Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed: “Contested Narratives and Contested Identities in Today’s Ukraine: Cultural Memory as a Vehicle for Contestations”
By Becky Craft, Graduate Student, Russian & East European Institute and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
On October 29, Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, IU Ph.D student, gave a presentation on contestations in today’s Ukraine. Shpylova-Saeed spoke about the differing forms of contestations and how they are different from conflicts. We often hear about contested identities today, and these contestations influence the shape of political landscapes.
A centuries-old backdrop exists for the contestations present in Ukraine today. Looking at recent years, the Revolution of Dignity in response to the Ukrainian president’s decision not to sign the European Agreement is one example of contestation. A more recent example is the annexation of Crimea by Russia. In many ways, this was a shock to Ukrainians, especially because it occurred during a time of confrontation between Ukrainian citizens and their government. Referring to this event, in Russia, only the term “reintegration” is used; while in Ukraine, either “annexation” or “occupation” is preferred. The activation of narratives by both countries is absolutely key in understanding these contestations. A final recent episode of contestation is the occupation of portions of Donbas. Long-existing narratives have come into play there as well.
What do these narratives reveal? There are multiple perspectives here – an attempt to restore the Soviet past or even the ambitions of the Russian Empire, as well as heavy involvement of language issues. These language issues are very problematic and significant in Ukraine today.
Shpylova-Saeed noted that these contestations between Ukraine and Russia all but demand a choice of each person – you must choose Russia or Ukraine. This problem is not a new one. The question is asked – what is at the basis of these contestations? A desire for otherness; competing narratives like we have seen above; subtleties and nuanced stories are among some of the bases. These can be seen in the contestations between Russia and Ukraine all the way back in the 19th century when Ukraine was struggling for this very otherness. To conduct her research, Shpylova-Saeed has referenced letters written by ethnic Ukrainians born in the 19th century and raised under the Russian Empire, who knew Ukrainian. Many of the letters studied were written by Gogol, Shevchenko, Ukrainka and Franko.
Shpylova-Saeed’s talk was very informative, and gave much context to the events we see playing out in the news between Ukraine and Russia today. This semester, I have had the opportunity to explore Ukrainian history in Professor Hiroaki Kuromiya’s Modern Ukraine class, where we have discussed many of the struggles referenced in this talk, as well as some of the authors whose letters were studied for this research. Shpylova-Saeed’s comments in that class have always provided a lot of insight into our discussions, and this presentation was an excellent opportunity to gain an understanding of her research. I look forward to hearing more about her research as it continues to progress.
Phillips participates in Utopian Kruzhok, “Body, Technology, Environment: Disability Studies”
On August 29, Sarah Phillips, IU professor of anthropology and director of the Russian and East European Institute, was a guest of the online interactive Russian-language seminar Utopian Kruzhok, “Body, Technology, Environment: Disability Studies.” Created and led by Alexandra Kurlenkova, PhD student in Media, Culture and Communication at NYU, the Disability Studies “kruzhok” (circle) introduces participants from
various sectors–non-profits, social services, the arts, and others–to different aspects of disability experience, including the material environment, assistive technology, and independent living. Participants are introduced to crip theory and cutting edge perspectives in disability studies and each participant works on an individual disability-related project. Some examples include the creation of an “accessibility map” of Moscow’s Gorky Park for wheelchair users; creation of guidelines for designing accessible events; and developing a podcast on art and non-normative sexuality.
Phillips was invited to the kruzhok as a guest speaker on August 29 to discuss insights from her research on the disability rights movement in Ukraine and her book Disability and Mobile Citizenship in Postsocialist Ukraine. The conversation focused on disability and the public sphere, and creative strategies people with disabilities use to claim rights and spaces for themselves in contemporary Russia and Ukraine. Other kruzhok sessions have focused on disability and the private sphere; intersections of the body, the environment, and technology; universal design, assistive technology,
and independent living; alternative communication strategies; and crip-networks and rights movements in Russia, the UK, and the US.Alexandra Kurlenkova and other key members of the RSW Disability Studies Working Group—including Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova and Svetlana Borodina–are working with Sarah Phillips to organize the workshop “Disability Studies 3.0: New Approaches to Studying Disability in Russia” at IU’s Europe Gateway in Berlin in May 2021.
Americanization, Russification, and the Contradictory Promises of Modernity: A Sectarian Group’s Great Migration
By Stepan Serdiukov, PhD student in History
This is the fourth in a special series on IU graduate students and their research, RSW Research Series. It is an opportunity for RSW colleagues and other readers to learn more about our students’ research projects. If you are interested in learning more about this research or connecting with one of these contributors, please let us know at rsw@iu.edu.
Modern states have their skeptics (look no further than some current conspiracy theories about COVID-19), and dissident religious movements have often come across as the best examples of this. The Mormons’ erstwhile defense of polygamy, the Russian Old Believers’ insistence that the mandatory changes in ecclesiastical ritual indicated the end of times, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ rejection of blood transfusions all in some form responded to the increasing bureaucratization and expanding capacity of the modern state at different times in its history.
