Search

This article analyzes Nastas'ia Fillipovna in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Idiot through the lens of sexual trauma theory. It positions Idiot as Dostoevsky’s attempt to raise sexual trauma to the level of theological crisis, confronting how victims’ failure to reclaim subjecthood or articulate trauma challenges the spiritual architecture of his salvation narratives. Drawing on Dostoevsky’s writings, contemporaneous debates on sexual violence, and modern-day trauma theory, this article posits that the Russian author’s well-documented fixation on sexual abuse (Fusso) was driven by his inability to directly address the crime’s devastating after-effects, particularly in the face of zealous state censorship. In contrast to criticism that reads Nastas'ia’s arc as one of a lost soul (Givens) who fails to forgive (Martinsen), the author asserts that Dostoevsky uses her story to grapple with a pain outside the bounds of guilt or innocence. By combining the structural elements and imperiled soul of the rebel with the thematic markers of the klikusha or sexually abused “shrieker,” Nastas'ia forces readers to reckon with earthly healing as a prerequisite to spiritual salvation. The author ultimately argues that sexual trauma was an emerging “idea-force” (Bakhtin) in Russian society, and that the novel’s “collapses of understanding” and predominance of image over speech (Caruth) aim to convey the depths of spiritual rending that can be enacted through social silencing (Forter). The end of the article suggests that Nastas'ia Filippovna is a precursor to Russian women writing on abuse today, as well as a potent counter to modern-day approaches that focus on denouncing perpetrators over hearing victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the aggressive promotion of conservative ideology in Russia has increased. People with 'nonconventional' gender identities are problematized in the state mass media and completely excluded from the public space. This pressure is an incentive for the development of educational initiatives and groups of support for the community. Empirical data were collected through 14 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ people in Saint-Petersburg. Using the "scene approach" for analysis of youth activities allow researching not only actors and practices within the scene but also space where interactions occur. The emphasis of this article is on relations within the LGBTQ scene. The key question focus is on how participants of the LGBTQ scene understand the effectiveness of their actions and how they cope with a burnout in the hostile context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nineteenth‐century Russian representations of peasants largely reflect, as Donald Fanger plainly framed it, "the changing moods and attitudes of the most influential segment of educated society," and inform us about that society, rather than peasants themselves. There were, however, both subjects of literature and writers of it who fell between the polls of peasant and elite. Fedor Reshetnikov, the orphaned son of a postman, was such a writer, and his 1868 novel concerning ex‐peasants' rural to urban migration, Where Is It Better? (Gde luchshe?) diverges from and critiques the expectations of its audience of educated readers. Populist‐leaning critics and editors, seeking literary access to the landed peasantry, hoped that Reshetnikov would be uniquely able to bridge the distance between these educated readers and the masses. While Nikolai Nekrasov's Who Lives Well in Rus'? (1866–77) incorporates memory of Reshetnikov into a composite, symbolic character who carries out this mediating role, the author himself did not provide the mediation that was expected. Where Is It Better? instead dramatizes the failure of ex‐peasant characters to integrate into urban society. Published in the midst of debates over how to prevent the formation of an urban proletariat in Russia, Where Is It Better? makes visible a contingent of the population that political and aesthetic discussions treated as something that should not be given form. In doing so, Reshetnikov does not present a viewpoint from outside of the terms described by Fanger, but rather apprehends the limitations imposed by those terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the passing of the so‐called "gay propaganda" law in 2013, queer life in Russia has been mediated primarily through narratives of violence and suffering. Yet this focus on violence, while undoubtedly important, highlights the strength of oppressive political structures and emphasizes Russian queer subjects' vulnerability and victimhood in ways that overlook strategies of queer resistance to the homophobic and heterosexist state. This article turns to contemporary Russian poetry and proposes a different framework for analyzing queer representation that draws on Judith Butler's recent theory of vulnerability as resistance and what I call queer vulnerability. Theoretically‐informed close readings of contemporary Russian poetry suggest that in the current environment of openly homophobic hostility in Russia, queer vulnerability is a discernable aesthetic sensibility that shapes poetic texts. These texts, in turn, challenge queer silencing, discursive powerlessness, and political pessimism. The study analyzes coming‐out poems, makes a case for queer civic poetry, and examines methods of constructing subjectivity in recent feminist poetry to show that the 2013 legislation prompted the development of a new sort of writing: one that embraces vulnerability in defiance of victimhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is focused on a particular set of social relations in Russia: sexuality and violence in the context of consumption of alcohol. We look at how violence erupts after revelation of queer sexuality of one of the participants of collective drinking. Discussions of homosexuality in Russia became especially heated after the adoption of the bill against the "propaganda of non‐traditional family values" in 2013. This law primarily marks information about homosexuality as inappropriate and dangerous to minors. We review court decisions on violence against gay men before and after the introduction of this law. The court cases we analyze are not cases of the "propaganda" law enforcement, but routine violent felonies. As we selected only those cases that involve alcohol consumption from a larger sample, we analyze the stories told in these court files focusing on interaction rituals during the practice of collective heavy drinking. We demonstrate how this