Download or read book Russian Messianism written by Peter J. S. Duncan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book in English for half a century to examine the complexities of Russian messianism, both as a whole and in its interaction with Communism. Peter Duncan considers its Orthodox roots and focuses on Russia's geopolitical experience and situation to explain the endurance of this phenomenon.
Download or read book Russian Messianism written by Peter J. S. Duncan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique work will be of great interest to those engaged in politics and Russian studies, as well as professionals dealing with Russia.
Download or read book The Role of Messianism in Contemporary Russian Identity and Statecraft written by Kerstin Rebecca Bouveng and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russian messianism? the longstanding idea of Russia as a?chosen? nation with a historical mission is typically represented as a clich? with little or no relevance in politics. However, an increasing deployment of several interrelated messianic ideas and notions has been noted in both public and official Post-Soviet discourse, raising the question of how we should understand its persistence and contemporary revival. We first develop a conceptual framework based on insights about identity and statecraft from poststructuralist and related approaches, then proceed to trace key characteristics and narratives of Russian messianism in history and the secondary literature of various disciplines. The study proposes that Russian messianism should be conceptualised as a persistent discursive framework, holding a kaleidoscopic range of both complementing and contesting discourses, that have the purposes of legitimising the existence and policies of Russia as a state and defining Russian identity in ambiguous relation to a broad Western Other. This conceptualisation is then applied to contemporary Russian discourse. By analysing samples of key official discourse (2000-2007) the thesis shows how the Russian state adopts, negotiates and reproduces certain messianic narratives from public discourse, in which they abound. We then compare the convergence and divergence of the official and public political discourse with popular discourse, based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews with 160 semi-elite and ordinary Russians, conducted in 2005. We find that the Russian messianic framework is widely used at all levels of discourse and among all categories of Russian people, but in ways and contexts different from in public and official discourse. Overall, this thesis makes contributions to Russian studies by providing a theoretical conceptualisation of Russian messianism; and to the study of international relations by an analysis of discourses central to the production of Russia as a collective identity, state and international actor.
Download or read book The Russian Idea written by Nikolai Berdyaev and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1992-06-15 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is between the ages of nine and ten that children begin to experience themselves as "I" for the first time--as separate individuals, different from their parents and peers and essentially alone. This inner experience is sometimes precipitated by the child's first encounter with death and the first notion that earthly life is fragile and temporary. In this insightful book, Koepke offers the reader a lucid, accessible description of the outer signs and symptoms of this significant turning point in every child's life.
Download or read book Russian Nationalism written by Marlene Laruelle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, by one of the foremost authorities on the subject, explores the complex nature of Russian nationalism. It examines nationalism as a multilayered and multifaceted repertoire displayed by a myriad of actors. It considers nationalism as various concepts and ideas emphasizing Russia’s distinctive national character, based on the country’s geography, history, Orthodoxy, and Soviet technological advances. It analyzes the ideologies of Russia’s ultra-nationalist and far-right groups, explores the use of nationalism in the conflict with Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, and discusses how Putin’s political opponents, including Alexei Navalny, make use of nationalism. Overall the book provides a rich analysis of a key force which is profoundly affecting political and societal developments both inside Russia and beyond.
Download or read book Stalinist Confessions written by Igal Halfin and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009-08-30 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During Stalin's Great Terror, accusations of treason struck fear in the hearts of Soviet citizens-and lengthy imprisonment or firing squads often followed. Many of the accused sealed their fates by agreeing to confessions after torture or interrogation by the NKVD. Some, however, gave up without a fight. In Stalinist Confessions, Igal Halfin investigates the phenomenon of a mass surrender to the will of the state. He deciphers the skillfully rendered discourse through which Stalin defined his cult of personality and consolidated his power by building a grassroots base of support and instilling a collective psyche in every citizen. By rooting out evil (opposition) wherever it hid, good communists could realize purity, morality, and their place in the greatest society in history. Confessing to trumped-up charges, comrades made willing sacrifices to their belief in socialism and the necessity of finding and making examples of its enemies.Halfin focuses his study on Leningrad Communist University as a microcosm of Soviet society. Here, eager students proved their loyalty to the new socialism by uncovering opposition within the University. Through their meetings and self-reports, students sought to become Stalin's New Man. Using his exhaustive research in Soviet archives including NKVD records, party materials, student and instructor journals, letters, and newspapers, Halfin examines the transformation in the language of Stalinist socialism. From an initial attitude that dismissed dissent as an error in judgment and redeemable through contrition to a doctrine where members of the opposition became innately wicked and their reform impossible, Stalin's socialism now defined loyalty in strictly black and white terms. Collusion or allegiance (real or contrived, now or in the past) with "enemies of the people" (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Germans, capitalists) was unforgivable. The party now took to the task of purging itself with ever-increasing zeal.
Download or read book Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought written by Joint Committee on Slavic Studies and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rulers and Victims written by Geoffrey Hosking and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many westerners used to call the Soviet Union "Russia." Russians too regarded it as their country, but that did not mean they were entirely happy with it. In the end, in fact, Russia actually destroyed the Soviet Union. How did this happen, and what kind of Russia emerged? In this illuminating book, Geoffrey Hosking explores what the Soviet experience meant for Russians. One of the keys lies in messianism--the idea rooted in Russian Orthodoxy that the Russians were a "chosen people." The communists reshaped this notion into messianic socialism, in which the Soviet order would lead the world in a new direction. Neither vision, however, fit the "community spirit" of the Russian people, and the resulting clash defined the Soviet world. Hosking analyzes how the Soviet state molded Russian identity, beginning with the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war. He discusses the severe dislocations resulting from collectivization and industrialization; the relationship between ethnic Russians and other Soviet peoples; the dramatic effects of World War II on ideas of homeland and patriotism; the separation of "Russian" and "Soviet" culture; leadership and the cult of personality; and the importance of technology in the Soviet world view. At the heart of this penetrating work is the fundamental question of what happens to a people who place their nationhood at the service of empire. There is no surer guide than Geoffrey Hosking to reveal the historical forces forging Russian identity in the post-communist world.