My dissertation examines a group of such skeptics – the Russian Molokans. Exiled en masse to the South Caucasus in the 1840s by imperial decree among other sectarians such as Doukhobors, for several decades thereafter they helped maintain Russia’s hold on the region as colonists through establishing settlements, transforming the landscape through agriculture, achieving economic dominance in trade, and supplying the Russian army and law enforcement. In exchange, the state officials would not persecute the Molokans and Doukhobors as heretics, de facto creating a highly localized regime of religious toleration in a country where converting from Orthodoxy carried legal punishment and dissident Christian confessions did not have official recognition until as late as 1905. The colonists also received tax breaks and a blanket exemption from conscription.
This uneasy peace held until the 1890s, when a radical pacifist faction of the Doukhobors led a campaign of civil disobedience against the tsarist officials. They were responding to a gradual erosion of their impressively good deal with the government, in which the introduction of draft (from which much of the indigenous population was still exempt) was the most major factor. To the radical Doukhobors and Molokans, the requirement not only contradicted the old compact, but came into direct conflict with their religious commitment to nonviolence—one that they thought had been already broken when the previous generation agreed to use violence for self-defense and in service of the state’s needs. They also resented being counted: when the government started demanding more accurate vital records from every colonist community, many Doukhobors refused to comply, finding (correctly) that the administrators would use this in the future to make sure every eligible male could be drafted.
Since these measures were also a part of a larger, empire-wide drive for Russification (most notably in the western provinces), the governors of the tsarist South Caucasus then found themselves in an ironic bind: unable to Russify even the Russians. They responded to the Doukhobor revolt by dispersing many to the even more remote villages where they would contract diseases and struggle to provide for themselves, and in some cases, sending army troops and Cossacks to occupy the settlements where they beat and harassed the inhabitants. Reports of the persecution, with help from the Tolstoyan movement, appeared in the newspapers worldwide and helped form an international network of sympathizers that partially financed the eventual mass emigration of the radical faction to Canada—after the tsarist government consented.
The Molokans were sympathetic to the rebellion and shared most of the grievances that had led to it. Additionally, from 1895 on, economic pressures such as the construction of railroads, which tore into the carting business (a traditional source of income for the sectarian colonists) and growing land shortages became even more pronounced. However, alarmed by the ruthless response of the governors to the Doukhobors, they opted for a less spectacular exit. Early Doukhobor reports from Canada complaining about poor climate and continuing antagonism with government officials, as well as their own scouting missions gave them little reassurance. And so they chose a different destination. Between 1904 and 1912, several thousand left their settlements in South Caucasus for the American West, where they would try, once again, to establish a lifestyle without the interference of government and other perceived outsiders. Due to lack of immediately available land, most stayed in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where they lived in compact immigrant enclaves, but a few dozen families tried to go back to agriculture, starting new villages in Arizona, Utah, Washington, and northern Mexico. I focus mainly on their views of secular authority and the ways in which they put these views to practice, both before and after emigration to the US. I try to put these views in context of the rapid social change in late Imperial Russia, the unique material conditions of the Molokans’ lives as settler colonists in the borderland regions, and to analyze how they changed in response to the new political, environmental, and economic conditions of the Western US, both urban and rural.
Why are the Molokans important? Why pick their immigration experience for study over that of other, often way more numerous groups of ex-imperial subjects in the USA? My intended contribution here is a truly transnational study that uses archival sources both in Russia and the United States to bring out the lived experience of migration and adaptation of the people who had, in a sense, no positive understanding of citizenship—or at least aspired to a minimal participation in the state. In this respect, Molokans represent a fairly unique case. They have a background both in actively resisting the state’s push for social control (the reason for their initial exile to the Caucasus in the 1840s) and in helping it pacify the multiethnic borderland as settler colonists later. Simultaneously hailed as propagators of Russian “superior” culture among the indigenous peoples and maligned as unreliable sectarians who often rejected Russian identity in favor of a pan-Christian one, they proved equally difficult modernization subjects in the USA. There, they resisted the draft, avoided officially registering marriages and births, and treated government-led schools in their urban communities with suspicion: in sum, pushed back against many obligations of citizenship, and doing so in a country that was, in the first quarter of the 20th century, supremely preoccupied with “Americanizing” its immigrants.
I argue that studying the Molokan experience in the two countries (which I tackle mostly from the perspective of government officials, police, and journalistic accounts, but try to incorporate Molokan and Doukhobor memoirs, oral histories, and sacred texts whenever possible) could improve our understanding of the role coercion played in modernization in general, and in delimiting the definition of good citizenship and acceptable exercise of religious freedom across such very different polities as Imperial Russia and the USA during the peak period of international migration prior to the First World War.
