Рецензия на две новые книги об авторитаризме в России

В Los Angeles Review of Books опубликована рецензия Кэмерон Мэнли на две книги, вышедшие в 2026 году: “The Closing of the Russian Mind: How Putin's Ideology Took the Nation Hostage” Андрея Колесникова (Polity) и “Russia's New Imperialism: Capital and Ideology” Ильи Будрайтскиса и Ильи Матвеева (Stanford University Press).

Both texts reject the commonly held misconception that the invasion of Ukraine can be explained purely by security concerns, NATO expansion, or economic interests. Instead, and as their titles suggest, the authors track the rise of an increasingly authoritarian mindset following a brief period of hopeful post-Soviet liberalism during the 1990s. In this political order, ideology has ceased to be merely a tool of the state and has become a way of perceiving reality itself. Over the last two decades, Putinism has progressively hijacked all aspects of Russian life—education, the church, the legal system, and even history. By the time the tanks crossed the Ukrainian border, this ideology was no longer simply justifying the war; it had helped make the war imaginable.

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