ritual is centered around confirmation of masculinity, ceremonies of sharing, and exchange of respect. We also show that these ritualized practices are interrupted and confused by introduction of information about one of the participants' queer sexuality. This interruption evolves into violent reactions, including murder. Nevertheless, the ritual of drinking supports both a "conversation of souls" (sharing intimate secrets) and violent reactions to the information that challenges masculinity of the ritual's participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of a politicized gay community and of any real scholarly consensus about sexuality in Russia has made it possible for new "scholars" to advance theories of sexuality that are very much at odds with those that are accepted in Europe and the United States. Much mainstream Russian scholarship on queer topics from the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Sociology Faculty of Moscow State University is highly ideological and based on the universalizing concept that everyone can become lesbian or gay. This paper analyzes several articles written between 2012 and 2014 by prominent Russian sources to show how they confuse concepts basic to queer theory and gender studies (gender/sex/sexual orientation/gender identity), while repeating accounts from right‐wing conservative and anti‐LGBT activists and discredited scholars from the United States. The few Russian scholars who are integrated into international gender studies and queer scholarship tend to be marginalized, while more established senior scholars at important institutions tend to be ideological and anti‐LGBT. This situation has facilitated the adoption of anti‐LGBT laws in Russia, and some of these scholars participate in global right‐wing anti‐gender and anti‐LGBT networks like the World Congress of Families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's rights are a core part of a global consensus on human rights. However, we are currently experiencing an increasing popularity of anti-feminist and misogynist politics threatening to override feminist gains. In order to help explain this current revival and appeal, in this article I analyse how anti-feminist communities construct their collective identities at the intersection of local and global trends and affiliations. Through an in-depth analysis of representations in the collective identities of six popular online anti-feminist communities based in India, Russia and the United States, I shed light on how anti-feminists discursively construct their anti-feminist 'self' and the feminist 'other' between narratives of localized resistance to change and backlash against the results of broader societal developments associated with globalization. The results expose a complex set of global–local dynamics, which provide a nuanced understanding of the differences and commonalities of anti-feminist collective identity-building and mobilization processes across contexts. By explicitly focusing on the role of discursively produced locations for anti-feminist identity-building and providing new evidence on anti-feminist communities across three different continents, the article contributes to current discussions on transnational anti-feminist mobilizations in both social movement studies and feminist International Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian Revolution is analysed in this paper in the context of a conjuncture dominated by counterrevolution. Beginning with the repression of the 1850s, a process of permanent counterrevolution has become the over-determining trend of social-political history. The Russian Revolution was subject to several distinct aspects of this process. First was external counterrevolution, the attack on it from the outside. Whilst Anglo-America was the main bulwark organising it, the Nazi/fascist counterrevolution and invasion of the USSR was an example of counterrevolution that ran out of control and ended in a defeat in Europe that was only overcome through a long and risky Cold War. Internal counterrevolution affected the Russian Revolution as part of a longer process of adjusting socialist theory to successive defeats. In the Soviet case, Socialism in One Country was the decisive mutation in this respect and must be viewed as the decisive component of the triumph of counterrevolution. After the war, Anglo-America adjusted the counterrevolutionary strategy to surgical excisions of socialist tendencies until the USSR, isolated and ideologically exhausted, collapsed. Even so, several of its legacies continue to be relevant, notably the nationality policy and internationalism. Also, today's information revolution casts a new light on the Soviet planning experience that must be studied now that capitalism is slipping into a systemic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article links Russians' individual experiences during the late-Gorbachev and early-Yeltsin years to the beliefs those same individuals espoused in the Putin era, over a decade later. Drawing on questions, some of which are retrospective, from the first wave of the Life in Transition Survey, I show that a range of attitudes - including diminished support for markets and democracy and stronger support for reducing inequality - can be explained by whether an individual suffered labor market hardships (wage cuts, arrears, and/or unemployment) in the half decade from 1989 to 1994. More recent labor market disruptions, surprisingly, bear no such relationship to beliefs in 2006. Relative to the rest of the former Soviet Union, this pattern is unique. Though an explanation is difficult to pin down, one speculative hypothesis is that Russians were uniquely impressionable during this exit-from-communism period. Individual economic hardship, in conjunction with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, may have been particularly disorienting for those living in the country in which communism first took root. Life experiences during these years of instability, uncertainty, and diminished status may have left a uniquely deep and enduring impression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Did the socialist experiment disrupt continuity in Russian urban housing? Based on a unique collection of urban data covering several hundred Russian cities and spanning three regimes across more than a century, this paper gives a nuanced account of continuities and discontinuities of housing in post-Soviet cities. Three main housing characteristics are analysed: urban density (persons per building and living space per capita), ownership structure