I see the Molokans, the Doukhobors, and other religious emigrants from the imperial Russian borderland not as much rebelling against modernity, but as quite pragmatically seeking an accommodation within it. Only the most radical of the Caucasus sectarian colonists left for America, while most of the remaining Doukhobors and Molokans supported reconciliation with the tsarist government, especially after the lifting of some restrictions on their religious practice in the aftermath of the 1905 Revolution. However, the emigrants, while mounting more open challenges to Canadian and American authorities that tried to fully incorporate them into the body politic, argued for much the same things: free exercise of their religion and a measure of community autonomy. Their struggle highlighted the contradictory promises of modernity at large and the social contract of the modern state. An echo of these battles can be heard even today, as some citizens across the globe repudiate the modernist consensus on schooling, taxes, and, most dramatically in recent months, public health.
COVID-19 in Russia’s Regions: Explaining Trends and Assessing Fiscal Risks
By Andrey Yushkov, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
This is the third in a special series on IU graduate students and their research, RSW Research Series. It is an opportunity for RSW colleagues and other readers to learn more about our students’ research projects. If you are interested in learning more about this research or connecting with one of these contributors, please let us know at rsw@iu.edu.
Coronavirus continues spreading across the globe. As of July 2020, Russia ranks fourth in the world by the total number of COVID-19 cases with more than 765,000 confirmed cases, behind only the U.S., Brazil, and India. However, it ranks only 11th by the total number of deaths (12,200), and its fatality rate (about 1.6%) is surprisingly low compared to other countries. Although the primary reason is thought to be data manipulation by federal and regional governments which hides the actual number of coronavirus-related deaths, there may be other objective reasons that help explain this puzzle: a relatively younger population, less reliance on nursing homes (e.g., compared to the U.S.), and more testing per capita.
In this blog post, I will discuss the spread of COVID-19 across Russia’s regions as well as fiscal consequences of the pandemic for different territories, and contribute to the nascent scholarly discussion about the risks that Russian subnational governments currently face and various governance technologies used by the federal center to shift responsibility to regions.
The situation with the total number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as with various restrictions imposed by regional governments, is extremely heterogeneous across Russia’s regions. While the initial outbreak in Moscow was by far the most severe, the spread of the virus had stabilized there by mid-May. As of July 18, Moscow and Moscow Oblast have about 233,000 and 61,500 cases respectively and account for nearly 40% of all cases in Russia. Almost 5,300 people have died in these two regions, bringing the the fatality rate to about 1.7%. St. Petersburg has much fewer cases (29,000) but the second highest number of deaths (1,750) and the highest fatality rate (6%). Other regions that have more than 10,000 cases include Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Rostov, Irkutsk Oblasts, Krasnoyarsk Krai (capitals of all these regions have a population of more than one million people), and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, which is the largest oil-extracting region of Russia. One suspicious tendency is that some regions, despite having relatively large number of cases, report an extremely low fatality rate. Ryazan, Yaroslavl, Bryansk Oblasts as well as the Republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan all have more than 5,000 cases but a lower than 0.5% fatality rate. Five regions, including sparsely populated Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Chukotka and Nenets Autonomous Okrugs, have fewer than 1,000 total cases, while only two regions (Sakhalin Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug) reported no deaths.
Figure 1 presents the map of COVID-19 cases in Russian regions per 100,000 residents. As of July 18, four regions officially have more than 1% of their residents infected (Moscow at 1.8%, Tyva Republic at 1.7%, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug at 1.6%, and Murmansk Oblast at 1.1%). The effect of the proximity to Moscow can be seen in several regions of Central Russia, including Ryazan, Ivanovo, Lipetsk, Oryol, and Kaluga Oblasts, which have between 0.5% and 1% of their population infected with the COVID-19. Oil- and gas-extracting regions of Russia (particularly, Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs) suffer relatively more on a per capita basis since they have a much higher share of fly-in fly-out workers than an average Russian region. Southern regions are relatively less affected, which represents an empirical puzzle that deserves further investigation. The disputed territories of Crimea and Sevastopol are the only two regions where the number of reported cases per 100,000 residents is less than 100.
The pandemic has been truly an exogenous shock for all Russian regions and their public finances. However, not all the regions share the same financial and fiscal risks associated with an increased pressure on their healthcare systems and economy. Some regions, as previous crises have shown, become more vulnerable than others. It depends not only on their own policies, but also on the actions of the federal center.
For instance, Alexeev and Chernyavskiy (2018) demonstrated that poor and transfer-dependent regions suffered relatively less than rich regions during the crisis of 2009 because of the targeted financial support from Moscow. At the same time, poor regions experienced tougher problems during the crisis of 2014-15 when the federal center was not willing to provide comparable amounts of anti-crisis support to regions. Thus, transfer-dependence can be one of the factors that is directly related to regional fiscal risks. Figure 2 shows the number of officially registered COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents relative to the share of federal fiscal transfers in consolidated regional revenues. One important observation is that Tyva, being a traditionally transfer-dependent region, has one of the highest infection rates. Fiscal risks for this republic are high, especially if federal revenues continue falling during the pandemic (another reason for their decline is the negative oil price shock) and the federal center will not be able to provide sufficient support to this region. Other regions that are in the risk zone include Northern-Caucasian republics (Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria) as well as Kamchatka Krai, Kalmykia, and Altai Republic. They all critically depend on intergovernmental transfers from Moscow, have vulnerable healthcare systems, and experience a continuing upsurge in the number of cases.
