post-Soviet Russia Research Articles

Changing Menstrual Habits in Late 20th- and Early 21st-Century Russia

Emerging literature in Critical Menstrual Studies seeks to contextualize and decentralize the modern Western experience of the menstrual cycle, by paying closer attention to its various historical and cultural specificities (especially in the Global South). This paper extends the discussion by focusing on Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The post-Soviet case is distinctive because, despite the USSR being a ‘developed’ country by international standards, Soviet menstruators relied on do-it-yourself substitutes and improvisational bodily techniques instead of industrially produced disposable tampons and sanitary pads. However, the seismic shifts in Russian politics, the economy, society, and culture that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new capitalist economy also resulted in profound changes in the politics of menstruation.Drawing on the transcripts of recorded interviews with 80 participants, we enquire into the connections to and discrepancies between socialist ideology, scientific expertise, popular knowledge, and personal experiences of menstruation in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. In tracing the evolution from cloths and chunks of cotton to sanitary pads and tampons, we remain attentive to the materiality of menstruation, but also approach the topic in terms of the history of the body: going beyond medical discourses of menstruation, we explore menstrual lived experience on a more visceral level.

Educational Policy in Post-Soviet Russia

Educational Policy in Post-Soviet Russia

ВОТИВНЫЕ ДАРЫ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ: РЕЛИГИОЗНАЯ ПРАКТИКА В ДИНАМИКЕ ЕЕ РАЗВИТИЯ

The article discusses votive gifts that are relevant to the contemporary Russian temple environment. The rapid revival and spread of the votive tradition in post–Soviet Russia is one of the most striking phenomena of religious culture in recent decades (along with practices related to the appropriative strategy and the active spread of “Orthodox nomadism”, pilgrimage tourism). The variety of gifts and related practices, discussions around that phenomenon, and different options for its moderation by clerics and church workers indicate that the tradition has turned out to be one of the most lively and in demand; it is relevant among different social groups – parishioners, pilgrims, occasional visitors to churches. The author reviews modern offerings, typologizes votive gifts (characteristic and rare, which have spread since the 1990s and have appeared in recent years), analyzes their connection with the icons being gifted. The focus of attention is also on the attitude of clerics and church workers to offerings; on the practice of distributing gifts in the church space (storage, hanging etc.). The analysis is based on interviews collected in 2018–2022s in the churches in dozens of cities in different regions of Russia

Бизнес и преступность: результаты эмпирического исследования

Over the years of the formation of market economic relations in post-Soviet Russia, they have undergone significant criminalization, which in various studies is characterized as a corrupt merger of government and business, infiltration of criminals into power structures, the formation of criminal sectors of the economy, monetization of insider information and other socially dangerous processes, the main subject of which is organized economic crime of a new type. A review of these studies reveals a significant gap: they lack the opinion of the population about these phenomena. Thus, the purpose of this article is: to clarify the opinion of the population about the processes of criminalization of the economic sphere. Methodology: the use of systemic and synergetic approaches, comparative legal, sociological and statistical methods. Results. The content of the article is based on the results of an online survey of 480 Russian citizens on the topic “Business and crime”. The processes of criminalization of business, its underlying factors are considered, estimates of the development of criminal law regulation of economic relations are given. Conclusion. Conclusion: stable legal guarantees for the development of Russian business in a constructive direction can be created on the basis of strengthening statehood, primarily in the economic sphere.

Satire and Protest in Putin's Russia ed. by Aleksei Semenenko (review)

