Russian, East European & Central Asian studies

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/22742

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You Know I Can Never Lose, This Has Never Been About You: The Politics of Conflict in Eurovision in Russia, Estonia and Ukraine 2014-2023
(2025-01-23) Bennett, Abigail; Smidchens, Guntis
Estonia, Ukraine, and Russia have intensified their use of political messaging in Eurovision since the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, through lyrical protest, ethnic performance, and artist identities. This thesis examines ten Eurovision entries from 2014-2023 and the instances of non-participation by Ukraine (2015, 2019) and Russia (2017, 2022 onwards) to determine how these countries have chosen to display political messaging in their entries. My analysis examined lyrics, artist identities and linguistic elements to demonstrate political messaging tactics and their varying degrees of specificity depending on the intended audience. The results thus demonstrated that Eurovision has become a common stage for political messaging of each country's ideology for Estonia, Ukraine and Russia in the context of the current Russian-Ukrainian war, although the tactics used to do so varied from country to country.
Holism/Tselostnost’ and Liberation/Rebellion in Russian and American Civil Religion
(2024-09-09) Hartley, Allison Marie; Radnitz, Scott
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the storming of the U.S. Capitol by right-wing insurrectionists have drawn increased attention to the faith-political nexus in Russia and the United States. Yet the “Christan nationalist” narratives observed in these countries did not emerge suddenly in the twenty-first century and are not a novelty introduced by a candidate or a regime. Rather, political and religious actors draw inspiration from civil religions that have their roots in the very formation of these respective states. This study seeks to trace developments in Russian and American civil religion from its inception up to the climactic events of the Ukraine invasion and the January 6 insurrection with the goal of answering the following question: how have modern Russian and American civil religion evolved in comparison to their historical forms? A comparison of these two countries will shed light on how civil religion as a unifying idea is constructed in “republics” with great ethnic and religious diversity. I find that both in Russia and the United States, civil religious discourses have adapted to plurality by evolving toward a strategic ecumenism and inclusivity based on shared political values, in accordance with priorities dictated by the national paradigms of holism/tselostnost’ (Russia) and liberation/rebellion (United States).
The Impact of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict on Russia’s Role in Central Asia
(2023-08-14) Abdulqayumov, Muhammad; Jones, Christopher
This paper analyzes how the war in Ukraine is impacting Russia’s influence in its “near abroad,” specifically Central Asia. This paper argues that Central Asia remained close to the Kremlin due to Moscow's importance in Central Asian energy trade and security. Because of geographic and infrastructure limitations, Central Asian countries could not take advantage of their rich natural resources, most notably oil, and gas, without Russia’s involvement. This changed when China emerged as an economic superpower in the region. China challenged Russia's monopoly over the Central Asian energy trade and eventually became the primary energy partner to Central Asian states. Nonetheless, Russia has maintained considerable influence due to its role in Central Asia by fulfilling a position no other actor has been willing to perform, which is regime protection. Because of this, Central Asian states have been hesitant to move away from Russia, even as most of the world is turning away from Moscow.
Northern but not Nordic? Social Democracy in Estonia
(2023-08-14) Bryant, Emilie Louise; Šmidchens, Guntis
Estonia is geographically northern, closely neighboring Scandinavia. It shares much in common with the Nordic region, including similarities in religion, culture, language, and many parts of its history. The Nordic countries have a long tradition of social democratic parties holding power, a tradition which continues to the present day. In 2023, the majority of prime ministers in the region come from social democratic parties, and their parties hold sizable numbers of seats regardless of whether or not they are currently in government. However, this is not the case in Estonia. The country has a prominent and historically significant social democratic party, but it has significantly fewer seats than its Nordic counterparts. This thesis seeks to explain why this difference has occurred, despite the many similarities between Estonia and its northern neighbors. It finds that while small, the Social Democratic Party has been a stable presence in parliament, and that the different role it plays may be attributed to the comparative weakness of civil society and of trade union political power, and that the left-leaning vote is split between the SDE and Centre parties, with no bloc system to unify them.
