HOW TO UNDERSTAND RUSSIA, AND HOW NOT TO
Autocracy it isHaving gone through a period of radical political transformation and economic crises Russia is back as a world player. It re-emerged gradually, but its recent direct involvement in Syria, its sightings within the context of the American election and finally its 2014-2022 ‘Ukrainian campaign’ brought it back to the Westerners’ attention. Russia, in the eyes of an average Westerner, is an exotic and somewhat incomprehensible place. Russian bears, Russian dolls, Russian oligarchs, Russian brides, Russian vodka, Russian baths. A soft form of ‘Orientalism’, if you ask me. ‘Natasha from Russia’ will tell you everything you need to know about that…
A lot has been written on Russia by serious scholars since the collapse of communism and the access to the archival materials that followed. However, the area of Russian studies in the Western academia never stagnated. Robert Conquest, Robert Service, Richard Pipes, Orlando Figes published maybe 50 books on the Soviet period of Russian history, all before 1990. There...