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.
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