Download or read book Creating Russophobia written by Guy Mettan and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2017-06-29 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: hy do the USA, UK and Europe so hate Russia? How is it that Western antipathy, once thought due to anti-Communism, could be so easily revived over a crisis in distant Ukraine, against a Russia no longer communist? Why does the West accuse Russia of empire-building, when 15 states once part of the defunct Warsaw Pact are now part of NATO, and NATO troops now flank the Russian border? These are only some of the questions Creating Russophobia investigates. Mettan begins by showing the strength of the prejudice against Russia through the Western response to a series of events: the Uberlingen mid-air collision, the Beslan hostage-taking, the Ossetia War, the Sochi Olympics and the crisis in Ukraine. He then delves into the historical, religious, ideological and geopolitical roots of the detestation of Russia in various European nations over thirteen centuries since Charlemagne competed with Byzantium for the title of heir to the Roman Empire. Mettan examines the geopolitical machinations expressed in those times through the medium of religion, leading to the great Christian schism between Germanic Rome and Byzantium and the European Crusades against Russian Orthodoxy. This history of taboos, prejudices and propaganda directed against the Orthodox Church provides the mythic foundations that shaped Western disdain for contemporary Russia. From the religious and imperial rivalry created by Charlemagne and the papacy to the genesis of French, English, German and then American Russophobia, the West has been engaged in more or less violent hostilities against Russia for a thousand years. Contemporary Russophobia is manufactured through the construction of an anti-Russian discourse in the media and the diplomatic world, and the fabrication and demonization of The Bad Guy, now personified by Vladimir Putin. Both feature in the meta-narrative, the mythical framework of the ferocious Russian bear ruled with a rod of iron by a vicious president. A synthetic reading of all these elements is presented in the light of recent events and in particular of the Ukrainian crisis and the recent American elections, showing how all the resources of the West’s soft power have been mobilized to impose the tale of bad Russia dreaming of global conquest.

Download or read book Russophobia written by Glenn Diesen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-04-22 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book defines Russophobia as the irrational fear of Russia, a key theme in the study of propaganda in the West as Russia has throughout history been assigned a diametrically opposite identity as the “Other.” Propaganda is the science of convincing an audience without appealing to reason. The West and Russia have been juxtaposed as Western versus Eastern, European versus Asiatic, civilized versus barbaric, modern versus backward, liberal versus autocratic, and even good versus evil. During the Cold War, ideological dividing lines fell naturally by casting the debate as capitalism versus communism, democracy versus totalitarianism, and Christianity versus atheism. After the Cold War, anti-Russian propaganda aims to filter all political questions through the simplistic binary stereotype of democracy versus authoritarianism, which provides little if any heuristic value to understand the complexities of relations. A key feature of propaganda against the inferior “Other” is both contemptuous derision and panic-stricken fear of the threat to civilization. Russia has therefore throughout history been allowed to play one of two roles—either an apprentice of Western civilization by accepting the subordinate role as the student and political object, or a threat that must be contained or defeated. While propaganda has the positive effect of promoting unity and mobilizing resources toward rational and strategic objectives, it can also have the negative effect of creating irrational decision-making and obstructing a workable peace.

Download or read book Russophobia written by Dominic Basulto and published by Dominic Basulto. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current Russophobia in the Western media should not come as a big surprise. During the Cold War era, the stereotype of dour, unsmiling Russians victimized by a ruthless, authoritarian regime that posed an existential nuclear threat to the West became a mainstay of the media narrative. Even after the end of the Cold War, Russophobia continued to influence the way the West viewed Russia. This book attempts to understand how Russophobia within the Western media during the Putin era (2000-2015) led to a new Cold War between Russia and the West that includes elements of information, cyber and economic warfare. Russophobia attempts to answer the following questions: Why are any attempts by Russia to change the Western media narrative immediately derided as propaganda? What do Western policymakers get wrong about the Kremlin's motives? And, most importantly: Is there a cure for Russophobia?

Download or read book Russophobia written by A. Tsygankov and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-04-26 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book suggests that the US-Russia post-9/11 partnership did not endure because much of America's policy is shaped by an ambition to remain the world's only superpower. The book analyzes the negative role played by Russophobia and advocates a different approach to Russia in the post-Cold War world.