Another factor is regional indebtedness. In recent years, debt burden has significantly increased in many regions. Even though the share of cheap budget credits provided to regions by the Ministry of Finance has almost doubled since the global financial crisis, some regions still have high debt service costs since they have to repay relatively more expensive commercial loans or government securities. Figure 3 depicts the infection rate and regional per capita government debt. Fortunately for highly indebted regions, they do not currently experience extremely high infection rates. Several regions are still at risk, including Mordovia (which is a well-known case of improper debt management at the regional level), Magadan Oblast, Yakutia, and Khabarovsk Krai. If the pandemic persists in these regions, they will likely face problems with debt repayment or refinancing in the very near future. However, if the federal government steps in and starts replacing commercial loans with budget credits more aggressively, this risk could potentially be mitigated.
Yet another risk is related to the structure of regional economy and, in particular, to the share of corporate profit tax in regional government revenues. Usually, the higher this share, the more developed the region is. However, this tax is also more volatile than other major sources of revenue (e.g., relatively stable personal income tax) and tends to drop significantly in times of crises, which implies that relatively rich regions can suffer more from the lockdown and its consequences, especially in the short term. Figure 3 shows the infection rate and the share of corporate profit tax in consolidated regional revenues. As expected, the most developed regions (Moscow, Moscow Oblast, St. Petersburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, etc.) have the highest share of this tax in their revenues. However, not all of them equally suffer from the pandemic. Apart from the capital region, territories that have relatively high revenue risks include Murmansk Oblast, Kaluga Oblast, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, and Kamchatka Krai.
The most vulnerable regions according to these three risk factors are Magadan Oblast, Kamchatka Krai, Murmansk Oblast, North-Caucasian republics and Tyva. Most of these regions cannot fully reopen yet and still experience problems with the lack of beds in hospitals, high unemployment, and insufficient federal support, which complicates the situation even further. Moscow, despite having the largest number of COVID-19 cases and the highest share of corporate profit tax in revenues, have only moderate risks since the pandemic seems to have overcome its peak there, debt burden and transfer dependence are very low, and, more importantly, the Russian capital has always demonstrated its ability to recover relatively fast from economic downturns.
Future research should investigate more formally whether the actual number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in a region is significantly correlated with regional policies (e.g., restrictions, travel permits, requirements to wear masks, etc.) and increases economic and fiscal risks related to the severity of the pandemic. It is clear, however, that 1) regional heterogeneity in policies and their outcomes will remain high, and 2) a lot will depend on economic and fiscal actions of the federal center.
Is there a place for Big Data in Area Studies?
By: Alisha Kirchoff, PhD Candidate & RSW Fellow
This is the second in a special series on IU graduate students and their research, RSW Research Series. It is an opportunity for RSW colleagues and other readers to learn more about our students’ research projects. If you are interested in learning more about this research or connecting with one of these contributors, please let us know at rsw@iu.edu.
As we are in the midst of a global pandemic, many researchers have had to leave their field sites, cease data collection, and reorient their research agendas. COVID-19 has certainly impacted my ability to continue my research as originally planned. This has left me to wonder about the implications of the pandemic for area studies scholars and area studies scholarship. The current pandemic is poised to indelibly change the way institutions of higher education operate, but what could be the long term implications for research? Could enhanced online offerings at colleges and universities create flexibility for scholars to go abroad to collect data while fulfilling teaching and administrative duties remotely? Could pandemic-related considerations stall area studies research in certain arenas? While there are phenomenal resources online and stateside (and specifically at IU!) for historians as well as humanities and culture scholars to access vernacular source material, social scientists have fewer options for data collection when travel to the region is limited. Additionally, junior scholars with fewer and less durable contacts in-country than their more senior colleagues face greater barriers when access to the field is limited. Could big data be the answer?
In the past decade or so, there has been an ongoing debate about the use of big data and computational methods in the social sciences. The benefits are relatively clear: social media and web data is abundant and can contain information in massive quantities. As a result, one can more easily create and collect their own data for quantitative analysis than by working with a partner to field a study. Collecting big data is often more cost effective than other approaches to data collection. However, this approach to social science research also has its critics and challenges. Using computational methods runs the risk of taking the “social” out of social science. The richness of detail that one might get even from a survey is very difficult to capture using big data methods. The nuance associated with interviews and ethnographies are nonexistent in big data. There is a lot of valuable information out there, but quantity often comes at the cost of quality. This presents particular challenges when we are engaged in area studies research where deep, contextualized understandings of the cases and places we study can make a substantial difference on outcomes.