Representation and Merit in the Military: Explaining the Origins and Persistence of Recruitment and Promotion Patterns in the Turkish Officer Corps (1848-2015)
(2022-09-23) Ozkan, Ozgur; Kasaba, Resat
This research offers a systematic study of the sources of inequality and merit in the military. It explores the origins and persistence of representation and promotion patterns in the military's officer corps. Going beyond prevailing approaches emphasizing the role of interethnic and ideological rivalry, this research reveals resilient organizational and social mechanisms persistently reproducing the original ethnic make-up of the officer corps. Drawing on about 150 years of original historical recruitment and promotion data from the Turkish case, my research findings show that the initial stages of state-building are pretty impactful for the long-term trajectories of promotion and recruitment. Demographic patterns that crystallize at the initial stages of state building tend to be quite durable. Quantitative and qualitative evidence from the Turkish case elucidates how recruitment networks and autonomous promotion patterns specific to the officer corps ensure the perpetuation of promotion and ethnic representation patterns by mitigating the effects of major political and socio-economic shifts and the demographic designs of political and military leaders. The research embraces a mixed methodological approach combining ethnography and archival work with statistical analysis. It draws on extensive field research in Turkey between 2016 and 2019, in which I held in-depth interviews with military officers, academics, journalists, and politicians and collected archival and library data to construct three original datasets of the ethnic background and career paths of close to 25,000 officers serving in the Turkish military from 1848 to 2015.
Bearing the Brunt: The Effect of COVID 19 and Socioeconomic Disparities on Estonia’s Russian Speaking Minority
(2022-07-14) Ryer, Alexa; Bilaniuk, Laada
On December 10th of 2020 Estonia’s eastern county of Ida-Viru became the first Estonian county to top a 14 day average of 1000 COVID infection per 100,000 inhabitants. Ida-Viru would go on to average an infection rate between 900 and 1200 for the next several months. The capital city Tallinn soon followed Ida-Viru’s example, breaking the 1000 per day barrier on February 25th (Kooronakaart). What is significant about both Ida Viru and the Lasnamae district of Tallinn—apart from them representing the first major outbreaks in Estonia and their continued low vaccination rates—is that both areas are majority Russian speaking (that is the majority of citizens and residents speak Russian as their primary language). Lasnamae’s population is roughly 60% Russian speaking, while Ida Viru—which contains the city of Narva—is upwards of 75% Russian speaking (Statistics Estonia). This raises the question: “Why were these heavily Russian speaking areas of Estonia hit disproportionately hard during this Spring 2021 COVID Wave?” Taking data from Estonia’s COVID 19 database, the 2017 EVS, and Estonian censuses, this paper uses the COVID 19 pandemic as a lens through which to evaluate ongoing socioeconomic disparities within Estonia as they relate to the Russian speaking minority.
The Politics of Propaganda in Putin’s Russia: A Study on the Treatment of Alexei Navalny
(2022-07-14) Snyder, Robert Bruce; Radnitz, Scott
During the Putin presidency, the Kremlin has tailored its propaganda to target opposition agents who pose a threat to the regime. This paper utilizes text as data methods to analyze the Kremlin propagandization of Alexei Navalny following his poisoning in August 2020. It first emphasizes the role of propaganda in present day Russia and links Kremlin propaganda to Alexei Navalny. This paper next analyzes and compares news articles on Alexei Navalny from the state-controlled news sources, RT, and Sputnik News, as well as from the independent news sourcesÂ¸ RBC. This analysis further delves into the differences between state-controlled news source based on language of publication (English vs Russian). Findings from this research project indicate that the Kremlin utilizes three propaganda techniques to effectively transform opposition agents into the Kremlin’s own propaganda tools, specifically using figures such as Alexei Navalny to promote its own domestic and foreign policies. The paper concludes with speculation into the further use of text as data methods to better understand how the Kremlin propagandizes opposition agents to achieve Putin’s goals and ambitions.
Legacies of Destruction: Architecture as a Nationalist Battleground in Kosovo
(2021-08-26) Harris, Benjamin Kinney; Belić, Bojan
Architectural destruction is often perceived as inevitable collateral damage during modern conflict, but a major facet of the Kosovo War of 1998-9 and its aftermath was the deliberate targeting and demolition of architectural heritage on a massive scale. Both Serbian and Kosovar Albanian nationalists participated in this desecration, the most widespread wave of violence against religious architecture on European soil since the infamous Kristallnacht riots under Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. This thesis explains this destruction through analysis of the chauvinist nationalist narratives endorsed by both Serbian and Kosovar Albanian leaders and media which reframed architectural heritage as symbols of oppression and trauma requiring destruction. For both Serbs and Kosovar Albanians, destroying the opposing nation’s architecture came to be understood as central to a concentrated effort towards purifying the Kosovar cultural landscape and asserting ownership. This thesis intends primarily to answer how nationalist narratives of both Serbs and Kosovar Albanians centered the sacred architecture of the opposing nation as targets of violence and why these efforts proved so devastating. Through analysis of key figures, events, and cases of architectural destruction, I argue that the nationalist narratives of these two nations transformed architecture into emblems representing myths of supremacy, fears of destruction, and historical trauma.
