Russia in Global Affairs

We have existed for 2000 years. We have survived, sometimes in small numbers and sometimes in great numbers, every kind of political totalitarianism that the world could throw at us: from Roman emperors to invading Huns, and, in later centuries, totalitarianism of the far right and the far left. And we Orthodox believers didn’t really change anything.

What were relations like inside Ukraine’s Orthodox community before the moment when the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople supported the idea of a national Church? Russia in Global Affairs put this and other questions to Vladislav Petrushko, Doctor of Ecclesiastical History, and Professor at St. Tikhon Orthodox University.

We have no rosy expectations that any outcome could change the relationship for the better. Nor do we have very negative expectations, because it's really quite difficult to imagine something worse than what we have now. The international environment is very important for Russia, the impact that US policy will have on the general atmosphere in the world.

“The UN should play a decisive role, as before, in preventing great powers from going to war against one another. There is a risk that the severe economic crisis that is manifesting will lead to social decline so the UN’s capacity to maintain peace should be strengthened. ”

Is the topic of populism relevant to modern Russia? Can our conditions produce the phenomenon that is currently observed in Europe and the United States, and is generally spreading around the world? And is it not time to abandon the model based on political parties? These issues were dis-cussed at a roundtable held in the office of the Russia in Global Affairs journal and attended by Yuri Vasilyev, Gleb Kuznetsov, Vitaly Leibin and Oleg Kharkhordin. Fyodor Lukyanov, Rus-sia in Global Affairs editor-in-chief, moderated the discussion.

Russia and the rest of the world are heading into a storm as dangerous as that of the first half of the 20th century and maybe even more so. But history—especially the history of the last three hundred years—is a very inadequate guide either to the challenges Russia faces or how to meet them. Sur-vival seems likely to be the key issue. By Dominic Lieven

We should gradually free foreign policy of rigid subordination to geopolitics and related super-involvement. Geopolitics won’t disappear, but becoming less engulfed in it is an important task for Russia to tackle.

People used to have the right to their own interpretation, but the facts were common. Now everybody has the right to his own facts. Ours is a life in a room with walls of mirrors. It’s no wonder that we are scared of each other.

An attempt at decommunization in Russia has brought about the failure of de-Stalinization. As the Yeltsin regime positioned itself as an opponent of all Soviet history, many Russians were reluctant to see a larger part of their lives thrown into the dustbin.