RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Febr 24: Prof. Andrea Petö

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RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series

Illiberal Turns and Gender Backlash: Rethinking Democratic Erosion

Andrea Petö, Professor at the Department of Gender Studies, Central European University, Vienna, Austria (Bio)

Tuesday 24 February, 17:30 – 19:00
Niagara, NI:B0E15, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1

The talk, based on the co-authored book Viktor Orbán’s Affairs with Women, offers a comprehensive analysis of Viktor Orbán’s illiberal policies on human and gender rights. It provides an accessible introduction to how the illiberal gender playbook impacts women, presenting how the government has co-opted and eroded national and international anti-discrimination and equality provisions, thereby creating an alternative to liberal values. Moreover, the talk analyses the reasons behind the decision of women to cast their votes in favor of an illiberal government that discriminates against and impoverishes them. As the Orbán government’s gender and “family-friendly policies” are the most successful illiberal soft-diplomacy product globally, this talk serves as a cautionary tale for those concerned about human rights worldwide. The talk also tells the story of how soft censorship works in Hungary in the case of this book.

Seminar February 3 with Irina Olimpieva, Silent Dissent: Exploring Russian Civic Activism as a Form of Opposition to the War in Ukraine

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Silent Dissent: Exploring Russian Civic Activism as a Form of Opposition to the War in Ukraine

🎤Irina Olimpieva, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Independent Social Research, Inc. (CISR USA)
📅February 3, 15.15-17.00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/eJCkhJVw

Abstract:  Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the apparent absence of mass antiwar protests inside Russia has often been interpreted as evidence of popular indifference or support for the war. Survey data seem to reinforce this conclusion, while street-level mobilization has remained limited even during moments of heightened political tension, such as the announcement of “partial” mobilization. This talk challenges such interpretations by shifting attention away from visible protest toward less conspicuous but socially meaningful forms of opposition that emerge under conditions of repression.
Drawing on a research project conducted since August 2022, I explore humanitarian volunteerism as a form of silent resistance. The analysis focuses on a case study of an informal volunteer network based in St. Petersburg that assists Ukrainian families who fled the war, found themselves on Russian territory, and are seeking asylum in Europe. Operating primarily through Telegram, volunteers meet refugees arriving in the city, arrange temporary accommodation, provide food, medicine, clothing, and financial assistance, and coordinate transportation to the border.

 

Seminar January 20 with Mane Tsaturyan: “Armenia’s Foreign Policy Options…”

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Mane Tsaturyan: “Armenia’s Foreign Policy Options Within China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A Small State Perspective” 

Place & Time

Date: 20 January, 15:15-17:00 

Place: NI:C0933 seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1

Or Online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/68831376873, Meeting ID: 688 3137 6873

Bio

Mane Tsaturyan is an International Relations specialist currently working at the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia, where she prepares briefings, assessments, and detailed political reports on developments in Armenia and the wider region. She holds a Master’s degree in European Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Europe in Natolin, where she was awarded the United Nations Award for the Best Thesis on “Europe, Multilateralism, and the UN.” She also holds a Master’s degree in World Politics from Yerevan State University, and is an alumna of the Diplomatic Academy of the MFA of Armenia. Her areas of expertise include EU foreign policy, multilateralism, the UN, the migration–foreign policy nexus, security, China, and Armenia.

Abstract

How does a small state like Armenia navigate one of the world’s largest infrastructure and economic projects, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? In this talk, I will present my research exploring Armenia’s foreign policy choices within the BRI framework, especially after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. Using small state theory, we will look at the unique challenges and opportunities Armenia faces in balancing security concerns with the desire for economic integration. I will highlight why, despite the BRI being over a decade old, Armenia remains largely outside its main corridors, and what this reveals about the delicate strategies small states use to engage with global mega-initiatives.

Welcome to RUCARR seminar 20th January!

New anthology – Languages in Conflict and War. Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Baltics

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New publication is out: “Languages in Conflict and War. Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Baltics”, available as ebook.

Welcome to the book presentation on February 17!

On February 17 at 3.30 pm CET, we will have a presentation of our book. This will be a hybrid event, so we hope as many authors as possible will be able to join us online. The event will also be open to researchers outside the department.

Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/66238418148
Meeting ID: 662 3841 8148

Publisher’s webpage: 

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-08419-4…

Book series:

Palgrave Studies of Languages at War.

Editorial team: 

Karina Vamling, Nadiya Kiss, Bo Petersson, Liudmyla Pidkuimukha.

Table of contents and contributors:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-08419-4#toc

Foreword Alex Krouglov

1     Introduction: Languages in Conflict and War. Karina Vamling, Nadiya Kiss, Bo Petersson, Liudmyla Pidkuimukha
2     Language and Identity Erasure: Russia’s Strategy in the Occupied Regions of Ukraine. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha
3     Language Shift, Displacement, and Abrogation: Narratives of the Ukrainian Writers in Times of War. Nadiya Kiss
4     Depopulation of the Hungarian National Minority in Transcarpathia as One of the Consequences of Russia’s War against Ukraine. Halyna Shumytska and Fedir Shandor
5     The Sororization Effect in Interviews with Refugees: Negotiation of Positionality, Shared Knowledge, and Emotions. Lesya Skintey and Dariia Orobchuk
6     Linguistic Sovereignty and Vernacular Biopolitics: Estonian Russophones as a Postcolonial Phenomenon. Andrey Makarychev
7     Between Hopes and Anxiety: A Critical Analysis of Discourses Surrounding Latvian Russian-Speaking Youth during the Russo-Ukrainian War. Lena Hercberga
8     Surviving Suppression: Circassian Language Preservation in Russia and the Diaspora. Lidia Zhigunova

