Alexander Etkind - Putin is Propelling Russia Backwards in a Self-Destructive Civilisational Decline

Russia is tearing itself away from modern civilization and its
associated values, norms and comforts. Putin and his coterie of
incompetent sycophants seem to be happily destroying the foundations of
everything that has been built in the past 30 years. Instead, he’s
embracing an alternative future tied to eastern despotism as a vassal
state of China – a source of assets to be mined, without any value-added
production. What demons have resurfaced from Russia’s past, and what
is driving a form of sado-masochistic self-destruction and flagellation,
that seems to be propelling Russia backwards in a painful
civilisational decline. And where will this out-of-control Troika stop –
possibly at an era that pre-dates Peter the Great’s efforts to punch a
window onto Europe in the façade of Russia’s feudal-military despotism,
established by the khans of the Mongol Horde. But what is the role of
such a state in the modern world?
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SPEAKER:
Alexander Etkind is a historian and cultural scientist. Alexander Etkind
was born in 1955 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is a professor at CEU
Vienna. His book Russia against Modernity is forthcoming with Polity
Press. He was formerly a professor of history and the Chair of
Russia-Europe relations at the European University Institute in
Florence. He is fellow of the European Institute for International Law
and International Relations. He completed his B.A. and M.A. in 1978 in
Psychology and English at Leningrad State University. Etkind taught at
the European University at St. Petersburg then at Cambridge University
where he was also a fellow of King's College. He was a visiting fellow
at New York University, Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and other places.
Etkind's research focuses on European and Russian intellectual history,
memory studies, natural resources and the history of political economy,
empire and colonies in Europe, and Russian politics, novels, and film
in the 21st century. His has written many compelling books, including
Russia Against Modernity, Rethinking the Gulag and Nature's Evil: A
Cultural History of Natural Resources.
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LINKS:
Alexander Etkind on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sasha_Etkind
Alexander Etkind on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Etkind
Alexander Etkind at the Moscow Times: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/author/alexander-etkind-2
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BOOKS:
Russia Against Modernity (2023)
Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies (2022)
Nature's Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (2021)
Eros Of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis In Russia (2019)
Development and Dystopia: Studies in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Eastern Europe (2018)
War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (2017)
Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia (2017)
Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied (2013)
Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience (2011)
Remembering Katyn (2013)
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