The Presidential Vlog: Trust and the Celebritization of Politics in Ukraine
(2021-08-26) Welch, Rebekah Dee; Radnitz, Scott
Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy, popular in Ukraine for playing the president on TV, shocked many commentators when he was elected president in reality. Of particular interest however, is the scope of his victory and style of his campaign. Zelenskyy was touted as being the first presidential candidate whose campaign was entirely digital. That is, he communicated with supporters and the public at large entirely through his social media platforms, most notably in his YouTube campaign vlog: Ze!President. But Zelenskyy’s victory is most peculiar given the democratic context in which it occurred. He was the first Ukrainian presidential candidate to unite the electorate in the country’s independent history, as Ukraine’s regions are typically electorally divided. Further, before his election Ukrainians reported the lowest levels of trust in the government in the world. Yet Zelenskyy garnered the highest ratings of trust a Ukrainian president has ever received. On its face, his victory appears merely to be confirmation of what scholars describe as the celebritization of politics: a candidate-centric shift in the political landscape facilitated by the culture of social media. I argue that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s election reveals an underappreciated dynamic of celebritization: political trust. I argue that Volodymyr Zelenskyy gained the trust of the electorate by maintaining the image of a uniquely authentic Ukrainian patriot through airing an episodic documentary of the campaign on YouTube. While his particular brand of patriotism was made up of an inclusive populism and embrace of cultural-hybridity, an analysis of Zelenskyy’s image constructed via the vlog serves to convince the audience that his patriotism is truly authentic; thus, trustworthy. Ultimately, these findings indicate that political celebritization may be driven by dwindling trust in government, and that in such environments, citizens display such interest in the personal profiles of political leaders in order to scrutinize them for authenticity.
Annihilation of a Writer: Mikhail Bulgakov and the Soviet State
(2021-08-26) Dodd, Amarica; Diment, Galya
Mikhail Bulgakov’s mystifying relationship with the Soviet government, and with Joseph Stalin in particular, has long been understood to be a result of the dictator’s aesthetic appreciation for the writer’s early work. In an era defined by Stalin’s Great Terror, Bulgakov escaped the tumultuous 1930s relatively unscathed in that he was never arrested, let alone executed. This is not to say that Bulgakov did not have a difficult life under Stalin’s regime; pressures put on him by the state almost certainly exacerbated underlying health concerns that led to his early death. Brutal attacks on his work also caused financial and psychological hardship and led to what he referred to as his “annihilation.” However, he was spared more violent persecution (such as that faced by many of his contemporaries) despite the fact that his body of work includes harsh criticism of Communism and the Soviet Union, as well as the fact that Bulgakov was unambiguous in his anti-Soviet politics. While any attempt to assign too much rationale or logic to Stalin’s decisions during the purges is impossible, in this paper I examine several factors that I believe are overlooked in discussions of Bulgakov’s relationship with the Soviet state and may have contributed to his treatment by the state and censorship machines. These factors include the nature of Bulgakov’s satire and interactions with the Soviet state, his status as a political outsider, and his connections with foreigners within and without the Soviet Union.
Ruining Dessert: On Chocolate Cake and White Supremacy in Poland
(2021-08-26) Wojtas, Miriam; Bilaniuk, Laada
This thesis seeks to establish how deeply anti-Black racism has become ingrained in Polish culture through the everyday example of murzynek, a chocolate cake that became popular with home cooks in twentieth century Poland. Its name in literal translation is the diminutive form of an offensive racial epithet used to refer to a Black individual. In order to show how this cake is just one manifestation of mundane efforts to distinguish Poland as a white nation, where whiteness signifies power in a Western colonized world order, this series of essays approaches this example from multiple points of entry. Each chapter is bookended with fictional vignettes, a story across time and space of a family much like the author’s family. Fiction grounds the main issues of racial superiority, working class struggles, and colonial desire in the real world by experimenting with anti-racist creative praxis. Because food is a tangible and comforting thread that connects us to our homes and heritages, inventing new stories through speculative fiction changes the narratives of race, empire, and power that circulate throughout Poland and its diaspora.
