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International Affairs
Patriotism: Russian foreign policy’s new paradigm
Daniele Fattibene 14 May 2015

When reading the Russian press one can deduct that patriotism has become a fundamental key for understanding the Russian Federation’s foreign policy. It is interesting to study the different analyses of this phenomenon, from the most conservative to those most critical of the regime. What does Russian patriotism consist of? According to Andrej Il’nitskij – a political analyst and a member of Putin’s “United Russia” party – there is now a “democratic patriotism” in Russia. It is a peculiar ideology that starts with a negation of what the country is not – neither a fascist government like Kiev’s nor plutocratic liberalism following the Western model – and protects the state’s traditional values. Russian patriotism is “democratic” – since it is supported by the majority of the country, but also “creative” because it is free from the impediments typical of the liberal ideology. Its pillars are the educational system, the army, the media and the Russian intelligentsia.
Dialogues
«The battle between geopolitics and oligarchies. This is how the Kirghizstan crisis developed»
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A conversation with Tiberio Graziani 9 June 2010
A power struggle between local oligarchies and a variable element in the “Great Game” being played out in Central Asia between America, Russia and China. This is the opinion expressed by Tiberio Graziani, editor-in-chief of the geopolitical magazine Eurasia, on the recent political turbulence in Kirghizstan. At the beginning of April President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was removed from power following a series of revolts and street clashes marked by violence with at least 80 people killed and over 500 wounded. Five years ago it had been Bakiyev himself, who has now taken refuge in Minsk under the protection of the Byelorussian head of state Aleksander Lukashenko, who had come to power using street protests in which a number of people were killed, removing his predecessor Askar Akayev after what was renamed the “Tulip Revolution.”Interview by Matteo Tacconi.
Dialogues
«It all happened thanks to Gorby»
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Matteo Tacconi 19 October 2009
Without tacit approval from the Soviet Union, 1989 would never have happened. There would have been no peaceful and democratic mass revolts that resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is thus to Moscow, at the centre of the communist empire, that one must look, if wishing to examine the now two-decade-old epoch-making changes. An unexpected, sudden and phenomenal change that led the Eastern regimes to collapse one after the other. Two years later the Soviet Union also imploded and Mikhail Gorbachev lost his battle. We discuss these events with Andrea Graziosi, Professor of Contemporary History at the Federico II University in Naples, President of the Italian Society for the Study of Contemporary History and author of two scholarly books on Soviet history published by Il Mulino; Lenin and Stalin’s USSR and The USSR from triumph to collapse. An interview by Matteo Tacconi.