and the modernisation of stock (building material and provision with amenities). Although all Russian cities underwent a number of major shocks and regime changes during the course of the 20th century, their rankings with regard to these three key housing characteristics are still significantly correlated over time, whereas living space per capita is largely uncorrelated over time. This holds true despite significant convergence processes in almost all dimensions and also when including contemporary control variables. We hypothesise that local or regional building traditions, regional differentiation in Soviet urban planning as well as Soviet land use specificities could explain differential growth across cities. Going beyond existing late-Soviet-legacy timeframes, the long-term perspective reveals that even major regime shocks did not completely erase regionally shaped patterns in housing conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital media is now the dominant influence of peoples' everyday lives and social behavior in the global culture of twenty-first century society. Contemporary media usage is associated with the need for affection and involvement in social and cultural communities and approval and integration into the emerging digital culture. Thus, it is possible to observe signs of such important processes as socialization and self-actualization in media practices of the youth audience in digital media culture. These needs are strongly related to cultural and social processes and have been normally achieved in an individual's cultural and social environments. This becomes crucial for the understanding of new digital media culture (DMC). The paper provides a theoretical discussion of this emerging DMC in Russia, conceptualizes Generation Z's needs and motives and everyday media practices. In order to do this, the study conducted interviews with Russians aged 10–19 years old from Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don. The authors use mathematical methods to construct a model of Generation Z's media consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws linkages between ethnic diversity of the eight federal districts of Russia and their technological development (access and use of ICTs, digital literacy, etc.). We show that although there is no universal correlation between ethnic composition of the regions and the level of their technological advancement, regions where Russians constitute the majority (i.e. Central and Northwestern) more often tend to be the country's leaders in terms of technological development. Following up on this, we use purposive sample of 398 Internet users based in Russia, showing how the level of digital capital of users varies depending on their ethnicity (here we will distinguish between two large groups – Russians and non-Russians, based on self-identification of survey participants) and their place of living. Results of the digital capital study, despite being indicative, show that those belonging to the ethnic majority (in our case Russians) and those living in big cities tend to have a higher level of digital capital. We argue that although ethnicity solely does not define the level of users' digital capital, it is still an important and understudied issue. This is particularly true for big multiethnic societies, such as the Russian society, where digital divide across various groups and regions remains a serious problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: This article develops an empirical model that tests whether in post‐communist Russia prior membership in a civil society organization (CSO) motivates civic activism. Revisiting Tocquevillian notions of a nurturing effect by formal civil society organizations of civic activism, we aim to help explain recent research findings showing that civic activism is sustainable and vital in Russia. Methods: To test the main hypothesis of the study, we use the cross‐sectional survey of Russians aged 18 and older in the fall of 2014 (N = 1,500) representing 43 regions conducted by the Russian Civil Society Monitoring Survey of the Higher School of Economics' Centre for Studies of Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector (2006–). We use the propensity score matching (PSM) technique to estimate the main effects. We also show that the effect of unobserved factors on our PSM estimates is limited using Rosenbaum bounds analysis. Results: The PSM analysis suggests that for all four indicators of civic activism, that is, willingness to integrate with other members of society, participation in tenant meetings, engagement in charity activities, and engagement in home improvement, CSO participation positively impacts civic activism. The impact varies from a 7.2 to 15.8 percent higher propensity of civic activism for CSO participants. Conclusion: We conclude that prior participation in a CSO can have a motivating influence on civic activism such as charity work, residential home improvement, willingness to integrate with other members of the society, and participation in tenant meetings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that the post-Soviet youth construct their migratory projects as an effort towards social distinction vis-a-vis post-socialist imaginary. We argue that their migration can be understood as a search for distinctiveness and for what is perceived as a 'better', that is, more western, lifestyle. Analysing their narratives through the prism of imagination, we demonstrate how young Russian-speakers vision the position of the post-socialist condition within the global coloniality of power and claim their belonging to the western project as educated young people with global cultural capitals. The article brings the case of Russian-speakers' migration within debates on global coloniality and offers a contribution to the theorising of post-socialist imaginaries in the context of global coloniality and sociological imagination. The analysis is based on a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2016 in Helsinki, Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the social, economic, and political factors that contribute to the ongoing urbanization of the Nenets indigenous communities ("communities-in-transition") in the Nenets Autonomous Region. Focusing on the preconditions for "indigenous flight" from traditional rural settlements to urban areas, the article analyzes key indicators--demographics, language proficiency, education level, and occupational sector, as well as social cohesion, interethnic relations, and political inclusion in the larger urban context--to