The Elephant, the Donkey, and Ukraine: The Partisanship of the Ukrainian Diaspora in America
(2021-08-26) Kharitonova-Gomez, Anastasia; Radnitz, Scott
The Ukrainian diaspora in the U.S. is a growing group whose American partisanship has scarcely been examined outside of diaspora-related media. This study makes use of interviews with Ukrainians in the Seattle metropolitan area to uncover how Ukrainians in the U.S. make and explain their partisan choices at the individual level. Core factors influencing Ukrainians’ party preference include generation and education, religion and values, and views on the role of government. An additional section investigates how Ukrainians across the political spectrum responded to the Trump administration’s controversial actions in regard to Russia and Ukraine as well as immigration. The findings suggest Ukrainian identity and concern for Ukraine are seldom the driving factors shaping partisanship or vote choice. However, Ukrainian identity does mediate and inform partisanship. Across generations, members of the Ukrainian diaspora rely on and reference experiences associated with Ukrainian identity to formulate and justify their political views. Thus, Ukrainians’ partisanship is often shaped by factors that affect the party preferences of many people in the U.S., but Ukrainians often employ narratives based on Ukrainian identity to explain why such factors matter to them. This study contributes to three bodies of literature: diaspora studies, as it looks at how the Ukrainian diaspora negotiates homeland and host country identities and interests; post-Soviet studies, as it examines how Ukrainians in the U.S. are responding to Soviet and post-Soviet legacies through their politics; and U.S. partisanship studies, as it sheds light on the political views of an understudied diaspora.
Networked Authoritarianism in the Russian Federation: Domestic Internet Policy and the 2018 Election
(2021-08-26) Peterson, Catherine; Radnitz, Scott
The Kremlin’s strategy toward the internet has evolved markedly over the past decade, leading to the adoption of a variety of legislative and regulatory measures designed to exert increased control over the Russian internet. This paper analyzes the internet control strategies employed by the Kremlin to repress Alexey Navalny’s 2018 presidential campaign and their impact. It first addresses how domestic internet policy has changed in recent years before turning to data from Agora and the Levada Center to assess specific mechanisms of internet control used by authorities over the course of the Navalny campaign. Findings indicate that the government relied largely on six main mechanisms of repression, most of them being legislative and non-tech specific. Data also indicate such efforts likely made attracting additional support difficult for the campaign. These findings are consistent with signs that the Russian government is making deliberate efforts to control information within its borders and raises questions regarding the future of internet policy both within Russia and across the globe.
Policy Takers or Policy Makers: Moscow’s Aversion to Incorporating Western Values
(2020-10-26) Price, Nicholas Roland; Jones, Christopher
How did the western principles embraced by The Final Act of 1975 play a role in the downfall of the Soviet Union? To what extent have they had a subsequent, lasting influence on the policies of the Russian federation more recently?
The Instrumentalization of Language in Putin’s Russia
(2020-08-14) Machado, Alyssa Olszewski; Radnitz, Scott
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has taken a sharp turn toward conservative values and an identity that is based on traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, as defined by the state. A consistent element in the state discourse regarding this values and morality-based identity is the call to protect and promote the Russian language. This paper demonstrates the ways in which language and language policy have been instrumentalized under Putin to pursue three separate, yet interconnected, priorities: to create a new Russian identity, to export Russian soft power, and to support domestic and foreign policy goals. This study briefly addresses the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in these efforts and seeks to situate language policy within Putin’s broader political strategy. As the Russian president continues in his attempts to consolidate power, language and language policy will continue to be important aspects of this strategy. Although attempts to purify and shape language are historically ultimately unsuccessful, there is reason to believe that the Russian state will continue to instrumentalize the Russian language and language policy to define a narrow version of the Russian identity—one that is used to justify continued repression of those who do not assimilate.
Secularism in Slovenia: An Anthropological Perspective
(2020-08-14) Standley, Hannah Lake; Bilaniuk, Laada M
Current analyses focusing on the relations between the government of the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovenian Catholic Church cannot fully account for Slovenian citizens’ reporting of secular tendencies in social surveys. I supplement state-centric analyses with an anthropological examination of name-day celebrations (“gÃ³d,” “godovanje”) by analyzing motivation behind and the presence/absence of religious symbols in these celebrations. We observe a change in focus between socialization and religious motivation, a shift in power between name and individual, and an increase in secular names among Slovenian newborns overtime. We find that name-days are considered a rural practice, and that adults, rather than children, are more often observed to be participating in religious practices associated with name-day celebrations. Secularisms observed in small-scale, private, religious customs are likely to point towards private ontological beliefs, and by extension, the prevalence of secularism among Slovenian citizens.