Reviewed by: Satire and Protest in Putin's Russia ed. by Aleksei Semenenko Seth Graham Semenenko, Aleksei (ed.). Satire and Protest in Putin's Russia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2021. xxxix + 197 pp. Illustrations. Notes. References. Index. £109.99; £87.50 (e-book). As its title indicates, this timely and original collection of essays by five authors examines satire as a form of cultural protest in twenty-first-century Russia. The contributions analyse a broad range of satirical texts across media, including stand-up comedy, Internet memes, TV sketch shows and journalistic 'agitainment', the competitive comedy genre known as KVN, rap music, poetry (the 'Citizen Poet' project), queer and camp aesthetics in Russian music and visual culture, street protests and humorous banners ('Monstrations'), and performance and visual art. As Semenenko (editor and author of five of the collection's ten chapters) writes in his Introduction, the book approaches its subject with critical awareness of the two broad, traditional, and purportedly contradictory explanations of political humour's main purpose: 'resistance' (i.e., to effect actual political change) and 'relief' (i.e., to provide a harmless 'safety valve' for otherwise dangerous political hostility). One of the book's strengths is its nuanced scepticism towards this supposed mutual exclusivity. The editor characterizes satirical expression in Russia as 'a process of […] reciprocal confrontation and, in some cases, assimilation and fusion of the mainstream with the opposing tendencies' (p. xix). This proves to be a productive approach, and one that allows the authors to transcend obsolete binaries ('official vs. [End Page 169] unofficial' or 'conformist vs. dissident') that have often characterized the study of cultural production in illiberal and authoritarian societies. Nevertheless, the structure of the book does reflect the dual concepts of 'relief' and 'resistance' acknowledged by Semenenko in the Introduction. Part One is titled 'Satire on a Leash' and Part Two, 'Satire as Protest'. The former includes four chapters — all written by Semenenko — on genres, media and venues that have proven susceptible to partial or complete co-optation and/or censorship by the (Soviet and post-Soviet Russian) state and those supporting the state: stand-up; memes; television satire; and KVN (televised sketch-comedy-team competitions). Semenenko's contextualization of the important recent genre of stand-up (stendap) in the long tradition of Soviet estrada — which also frequented the boundary between the permissible and its opposite — is particularly sharp and relevant. Part Two 'presents five studies of satirical protest that fully or partially managed to escape repression'. The five authors examine the use of satire in music, poetry, street protests, music, and visual and performance art. The chapter entitled 'Transgressing the Mainstream: Camp, Queer and Populism in Russian Visual Culture' by Maria Engström, particularly stands out for its original contribution to the literature not only on satire, but on the state and influence of queer culture in contemporary Russia. Daniil Leiderman's discussion of 'Monstration' — the use of absurd and humorous posters and banners in street protests — convincingly connects the practice to the tradition of Soviet conceptualism, which, he argues, was similarly provocative in its aims. In his Introduction, Semenenko usefully situates the topic of satire in the country's political history, not only pre- and post-Bolotnaia Putinist Russia, but also in the larger context of Soviet culture and its lasting influence. He also acknowledges the methodological difficulties in evaluating the effectiveness of satirical protest, admitting the near impossibility of measuring satire's 'impact on the public' and identifying 'evidence of its influence on public discourse'. In addition, the Introduction places satire alongside other 'modal' or behavioural forms of protest in late- and post-Soviet Russia such as stiob, tricksterism and cynicism, and describes how the state began to exploit these phenomena after the protests of 2011–13 to its own benefit. In addition to its considerable contribution to scholarship on contemporary Russian culture, Semenenko's comparative historical discussion makes it a valuable addition to studies of the place of humour and satire in Soviet culture by such authors as Annie Gerin, Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol, and Jonathan Waterlow. This volume also fills a gap in the scholarship on Putin-era culture and cultural politics, which has tended to...

Regional Legislation in the Field of Traditional Fishing in Post-Soviet Russia: Main Development Trends

Regional Legislation in the Field of Traditional Fishing in Post-Soviet Russia: Main Development Trends

From state terror to international conflict. A place of memory: Katyn as a foreign policy tool of Putin’s Russia

This text discusses the transformations of the Katyn memorial site near Smolensk in western Russia, where, in 1940, the mass murder of more than 4,000 Polish military officers who were prisoners of war occurred. After the Soviet Union’s admission of guilt in 1990, it seemed for two decades that Katyn could also serve as a place for mutual reconciliation between post-communist Poland and post-Soviet Russia. However, in the period of increasing tension between Russia and Poland after 2010, the monument in Katyn became an object of Russian–Polish confrontation. The author concludes that the Katyn memorial complex today illustrates the tendency to patriotize and detraumatize Soviet crimes, whereby the positive events of the Soviet era – especially the victory over Germany in World War II – are ‘Russified’ and newly politically traumatized in parallel with the trivialization and marginalization of murder and crimes against human rights. The new form of memory in Katyn reflects an increasingly firmly dictated line from above that combines Russian nationalism, Orthodox faith, and a sentimental view of the period of Communist rule.

Age, Number of Children and Activity of Women in Russian Politics

The article reflects the specifity of women’s participation in the Russian political process for more than a century — from the creators of the first women’s political organizations, the Women’s Mutual Charitable Society and the Women’s Progressive Party, to modern leaders of the ruling party, systemic and non-systemic opposition. A list of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet women politicians, who were quite famous during the years of their public activity and were often mentioned in the media, has been compiled. It comprises more than fifty prominent public activists who held important government posts or were nominated by public opinion, including not only among those loyal to the authorities, but also dissidents in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Their age, marital status, presence or absence of children are analyzed. The article attempts to identify the correlation between such parameters as gender, age, and time of entry into an active political life; to correlate these inputs with the number of children; and to substantiate the differences in the social expectations of the electorate of men and women in the political process. The hypothesis that married men with children dominate in the Russian politics has been confirmed. Women politicians in Russia are most often childless or have few children. Unlike foreign participants in the electoral process, Russians’ readiness to see women among representatives of the political elite does not grow every year but is constantly declining — and regardless of whether these women politicians become mothers or remain childless.

