariia Rossii thereby undermines the Western stereotype of the current Russian government monolithically enforcing its view of and at the same time challenges many Soviet myths about the 20th century. Although Istoriia Rossii started out as textbook, the scale rapidly got out of hand. Zubov himself balks at the term, arguing instead that Istoriia Rossii is an in-depth exploration and an honest of the 20th century from which textbook authors can glean insights. …

Defenders of the Motherland or Defenders of the Autocracy?

Iosif Iosifovich Kolyshko, Velikii raspad: Vospominaniia (The Great Disintegration: A Memoir), ed. Igor Vladimirovich Lukoianov. 464 pp. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriia, 2009. ISBN-13 978-5981873317. Matthew Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland: The Tsarist Elite in Revolutionary Russia. xii + 274 pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN-13 9780199236251. $99.00. Aleksandr Vital'erich Repnikov, Dnevnik L. A. Tikhomirova, 1915-1917 (The Diary of L. A. Tikhomirov, 1915-17). 440 pp. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2008. ISBN-13 978-5824308969. The three works under scrutiny make a valuable contribution to the revisionist discussion of the prerevolutionary Russian elite's social and ideological adaptability to modernity. While Matthew Rendle's Defenders of the Motherland conceptualizes the nobility's responses to the revolution of 1917, the publications of L. A. Tikhomirov's diary and I. I. Kolyshko's memoirs, conspicuously titled The Great Disintegration, partially support and partially modify Rendle's findings by demonstrating that ideological adaptation stood behind social adaptation. As a result, the most influential and eloquent representatives of the regime's defenders gave themselves over to pessimism. The cleavage between the modernization of social and intellectual practices was an important factor in the alienation of the late imperial Russian Right from the tsar. Soviet historians used to consider the Russian Right of the early 20th century a subsidized political group, organized by the police to secure mass support for the autocracy. According to this viewpoint, after the downfall of the Romanovs, conservatives aimed at the restoration of the pre-February political order, the Third of June system. (1) This oversimplified interpretation was a result of the absence of detailed knowledge about the Russian Right, rather than the product of ideological pressure. For decades, Soviet historiography concentrated on the history of the revolutionary movement and ignored the social and political forces situated on the right. Only from the late 1960s onward did Soviet historians begin to explore Russian conservative politics and ideology of the late imperial period. The works by Valentin Semenovich Diakin and Aron Iakovlevich Avrekh on political struggle in the State Duma and the State Council between 3 June 1907 and the abdication of Nicholas II in February 1917 revealed that the Right was far from a voiceless political instrument manipulated from above. It had a substantial degree of autonomy, tried to influence the government's decision making, and sometimes even succeeded in doing so.2 These works helped eliminate the most absurd stereotypes and paved the way for the final rejection of the classical Soviet interpretation of late imperial history in the 1990s. This process was considerably stimulated by Western historiography, which began to analyze the Russian Right earlier than Soviet scholars did. The first specialized work on the genesis of the Russian political Right was written by Hans Rogger; (3) the author of the first monograph on the Nationalist Party was Robert Edelman; (4) the first study of the electoral practices of the Russian Right was by Rex Rexheuser. (5) Heinz-Dietrich Lowe examined antisemitic elements in Russian conservative ideology. (6) The last 20 years, however, have witnessed a radical shift. Contemporary Western historians have seemingly lost all interest in Russian while Russian scholars are deeply immersed in studying it. (7) Matthew Rendle's latest book deserves serious attention as an important contribution to studies of conservatism, although one undertaken from an unconventional angle. He approaches the right-wing organizations from the field of the social history of the nobility in late imperial Russia. (8) From studying the strategies of survival and social networking practiced by the nobility, Rendle switches to how broader layers of elites ideologically conceptualized the new political reality created by the revolution of 1917. …

The Gathering Storm (review)

