Russia as Civilization

Kåre Johan Mjør is Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Bergen, Norway, and Senior Research Librarian at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. Sanna Turoma is Professor of Russian Language and Cultural Studies at Tampere University, Finland.

"At the end of the Cold War, Samuel Huntington prophesized that national identities would increasingly involve a sense of belonging to larger cultural-historical entities he called civilizations. Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media, and Academia takes Huntington one step further, to explore how the image of a single nation can be constructed and perceived as a civilization unto itself. Through detailed examinations of Russian intellectual and creative practices as well as political discourses, gender debates, media, the fine arts, and the production of academic scholarship, the chapters shed light on the extraordinary potential of the civilization concept as a locus for mobilizing powerful senses of shared national identity. This collection is essential reading for all those interested in the cultural politics of Russian identity, and in contemporary Russian culture and politics more generally." Mark Bassin, Baltic Sea Professor in the History of Ideas, Center for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden"Using Russia as a case study, this book sheds new light on how and with what consequences the notion of civilizations has replaced that of nations as a conceptual foundation for constructing group identities worldwide. It makes a compelling case for understanding the proliferation of civilizational narratives in Russia as a transnational phenomenon and as a response to the challenges posed to the country by globalization." Vera Tolz, Sir William Mather Professor of Russian Studies, The University of Manchester, UK

• Introduction: Russian Civilizationism in a Global Perspective 1 "Nation" and "Civilization" as Templates for Russian Identity Construction: A Historical Overview 2 From Socio-Economic Formations to Civilizations: Seeking a Paradigm Change in Late Soviet Discussions 3 Russia between a Civilization and a Civic Nation: Secular and Religious Uses of Civilizational Discourse during Putin’s Third Term 4 "Civilization" in the Russian Mediatized Public Sphere: Imperial and Regional Discourses 5 "Clash of Masculinities"? Gendering Russian–Western Relations in Popular Geopolitics. 6 Re-Imagining Antiquity: The Conservative Discourse of "Russia as the True Europe" and the Kremlin’s New Cultural Policy 7 Civilizational Discourses in Doctoral Dissertations in Post-Soviet Russia 8 An Eternal Russia: Oleg Platonov, the Institute for Russian Civilization and the Nationalization of Russian Thought 9 Contemporary Civilizational Analysis and Russian Sociology