describe the adaptation and integration processes of these new city dwellers. Based on the fieldwork in the region, the article also presents individual life strategies and career choices of indigenous youth and describes the role of gender in indigenous urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To mark the hundredth anniversary of the often misunderstood Allied intervention in Russia's Civil War, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies has dedicated a section of this volume to assessing the impact of that convoluted operation. Lincoln Flake, a book review editor for the journal, introduces the topic. He is followed by contributions from five leading scholars from combatant nations. They provide unique insights into the desperate operations that occurred across Russia a century ago and the political and social consequences that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author asserts that the Russian state is incoherent and that the increasing authoritarian government should not repeat the mistakes of the old Soviet Union. Topics discussed include the rise of bureaucracy in the elite class, forms of resistance from Russians although they do not actively protest, and parallel processes that make an incoherent Russian state including the government's withdrawal from its social protector role, state paternalism and the exploitation of ordinary people.

This article assesses the potential for further developing targeted social assistance programs in Russia on the basis of need assessment. These programs are considered within the system of social assistance at the federal and regional level in terms of funding and coverage of the population. It is shown that at most a quarter of regional budget expenditures in this area could be refocused toward need assessment–based programs. The impediments to targeted social assistance programs in Russia are analyzed, and three changes that are necessary for their further development are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the social stratification of post-Soviet Russia in Russian sociology. Topics discussed include determining the parameters of the poverty of the population, the prospects for the formation and development of a middle class, and social composition of the population is evidence of the lack of development or depression of the opportunities for articulating group interest.

The article offers a number of measures for reducing the excessive stratification of the Russian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the power of social media in defining and policing sexual identities and bodily expressions, and what are their connections to understanding nation, power and self in authoritarian contexts? Through the study of popular Instagram accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia, I argue that these sites serve as spaces of visualization and re-creation of new forms of 'acceptable' behaviour and lifestyles, that on the one hand may lead to new globalized visions of sexual identity and the body while on the other promoting localized conflict and resentment online, triggered by online users' fear of losing their 'national culture' in these global trends. While many resort to policing gender norms and heteronormative body images online, influencers and Instagrammers from Russia and Kazakhstan take an active part in resisting these frameworks and categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia eagerly ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1998. Twenty years later, the chair of its Constitutional Court now expresses resentment at the subordination of Russian sovereignty. A new law expands his Court's jurisdiction to deny effect to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, an unprecedented power that has already been used twice. This article analyses this law and its application in its first two years. Both the claim of 'subordination' and the Russian response to it, in law and practice, rest on weak legal ground. But Russia's action also raises deeper theoretical and practical questions for the ECHR as a 'living instrument' subject to the 'evolutive' interpretations of the Strasbourg Court. If other member states mimic Russia's response to these issues, a European human rights system premised on the final interpretive authority of an international court could come to its end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article attempts to assess current national and regional reserves for reducing the mortality rate in Russia. It explores the potential to reduce the mortality rate in comparison to comparable international benchmarks in rates of growth and gains in life expectancy at birth, identifies a range of circumstances that have an adverse impact on the population's health in post-Soviet Russia, and shows that the main reserve for reducing mortality remains the "lost health capital" that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union and continued in the 1990s. Finally, it assesses the current regional potential for lowering the mortality rate, which is "hidden" in differences between regions leading in life expectancy (with the exception of extremes) and the country's remaining territories. The conclusion presents data revealing the life expectancy of men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the analysis of social problems caused by the processes of archaization of contemporary Russian society. The relevance of the introduction of the concept of archaization into academic circulation as the socio-philosophical concept is that its terminological usage in the topical area of social philosophy may bring about solving a number of conceptual problems. Archaization is regarded in a space of sociocultural transformation which has been actively developing in Russian society in recent years. The authors suggest using a methodological construct for the assessment of the concept of archaization in the semantic center of which the process of the sociocultural interaction of Russian social actors is analyzed. Methodological construct is a tool of socio-philosophical analysis. Its purpose consists in identifying the essence, levels, and modes of manifestation and development of archaization in contemporary Russian society. The authors substantiate that archaization acts as a process of the sociocultural interaction the authors' methodological construct makes it possible to identify the levels of production (representation) of archaization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience as a British immigrant and a language specialist in Russia.

