ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 10 ( 2021/2 ) |
NEXUS OF PATRIOTISM AND MILITARISM IN RUSSIA A QUEST FOR INTERNAL COHESION, By Ayse Dietrich*,
Published by: Helsinki University Press, Edited by Katri Pynnoniemi,
Year of Publishing: 2021. Subject Area: Russia and Europe, Patriotism and
Militarism. Book Type: Sociology, History and Politics. Total Number of Pages:
343. ISBN: 978-952-369-035-6,
open access, e-book.
This collaborative work examines the links between the concepts of patriotism
and militarism in today’s Russia and discusses the methods (educational
activities, youth organizarions, media and popular
culture) used by the authorities to consolidate the Russian society and promote
a sense of unity in the last 20 year period.
In
chapter 1, Katri Pynnoniemi
talked about Xenophobia which reinforces Otherness traditionally existed in
Russia for centuries. The author claimed that the concept of being Other for
Europe has been replaced with a story about enmity. Russia was believed to be
surrounded by enemies and the West was viewed as a threat for Russia’s
historical-cultural uniqueness by the authorities. It was after the conflict in
Ukraine, the national sentiments such as feelings of uniqueness and promoting
an artifical enemy used more systematically. On the
other hand, the Russian society was hesitant to accept these top
down policies mixed with patriotism and militarism.
The
aim of this book was to shed a new light on the development of enemy images, to
show how the society was manipulated with the official presentation of
patriotism and militarism and the nexus of the two conceptions, why they were
hesitant to accept these top-down government policies in Russia and even
developed a strong sense of individual patriotism, and to present the negative
effects of patriotism and militarism on country’s domestic developments and relations
with Europe.
In
the 2nd chapter “Enemy Images in the Russian National
Narrative”, Kati Parppei claimed
that dualism, the otherness begin with the adoption of Christianity and it was best respresented in
the Primary Chronicle. At the beginning of the Chronicle, the interaction of Russians with many
peoples from the steppe like Pechenegs, Khazars,
Bulgars, and Cumans was portrayed relatively neutrally, and there was no negative or pejorative attributes that are connected
to them by the writer. The Chronicle continues
with the arrival of Christianity to Kievan Rus’.
After the Christianization of Rus’, chronicle passages carried hostile encounters
with a deeply dualistic tone such as “we are Christians, while Others are pagans”.
Parppei provided another negative attitude of
the writer’s to non-Christians in relation to the
Orthodox Christian realm in the descriptions of the Tatar’s the first assault
in 1223. The fighting of the Moscow prince the infidels in cooperation with the
Orthodox Church was presented with an increasingly dualistic tone.
From
the 16th century, with the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates,
the Russian Empire became a multinational empire, embracing different nations and
their cultures, and over time religion ceased to be primary marker of group
identity.
The
author claimed that with the Napoleonic Wars, old dualistic thinking reappeared
in the depiction of the pious and God-loving Russian people defending their
fatherland against an evil invader and strenghtened
with the spirit of pan-Slavism to fight against the Ottomans influence in the
Balkans, and she stated that Russia was once again presented as the sole
defender of Christianity and the West, that were interested in their own profit
in the Balkans, was depicted as an ally of the Ottomans.
Parppei pointed out that the dualistic pattern that was previously
applied to religion as the dividing line, resurfaced in the form of politics during
the Soviet Union, and the capitalist West, the United States became the most
significant ideological opponent of the Soviet system.
The
author stateed that in Russian Federation, finding a
balance between the usage of medieval dualistic imagery to strenghten
the national narrative and inner cohesion and cherishing the idea of
multi-ethnic realm was difficult and requires constant negotiation. It was also
effectively applied to contemporary conflicts, as in the case of Crimea.
In
chapter 3, “Evolution of Russia’s ‘Others’ in Presidential
Discourse in 2000–2020”,
Veera Laine showed how the
understanding of Russia’s Others has evolved during the Putin era. The author examined
21 presidential addresses given at the Federal Assembly of the Russian
Federation, which carried important speeches consisting of information on
contemporary state nationalism from the perspective of Othering in Russian
politics. Laine stated that the nation was
constructed based on creating boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in
presidential discourses in Russia. She stated that Othering was seen as a
dynamic, constantly ongoing policy having serious political consequences. In
order to portray Russia’s Others, the author covered the period of the
emergence of state nationalism in the early 2000s, the presidency of Dmitri
Medvedev in 2008–2012, which was viewed liberal but, conservative at the same
time, the period when Russia’s Others was portrayed by the leaders in internal
political legitimacy and global politics. The conservative nature of the
presidential rhetoric emerged from domestic problems, but it was exacerbated by
the difficulties in the foreign policy sphere.
