Modes of Russian Political Discourse - ARS500306E

• Title: Modes of Russian Political Discourse
• Guaranteed by: International Office (21-ZO)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2023
• Semester: winter
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 4
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Is provided by: ARS500306
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: Ivan Fomin, Ph.D.

Annotation

Last update: Bc. Markéta Karlasová (25.09.2023)

Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Do Russians really hate America and Europe? Who won the Cold War? Why is Putin so irrational? How is he still in power? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this module. Of course, one can easily just google them and get some answers. These answers can be more or less right or more or less wrong. However, understanding politics is not only about answering these kinds of questions correctly. It is also about explaining how different answers emerge and what tools are used to validate them. Furthermore, it is about how those answers define the people who give them and construct the world in which they live. In other words, it is about political discourse.

In this module, the students will study the discourse of Russian politics and explore how the Russian people and the Russian political elite make sense of political reality. The main objective of the course is to provide an advanced overview of the discursive strategies, linguistic tools, and symbolic repertoires that are used in Russian politics to construct identities, legitimize and de- legitimize policies, justify and contest political decisions.

The thematic outline of the course covers a wide range of fields of political action and forms of political communication. The ambition of the course is to provide a multimodal perspective of the Russian political discourse, so it is not focused exclusively on verbal texts, but also non-verbal modes of discourse (pictures, photos, videos, performances, internet memes, etc.).

The course is mostly based on the analysis and interpretation of the texts that informed Russian politics from 1999 till the present.

After completing the course, the students
- will be familiar with the most important elements of social cognition that inform Russian politics,
- will be able to trace them in verbal and non-verbal texts from the Russian public discourse,
- will be able to make sense of those texts by relating them to relevant economic, social, and political contexts.

Course completion requirements

Last update: Ivan Fomin, Ph.D. (11.12.2023)

To complete the course, the students are required to present an analytical essay on a topic of their choice in one of the final seminars. 

The essay will focus on a research question pertaining to Russian political discourse. It will analyze one or several texts (verbal or multimodal), exploring what pieces of context are relevant for understanding those texts, what social meanings appear in them, and how those meanings are conveyed.  

Length: 2000-2500 words (excluding references) 

A 1-2 paragraph topic selection memo is due by 23 November. (Please use this form to submit the memo.)  

Essays are due by 20 December.

After the seminar presentation, but no later than 18 January, the essay can optionally be revised and submitted for re-evaluation. 
Essays submitted after the initial due date of December 20 or not presented for a seminar discussion are not eligible for revision and re-evaluation. 

Literature

Last update: Bc. Markéta Karlasová (25.09.2023)

See readings in the syllabus.

Syllabus

Last update: Ivan Fomin, Ph.D. (12.12.2023)

1. Introduction to Discourse Analysis (lecture)

Required reading

Reisigl, M. (2017). The Discourse-Historical Approach. In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies. Taylor & Francis Group.

Supplementary reading

Dijk, TA van. (2014). Discourse, cognition, society. Discourse studies reader: Main currents in theory and analysis. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Wodak, R., & Forchtner, B. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge handbook of language and politics. Taylor & Francis Group. 

Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1988). Appendix: Key Concepts in a Theory of Social Semiotics. In Social Semiotics (pp. 261–272). Cornell University Press.

Slides: PDF

 

2. Political discourse and the dynamics of sociocultural practices in contemporary Russia (lecture)

Supplementary reading

Sharafutdinova, G. (2021). MMM for VVP: Building the Modern Media Machine. In G. Sharafutdinova, The Red Mirror (pp. 133–149). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197502938.003.0006

Slides:  PDF

 

3, 4. Ideological Elements of Putinist Discourse (lecture, seminar)

Required reading

Snegovaya, M., Kimmage, M., & McGlynn, J. (2023). The Ideology of Putinism: Is It Sustainable? https://www.csis.org/analysis/ideology-putinism-it-sustainable

Supplementary reading

Applebaum, A. (2013). Putinism: The ideology. Strategic Update, 13 (2). https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/Assets/Documents/updates/LSE-IDEAS-Putinism-The-Ideology.pdf

Колесников, А. (2022). Научный путинизм. Как в России оформляется официальная идеология. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88295