Download or read book First Person written by Vladimir Putin and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2000-05-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we don't know him? First Person is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable photographs, it delves deep into Putin's KGB past and explores his meteoric rise to power. No Russian leader has ever subjected himself to this kind of public examination of his life and views. Both as a spy and as a virtual political unknown until selected by Boris Yeltsin to be Prime Minister, Putin has been regarded as man of mystery. Now, the curtain lifts to reveal a remarkable life of struggles and successes. Putin's life story is of major importance to the world.

Download or read book Between russophobia and bridge building written by Sven G. Holtsmark and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Internal Colonization written by Alexander Etkind and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-29 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives a radically new reading of Russia’s culturalhistory. Alexander Etkind traces how the Russian Empire conqueredforeign territories and domesticated its own heartlands, therebycolonizing many peoples, Russians included. This vision ofcolonization as simultaneously internal and external, colonizingone’s own people as well as others, is crucial for scholarsof empire, colonialism and globalization. Starting with the fur trade, which shaped its enormous territory,and ending with Russia’s collapse in 1917, Etkind exploresserfdom, the peasant commune, and other institutions of internalcolonization. His account brings out the formative role of foreigncolonies in Russia, the self-colonizing discourse of Russianclassical historiography, and the revolutionary leaders’illusory hopes for an alliance with the exotic, pacifistsectarians. Transcending the boundaries between history andliterature, Etkind examines striking writings about Russia’simperial experience, from Defoe to Tolstoy and from Gogol toConrad. This path-breaking book blends together historical, theoretical andliterary analysis in a highly original way. It will be essentialreading for students of Russian history and literature and foranyone interested in the literary and cultural aspects ofcolonization and its aftermath.

Download or read book The Russians Are Coming Again written by Jeremy Kuzmarov and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This book] is a red flag to restore our historical consciousness about U.S.-Russian relations, and how denying this consciousness is leading to a repetition of past follies"--Amazon.com.

Download or read book The Dark Double written by Andrei P. Tsygankov and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many observers argue that US-Russia relations are a simple reflection of elites' political and economic preferences in both countries, these preferences tend to arise from pre-existing belief systems that are deeply rooted in the public and accentuated by mass media. In Dark Double, Andrei P. Tsygankov focuses on the driving power of values and media, in addition to political and economic interests, in structuring US-Russia relations. By analyzing mainstream US newspapers and other media sources, Tsygankov identifies five media narratives involving Russia since the Cold War's end and studies them through a framework of three inter-related factors: historic and cultural differences between the two countries, inter-state competition, and polarizing domestic politics. He shows how Americans' negative views toward Russia draw from a deep wellspring of suspicion and are further enhanced by a biased media that regularly exploits such negativity, Russia's centralization of power and anti-American attitudes. Given the intensity of our current impasse with Russia, Dark Double represents an important intervention that forces us to think about the sources of conflict in a new way.

Download or read book Creating Chaos Online written by Asta Zelenkauskaite and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-10-10 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the prevalence of disinformation geared to instill doubt rather than clarity, Creating Chaos Online unmasks disinformation when it attempts to pass as deliberation in the public sphere and distorts the democratic processes. Asta Zelenkauskaitė finds that repeated tropes justifying Russian trolling were found to circulate across not only all analyzed media platforms’ comments but also across two analyzed sociopolitical contexts suggesting the orchestrated efforts behind messaging. Through a dystopian vision of publics that are expected to navigate in the sea of uncertain both authentic and orchestrated content, pushed by human and nonhuman actors, Creating Chaos Online offers a concept of post-publics. The idea of post-publics is reflected within the continuum of treatment of public, counter public, and anti-public. This book argues that affect-instilled arguments used in public deliberation in times of uncertainty, along with whataboutism constitute a playbook for chaos online.

