Maria Engström, professor of Russian at Uppsala University

One of the past year’s most excruciating actions was initiated by the Russian regime. The war in Ukraine is the tipping point of the past decade’s development in Russia where there has been a conservative ideological turn which we will try to capture in this festival by turning to a Russian writer and a Swedish poet.

But first we will hear some background from Maria Engström, professor of Russian at Uppsala University, who has been researching Russian culture and ideas for many years. She will speak about a new wave of historical revisionism and a revival of Soviet mechanisms and structures in Russia.

At different levels of Russian culture and politics new narratives have occurred that reinterpret the Soviet modernization project and reuse its rhetoric to construct an image of progress and belief in the future. These processes are based on a complex set of ideas, discourses and practices which together are called “the neo-Soviet myth.” The lecture will address the construction of a new Russian identity and Russian national “rebranding.”

Language: English
Friday 24 march 18.30
Uppsala Stadsteater