I am a sociologist and a law and society scholar. In 2018 I began a study of the Russian notary profession with an interest not only in studying legal culture through this group, but also to better understand the demographic patterns in the Russian legal profession. Most of the law and society work on legal professionals in Russia is focused on the work of judges or defense lawyers, and there is emergent research on law schools as well. The majority of the scholarly work in the North American canon in law and society is focused on common law systems where the concept of a notary is quite different from its counterpart in the civil law contexts. Notaries in civil law systems are involved in contract negotiations over major financial and real-estate transactions (e.g. wills, real estate). In many ways, Russian notaries are the practitioners of everyday law, but the secondary literature on this group is extremely limited.
When I began this study, there was not a resource available that provided even demographic information about the profession. This is where the benefits of big data come to the fore. With some internet sleuthing I was able to identify a couple of directories online that provided some information about notaries and their practice. After learning some Python (a versatile coding language) and receiving some tech support, I was able to run a program that scrapes information off these directories and deposits it into a spreadsheet database for analysis. By doing this, I was able to get a lay of the land. I could begin to answer questions like who are Russia’s notaries? Where do they practice? I was able to pull information into the database that can help me determine things like approximately how long a given notary had been practicing, and their gender. Thanks to some help from a colleague in Saint Petersburg, I was able to access aggregate information from the Ministry of Justice website about the number of practicing professionals in the field, which was a helpful frame of reference with which I could validate the information I had collected on my own.
While a helpful start, this process revealed a number of questions that I could not answer. After this first round of data collection, it became clear that I needed to continue. So, for about a year and a half, I have been running my Python script on a quarterly basis. I quickly learned that the value of this endeavor was not in having a single snapshot in time, but rather having multiple snapshots over several points in time. Each time I collect another round, I have new information about exit, entry, and movement within the profession. Even though I increase the richness of my dataset with each round of collection, I am still missing critical information. Web scraping tells me nothing about the lived experience of notarial practice. A massive dataset tells me little about the process of becoming a notary or their scope of work. This is why traditional research methodologies are critical to quality area studies research and why programs like RSW, the Department of State Title VIII program or Title VI NRCs remain so important: we cannot tell the whole story without talking to those who are living it. With support from the Carnegie Corporation’s investment in social science research on Russia, I was able to go and conduct a series of interviews of notaries in the Moscow region and connect with the chamber of notaries there as well. It was through these discussions that I was able to help make sense of the data I was collecting from my home in Indiana and better understand not only what I had, but more importantly, what I did not have in my spreadsheets. If not for a trip to the field, I could have made critical errors or misjudgments. Using Big Data helped me get started, helped me figure out which questions to ask, but it did not (and could not!) replace the process of engaging with research subjects.
So, what can my experience tell us about the space for computational or Big Data methods in area studies research? Ultimately, I believe that the use of these technologically-enhanced research techniques are a way to add value to traditional methods but should not supplant them. There is no data set or AI mechanism that can replace an ethnographic study. There is no web form or administrative data set that can replace an interview. But, we can use these tools to supplement and enhance the traditional methods in our disciplines. Computational research methods can help open new avenues for research, can offer mechanisms to assess the feasibility of study in a given area, and can help clear a path to further research. There is a lot we can learn from deploying big data methods, but deep, specialized, contextual knowledge that comes from area studies training is essential to make sense of what we find.
Tackling the Million-Ruble Question: The Lessons of Soviet Collapse
by Dima Kortukov, PhD student in Political Science
This is the first in a special series on IU graduate students and their research, RSW Research Series. It is an opportunity for RSW colleagues and other readers to learn more about our students’ research projects. If you are interested in learning more about this research or connecting with one of these contributors, please let us know at rsw@iu.edu.
In my dissertation research, I explore the unraveling of the Soviet Union, focusing especially on electoral politics. On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as President and Commander-in-Chief of the USSR; a few days after, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Why did the Soviet Union fall apart so rapidly and unexpectedly? Scholars of history and political science struggle to answer this question. The dissolution of the world’s largest state (at the time) is not merely a reminder of scholars’ limited ability to predict or explain the breakdown of authoritarian regimes. Almost thirty years later, this fateful event still occupies the imagination of both ordinary citizens and politicians in the post-Soviet space and beyond.
Another round of the debate on this “million-ruble question” was recently reignited by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaking in November 2019, he argued that the collapse of the USSR had little to do with the growth of nationalism in the Baltic countries. Instead, according to the Russian leader, this dramatic outcome resulted from inefficient economic policy in the USSR. A few days later came a rejoinder from the first president of independent Ukraine. According to Leonid Kravchuk, the economic policy was just one of many problems that eventually destroyed the Soviet Union. Kravchuk argued that the USSR was an artificial entity, where republics with different histories, mentalities, and cultures were held together by the force of oppression. Eventually, the different peoples understood that their national interests could be better served by an independent nation-state. Lastly, Fyodor Biryukov, a representative of the nationalistic Motherland party (Russia) offered a somewhat different perspective. According to Biryukov, the USSR collapsed as a result of ” the ideological degeneration, professional degradation and betrayal of the Soviet ruling elite.” Economic crisis, virulent nationalism, and resulting state collapse were all consequences of leadership betrayal.