Reviewed by: The Gathering Storm Kate Quealy-Gainer Bridges, Robin . The Gathering Storm. Delacorte, 2012. [400p]. (The Katerina Trilogy) Library ed. ISBN 978-0-385-90829-0 $20.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-385-74022-7 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-89901-0 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 8-12. As a member of the Russian nobility in the late nineteenth century, sixteen-year-old Katerina Alexandrovna is forced to attend one decadent St. Petersburg ball after another when she'd much rather be studying her father's medical books. Her mother is insistent that she find a suitable husband, and there's a rumor that the Crown Prince of Montenegro has taken an interest in Katiya; after a series of alarming encounters with dark faeries and reanimated corpses, however, Katiya realizes that the prince's attention has more to do with her secret abilities as a necromancer than her potential as a wife. She soon finds herself ensnared in a political plot that extends into the very heights of Russian royalty, pitting the Imperial Royal family (including the tsar's very handsome son) against a legion of undead ghouls awoken by vampires. The multitude of spectacularly Russian names and their associated royal titles may try the untutored reader's patience, but fans of court intrigue will find themselves utterly engrossed by this tale of shifting alliances and royal scandal. The author rewrites a fair amount of Russian history by including the Imperial Family's ties to faeries and battles with vampire, but these supernatural elements feel more terrifying than fantastical in that they are cloaked with an air of shadowy mystery. Details focus primarily on daily life among the Russian elite and the various backstabbing that often accompanies it, so that even readers with their feet firmly planted on the cold, snowy ground will find plenty to love here. A push-and-pull romance between Katiya and the tsar's son promises to bring even more drama to the sequel, but for now readers will want to grab a blanket and hot cup of cocoa and settle in for this wonderfully atmospheric blend of history and magic. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Die russische Elite in der Republik Moldau: Populismus und Euroskeptizismus? / Euroscepticism and Populism within the Russian Elite in the Republic of Moldova

Article Die russische Elite in der Republik Moldau: Populismus und Euroskeptizismus? / Euroscepticism and Populism within the Russian Elite in the Republic of Moldova was published on February 1, 2012 in the journal Comparative Southeast European Studies (volume 60, issue 2).

Russia and the colour revolutions

The colour revolutions, and especially the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, are widely perceived as major international setbacks to Putin's Russia. The Ukrainian events alarmed Russian elites, who feared the possibility of a local colour revolution during the 2007–2008 electoral cycle. To thwart the perceived colour revolution threat, Russian authorities adopted strategies that combined a political, administrative and intellectual assault on the opposition and Western ideas of democracy promotion. An integral part of this assault was, first, an attempt to create a mass youth movement, Nashi, as a counterweight to the various youth movements that were the driving forces behind the colour revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Second, it was an attempt to delegitimize the idea of liberal democracy itself, labelling it subversive and alien to the Russian national character. We argue that Russian reactions to the ‘colour revolution threat’ provide important insights into what an authoritarian regime, such as that in Russia, perceives as the most threatening aspects of democratizing activities by domestic and international actors.

Die Porträtgalerie bedeutender Zeitgenossen von Pavel Tret’jakov als Spiegel des sich wandelnden Selbstverständnisses der russischen Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert

Pavel Tret’iakov’s Portrait Gallery of Important Persons of His Time as Mirror of the Changing Conception of Oneself in Russian Society during the 19th Century The article deals with the construction of new models, personalized and oriented towards national beliefs in the time after the defeat in the Crimean war and the reforms of 1861. In order to emphasize the key role of portraits in this national self-finding process and the significance of the temporary portrait gallery organized by Pavel Tret’iakov it highlights the continuous high standing of portrait in Russian art of modern times. Its authority is based upon the tradition of icons and their ado ration but has integrated also western influences and media innovations. Further it is discussed what was the motivation for collecting art of Pavel Tret’iakov, a representative of the Russian merchants, a stratum who began to compete with the aristocracy in this field and to establish his own priorities. Pavel Tret’iakov focused on Russian realist painting, on artists like Vasilii Perov, Ivan Kramskoi, Il’ia Repin, and others. It was his intention as an old-believer to present works of art in a museum and thus to secure their influence on public mind. The analysis of the genesis and the structure of the portrait gallery shows its close relation to the search for a new, moral credible elite in Russia. Following up the ideas of Thomas Carlyle men of letters and other representatives of cultural life have been declared to be the “best people” in Russia, but also peasants freed from serfdom. Despite of his slavophile sympathies, Pavel Tret’iakov appears as a customer who is choosing the models for his portrait gallery in order to reach a balance between differing social and ideological interests. He cultivated a steady exchange with the artists working for him. The iconography of the portraits, among them those of Fedor Dostoevskii, Lev Tolstoi and Modest Mussorgskii, also confirms the mix of traditional elements and modernist tendencies, so characteristic for Russia in the late 19th century.

