The Kremlin Turns Ideological

Please join the Harriman Institute for a talk by Maria Lipman, a Russian political analyst and commentator, currently a visiting Distinguished Fellow of Russian Studies at Indiana University. Lipman was previously a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Center in Moscow. She is the founding editor of Counterpoint, an online journal published by the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University). She has contributed to a variety of Russian and US publications including The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Journal of International Affairs, Post-Soviet Affairs and Current History. From 2003 to 2014, Lipman was the Editor-in-chief of Pro et Contra, a policy journal published by the Carnegie Moscow Center. She contributed to, and co-edited several volumes on Russian politics and society including, The State of Russia: What Comes Next? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Her most recent publication is “How Putin Silences Dissent”, appearing in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2016).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and for the first decade of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, little attention was paid to Russia’s national identity. Putin governed in a time of economic recovery without relying on a guiding ideology. In recent years, however, the Kremlin has begun to build a national identity for Russia, one that borrows from both its Soviet and Imperial past as well as incorporates conservative principles from the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, Russia has positioned itself more firmly in contrast to Western and American political values and re-asserted its military might in Eastern Europe. Maria Lipman will explore questions related to this ideological turn. Where did it originate and how has the process of building a guiding ideology played out? What are the possible paths for ideological evolution in Russia?

From the Harriman Institute.