The statements of Putin, Kravchuk, and Biryukov reflect the variety of opinions of the general post-Soviet public regarding the causes of Soviet collapse. They are also indicative of the scholarly consensus. Existing academic accounts of the USSR collapse highlight factors such as nationalist mobilization, economic crisis, Soviet institutional design, and elite interactions. These explanations are accurate and sound, but not fully convincing; I argue that an important piece of the puzzle is missing. Specifically, scholars have thus far failed to grasp the true meaning of Gorbachev’s political reforms due to the lack of attention to developments in the electoral and legislative arenas. In order to better understand the Soviet case, I look to new literature on authoritarian regimes. This scholarship views an election as a double-edged sword. On one hand, elections are generally beneficial for authoritarian leaders: they can ensure victories by means that include harassment of the opposition, arbitrary enforcement of rules, and electoral fraud. However, even unfair elections are not entirely risk-free and may result in liberalizing outcomes or even regime collapse. This is especially likely when electoral institutions create opportunities for elite defection and anti-regime voter mobilization.
In my research, I raise a different set of questions about the USSR dissolution and the failure of social scientists to anticipate it. How did Gorbachev’s reforms undermine the Communist monopoly over access to political power? Why were new institutions created by these reforms unable to coopt elites in support of the goals? How did these changes vary across the USSR republics, creating different capacities to challenge Moscow? In order to answer these questions, I have conducted interviews and archival research during two rounds of fieldwork in Russia (supported by RSW). My analysis confirms theoretical expectations regarding the destabilizing effects of perestroika politics. Throughout his reforms, Gorbachev hoped to improve the quality of decision-making and to increase the legitimacy of Soviet rule, while ensuring regime control over electoral outcomes. However, the creation of new legislative institutions and the introduction of limited electoral competition generated splits within the Soviet elites and showed the limits of support for Gorbachev’s policies. The reform’s expansion to the USSR’s republics enabled unprecedented electoral competition, allowing nationalist sentiments to receive political expression and led to the destruction of the Soviet federal system, culminating in the dissolution of the USSR.
Insights from this research allow one to make sense of the demise of the core USSR institutions: the Communist party, the Soviet and the federal structure. But this finding is important beyond the Soviet Union. In numerous cases, such as in the Philippines (1986), Chile (1988), and Algeria (2019), the introduction of electoral competition led to the autocrats’ demise, paving the way for democratization. On the other hand, in contemporary Iran, Russia, and Turkey, electoral institutions are a crucial pillar of authoritarian stability. My research allows to make sense of this divergent outcomes, thus improving our ability to correctly assess the potential for change within contemporary authoritarian regimes.
Conference in Review: Central Slavic Conference (CSC) in St. Louis,
We asked Griffin Edwards to write up a few notes about this conference – his first experience in presenting a research paper – to give other Master’s degree students a sense of how it actually works. The conference took place February 28-March 1, 2020; their website notes that, “Graduate students (“colleagues-in-the-making”) are particularly welcome.” For more information about CSC, see https://www.aseees.org/about/affiliate/regional/central.
By Griffin Edwards, MA student, Russian & East European Institute
Thanks to REEI/ Mellon Conference Travel Grant funding, I had the opportunity to attend the ASEEES affiliate Central Slavic Conference (CSC) in St. Louis last weekend.
The CSC was only my second academic conference, and the first at which I had a chance to present. I chose this conference for a couple reasons: it was relatively close (four hours’ drive); was known to be very friendly and inclusive to graduate students as well as professors; and seemed like the perfect forum to present a recent paper I wrote on the use of new historical narratives in Russian foreign policy. I registered, booked a hotel room, and started work on a presentation.
Leading up to the conference, I was nervous. I consider myself a competent public speaker, but I’d never presented research before. I enlisted a pair of my REEI MA colleagues as a test audience; we met in Wells Library, and they gave me some tips to help smooth my oral presentation and beautify my PowerPoint. A few more run-throughs and the next thing I knew I was on the road.
I found immediately that the conference was indeed very collegial: while I usually dread welcoming receptions and struggle with rooms of strangers, I felt totally at ease among my fellow scholars. Few were tenured professors; most were passionate PhD candidates or eager undergraduates. A pair of associate professors from my undergrad institution, St. Olaf College, were even in attendance! It was great to chat with them and see how the Russian program has changed since I left. And my presentation went off without a hitch!
