Abstract: Narrating Otherness in Poland and Sweden – European Heritage as a Discourse of Inclusion and ExclusionJørn Holm-Hansen reviews the anthology Narrating Otherness in Poland and Sweden – European Heritage as a Discourse of Inclusion and Exclusion edited by Krzysztof Kowalski, Łucja Piekarska-Duraj & Barbara Törnquist-Plewa.
Abstract in English: Crossing the Boundary into the Russian "Imagined Community". "Language", "Culture" and "Religion" in Russian Media Discourse on the Integration of ImmigrantsJussi Lassila reviews Christine Myrdahl Lukash' doctoral dissertation Crossing the Boundary into the Russian "Imagined Community". "Language", "Culture" and "Religion" in Russian Media Discourse on the Integration of Immigrants. The dissertation analyses how the Russian 'imagined community' is represented in the 2000–2015 Russian media discourse on the integration of immigrants, and the role of 'language', 'culture' and 'identity' in this respect. Also, it compares this media discourse with the presidential discourse of the same period.
Abstract: A tragedy of the Galician diversity: Murder and commemoration of Polish professors killed in Lviv during WWIIIn popular imagery, the former Habsburg province of Galicia and its capital city Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv have been acclaimed for their unique mixture of religions, cultures and nationalities. However, there are also darker sides of this Galician diversity, as became evident during the wars and crises of the first half of the twentieth century. It is instructive to explore how the entanglements between collective and individual choices, cultural genealogies and political aspirations looked in practice in this part of Europe, and how historical events of the twentieth century have reflected this complexity. This article explores one such event: the murder of a group of eminent Polish academics during the Nazi occupation of Lviv/Lwów. After the war, this tragic episode was commemorated quite independently in the two parts of Galicia now divided by the redrawn Polish–(Soviet)Ukrainian border. The episode remains controversial due to the contradictory interpretative frameworks and agenda-setting of various actors involved into the memorialization. The author draws on Michael Rothberg's concept of multidirectional memory to highlight how reverberations of Galician diversity can be approached from an anthropological perspective, focusing on meaning-making and agency.
The article analyses representations of history in today's Russia as part of the ideology for expressing central political concepts underlying the Putinist regime. Mainstream interpretations of history build on a populist vision of Russia as a community with a stable, unchangeable core of identity. In this ideological context, history serves as the canvas on which the 'authentic' Russian identity manifests itself. The present research article examines representations of history by focusing on the concepts of 'historical sovereignty', 'unity of history', and the role of elites in history. It finds that regime ideology in today's Russia relies on a sizable infrastructure that involves producing historical knowledge for the purpose of securitizing history and making it an instrumental element in the populist (conservative-communitarian) ideology. Sources for this study come from the network exhibition 'Russia – My History', contextualized through content analysis of the key producers of ideology in Putin's Russia.
Abstract in English: The Shaman in a Rain of Stars: A Journey to the Centre of AsiaIngvar Svanberg reviews 'The Shaman in a Rain of Stars: A Journey to the Centre of Asia' by B. MiRee Abrahamsen. The book is a travelogue from the Russian republics of Khakassia and Tuva in Siberia. Abrahamsen introduces the readers to the history of these regions as well as the everyday life of people living there in 2018, and gives a personal description of shamanism as a religious phenomenon.
Abstract: The Child as an Instrument: Criticism of Titoist Discourse in Aleksandar Hemon's 'Islands' and Alma Lazarevska's 'Blagdan krunice'Especially since the war in the 1990s, much Bosnian-Herzegovinian fiction has employed the perspective of the child in order to express criticism of dominant ideological narratives. This article views the child figure as a political device that exposes the mechanisms of certain dominant discourses and that offers new, deviating angles on well-established conceptions within these discourses. The analysis of Alexander Hemon's short story 'Islands' (2000) stresses the grotesque imagery associated with the perception of the boy narrator as a way of 'unlearning' notions of Yugoslav modernity as idyllic, even paradisiac. And in Alma Lazarevska's 2003 'Blagdan krunice' (The Feast of the Rosary) the focus is not so much on the perspective of the boy protagonist as on his function as an arena for projecting narratives of the heroic soldier on the threshold between Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav discourse.
Abstract: Commemorating the Red Army Liberation in Kirkenes, Norway, 1954–1994This study traces the development over fifty years of the joint Norwegian–Soviet/Russian commemorations of the Red Army liberation of the eastern part of Finnmark County, Norway, in October 1944. The first commemorative events were held in October 1954 in the town of Kirkenes close to the Norwegian–Soviet border. Throughout the Cold War and into the post-Soviet period, such events have been arranged in Kirkenes every five years, with representatives of the Norwegian state authorities acting as hosts to a Soviet/Russian delegation. The focal point of these events has been a ceremony held by the Liberation Monument, unveiled in 1952 to honour the Red Army soldiers who liberated Norwegian territory by driving back the Nazi occupation forces. This article documents how the tradition of joint commemorations developed across the Iron Curtain divide as part of a predominantly diplomatic struggle over the events of October 1944, between Norway, a small state and NATO-member, and the superpower that was the Soviet Union. Our study concludes that, despite the struggle, which stemmed from Cold War tensions and competing security perceptions and interests, these joint commemorations have served as a stabilizing element in bilateral relations, producing a narrative not only about the Red Army liberation of eastern Finnmark, but also of friendship and mutual respect between the peoples of Norway and Russia, and of a long tradition of peaceful relations between the two states.