9     “It all starts in the family”: Placing Discourses on the Role of Families in Circassian Language Preservation into a Historical-Political Context. Valeriya Minakova
10   The Future of the Indigenous Circassian Language amid Increased Russification of the Kuban Region and the Russian War in Ukraine. Lars Funch Hansen
11   Official Language Ecology in Contemporary Georgia. Mariam Manjgaladze 
12   Functions of the Russian Language in Modern Georgia. Tinatin Bolkvadze
13   The Linguistic Landscape of Georgia—Diachronic and Synchronic Approaches. Maka Tetradze 
14   Conclusions. Karina Vamling, Nadiya Kiss, Bo Petersson, Liudmyla Pidkuimukha

 

RUCARR seminar Dec 9 with Håvard Swane Bækken

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Prof. Håvard Swane Bækken: “Militarized Patriotism and Identity Policy in the Occupied Donbas”

Time: 9 December, 15:15-17:00
Place: NI:C0933 seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1

Online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/63790169816
Meeting ID: 637 9016 9816

Bio

Håvard Bækken is Professor of Russian Area Studies and has been affiliated with the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS) since 2015. As of 2025, he is also affiliated with the School of Intelligence and Language (SESK) 

Bækken’s research focus at IFS is militarism and military patriotic education in Russia and in occupied parts of Ukraine. Bækken is heading the research project Contested Ukraine: Military Patriotism, Russian Influence, and Implications for European Security, and (temporary) the Research Programme for Ukraine and Full-Spectrum Threats. 

Bækken teaches extensively and is responsible for courses on Russian politics and society as well as on Russian history and its uses. His previous research includes several publications on quasi-legal practices in Russia.

Abstract

Since the first invasion of Ukrainian territories in 2014, Russia has been using militarized patriotic education to further its strategic aims in the occupied regions. In his presentation, Håvard Bækken will introduce his research on military patriotic education in Russia, and in particular his articles on the export of militarized patriotism into occupied Ukraine. At the core of the presentation will be the policy employed in the so-called peoples republics in the Donbas before the full-scale invasion, where the changing faces of patriotic education is seen as a reflection of strategic concerns in Moscow. Since 2019, Bækken argues, the pace and direction changed, as clubs (esp. Yunarmiya) has become more directly involved in Russia’s plan of cultural assimilation of the youth. Today, Yunarmiya is actively promoting Russian nationhood in every occupied oblast of Ukraine. 

Welcome!

Seminar December 2: Disciplining Labour: Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Georgia

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RUCARR Seminar with Konstantine Eristavi, Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies at the University of Oxford

When? December 2, 15:15-17:00

Where? Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara or on Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/66397767365

Abstract:

Most accounts interpret recent developments in Georgia as “democratic backsliding” and a qualitative break from an earlier phase of democratisation. I contend instead that Georgia’s trajectory is better understood as the ongoing consolidation of an authoritarian neoliberal model. In contrast to prevailing approaches that separate the analysis of authoritarianism in former Soviet states from questions of political economy, this presentation argues that authoritarian governance in Georgia is constitutive of its development model and inseparable from strategies pursued by capitalist elites. In particular, the talk traces (dis)continuities in the configuration of state power since independence and discusses mechanisms through which successive governments have disciplined working and poor classes and depoliticised social conflict in order to entrench the neoliberal regime of capital accumulation.  

Seminar November 18: The EU-Russia Competition, Multi-Modal Contestation and Governance in a Shared Sphere of Influence

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RUCARR Seminar with Bidzina Lebanidze, PhD, Senior Analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Slavic Languages and Caucasus Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Time: November 18th, 15:15-17:00

Place: Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara, or on Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/68198560054

Abstract:

In an era of resurgent multipolar competition, a fundamental update to our understanding of the reemerging concept of Spheres of Influence (SOIs) is needed. This analysis introduces the “Multi-Modal Sphere of Influence” (MMSOI) as a new analytical framework, positing that contemporary great powers project influence not just via coercion, but through a dynamic interplay of five modalities: military, economic, institutional, normative, and digital. This framework is used to deconstruct the intractable EU-Russia conflict in their “shared neighborhood” by bridging macro-, meso-, and case-level findings. At the macro-level, the core of the conflict is defined by different modalities of competition; this is not a symmetrical power struggle, but a structural clash between incompatible toolkits: the EU’s dominant normative, institutional, and economic modalities colliding with Russia’s reliance on its coercive-military and energy-based toolkit. This overlapping, multi-modal contestation creates, at the meso-level, a paradoxical environment for “in-between” states, granting them new avenues for hedging and agency while simultaneously exposing them to acute risks of coercion and conflict. Finally, the analysis unpacks the EU’s paradoxical role as an “antithetical actor.” While normatively rejecting SOIs, the EU’s institutional and regulatory expansion functions as a powerful, sui generis SOI-building tool, making it an unintentional geopolitical player. This synthesized approach explains the EU-Russia competition not merely as a regional dispute, but as a microcosm of 21st-century multi-modal, multipolar contestation.