Social modelling as a public administration component

The dynamics of social processes in post-Soviet Russia has actualized the importance of the population's assessment of the authorities' performance. In this context, the stabilization of the situation in society, achieved through targeted resolution of the problems relevant to the population under their control, seems to be an essential aspect. Such activity, being a multidimensional phenomenon, is based, among other things, on a multifaceted knowledge of the situation in a certain area of public life. Social modelling is one way of understanding it. Its application to the data analysis on the population's attitude to the activities of public authorities at various levels allowed not only to identify its problematic aspects. It was also the foundation for determining the basic elements of the model of power depending on the hierarchical level - functionality, for the federal level (President of the Russian Federation) - representativeness. At the same time, the activities of the governors are much better evaluated than those of the two chambers of the Parliament of the Russian Federation. The population is least aware of its contents and results.

On one view of Eurasianism: doctrine of personality (personology) and proof of the existence of Eurasia by S. Wiederker

The article addresses to the doctrine of personality in the philosophy of classical Eurasianism, which Stefan Wiederkehr analizes in one of the paragraphs of his book “Eurasian Movement. Science and Politics in the Russian Emigration of the Interwar Period and in Post-Soviet Russia”. In the study of Eurasianism XX and XXI centuries, the author presents Eurasianism as a speech act, pursuing a political goal in a particular historical context. The topic of Eurasianism and literature, as well as the religious aspect, which is key in the philosophy of classical Eurasianism, are left out of the study. In matters relating to "personology", the author assesses the idea of the classics of the Eurasian movement about the "multinational" or "collective" personality, as Russian philosophers of the early 20th century see Russia-Eurasia.

Decolonial Architecture and Urbanism: Symbolic Formation of Regions in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract: My research examines post-Soviet architecture in Russia through a postcolonial lens, focusing on decentralization processes from 1990 to 2010. I analyze the role of architecture in the construction of regional and ethnic identities, using classic post- and decolonial theories and concepts on identity and regionalism. In this paper I identify and describe decolonial architectural practices in regions of Russia and their relationship with decentralization and regional autonomous subjectivity. I claim that post-Soviet architecture was a tool in regional symbolic politics that was used by local elites to establish regions as unique and rightful territorial social groups or to challenge the established order. I show, however, the hybridity of such regional architectural practices, which were both empowering and suppressive, decolonial and orientalist. Finally, I propose the new perspective to describe the architecture in regions as "symbolic regimes," linking the local political, economic, and cultural disposition with architectural practice.

Worldview Foundations of Social Well-Being in Post-Soviet Russia

The very occurrence of post-Soviet Russia necessarily dictates the need to study ideological foundations of its existence. What are they? How did they influence and continue to influence the social well-being of the country: do they corrupt or contribute to the unity of society; do they strengthen Russians in pondering over the historical path of the country's development, or, on the contrary, bring confusion into the souls of people and prophesy trouble? The purpose of the paper is to study the language of everyday life as a kind of mirror reflecting the social well-being of the post-Soviet Russian Federation. The authors conclude that this social value is associated with the prosperity of both individuals and society as a whole, but of primary importance is the preservation of cultural and civilizational identity, sovereignty of the country, and solidarity. In modern conditions, cohesion seems to be the first step to social well-being of the country.

Эпоха – новый факультет (из истории факультета иностранных языков и регионоведения МГУ им. М.В. Ломоносова)

In the genre of a scientific essay, memoirs from the history of Faculty of Foreign Languages of Lomonosov Moscow State University (later the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Regional Studies) and innovations in the field of teaching foreign languages. We describe a fundamental revolution in the field of learning and teaching foreign languages, or foreign language education in post-Soviet Russia, which required the development of a completely new program for teaching foreign languages, meeting new social requirements and tasks and paying special attention to the language training of non-philologists. Information is provided on the subject “The World of the Language Being Learned”, which was the first step towards the introduction and development of the academic discipline “Intercultural Communication”, which still occupies its place in the curriculum of the faculty, unique training courses: “England and English”, “Italy and Italians”, “Russia and the Russians”. Information about the emergence of a new specialty in Russia “Linguistics and Intercultural Communication” and the first textbook “Language and Intercultural Communication”, which was repeatedly retaken and published in Georgian and Kazakh, are presented. It is substantiated that the emergence of the specialization “Area Studies of Russia” allowed Lomonosov Moscow State University to play the role of the flagship of Russian education again.