REEI/ Mellon funding was instrumental in my experience. As a smaller conference, little food was provided by the organizers, so my travel grant went towards coffees, breakfasts, and lunches, as well as gas and lodging. I’m extremely grateful for the funding I received; I could not have had such a wonderful experience without it. I look forward to future conferences and future presentations as I continue my academic career.
Blog series on Symposium on Human Rights in Russia: Panel 4, Developing a regional human rights network in Russia
This is the fourth in a series of five blog entries from the “Symposium on Human Rights in Russia: The Life and Legacy of Lyudmila Alexeyeva,” which took place on November 15-16, 2019 on the campus of Indiana University—Bloomington. The blog entries were written by graduate students who come from a variety of disciplines at IU—anthropology, sociology, law, and REEI—and all of whom encounter or focus on Russia in their research. Each student wrote about the panel differently, sometimes reviewing the entire panel, sometimes addressing individual panelists’ presentations, other times reflecting on how Lyudmila’s legacy has informed the world in which they currently do research. Put all together, this series intends to not only convey what happened during the panels themselves, but also to give a sense of what these five students in particular took away from this symposium.
Panel 4: Developing a regional human rights network in Russia. Alexeyeva worked tirelessly to help civil society in Russia expand beyond circles of intellectuals in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, rallying activists in Russia’s “regions” to join in a nationwide human rights advocacy network. Panelists: Tanya Lokshina, Paul Goble, Kate Graber (chair)
By Megan Burnham, Master’s Degree student in REEI
Last November, the Russian Studies Workshop, with support from more than ten other co-sponsors, organized the Human Rights Symposium in remembrance of the renown human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Kicking off the second day of discussions was a panel on Regional human rights networks. Kate Graber, an Assistant Professor in IU’s Department of Anthropology, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, a human rights activist, translator of Russian, and former editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tanya Lokshina, the Associate Director for Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, and Dmitrii Makarov, the Co-Chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, took part in the panel. The panelists highlighted the role of Lyudmila Alexeyeva in creating a deeply knit network of human rights organizations in the post-soviet space, while also providing a sobering reminder of the fact that activists continue to face repression and persecution for attempting to organize in defense of human rights.
The risk of retaliation from repressive regimes means that intergroup solidarity is key for the success of human rights activism and the survival of their organizations, as emphasized by the panelists. Based on her expertise in Buryatia, Kate Graber argued that density of activists makes it more difficult for local authorities single out any one person. Nonetheless, people’s fear of the “long arm of the state” means that in places where human rights organizations aren’t already well-established, it can be difficult to convince people to organize. During her tenure as Chairperson of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila recognized the importance of bringing together disparate organizations across the post-Soviet space for the purposes of mutual support and collaboration. As emphasized by Tanya Lokshina, who worked closely with Lyudmila at the Moscow Helsinki Group for many years, Lyudmila thought it was vitally important to expand the circle of human rights activism beyond the intellectual elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Lyudmila saw the importance of international solidarity as well as regional solidarity, according to Dmitrii Makarov, and she frequently travelled to other post-soviet countries to champion the cause of human rights beyond the borders of Russia.
The evolution of organizing among human rights activists is perhaps what struck me the most from this panel. The internet has completely changed the nature of networking. Information on rights violations is more widely accessible, and social media simplifies the process of finding like-minded people and engaging them in protests or activism. This is quite different from the earlier days of Lyudmila Alexeyeva’s activism, where getting disparate organizations to unify and work together as a larger human rights network was a major feat in and of itself. However, the Kremlin’s continued attempts to create a sovereign internet and restrict access to certain websites and applications might threaten the usability of these new tools for organizing and gaining access to information. One panelist expressed doubt that a firewall on par with China’s could be implemented successfully due to the fact that a free internet was able to flourish unabated in Russia for so long. Russia began implementation of a sovereign internet on the first of November, and results remain to be seen for what it’s affect will be on political activism in Russia at large.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva made significant contributions to the cause of human rights in Russia and the post-soviet space that will not be forgotten. As said by the Moscow Helsinki Group, she was the soul of human rights movement in Russia. Her accomplishments will not be forgotten, and her work will live on through the activists who continue in her footsteps to push back against renewed waves of oppression.
Blog series on Symposium on Human Rights in Russia: Roundtable on Pressing Human Rights Issues in Russia Today
This is the fourth in a series of five blog entries from the “Symposium on Human Rights in Russia: The Life and Legacy of Lyudmila Alexeyeva,” which took place on November 15-16, 2019 on the campus of Indiana University—Bloomington. The blog entries were written by graduate students who come from a variety of disciplines at IU—anthropology, sociology, law, and REEI—and all of whom encounter or focus on Russia in their research. Each student wrote about the panel differently, sometimes reviewing the entire panel, sometimes addressing individual panelists’ presentations, other times reflecting on how Lyudmila’s legacy has informed the world in which they currently do research. Put all together, this series intends to not only convey what happened during the panels themselves, but also to give a sense of what these five students in particular took away from this symposium.