Download or read book Russian Messianism written by Peter John Stuart Duncan and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Russia s Middle East Policy written by Alexey Vasiliev and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This extraordinary book charts the development of Russia’s relations with the Middle East from the 1950s to the present. It covers both high and low points – the closeness to Nasser’s Egypt, followed by reversal; the successful invasion of Afghanistan which later turned into a disaster; the changing relationship with Israel which was at some time surprisingly close; the relationship with Syria, which continues to be of huge significance; and much more. Written by one of Russia’s leading Arabists who was himself involved in the formation and implementation of policy, the book is engagingly written, extremely insightful, telling us things which only the author is in a position to tell us, and remarkably frank, not sparing senior Soviet and Russian figures from criticism. The book includes material based on the author’s conversations with other leading participants.
Download or read book The Sense of Mission in Russian Foreign Policy written by Alicja Curanović and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how far messianism, the conviction that Russia has a special historical destiny, is present in, and affects, Russian foreign policy. Based on extensive original research, including analysis of public statements, policy documents and opinion polls, the book argues that a sense of mission is present in Russian foreign policy, that it is very similar in its nature to thinking about Russia’s mission in Tsarist times, that the sense of mission matters more for Russia’s elites than for Russia’s masses, and that Russia’s special mission is emphasised more when there are questions about the regime’s legitimacy as well as great power status. Overall, the book demonstrates that a sense of mission is an important factor in Russian foreign policy.
Download or read book Putinism Post Soviet Russian Regime Ideology written by Mikhail Suslov and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-02-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A key question for the contemporary world: What is Putin’s ideology? This book analyses this ideology, which it terms “Putinism”. It examines a range of factors that feed into the ideology – conservative thought in Russia from the nineteenth century onwards, Russian and Soviet history and their memorialisation, Russian Orthodox religion and its political connections, a focus on traditional values, and Russia’s sense of itself as a unique civilisation, different from the West and due a special, respected place in the world. The book highlights that although the resulting ideology lacks coherence and universalism comparable to that of Soviet-era Marxism-Leninism, it is nevertheless effective in aligning the population to the regime and is flexible and applicable in different circumstances. And that therefore it is not attached to Putin as a person, is likely to outlive him, and is potentially appealing elsewhere in the world outside Russia, especially to countries that feel belittled by the West and let down by the West’s failure to resolve problems of global injustice and inequality.
Download or read book Russian Classical Literature Today written by Yordan Ljutskanov and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-19 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a range of (mis)uses of the Russian classical literature canon and its symbolic capital by contemporary Russian literature, cinema, literary scholarship, and mass culture. It outlines processes of current canon-formation in a situation of the expiration of a literature-centric culture that has been imbued with specific messianism and its doubles. The book implements Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the cultural field, focussing on a field’s constitutive pursuit of autonomy and on its flexible resistance to the double pressure of the political field and the economic field. It provides material for elaborating this theory through postulating the principal presence of a third factor of heteronomy: the ‘strong neighbour’ within the cultural field. Furthermore, this volume demonstrates the heuristic of comparing the current Russian (mis)uses of classical literature to prior Russian and current foreign ones. As such, it also discusses such issues as the historical relativity of a literary field’s (notion of) autonomy and the geo-cultural variability of the Russian literary canon.
Download or read book Three Prophets of Russian Messianism written by Benjamin Ward Wright (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Political Symbols in Russian History written by Lee Trepanier and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political Symbols in Russian History is one of the few works that presents an analytical and comprehensive account of Russian history and politics between the years of 988 to 2005. From Kievan Rus to Putin's Russia, this book traces the development, evolution, and impact that political symbols have had on Russian society. By using Eric Vogelin's 'new science of politics' as the human search for order and justice, Dr. Lee Trepanier provides a fresh and unique approach to the studies of political culture and civil society. For those interested in Russian politics and intellectual history, Political Symbols offers the most up-to-date scholarship on such political symbols and social institutions like the Russian Orthodox Church and State. This book presents an innovative approach to understanding symbols in the search for order and justice in Russian history.
Download or read book The House of Government written by Yuri Slezkine and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 1128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman’s Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine’s gripping narrative tells the true story of the residents of an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived before they were destroyed in Stalin’s purges. A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers, the book begins with their conversion to Communism and ends with their children’s loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union. Completed in 1931, the House of Government, later known as the House on the Embankment, was located across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. The largest residential building in Europe, it combined 505 furnished apartments with public spaces that included everything from a movie theater and a library to a tennis court and a shooting range. Slezkine tells the chilling story of how the building’s residents lived in their apartments and ruled the Soviet state until some eight hundred of them were evicted from the House and led, one by one, to prison or their deaths. Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews, and featuring hundreds of rare photographs, The House of Government weaves together biography, literary criticism, architectural history, and fascinating new theories of revolutions, millennial prophecies, and reigns of terror. The result is an unforgettable human saga of a building that, like the Soviet Union itself, became a haunted house, forever disturbed by the ghosts of the disappeared.
Download or read book Jesus Christ in World History written by Jan A. B. Jongeneel and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2009 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the author's thesis (Th.D.)--Leiden University, 1971.
