Abstract: Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia: Essays on Post-Soviet Society and the StateYuliya Yurchuk (postdoctoral researcher, Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University) reviews Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia: Essays on Post-Soviet Society and the State, edited by Sanna Turoma, Kaarina Aitamurto and Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover.
The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia, by Ann-Mari Sätre, is reviewed by Kirsti Stuvøy, Associate Professor, Faculty of Landscape and Society, International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
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: Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media, and AcademiaPål Kolstø (University of Oslo, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages) reviews Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media, and Academia, edited by Kåre Johan Mjør and Sanna Turoma (Routledge, 2020).
The Cultural Is Political. Intersections of Russian Art and State Politics, edited by Irina Anisimova and Ingunn Lunde, is an edited volume dealing with various political ideologies and the ambiguous nature of cultural practices in contemporary Russia. The volume is a good introduction to a range of topics in the field of Russian studies.
The Cultural Is Political. Intersections of Russian Art and State Politics redigeret av Irina Anisimova og Ingunn Lunde er en artikelsamling, der fokuserer på diverse politiske ideologier og de tvetydige kulturelle former og praksisser i nutidens Rusland. Artikelsamlingen er en god introduktion til russiskstudieområdet.
Abstract: Armenia and Europe: Foreign Aid and Environmental Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus Lene Wetteland (Norwegian Helsinki Committee) reviews Armenia and Europe: Foreign Aid and Environmental Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus by Dr. Pål Wilter Skedsmo. The book is a revised version of his 2017 PhD thesis in Social Anthropology. Skedsmo uses his personal experience from a project on environmental rights in Armenia in the early 2010s and Armenian civil society's application of the Aarhus Convention as case studies to discuss the issue of Europeanization of Armenia in this context.
Fabian Heffermehl, researcher at the University of Oslo, reviews The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia: Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Russia edited by Mikhail Suslov and Per Arne Bodin.
Denne bokomtalen dreier seg om Hilma Salonens studie av overgangen til fornybar energi i Russlands arktiske strøk: Russian Renewable Energy Politics in the Arctic: National Priorities and Local Realities. Hun viser at det er mulig å realisere fornybar-prosjekter i fossilavhengige land som Russland. Selv om aktørene som fremmer slike prosjekter ikke synes å være fremtredende i Russland, viser studien at de har et visst handlingsrom som de lykkes med å utnytte.
In Russian Renewable Energy Politics in the Arctic: National Priorities and Local Realities, Hilma Salonen examines the renewable energy transition in the Russian Arctic. She documents how, even in a heavily fossil-fuel dominated country like Russia, renewable energy players can achieve their goals. Hidden at first glance, these actors exhibit features of agency and can act successfully to develop renewable energy projects.
Kapitlene i Greg Simons (red.), The Image of Islam in Russia drøfter ulike sider av forholdet mellom muslimer og staten i Russland siden 1990-årene og holder høy akademisk standard. Boken er et opptrykk av to-tre år gamle utgaver av tidsskriftet Religion, State and Society. The chapters in Greg Simons (ed.), The Image of Islam in Russia discuss various aspects of Muslim–state relations in Putin's Russia and are of high academic quality. This collected volume is a massive reprint of 2 to 3-year-old issues of the journal Religion, State and Society.
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).
In 2019, the Swedish government officially switched terminology from using the traditional endogenous term Vitryssland to the exogenous Belarus. Vitryssland (lit: White Russia) had been in use in the Swedish language since the 17th century, and the decision was neither easy nor swift. There was no consensus about the utility of the change, and significant opposition from linguists and editors against abandoning a term which had emerged and become established over centuries of contact. The debate preceding the switch was often shrill, led by activists and steeped in identity politics. In fact, controversies regarding what to call the country were nothing new, highlighting diverging visions of its geopolitical and cultural position between East and West. Discussions mirrored the far more emotional and polarized discussions among Belarusian nationalists in the 20th century, which at times became violent. Kryvia, Byelorussia, Greatlitva were but some of contenders. This article is an attempt to place discussions about the Swedish terminology in the larger context of history, memory, geopolitics and identity politics.
The article analyses the results of a nationally representative survey on local democracy conducted in Ukraine in the autumn of 2017, offering insights into attitudes towards local authorities and ongoing decentralization reforms, as well as participation in local politics. The survey shows that people have very low trust in the authorities, but more trust in them than in national institutions. Respondents feel that they have little influence on local politics and that local authorities do not take their opinion into account. On the other hand, the majority report being active in various forms of local political activity. Further, there is considerable support of decentralization reforms; people have already noted certain local improvements since the decentralization reform was launched in 2015. Differences among the several geographical regions of Ukraine are small. Survey findings are explained through three analytical frameworks that emphasize the historical heritage, important economic and political conditions, and structural adjustment to European institutions.
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 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.