Continuities in the formation of Russian political elites

Continuities in the formation of Russian political elites

Conservative Russia. Regarding Thirty Years of Our Ideological Evolution

This paper is an attempt to trace and analyze the process of the emergence and development of conservative ideology in post-Soviet Russia. The process under study could be divided into three relatively autonomous periods: the years of 1991–1999, 2000–2011 and 2012–2020. During the first decade of the new Russia conservatism as ideology and political party project remained at the periphery of the social and political life of the country. The second period was noted for multiple attempts to present a more successful version of Russian conservatism at the conceptual and even party-political levels. President Putin and members of “United Russia” political party directly and indirectly identifies themselves as conservatives. During the third period the fact that Crimea and Sevastopol became part of Russia again played an important part in the process of national and patriotic consolidation of the people. Since 2014 we witness evident growth of mass conservative mentality and the transition of conservatism as the outlook and political ideology from the periphery to the symbolic “center”. It can already be termed ideological mainstream, but it still remains unclear whether conservatism has become the ideology of Russian elite. Even after the acceptance of the amendments to the Constitution in 2020.

EU Democracy Promotion in the Eastern Neighbourhood: One Template, Multiple Approaches

The article sketches the EU approach to democracy promotion in the eastern neighbourhood, including the six countries involved in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and Russia. A comparison of the relevant documents reveals that issues of democratic development are much more present in the EU approach towards the six EaP partners than in its dealings with Russia. The remainder of the article presents a detailed account of EU democracy promotion efforts in Russia and Ukraine. The interactions with Russia in the realm of democracy promotion are found to be superficial and unsystematic, concentrating on individual cases without much depth or consistency. In the case of Ukraine, the approach is much more holistic, with a variety of aspects of democracy being addressed over time through projects and dialogue, even if these have not had a high priority in EU-Ukraine relations until recently. There are two key reasons for these differing approaches. First, Ukraine under Yushchenko (January 2005-February 2010) was amenable to democracy promotion offerings from the EU, whereas Russia under both Putin and Medvedev has clearly rejected such efforts. Second, the perceived importance of the Russian Federation in the energy and security realms has made key EU Member States unwilling to alienate Russian elites by insisting on implementing projects related to democracy promotion.

High Anxiety: New Venues, New Audiences, and the Fear of the Popular in Late Imperial Russian Musical Life

Abstract Russia's social and economic transformation at the beginning of the twentieth century was accompanied by profound cultural and artistic transformation. In particular, Russian cultural elites struggled to control and contain what they saw as threats to Russia's national culture. At the same time, however, they sought ways to bring the working classes into a closer cultural accord with educated society. Although these efforts continued a long process of intelligentsia efforts to shape Russian society by controlling the development of “the people,” industrialization and urbanization had already begun to fundamentally restructure the relationship between the educated and popular classes. In musical life, the intelligentsia struggled with two somewhat contradictory impulses: first, to simultaneously protect musical and song traditions from the threat of contamination by new urban genres; and second, to develop “rational recreations” that would appeal to the peasantry and the urban working classes. To those ends, they created, among other activities, accessible (obshchedostupnyi) concerts, temperance choirs, and singing classes in a wide variety of locations across the Russian Empire. These musical projects were part of a much larger, somewhat utopian effort by educated society to create an ideal Russia by eliminating its supposed social, cultural, economic, and political backwardness relative to Western Europe. Nevertheless, the consequences for Russian musical life proved significant. Not only did these efforts lay the moral and intellectual foundation for Soviet-era interventionist and utopian cultural policies, but they also in the short term significantly diversified and democratized musical life in the last decades of tsarist rule.

