Up from the Ashes
National Revival and Imperial Aspirations in Putin-era Russia
Details
Friday, February 27
9:00 am
Reitz Union, Room 349
Symposium Resources
While the revival of Russia’s prominence in the global community over the past eight years has been fuelled largely by the rising cost and demand of oil and natural gas, these economic trends belie deeper historical and cultural forces that have been at work in Russia at least since Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency in January of 2000. From the start, Putin sought not only to make Russia economically strong, but also to restore the country’s sense of strength and national self-worth. Doing so required a two step process – first, putting in check the models of western democracy and capitalism that were seen to have been uncritically embraced under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and identified as the cause of both economic and cultural impoverishment and, secondly, projecting a positive, new model of “Russianness” that relied on more stable sources of national identity and authority of the Soviet and imperial past. How, more precisely, have cultural institutions been employed to project and promote new forms of national identity and pride and to what extent can they be understood as renaissance of imperial aspirations? How has the revival been perceived by Russia’s neighbors in the “near abroad”? The answers to these questions will provide important insight into the political, cultural and ideological dynamics within Russia today.
Because such efforts at image building depend largely on the creation and dissemination of media-driven narratives of national identity and “Russianness” for their success, institutions of culture – both “high” and “low” – have played a central role in the process. “Up from the Ashes” will bring together local and national specialists to examine the methods by which Russian history, culture, and politics have been recruited to promote images of a new Russia, and reactions to these projections by Russia’s neighbors and former Eastern-bloc allies. More specifically, the symposium will explore ways in which personalities (e.g. Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Joseph Stalin), events (e.g. the collapse of the USSR, the recent Russian invasion of Georgia), and iconic symbols of Russia’s might and glory (e.g. national geography, history, language, and literature) have been re-introduced to the Russian population to project a coherent narrative of nationhood that is at once steeped in the authoritative traditions of the past and viable within the more globally integrated economic and political climate of the present.
Sponsor
- Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere with support from Yavitz Funds
Co-sponsors
- Center for European Studies
- Bob Graham Center for Public Service
- Department of History
- Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
- UF Russian Studies Fund
