Ideology and Russian Nationalism in the War with Ukraine with Vadim Malinovsky

Before the war in Ukraine, no one paid attention to the presence or absence of ideology in Russia.  Moreover, it was believed that the citizens of Russia were politically passive and would not support a full-scale invasion to a neighboring country.  Political scientists knew about Russian nationalism but never took it seriously, as well as the concept of the “Russian world”.  But when the war in Ukraine began, the West remembered Russian writers, poets and philosophers such as Dugin, Solzhenitsyn, Ilyin and even Joseph Brodsky.  

Today, Russia does not have a solid ideological base, but the longer the war lasts, the greater the chance that Putin will be able to indoctrinate a new generation by offering them a fundamentally new ideology.

Led by a historian Vadim Malinovsky this seminar will give a deep dive into the possible development of ideology that in the future might be called “Putinism” (like Marxism or Leninism). Designed to inform curiosity as well as distant future travels, participants will come away with an increased understanding of the formation of the real ideology in Russia if the war with Ukraine takes years.