In chapter 4, “Ivan Ilyin and the Kremlin’s Strategic Communication of
Threats Evil,
Worthy and Hidden Enemies”, Katri Pynnoniemi examined
Russian emigre religious - philosopher Ivan Ilyin’s description
of Russia’s enemies that were used as a reference point in the analysis of the
Kremlin’s strategic communication of threats. The author examines the enemy images in Ilyin’s
essays “About Those Who Want Russia’s Dismemberment” written in 1949 and “What
Dismemberment of Russia Entails for the World” written in 1950. The
aim of the author was to determine possible similarities and relations of Ilyin’s typology of Russia’s enemies with those imaginary
enemies and threat developed in Russian government security discourse.
The
author stated that analysis of Ilyin’s enemy images
and their apposition with the Russian government security discourse clearly presented
the link between this conservative
philosopher and the conservative turn
in todays Russia.
In
the second part, in chapter 5, “An Unattainable
Ideal Youth
and Patriotism in Russia”,
Jussi Lassila discussed the
role of top-down patriotism and the effects on the primary target, Russia’s
youth, and claimed that young generation were marginally engaged with fixed
patriotic identity, and there was a deep gap between the policymakers of
patriotism and the youth. He stated that the more the Russian government
systematically tried to strengthen patriotism as an ideological tool to control
social and cultural life, the more the young generation turned away from it,
and this behavior increased demands to strengthen the role of patriotism
further.
In
chapter 6, “A Growing Militarism? Changing Meanings
of Russian Patriotism
in 2011–2017”,
Eemil Mitikka and Margarita
Zavadskaya stated that the state-promoted patriotism
became increasingly militaristic and in the government discourse the external
threats have been more emphasized since the rally around the flag’ in 2014, and
the majority of Russians supported the state’s militaristic patriotism, and the
state put forward the concept of strong political leadership over democratic rule.The authors claimed that while people’s vision was slightly
closer to the state’s vision, being a Russian patriot did not necessarily mean
to support authoritarian leadership, and vice versa.
In
chapter 7, “Patriots on Air Reflections on Patriotism in
the Minds of TV Journalists”, Salla
Nazarenko examined patriotic speeches on Russian
television journalists, and she claimed that the government put pressure on
journalist be patriotic. Accoding to her analysis, Russian
journalists used three different discourses in approaching the issue of patriotism:
intimate patriotism, military patriotism and infowar patriotism.
Some journalists interviewed criticized top-down patriotism and admited that it resulted in a loss of quality in mainstream
TV programming.
The
third part of the volume dealt with practices of militarism in Russia. In chapter
8, “Upgrading the Image of the Russian Armed
Forces A
Task Set for Military-Political Training”, Arseniy Svynarenko stated
that there was a general scepticism and reluctance
among the youth to the serve in the army. This situation gave the government a
strong impulse to improve the image of the army and to make military service
more attractive to young Russians with reorganization of military-political
training, and with the dominance of the state in the traditional electronic
media. The recent surveys showed that there was a growing trust in Russian army
among the young people. The author pointed out that the government reintroduced
political officers in the army to increase the army’s control over the
political moods of soldiers and officers, to strengthen the ideological unity
of the army and loyalty to tackle any possible conflict at an early stage.
In
chapter 9, “Russia’s Young Army Raising New
Generations into Militarized Patriots”, Jonna Alava discussed military-patriotic
education of children and youth to create a larger draft pool and patriotic
citizens in Russia, and the establishment of young army Unarmia
in 2015 to unite the country’s fragmented military-patriotic youth
organizations placing them in every school by 2020 providing the military-patriotic
education against Western influence, globalization, democratization and the
prospect of major military conflict. She also pointed out the negative side of
this movement claiming that military education for young people might work against
the Kremlin, might increase the amount of hostility and nationalist rhetoric in
society and might create confrontation between liberals and patriots destabilizing
future society.
In
chapter 10, “Why Did the Seamen Have to Die? The Kursk Tragedy
and the Evoking of Old
Testament Blood Sacrifice”, Elina Kahla examined
church–state relations within the framework of spiritual national defence
by discussing different views on the tragedy of the submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August
2000 by a missile attack, killing the entire crew of 118, the apologetics of
dying on duty, how the martyrs were commemorated in Russia and how the Russian
leadership deal with the trauma and sacrifice. She compared the two
commemorative products an album Everlasting Lamp of Kursk by
Hegumen Mitrofan (2010) and the drama film Kursk by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg.
In
chapter 11, “Conclusion”, Katri Pynnoniemi
gave a summary of the major conclusions of the chapters and stated that there might
be still blind spots in the understanding of national security narratives and
threat perceptions which required further research.
This
valuable book includes very well-researched articles written by the scholars of
the field who examine the concepts of patriotism and
militarism in today’s Russia and discuss the methods used by the Russian
leadership. It is a major
contribution to the study of Russian politics and sociology.
*Ayse Dietrich - Professor, Part-time, at Middle East Technical University, Department of History, and Eurasian Studies. Editor and the founder of the International Journal of Russian Studies e-mail: editor@ijors.net, dayse@metu.edu.tr, dietrichayse@yahoo.com
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