Pomeranz, W. E. (2023). The Russian Idea Revisited. Wilson Center. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russian-idea-revisited

Савин, Н. (2023). Почему путинизм (еще) не является идеологией. https://re-russia.net/discussion/0102/

Unity Day Video. Parts 2 and 3.  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cbm3jkvjbcm73ztvmcit1/h?rlkey=7ghlo3kxp54zwimr6od2a1bs1&dl=0

Texts to be analyzed

Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 809 of 09.11.2022. (2022). Главы I-II [Chapters I-II]. http://kremlin.ru/acts/bank/48502

Putin's speech at Valdai International Discussion Club meeting. (2022). http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69695  [English: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69695]

Unity Day Video. Part 1 (with English Subtitles). https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/aqhg5vwbqnfqqzfsroqa4/h?rlkey=j8q8pe7i031i0x6ikkqxl4w54&dl=0

 

5, 6. Discursive Construction of National Identities: Russianness in the Kremlin's Discourse (lecture, seminar)

Required reading

Pertsev, A. (2023). Credo of developed Putinism. How to explain the world «Osnovy rossiiskoi gosudarstvennosti». Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/90247

Malinova, O. (2019). Constructing the “Usable Past”: The Evolution of the Official Historical Narrative in Post-Soviet Russia. In N. Bernsand & B. Törnquist-Plewa (Eds.), Cultural and Political Imaginaries in Putin's Russia (Vol. 11, pp. 85–104). Brill. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbqs855.8

Ефремова, В. Н. (2014). Государственные праздники как инструменты символической политики: возможности теоретического описания. Символическая политика, (2), 66-79.

 

Supplementary reading

Laruelle, M. (2018). Russian nationalism: Imaginaries, doctrines, and political battlefields. Taylor & Francis Group.

Texts to be analyzed

Путин, В. (2012). Россия: Национальный вопрос. https://www.ng.ru/politics/2012-01-23/1_national.html

Symbols of the state authority in the Russian Federation. Presidential Library. https://www.prlib.ru/en/section/676139

 

7. Discursive Construction of National Identities: Russianness in the Discourse of the Russian Opposition (lecture, seminar)

Required reading

Laruelle, M. (2018). Nationalism as a political battlefield: in the streets, for or against the Kremlin. In Russian nationalism: Imaginaries, doctrines, and political battlefields. Taylor & Francis Group. 

Texts to be analyzed

Программа НБП (1994). https://web.archive.org/web/20090307020935/http://nbp-info.com/cat106/index.html

Манифест Национального русского освободительного движения "НАРОД". https://www.apn.ru/index.php?newsid=17321

Манифест клуба рассерженных патриотов. https://web.archive.org/web/20231205204407/https://angrypatriots.ru/ 

Weiss, P. (2023). Нет русских кроме русских. РДК. https://telegra.ph/Net-russkih-krome-russkih-01-15

  

8. Justifications for the Use of Force in Russian Political Discourse  (lecture, seminar)

Supplementary reading

McFaul, M. (2020). Putin, Putinism, and the Domestic Determinants of Russian Foreign Policy. International Security, 45 (2), 95–139. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00390

Texts to be analyzed

Address of the President of the Russian Federation. (24 Feb 2022). http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843

Время покажет. Часть 1. Специальный выпуск от 24.02.2022. (2022). https://rutube.ru/video/b8a18286232a6888dbd13ba9d42b77bb/?r=wd

RT News - February 24 2022 (13:00 MSK). [Archived at https://www.dropbox.com/s/je30tmxezjrkwm5/62176c3d85f540457e3c51dc.mp4?dl=1]

 

9. Discursive Construction of National Identities for Russia's Ethnic Minorities (lecture, seminar)

Required reading

Yusupova, G., & Ozerova, K. (2021). Cultural Ethnic Initiatives and the (De)Politicization of Ethnicity in Russia. Sociology of Power, 33(2), 147–167. https://doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2021-2-147-167

  

10, 11. Presentations of essays (seminar)

Entry requirements

Last update: Bc. Markéta Karlasová (25.09.2023)

To fully benefit from the course, the students will need at least basic Russian language skills to be able to read the course materials. 
Highly motivated students with no command of Russian can still take part in the module. They will be provided with alternative assignments and materials.