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? ---------- 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. ---------- 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 ---------- 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) ----------