Философия в России и русская философская публицистика

The article examines the question of the correlation of the phenomena “Russian philoso­phy” and “philosophy in Russia”. The author believes that these phenomena are not iden­tical to each other, and Russian philosophy, being an important fragment of intellectual subculture, was often created outside of Russia. This phenomenon became especially prominent in the twentieth century, when Russian dissidents who were exiled abroad, working in the West, continued to be the largest Russian philosophers. On the other hand, within Russia itself (the Moscow Kingdom, the Russian Empire, the short “democratic republic”, the USSR, post-Soviet Russia), not only Russians in language and culture phi­losophized and continue to philosophize. The author notes that Russian literature and philosophical journalism played an exceptional role in domestic philosophizing. It was they who most often made philosophy, as knowledge objectively tending to universality, a nationally colored Russian philosophy.

The Iron or Rustproof Felix? Felix Dzerzhinsky as a Symbol of Revolutionary Fanaticism, Trivialization of Injustice and Dubious Democracy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Era Russia

The article discusses the cult associated with the personality of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877–1926), a revolutionary and the founder of the political police in the Soviet Union, and the changing meanings of this cult in various stages of the history of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Thanks to Dzerzhinsky, as the head of the most significant repressive component, Soviet state terror acquired a very specific institutionalized form. The image of Dzerzhinsky as the basis for the mythologizing of the Soviet political police became very useful in all stages of the development of the Soviet system, most significantly for the development of the cult being the period after the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. Even later, despite many revelations of the crimes of communism, the glorification of Felix Dzerzhinsky and the trivialization of the terror he introduced has not completely disappeared. The myth about the founder of the “Cheka” remained very similar or even identical in its main features in all these periods, but its functions varied in time. State security officials in Russia still call themselves “Chekists” in reference to Dzerzhinsky’s VChK/Cheka. The author therefore concludes that his cult has become more useful for state power in the Kremlin in the long run than the cults of other Soviet-era leaders, including Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

Are Russian Capitals Most Upgraded? (Paradoxes of Settlement Differentiation)

Differentiation of access security of Russians to information-cultural content and cultural characteristics of residents of different types of settlements is considered. Statistics 1970–2020s shows that the differences in the information and cultural infrastructure of various types of settlements were largely smoothed out (although not completely eliminated) in the late Soviet era. However, the absence of qualitative differences between different types of settlements in access to the main channels of constant broadcasting of information and cultural content is combined, according to sociological surveys organized by the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the preservation of culturally determined significant differences in the consumption of these contents. This is a factor in the reproduction of the differences between modern Russians living in different types of settlements in terms of adherence to different cultural values and attitudes. As expected, in accordance with the theories of urbanization and modernization, the urban population in Russia in the 21st century is somewhat more committed to the values of modern society (freedom, innovation, etc.) than the rural population. At the same time, the data of the all- Russian sociological survey conducted in 2021 showed strong differences depending on the type of urban settlement. The most advanced in terms of modernization are residents of cities with a population of 0.5–1.0 million people, i.e. far from the most urbanized settlements. Unexpectedly, the cultural values of the inhabitants of the two Russian capitals turned out, in terms of compliance with the norms of modern society, by no means the most advanced. An inverted U-shaped model of sociologically identifiable cultural settlement differences shows the incompleteness of cultural modernization in post-Soviet Russia, which forms the most important components of social capital.

The New Education: Controversies and Solutions

The article examines the consequences of the evolution of the national education system as a result and source of ideology, which is formed by two parallel paradigms of the development of modern society and the state – traditional and liberal. In Russian education, these paradigms are constantly changing: from state-bureaucratic socialism in the USSR (1917–1990) and liberal reforms in post-Soviet Russia (1990–2000) to educational counter-reforms of the first twenty years of the 21st century. In modern education, a number of solutions still appear, in which a certain ideological structure is laid. An example of this is the expert report of the Center for Strategic Research and the National Research University Higher School of Economics "Twelve Solutions for a New Education", the main messages of which boil down to reforming the national educational system according to the liberal model. We pay special attention to the controversy of the ideas of the report on the support of "elite" schools instead of solving the current issues of the development of the educational network and infrastructure; on the concentration of methods for solving the problems of teachers in terms of creating conditions for improving their qualifications (ignoring the financial difficulties characteristic of this professional group). Author comes to the conclusion that ideology is important for solving the problems of the education system and its agents, from the standpoint of which the national educational policy is formed. From our point of view, responses to modern challenges to education should provide for the interests and opinions of the scientific and educational community within the framework of “institutional bricolage” (the creation of institutions “from below”, at the expense of the resources of the educational community).

