Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Long story short russia sees itself as a superpower when in reality it is a regional power that (over)expends itself.

There was a book written by a Chinese (I believe) academic that goes into this. bobo lo I think his name was. will try and find it.
Sure, and I wouldn't disagree with that, but the impression I'd got (not a very informed one, possibly) is that nationalism is very much alive and well in Russia and that Russians, on the whole, are pretty pro-Russia.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Sure, and I wouldn't disagree with that, but the impression I'd got (not a very informed one, possibly) is that nationalism is very much alive and well in Russia and that Russians, on the whole, are pretty pro-Russia.

In the generic sense perhaps. But in that generic sense every major nation is pro-nationalist. By russian nationalism we're also including either tsarist or post-1921 eurasian imperial expansionism, which Putin has done his best to resurrect but been quite hopeless at it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
The 90s russian mafia and the gulag garde and aparatchicks were in many ways at odds with each other. If anything contributed to the destruction of the tradition of a unitary imperial nationalism it was 90s russian transnational organised crime. Criminals in that region are state actors, but more in playing the corrupt political machine rather than being capital P political.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Same reason why russian organised crime and Chechen organised crime are reciprocal to each other and are not really enemies.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
My experience in Russia is they are united by a shared victim hood ie a lot of people I've met there genuinely believe that the average westerner hates a) Russia but also b) actual Russian people.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Even though materially speaking in the early 20th C. the majority of Russia was as underdeveloped as Asia. Lenin was right to stress that Russia was both an imperialist aggressor and imperialised by European capital.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
theyre not wrong
I don't quite agree... or I agree with a) not b). Lots of people hate Russia, Putin etc but does the average Englander walk down the street thinking "God I hate normal Russian people"? Cos that's what a lot of em think.
 

luka

Well-known member
No, not brooding on it all the time. But when they enter his mind he thinks of them with distaste.
 

version

Well-known member
I don't quite agree... or I agree with a) not b). Lots of people hate Russia, Putin etc but does the average Englander walk down the street thinking "God I hate normal Russian people"? Cos that's what a lot of em think.
I dunno about that, but think about how Russians are portrayed in western media. They're always mobsters, bouncers, cage fighters, assassins etc in films and all the reporting around them is about oligarchs, money laundering, political interference and so on. There were all those "meanwhile in Russia" memes too about how everyone there is nuts. People talk about Russia like they talk about Florida.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah they are definitely stereotyped... as cold though? I think of passionate vodka swilling hotheads in films.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I dunno about that, but think about how Russians are portrayed in western media. They're always mobsters, bouncers, cage fighters, assassins etc in films and all the reporting around them is about oligarchs, money laundering, political interference and so on. There were all those "meanwhile in Russia" memes too about how everyone there is nuts. People talk about Russia like they talk about Florida.
Those aren't necessarily all negative stereotypes, or stereotypes with only negative connotations, though. At the very least they're some combination of physically tough, glamorous and/or extremely cunning. They might stare at you like they were about to kill you after some verbal misstep you didn't even realise you'd made, but then throw back their head and roar with bear-like laughter, slap you on the back so hard your drink spills, pour your another drink, pour themselves another five drinks, and then demolish you at chess. The women are inevitably either supermodel-standard beauties or kindly babushka types with wrinkled smiles and cheeks like little red apples, depending on age. Etc. ect. etc. They are, at any rate, rarely stupid, boring or ridiculous, whereas Americans are often all three. Oh, and obese, too.

(And is anyone going to quibble with the fact that there actually is a fuck of a lot of organized crime in Russia?)
 
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