Download or read book The Good Russians written by Artem Medvedev and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-01-22 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 2017. I live in one of the world's most developed countries. I'm writing about Russophobia.Why? Because I've been experiencing it more and more over the past few years. Because it's making me sick to my stomach. Because it has to stop.It's very hard to watch or read the news nowadays without coming across the image of "the Russians". These "Russians" are around every corner, inside every computer programme, behind every hacking, scandal, crisis, and so on and so forth. These "Russians" helped Donald Trump win the US Presidential Election. These "Russians" wish to undermine democracy, humiliate the West, flame the horrors of war, and overall be the monsters that they are indefinitely. The "Russians" here. The "Russians" there. The media, the politicians, the public are all getting so engrossed into the idea of this apparently clear-cut mutual enemy that they do not recognize just how much pain and confusion they are actually causing. Most of the time, the enemy they actually mean to target is Vladimir Putin and his regime, but, oh well, who said that collateral damage is something to worry about? Let's just use a more inclusive term, "the Russians"? Everyone good with that?The vivid imagery of the clumsy angry bear, the weird fur hats, the tanks rolling in, the half-human monsters, the Hollywood-created "Russian" accent, courtesy of the definitive "Russians" Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren... all of that is back. Meanwhile, of course, Putin and his "Russia" continue to bomb hospitals, violate international treaties, and find new ways to show the world that they are to be reckoned with. That doesn't make the situation any easier to deal with or the Russophobia any easier to fight against. Many would say that that facts are there to condemn and charge the "Russians". This book is meant as an attempt to reframe the discussion and point out that by fuelling further Russophobia, the media and other influencers are playing right into Putin's hands. For years, he has been searching for a national philosophy that would unite the people behind him. By turning not just him and his regime, but the Russian people and Russia as a country into a pariah and a monster, the West gives Vladimir Putin what he has been seeking all this time - the battle cry of courage under fire and unity in the face of universal treachery and the global plot to strangle Russia. A different kind of Russians is talked about here. These are all real people that have nothing to do with Putin's crimes, plans, thoughts, or feelings (if such exist). These are not the "Russians" you hear about on TV or read about in the blogs. They are the real Russians that, in their lifetimes, made the world a better place, and whose influence continues to this day. The chapters can be read in any order. It is my hope that reading about these ten remarkable individuals will help you shed some of the stereotypes and imagery being carefully fostered today.

Download or read book The Russia Scare written by Richard Sakwa and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-08 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russia Scare assesses the scope, character and extent of Russian interference in the affairs of liberal democratic states. This book examines the ‘Russia scare’ in a dynamic manner, stressing the interaction between threat perception, responses and subsequent policies. What forms did this threat take, what were the instruments used, how effective were the deployed tools and who were the allies with whom Russia worked in these endeavours? Above all, what impact did interference have on target societies? The book explores why Russia engaged in such activities, what the probable chain of command was (if any) and the role of the Russian leadership in all of this, as well as investigating the response of Western societies and governments. The author sifts the real from the imagined, which can only be achieved by establishing the larger historical context. He scrutinises the fundamental question: was Russia before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 really engaged in a sustained ‘hybrid warfare’ campaign to sow discord and undermine Western democracies? If so, what were the strategic purposes underlying such an activity? Various hypotheses are analysed, notably that Russian post-Cold War activity is nothing exceptional in the context of great power confrontation; that all great powers are engaged in one way or another in such actions, and thus contextualisation is important; and that Russia’s subversive activity was often exaggerated, even misrepresented. Responses potentially amplified the elements of subversion represented by the original threat. Threats exist, but responses always need to be calibrated so as not to inflict self-harm on the integrity of liberal democracy itself. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and academics of international relations, comparative politics, security and defence studies, global governance and Russian politics, as well as politicians, political advisers, NGOs, diplomats and journalists.

Download or read book Creating the Russian Peril written by Troy R. E. Paddock and published by Camden House. This book was released on 2010 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: German attitudes toward and stereotypes of Russia before the First World War and how they were inculcated in the public.

Download or read book The Decay of Western Civilisation and Resurgence of Russia written by Glenn Diesen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What explains the rise of populist movements across the West and their affinity towards Russia? UKIP’s Brexit victory, Trump’s triumph, and the successive elections and referendums in Europe were united by a repudiation of the liberal international order. These new political forces envision the struggle to reproduce and advance Western civilisation to be fought along a patriotism–cosmopolitanism or nationalism–globalism battlefield, in which Russia becomes a partner rather than an adversary. Armed with neomodernism and geoeconomics, Russia has inadvertently taken on a central role in the decay of Western civilisation. This book explores the cooperation and competition between Western and Russian civilisation and the rise of anti-establishment political forces both contesting the international liberal order and expressing the desire for closer relations with Russia. Diesen proposes that Western civilisation has reached a critical juncture as modern society (gesellschaft) has overwhelmed and exhausted the traditional community (gemeinschaft) and shows the causes for the decay of Western civilisation and the subsequent impact on cooperation and conflict with Russia. The author also considers whether Russia’s international conservativism is authentic and can negate the West’s decadence, or if it is merely a shrewd strategy by a rival civilisation also in decay. This volume will be of interest to scholars of international relations, political science, security studies, international political economy, and Russian studies.