Using the case study of new Canadians who support the annexation of Crimea by Russia, this paper shows how political convictions sometimes follow formation trajectories that are similar to those of experience-based spiritual beliefs. The paper contextualizes personal narratives of some Russians who once resided in republics of the former Soviet Union outside of Russia and who experienced social turmoil associated with the collapse of the Communist regime. It further provides comparative references to immigrants from the former Yugoslavia. KEYWORDS: Belief, Personal Narrative, Folklore and Politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dilemas Contemporáneos: Educación, Política y Valores is the property of Dilemas Contemporaneos: Educacion, Politica y Valores and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper investigates the implementation of two new norms in post-Soviet labor law: the right to strike and the prohibition of discrimination. The paper consists of three parts: the first presents general reflections about Russian legal culture as it is the key to understanding the background of labor law developments; the second is dedicated to an analysis of the right to strike in Russia as a prerequisite of the right to collective bargaining and as an indicator of the efficiency of the social dialogue system; and the final section explores the implementation of the prohibition of discrimination in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conservative shift taken by Russian authorities forced members of the Russian extreme right to seek shelter online. Nevertheless, they fell under censorship restrictions. The objective of this study is to reveal the distinguishing features of extreme right online groups and their participants' activity under conditions of censorship. The groups studied were identified by means of linguistic markers of extreme right sentiments and attitudes. The metrics of social network analysis were used to analyze interconnections between the groups and the internal migrations of closed communities. The study revealed that (1) extreme right online communities use the tactic of creating mirror Internet sites in case the main group is blocked; (2) blocking of the most extreme oppositional extreme right online groups induces the remaining ones to imitate obedience to law, using "softer forms" of extremist rhetoric; (3) the audience of the blocked groups continues spreading extremist ideas through channels related to other subjects. The study's authors conclude that prohibiting extreme right discourse promotes the proliferation of extreme right ideas and sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies contemporary Russian liberal establishment from the point of view of the main actors' propensity to consolidate. The authors identify distinguishing features of liberalism in Russia that determine the possible trends of cohesive interactions between the key actors and conclude that the main driver of consolidation is the protest and opposition to the current regime which is supported by the majority of population who tend to stigmatize the liberal activists due to that reason. The evidence of relatedness fluctuation is derived using the linkage index, introduced by the authors. The index is calculated using the results of actors' discourse analysis based on social networks data (Twitter): mutual mentions and their contextual sentiments are taken to weigh pairs of actors regarding their unanimity or contradiction. Dynamic interpretation of calculated indexes of consolidation in the two broad periods, different in levels of information pressure from the mainstream media, provides evidence of consolidation change, and allows to identify key drivers of cohesion and attributable followers. The authors apply social network analysis techniques to verify the findings and to determine tiers of key liberal actors and their clusters. Concluding remarks provide interpretation of empiric study results and links to further development of consolidation research methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the contemporary state of philanthropic foundations in Russia. It traces the evolution of Russian philanthropy from the Imperial period through the Soviet times and the upheavals of the 1990s to today. Historically, foundations lacked a legal footing, not only under socialism but also during the Tsarist Empire, and while a new legal framework was introduced in the 1990s, the political and economic turmoil of the decade prevented the emergence of notable foundations until the turn of the millennium. Since then, the Russian foundation sector has steadily been growing, featuring foundations related to large business fortunes and corporations as well as successful fundraising and local community foundations. Particularly, foundations tied to business interests and corporations still face expectations to contribute to social and other public services in the tradition of Soviet-era state enterprises. An important difference between Russian and American and other Western foundations is that Russian foundations typically do not have endowments, but operate on ongoing pass-through funds by the founder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including different ways Russian Television influences different groups; study of public opinion through face-to-face social survey research; and research of geopolitics.