From Helsinki to Strasbourg: Human Rights, Soft Power, and the Precarious Future of Liberal Institutions
(2019-08-14) Whitwer, Lacey Ann; jones, Christopher
To fully appreciate the importance of Russia’s continued participation in the Council of Europe and citizens’ access to the European Court of Human Rights, it is vital to first understand the influential role the introduction of human rights through the Helsinki Final Act played in affecting foreign and domestic policy change in the Soviet Union. In this paper, I argue that the United States, by political design, instrumentalized human rights values as a mechanism of operationalizing its soft power resources to engage in an ideological competition with the Soviets for the hearts and minds of Soviet citizens during the Cold War. The signing of the Final Act by Brezhnev was a pivotal turning point in Soviet history because it obligated the Soviet Union to comply with human rights values, subjected the Soviets to international scrutiny for violations, and scheduled review meeting to assess member states’ compliance with the Final Act. This paper demonstrates how the United States also weaponized human rights values as a bargaining chip, arguing that they would only honor other aspects of the Final Act if the Soviets liberalized.. In a sense, the Council of Europe preserves the spirit of Helsinki because it keeps the Russian Federation integrated in a pan-European liberal institution that values human rights and subjects the state to international scrutiny for violations of these rights in the European Court of Human Rights. Given the prominence of anti-Western and anti-Liberalism sentiments, Russia’s continued membership in the CoE is an important avenue for liberal ideas and values to flow into the country, lest the country become isolated causing the resurrection of east and west divisions. With Brexit threatening the legitimacy of the EU, a Ruxit could threaten the legitimacy of the CoE.
Orientalism and Knowledge Production of Terrorism in the Post-9/11 United States: the Case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the Boston Marathon Bombing
(2019-08-14) Frizzell, Heather; Freije, Vanessa
The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing resulted in the arrest of 19-year-old Dzhokhar (“Jahar”) Tsarnaev, a Muslim immigrant from Chechnya. Two years later, he was convicted in federal court and sentenced to death. Even before his arrest, he was publicly declared a radicalized “jihadist.” This image persists despite a multitude of evidence on the court record, which not only suggests that his older brother Tamerlan involved Jahar under duress, but that Tamerlan had accomplices who escaped accountability. My research examines how gendered Orientalist stereotypes, combined with Islamophobic assumptions, produced knowledge about the bombing. These derogatory beliefs were created and perpetuated by law enforcement, the press, and federal prosecutors, which established a “regime of truth” about Jahar and his role in the crimes.
Narratives and Hegemony in the Finnish Eduskunta - A Narrative Policy Framework Analysis of Finnish Energy Policy Narratives
(2019-08-14) Brown, Michael; Thomas, Craig
Finland is a critical case in climate policy because of the prestigious position it occupies on the world stage as a bastion of good governance, yet its climate policies have serious flaws, the same ones that hinder movement on climate issues worldwide. This study uses the Narrative Policy Framework to analyze policy narratives over the Finnish energy bill: HE 175/2017. Informed by the theories of hegemony and discourse, the study identifies that the revealed content and strategy in the policy narratives serves as evidence for a hegemonic set of market-friendly narratives that are consistent both in that specific policy arena and also in the wider discourse on climate change. Within the specific policy arena, a coherent energy elite were the sole participants and their narratives reflected their interests exclusively, resulting in a homogenous set of strategies around victimization and general acceptance of the theory of markets as solution to the climate crisis.
“If not me, who?”: An analysis of political ambition amongst first-time elected and aspiring millennial politicians in Lithuania
(2019-08-14) Benaityte, Viktorija; Smidchens, Guntis
The primary aim of this study was to investigate how and why young people enter politics in Lithuania. The research observing youth political ambition tends to focus on lack of ambition, alternative strategies of political involvement (such as protest), and to a lesser extent, budding and expressive ambition to run for office. While the majority of the latter studies focus on established Western democracies, this paper seeks to provide some insight into political motivation in the post-Soviet democracies, using Lithuania as a case study. This qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with 10 first-time elected and 7 aspiring politicians, educated in democratic Lithuania. The key findings indicate that family influence on political motivation is only a minor factor in the decision-making process to enter politics. At the same time, being exposed to a civically engaging school or youth group environment plays a significant role in nurturing participants’ political ambition. Two major routes to entering politics emerged – those who were more strategic about the future in politics could be described as ‘self-starters’; and those whose motivation was sparked by elite recruitment, usually by a senior political actor, already participating in politics or considering candidacy. The analysis of the interviews also uncovered a clear trend in disassociation with party membership and a growing appetite for the nonpartisan path to candidacy. This is particularly vivid in municipal elections, in which a new vehicle to enter politics - public electoral committee – has taken a firm place and allows politically ambitious millennials to enter the office without a party stamp.

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