Antichrist and His Plot Against Russia: Conspiracy Theories and Eschatology

In post-Soviet Russia, there is a relatively widespread conviction that events such as the Bolshevik Revolution, World War II, and the collapse of the Soviet Union were not the results of historical contingency but of a complex vicious plot exercised by some evil forces aiming to destroy Russia. Depending on political needs, the enemy plotting against Russia has the face of a Jew, Muslim, Freemason, oligarch, or liberal, operating both from outside and inside of the country. Interestingly, many conservatives and religious fundamentalists seem to believe that the plot against Russia is orchestrated not by human agents but by the embodiment of all evil and the herald of the end of the world – the Antichrist. In my paper, I will address these beliefs and discuss the proximity between conspiracy theories and eschatological discourses. Referring to the literal meaning of the Greek word apokalypsis (to disclose, to unveil), I will attempt to explain the role of apocalyptic and conspiratorial narratives that offer to reveal the hidden reality behind what ordinary people can see. Also, I will demonstrate their implications in the broader context of the public discourse in contemporary Russia.

On Legal Realism in a Realistic Manner. Monograph Review. Tonkov EN, Tonkov DE. Legal Realism (St. Petersburg: Aleteya Publ.; 2022. 464 p.)

The review presents the most important provisions of the monograph by E.N. Tonkov and D.E. Tonkov under the title «Legal Realism» (St. Petersburg: Aleteya Publ., 2022. 464 p.) and their assessment. The reviewed work is interesting not only for its in-depth historical coverage of the origin and evolution of legal realism in the USA, Scandinavia and Russia, but also for the analysis of its current state. Legal realism, according to the authors, is one of the most relevant directions for post-modern jurisprudence in the scientific thought of France, Italy, the USA and other countries, including post-Soviet Russia. The relevance of legal realism is justified not only by the search for a «third way» in the legal understanding (between legal positivism and the concept of natural law), but also by bridging the gap between the dogmatic theory of law and legal practice. The first section contains a detailed description and analysis of the main provisions (ideas) of the founders of legal realism in the USA — K. Llewellyn and D. Frank (including from the positions of their modern interpreters), as well as the conceptualization of this trend from the standpoint of today. The distinctive features of the movement (but not the school, which the authors rightly insist on) of legal realism are given. Of particular interest is the analysis and conceptualization of the problem of legal certainty and judicial activism from the standpoint of American legal realists, presented on the pages of the monograph.The second section of the monograph analyzes the main provisions of Scandinavian legal realism — the legacy of A. Hagerstrom, V. Lundstedt, K. Olivecrona and A. Ross. Perhaps, the content of the third section of the monograph devoted to Russian legal realism will arouse the greatest interest among many readers. The study of the relatively recent historical past of our country is extremely important for a lawyer, according to the authors, because the current state of law and order is largely determined by this past. The analysis of the doctrine as a source of law, the multiplicity of legal systems, including individual regulatory systems and the inevitability of conflicts between them, is one of the best places in the reviewed monograph. The fourth section of the monograph is devoted to the analysis of modern postclassical concepts of legal realism presented by B. Leiter, B. Tamanakhi, M. Troper, B. Bix and others, which will undoubtedly arouse considerable interest in the reader, as well as a wonderful monograph as a whole.

Czary, klątwy, amulety i pieniądze: o racjonalności magicznej i działaniu ekonomicznym

The paper presents some results of the author’s long-term ethnographic fieldwork on petty trade in post-Soviet Russia. It focuses on magical practices and their role for entrepreneurial strategies, and recalls the stories of two tradespeople who worked at an open-air market in Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia. In order to interpret the stories. I follow the ideas of Bronis³aw Malinowski, who argued that usage of magic can bring measurable economic effects. The claim Iput forward here is that economic magic constitutes a rationality that is launched by people when their ordinary modes of acting have failed. Deploying magic is linked to an order of hope, and emerges as a consequence of individual entrepreneurs occupying an underprivileged position at a Russian market. Practising magic constitutes an example of the embeddedness of economic action in the social world, and as such characterizes not only the Trobrianders but also contemporary, highly-developed societies.