Month: November 2014

Source: DANYLIW RESEARCH SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

How significant was the participation of the far right in Maidan? Unfortunately, this question quickly falls  victim to extreme politicization due to two phenomena: first, active propaganda aimed at discrediting Maidan by its opponents, including the Russian media, and second, by whitewashing attempts by Maidan’s (left-)liberal or moderate nationalist supporters. Despite the hot polemics there are very few attempts to systematically assess the participation of the far right in Maidan.

written by Oleg Zhuravlev, Natalya Savelyeva, Maxim Alyukov (Laboratory of Public Sociology)

The Bolotnaya Square protest, which divided Russian society in 2011, is now barely discussed in any public forum.  How can it be that the first real large-scale protest since 1993 has been forgotten so quickly, and although it did prompt repression by the government, did not succeed in becoming a long-term social movement with the ability to radically change society?  Many commentators attempted to answer this question with a discussion of the weakness of the political opposition and institutions of civil society in Russia, or of the protest leaders’ inability to work out a political program or single list of demands.