Roundtable: Pressing human rights issues in Russia today. The symposium culminated in a round table to discuss the most important current human rights concerns in Russia, and strategies for tackling them. Panelists: Tanya Lokshina, Paul Goble, Sergei Davidis, Dmitrii Makarov, Paul Goldberg, Cathy Fitzpatrick, Emma Gilligan (chair)
The author of this entry is an IU graduate student who prefers to remain anonymous.
Panelists: Tanya Lokshina, Sergei Davidis, Dmitri Makarov, William Pomeranz, Cathy Fitzpatrick, Emma Gilligan (chair)
On September 4, 2019 Konstantin Kotov made a statement in a Russian courtroom just before receiving a four-year prison sentence for unauthorized public demonstration and protest. He said (https://t.me/ovdinfo/3195) if the government will jail people for peaceful protests, then people will revolt and he doesn’t want this – referring to the fact that he doesn’t want violence. The courtroom was filled with people and even more were crowded around the courthouse on the streets outside. When the four-year verdict was read out, the initial reaction from the observers was shocked silence, but it quickly turned to indignation both inside and out on the streets. Despite the fact that everyone had just witnessed a man being sentenced to four years in prison for this very behavior, protests erupted outside the courthouse. They were again peaceful. Police forces were called to quell the commotion. Considering the circumstances, it is somewhat surprising that these protesters were not too deterred or intimidated by what they had just observed in the courtroom. Validating Kotov’s words, the authorities’ attempts to end the protest movement had become fodder for further resistance by the people. (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/09/05/russian-activist-sentenced-to-4-years-for-multiple-protests-a67170)
This is the picture artfully painted by Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/russia) on the final panel of the Symposium on Human Rights in Russia – Past, Present and Future. With a background in comparative literature, Lokshina is familiar with the components of a good story. Now with a substantial career in human rights work, beginning in 1998, she can employ her story-telling skills to paint a compelling picture of the human rights issues, figures, and causes with which she works.
While this trend of active protest, even in the face of direct threat by the state authorities, is a sign that progress is being made, there remain many challenges to an improved state of human rights across Russia. Panelist William Pomeranz of the Kennan Institute highlighted the limitation of international and regional institutions known for promoting human rights. An attempt by the Council of Europe (CoE) to penalize Russia following the annexation of Crimea, by temporarily suspending its membership as country in the regional organization, was ultimately unsuccessful when Russia stopped paying its fees in response. The CoE needed Russia’s fees to exist, so financial pressures caused it to reactivate Russian’s membership without the desired change in behavior. In conjunction with such trends as Russia’s (and other countries’) use of the veto power to protect its sovereignty, Pomeranz presented a case that Russia is changing international organizations rather than the other way around.
Dmitri Makarov, co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group (one of three chairs tasked with taking over the responsibilities of the position formerly held solely by Lyudmila Alexeyeva, due to the enormity of the role she played), continued this line of discussion by posing the question of how to deal with countries who are members of organizations, yet do not conform with their values. Should we constrict so-called “club membership” to countries who follow the norms and values the organization purports to represent? How can nonconforming club members be identified and sanctioned? Makarov sees legal argumentation as the right strategy to tackle this question. By identifying the specific ways in which such countries are violating norms and laws, the organizations could present a clear and persuasive case for why and how that behavior must change.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick turned the conversation towards theoretical and moral debate. She emphasized the importance of sticking with the model that no violence means no violence when it comes to human rights movements countering state abuses and repression – no exceptions. She also discussed a challenge of the digital age – that the online platform containing much of the evidence of human rights abuses is threatened by the risk that such data could be lost or destroyed. Fitzpatrick contrasted this insecurity in cyberspace with an example from the Holocaust in which activists confined to ghettos recorded and hid evidence of human rights abuses in milk cans. The milk cans survived the war, outlived the activists themselves, and served as an important resource years later. How can human rights advocates today ensure that important documentation is secure in the age of internet?
Panelist Sergei Davidis has done much work focused on political prisoners. He noted that the Russian regime’s main goal is to stay in power. In order to do so, the state strategically prosecutes people for alleged protest activities. As an example of this strategy, Davidis cited Russia’s arrests in Ukraine of people who pose no articulable threat to the Russian state. For the Russian state, the arrests serve the purpose of supporting the propaganda that Ukraine is an aggressive state.
The roundtable discussion spanned these issues and gave the students, academics, and activists in the audience much to think about. Emma Gilligan, Associate Professor of International Studies at Indiana University chaired the round table titled “Pressing Human Rights Issues in Russia Today.” Gilligan herself has much experience working on these issues, and her thoughtful questions wove the panel of varied and vast expertise together.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva played a huge role in the human rights movement in Russia, and beyond its borders, and was involved in many challenging and important issues. The symposium commemorated and honored her inspiring legacy, while looking towards the continuation of this work. The two-day event hosted an impressive array of human rights experts, activists and advocates, and the final round table of the symposium was no exception.