March 2018 – and then what? The issue of political succession in Putin's Russia
As president of Russia and a prominent political leader, Vladimir Putin has consistently endeavoredto legitimize his rule by appealing to central political myths and taken-for-granted truths inRussian society. In rhetoric and official communication, he emerges as the guarantor of domesticorder and stability, the protector of traditional values, and a staunch advocate of Russia'sstatus and position as a great power in a world often depicted as hostile. What is being communicatedhere, and apparently finds resonance among broad segments of public opinion, is thaton all these parameters Putin is uniquely qualified to lead Russia. Four times in the course of18 years, Putin has been elected president in the first round of elections, and throughout thisperiod he has received high rankings in regular monthly opinion polls. However, his legitimationstrategies have been so firmly linked to the persona of Putin that we may speak of an emergingdilemma with his fourth presidency. Who could fill his shoes as his successor? The articleanalyzes this dilemma, taking its point of departure in Weber's seminal theorizing on types oflegitimate authority and the routinization of charisma. It discusses the evident dearth of crediblesuccessor candidates, and concludes by discussing possible actions for dealing with or postponingthe issue of succession.
Abstract: On the Historiography of Zubov et al.'s History of Russia in the 20th CenturyAround 2009, a certain Kremlin-sanctioned Vergangenheitsbewältigung of Russia's Soviet past developed. A case in point is the collective two-volume work edited by Andrei B. Zubov, Istoriya Rossii. XX vek, published in 2009. Societal agency is said to be stressed over structural forces, but it is mainly the agency of Lenin, Stalin and later Soviet leaders that is analyzed. The narrative of the times before Stalin's ascent to power emphasizes repression, terror and planned famine as precursors of the totalitarian excesses under Stalin (1923–1953). The originality of Zubov's historiography is evident in his approach to the Great Fatherland War of 1941–1945, which Zubov refers to as The Soviet–Nazi War. Further, the narrative of the Cold War era culminates in an 'imperial overstretch' theory about the Soviet collapse. However, Zubov has been vehemently criticized for lack of critical rigor; his work represents an awkward mix of liberal enlightenment and obscurantism in its veneration of the fascistoid thinker Ilyin. Today Russia officially operates with one historical truth about the years 1941–45 and is hereby distancing itself from scholars like Zubov.
Abstract in English:Fragments of the Past – History's Role in Russian Contemporary Literature Fragmenter av fortid – Historiens rolle i russisk samtidslitteratur is a thorough analysis of the utilisation of history in post-Soviet Russian literature. The author argues that literature functions as a 'place of reflection' that can produce vital alternatives to the monolithic understanding of history promoted by the authorities, and as such, literature has regained its traditional influence in Russian society following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation adoped after a 2020 referendum included a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. This is a recent manifestation of the turn to 'traditional values' in Russian politics and society, the best-known expression of which is the 2013 ban on 'propaganda for non-traditional sexual orientation'. This development cannot be understood as solely reflecting 'traditional' attitudes of the Russian population, nor as a backlash against LGBTQ activism. The turn to 'traditional values' must be considered in the context of a global pattern of increased pro-family mobilization, which opposes LGBTQ rights, feminism and the alleged undermining of gender as biologically determined and strictly binary – described by researchers as 'anti-gender mobilization'. Traditionalist politics in Russia should be analysed in a transnational and international perspective, but conservative mobilization is not a monolithic phenomenon. Using the concept of 'discourse coalition' developed by Maarten Hajer, I show how the identification of shared storylines enables a range of actors to act in similar ways, sometimes coordinating their actions, despite ideological, religious or strategic disagreements, on the domestic as well as the global arena.
Abstract: 'The Politics of Uncertainty' in Practice: The 2020 Presidential Election that Changed BelarusUp until 2020 Aleksandr Lukashenka's authoritarian regime had ruled Belarus for 26 years without major challenges. Thus, the popular mobilization that took shape in connection with the August 2020 presidential election came as a surprise. It was not the first time that elections in Belarus were not fair – but it was the first time that large sectors of the population reacted openly. Six months later, Belarusians all over the country were still contesting the falsified results. What contributed to this mobilization and politicization of a previously largely apolitical society? Why does that development represent such a serious threat to the authoritarian system? This study sees the Belarusian presidential election and its aftermath as illustrating the 'politics of uncertainty' of electoral authoritarian regimes. Because of the intrinsic insecurity of authoritarian systems, all regular elections in that context entail risks, which in theory might lead to change. In Belarus, the emergence of latent threats to the regime's legitimacy in the form of social cleavages and an economic crisis, combined with the fundamental dynamics of the 'election game', amplified this instability. The election served as the starting point for a process of transformation that became the most serious threat ever faced by the Lukashenka regime.
Contemporary Russian Conservativism consists of 15 chapters by diverse hands but nevertheless has a high degree of coherence. The volume rightly highlights the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the promotion of conservativism and "traditional values". Many of the participants in the media debates around this issue no doubt hold sincere views while, as the editors argue, Putin and his entourage most likely adopted this new ideology for pragmatic reasons.
Abstract in English:Russia and the Beginning of HistoryMorgan Olofsson's Russia and the Beginning of History consists of several interviews that the former Swedish news correspondent made with people he met in the 1990s. The purpose, he says, is to see how people have fared in the timespan from the 1990s to 2018, but also, more ambitiously, to sustain a dialogue between people on topics like the gradual dissemination of authoritarian political systems. Olofsson argues that we "need to learn from history" to protect democratic values; that is, values that connect people. The structure of the book is reminiscent of Mikhail Zygar's All the Kremlin's Men (2016), short annotated chapters, with introductions. The interviews stand out as sharp and perceptive, but the structure and editing of the book leaves more to be desired.
Emil Edenborg (Swedish Institute of International Affairs and Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies at Stockholm University) reviews The Shortest History of Russia: From the Vikings to the Present Day (Den korteste historien om Russland: fra vikingene til våre dager) by Peter Normann Waage (published in 2020 by Wigmostad & Bjorke).