Download or read book War with Russia written by Stephen F. Cohen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is America in a new Cold War with Russia? How does a new Cold War affect the safety and security of the United States? Does Vladimir Putin really want to destabilize the West? What should Donald Trump and America’s allies do? America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation,” not only Russian, is a growing peril. In War With Russia?, Stephen F. Cohen—the widely acclaimed historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia—gives readers a very different, dissenting narrative of this more dangerous new Cold War from its origins in the 1990s, the actual role of Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 Ukrainian crisis to Donald Trump’s election and today’s unprecedented Russiagate allegations. Topics include: Distorting Russia US Follies and Media Malpractices 2016 The Obama Administration Escalates Military Confrontation With Russia Was Putin’s Syria Withdrawal Really A “Surprise”? Trump vs. Triumphalism Has Washington Gone Rogue? Blaming Brexit on Putin and Voters Washington Warmongers, Moscow Prepares Trump Could End the New Cold War The Real Enemies of US Security Kremlin-Baiting President Trump Neo-McCarthyism Is Now Politically Correct Terrorism and Russiagate Cold-War News Not “Fit to Print” Has NATO Expansion Made Anyone Safer? Why Russians Think America Is Attacking Them How Washington Provoked—and Perhaps Lost—a New Nuclear-Arms Race Russia Endorses Putin, The US and UK Condemn Him (Again) Russophobia Sanction Mania Cohen’s views have made him, it is said, “America’s most controversial Russia expert.” Some say this to denounce him, others to laud him as a bold, highly informed critic of US policies and the dangers they have helped to create. War With Russia? gives readers a chance to decide for themselves who is right: are we living, as Cohen argues, in a time of unprecedented perils at home and abroad?

Download or read book Soviet Self Hatred written by Eliot Borenstein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soviet Self-Hatred examines the imaginary Russian identities that emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Eliot Borenstein shows how these identities are best understood as balanced on a simple axis between pride and shame, shifting in response to Russia's standing in the global community, its anxieties about internal dissension and foreign threats, and its stark socioeconomic inequalities. Through close readings of Russian fiction, films, jokes, songs, fan culture, and Internet memes, Borenstein identifies and analyzes four distinct types with which Russians identify or project onto others. They are the sovok (the Soviet yokel); the New Russian (the despised, ridiculous nouveau riche), the vatnik (the belligerent, jingoistic patriot), and the Orc (the ultraviolent savage derived from a deliberate misreading of Tolkien's epic). Through these contested identities, Soviet Self-Hatred shows how stories people tell about themselves can, tragically, become the stories that others are forced to live.

Download or read book Why the West Can t Win written by Fadi Lama and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2023-05-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geopolitical upheaval has gripped the world since collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s the West focused on eliminating the resurgence of Russia as a great power. This led to the assimilation of Warsaw Pact countries into NATO, two Chechen wars, and political systems in the Central Asian republics aligned with the West. Russia’s economic destruction was managed by the Harvard boys‘ shock therapy, which left Russian resources in the control of a few oligarchs aligned with the West. By the end of the 1990s Russia was a weak, bankrupt country of marginalized influence in the world. Then the West’s focus turned to China as a potential challenger to western global hegemony. It was thought to suffice to control global energy resources and sea-lanes to China to prevent China from challenging western global hegemony. Hence the first two decades of the millennium were focused on controlling West Asia and North Africa‘s energy resources. For most, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled the victory of the self-denominated Free World. Why the West Can’t Win, however, addresses how events in the three following decades signal the end of a millennium of West European expansionism, a plundering and oppression initially labeled Crusades when the popes embodied political power, morphing into colonialism, then to the Free World when colonialism went out of fashion post-World War II, and at last to the “International Community” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This book’s geopolitical analysis includes a historical overview, an understanding of the financial systems established at the Bretton Woods conference that continue dominating the global economy, how they are used as a powerful geopolitical instrument, an economic analysis based on real goods production, global energy dynamics, alliances and strategies of key global players. It addresses the emerging division of the world into two geopolitical groups: Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, Asia and Latin America. The current global geopolitical clash is in essence a struggle between the colonial powers wishing to preserve the Bretton Woods system that allows siphoning wealth of nations, and sovereign nations striving for independence and an end to a millennium of oppression. This work compares the geopolitical forces since the turn of the millennium with a view to providing insight into their relative strengths and the likely outcome of this strugg