Is Russia's Foreign Policy That of a Corporatist-Kleptocratic Regime?

Is Russian foreign policy the foreign policy of a struggling democratic, hybrid, semi-authoritarian, rentier, or corporatist-kleptocratic state? Russia possesses all the trappings of a state with a long-established set of institutions representing state interests abroad, but it also has a set of elites whose purpose is both to represent and promote state interests abroad and to enrich themselves, very often at the state's expense. While Russian foreign policy continues to promote Russian national interests abroad, this article examines the impact of these new kinds of elite rules on Russia and states where corrupt Russian elites find willing partners. Research in the Wikileaks documents is used to study this topic.

China and Policy of Russia in Respect to China Before 1894 in the Russian Press

The article is devoted to an analysis of the attitudes of the Russian society towards China as expressed in the Russian press – from the very first pieces of information published in the Russian press about China to the beginning of the Chinese-Japanese War. The Russian press of different political directions did not have definite and precise opinions concerning Russian policy towards China at the beginning and in the middle of the 19th century. Russian journalists, researchers and philosophers began to discuss different aspects of Chinese development and in their publications were expressed the attitudes of the ruling Russian elite, which began to express interest in an active Far Eastern Russian foreign policy.

On New Configurations of Owners of Russian Big Business

This article formulates and empirically proves the hypothesis of emerging a new model of interaction among natural persons - key owners of big Russian companies. It establishes the fact of transition from the model of individual ownership to the model of co-owners alliance that took place in the late 2000s. The article zeros in on configurations of partners among the Russian business super elite.

Market meets nationalism: making entrepreneurial state subjects in post-Soviet Russia

This paper argues that nationalism and neoliberalism should not be considered as conflicting ideologies, but can enter into a productive association. This association creates an entrepreneurial nationalism that people can actively embrace as self-governing subjects in pursuit of a good life and successful career, rather than as subjects governed through state-mandated projects from above. The paper illustrates this argument with material from nine months of fieldwork at a Russian elite university. While students at that university strive to develop their potential and increase their market value to be successful in the competition for the best jobs, they also emphasize that developing themselves is not antithetical to serving Russia and being true to one's country. On the contrary, advancing Russia and advancing one's own career are articulated as two sides of the same coin. At the same time, the Russian nationalist project is reframed in entrepreneurial terms: making the Russian nation strong is about developing its potential and raising its competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Russia–EU Relations, or How the Russians Really View the EU

The recent history and the current state of relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) reflect the geopolitical competition between the two powers over their contested neighbourhood – Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Although prioritizing the EU as its major trade and political partner, Russia is also conscious of its strategic interests in the ‘near abroad’. While there is little discrimination in the political discourse of Russian elites in relation to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in reality, as popular opinion indicates, those neighbours who openly show their allegiances to the EU – Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – have been increasingly categorized as hostile and unfriendly towards Russia. Public opinion remains strikingly congruent with and reflective of government foreign policy preferences.

Education and the Formation of Geopolitical Subjects

Despite the crucial role of schools and universities in shaping the worldviews of their students, education has been a marginal topic in international relations. In a plea for more engagement with the power and effects of education, this paper analyzes the interplay of discipline and knowledge in the formation of geopolitical subjects. To this end, it employs material from ethnographic research at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the premier university for educating future Russian elites in the field of international relations. The paper draws on Foucault to chart the ensemble of disciplinary practices producing “docile bodies” and objective knowledge and traces how these practices are bound up with the geopolitical discourse of Russia as a great power: while they fashion the great power discourse with objectivity, disruptions in the discourse also disrupt disciplinary practices.