Russian (schizo-)patriotism: ancient Orthodox perspectives on the war in Ukraine
| Dates: | 27 November 2023 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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Dominic Martin (Oxford University): Russian (schizo-)patriotism: ancient Orthodox perspectives on the war in Ukraine.
This paper, which is based on 10 months’ fieldwork in 2022 in the Russian Far East, describes divergent perspectives on the war in Ukraine within an Orthodox ‘Old Believer’ congregation. President Putin’s speeches and the posters that bedeck Russia’s Pacific Maritime region invoke a familial organic community of ‘one’s own’ (svoi) as justification for ‘protecting’ the Donbas. On the one hand, as family-centric adherents in Russia’s messianic vocation, many Far Eastern Old Believers criticise what they see as the state’s ‘pseudo-‘ or ‘schizo-patriotic’ discourse. On the other hand, one zealot who was firmly in favour of the ‘Special Military Operation' tried to convince me that I myself should fight in the invasion of Ukraine. In these perplexing encounters what is the scope and the limits of ‘taking seriously’? Can one take over informants’ immanent critiques of bellicose ideologies while at the same time dismissing the alienness of pro-war views? The paper draws on the theories of Schmitt, Bloch and Dumont.?
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