Articles

Over the past few years, a fairly large number of authors have appeared (I.S. Tehlikidi, E.N. Verkin, V.O. Bogdanova, D.S. Zakharov, D.A. Danilov, Ya.M. Wagner) who use the dystopian genre for the socio-political construction of the future, and also use the methods of dystopia and heterotopia to represent modernity or certain aspects of the historical past. The article examines the evolution of the dystopian genre and the current state of this direction, the basis of which is not individual signs and distinctive features, but the concept of ‘dystopian narratives’. In the dystopias of the second decade of the 21st century, three key narratives can be distinguished: 1) adaptation of humanity to the world after a nuclear disaster, 2) digitalization of society and technologization of individual physiology; 2) the strengthening of non-Western political regimes and the collapse of the unipolar world. Thanks to the convergence of contemporary works of art, as well as the active interest of Russian publishing houses, through promotion through traditional media and digital platforms, authors have the opportunity to shape the cultural identity of their readers, as well as influence the perception of modernity. In this model, the reader, thanks to decoding the sign systems of a work of art, creates his own “average version”, which can claim to be both an individual and mass political ideology.

S. Huntington’s article on the clash of civilizations, published a little over 30 years ago, and the book that followed it, partly seemed prophetic — in any case, the main conflicts in Europe unfolded just along the line of civilizational faults outlined by the author; the ideas outlined are still in the focus of attention of political scientists. The article attempts not only to systematize the critical arguments against this concept, but also hermeneutically, based on the text of the article, to consider the question of understanding civilizations and substantiating the idea of their inevitable conflict, and systematically present errors in reasoning. Textual analysis shows that identification, which is considered by Huntington to be actually the key criterion of civilization, is first unreasonably reduced to fundamentalist religious, and then this information is supported by ad hoc assumptions. In addition, a number of logical errors in reasoning are revealed. Based on the results obtained, the heuristic potential of this concept is questioned; the conclusion about the fault line in Europe in this regard is not scientific, but “projective-ideological”.

The article is devoted to the role of Russian museums in constructing collective memory of the Special Military Operation (SMO) events and the main aspects of this process. The research is based on publicly available materials on museum and exhibition projects dedicated to the SMO, as well as the results of an expert survey (n = 5) of representatives of federal museums and non-profit organizations who participated in collecting artifacts at the frontline zone as part of the work of the intermuseum group of the Ministry of Culture of Russia. During the study it was explained why museum workers were involved in creating exhibitions dedicated to the SMO, and main approaches to making exhibitions in departmental, federal and regional museums were revealed. Today’s most problematic issue is that military departmental museums posess priority access to collecting artifacts in the area of SMO. At the same time civil museums, that have more visitors and widest public, get the access on a residual basis. The difficulty also lies in the fact that small regional museums are often unable to place exhibits from SMO area in a broad historical context, as required by the guidelines developed at the federal level.

The article examines certain aspects of the transformation of attitudes toward censorship in the USA during their emergence and creation. The emergence of new types and forms of censorship is traced after the adoption of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibited the US Congress from introducing legislative censorship. Censorship of the ‘mob’, party affiliation of newspapers, and the Sedition Act are considered as new forms of censorship that arose in the fight against colonial forms of suppression of freedom of speech and the press by representatives of the royal power, as well as in the context of the abolition of censorship enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

The presented research based on a comparison of the content of video games and school history textbooks is devoted to the study of the semantic content of images of the Early Cold War in the current policy of memory in the United States. The empirical basis of the study is the Call of Duty game series and US history textbooks from three American publishers leading in the educational literature segment. These textbooks were used in high and middle grades in American schools throughout the 2000s–20s. The keys methods are discourse analysis and case studies. As the result of the research, the US memory policy allows for the existence within the memorial narrative of school textbooks of three variants of the early Cold War, created within the framework of the traditionalist, revisionist and post-revisionist approaches. Most often, these are presented simultaneously in textbooks. But traditionalist and post-revisionist approaches prevail in the narrative due to their complementarity for the US and relevance to the task of forming memorial conformity in order to ensure the sustainability of national-state identity and legitimize existing models of socio-economic and political structure. Within the Call of Duty game series, developers used almost exclusively traditionalist approach. Among a formal variety of positioning models the revisionist concept is largely marginalized, as well as the post-revisionist concept (that also assumes the moral superiority of the US in the confrontation with the USSR), that probably contributes to choose the traditionalist approach. Also, the choice of the traditionalist approach involves forming memorial conformism on a complementary basis.

The work is devoted to understanding the ecological and climatic component of modern Ukrainian politics. The analysis focuses on the national model of the country’s climate management. The main task is to understand the nature of its connection with the new international environmental and climate policies of Europe and the world. The focus of the work is on considering the case of Ukraine’s adaptation to the new international climate regime of the EU. Structural-functional, ecological-political, globalist, and other methodological approaches have been applied. Ukraine is considered as a post-socialist transition country going through climate transit. What are the reasons for the failure of Ukraine’s transition to a sustainable development model, and how does this affect the prospects for its energy transit? How do the country’s climate ambitions correlate with the carbon intensity of its development, with the desire to achieve sovereignty in the energy sector? How is Ukraine going to ensure the conditions for joining the EU, with its environmental situation and ecological and climatic situation?
We will answer these and other questions in our work, touching, along the way, on the well-known case of the development of shale gas deposits in the country. In connection with the understanding of the problems of eco- and climate policy, the issue of the state of Ukrainian statehood will also be touched upon. At the end of the work, a forecast is given for the further implementation of the policy of the Ukrainian authorities in the area of interest to us. In summing up, we will find out what lessons should be learned from the Ukrainian situation in order to achieve progress in climate policy, as well as optimize the strategy of environmentally safe, sustainable development of Russia.

The article is devoted to the process of transformation of energy markets that took place in the period from 2022 to 2023. The author analyzes the relationship between the sanctions imposed against Russia at that time and the direction of changes in energy markets. The article examines the result of US and European Union sanctions against the Russian oil and gas sector for both the domestic economy and the Western countries themselves. The author concludes that in the oil sector, Russia has adapted to the restrictions by changing sales markets and providing itself with a fleet of tankers. In the gas sector, it was not possible to make a full-fledged reorientation due to technological limitations.

The possibility of a new global socio-cultural integration in a situation of dominance of deglobalization processes is substantiated. Deglobalization is considered as a natural consequence of Western globalism based on the technogenic-consumer civilizational model of development. The features of deglobalization in the economic, political, social and cultural spheres are fixed. The idea of the need to search for new forms of uniting the world community on other ideological grounds and principles is defended. Such foundations and principles are found in the basic categories of Russian culture: peace, sobornost, brotherhood, non-possessiveness. Using the example of Siberia, the historical practice of cooperation between peoples is analyzed, where the indicated principles have already been partially implemented. The authors summarize the experience of regional cross–border cooperation within the framework of the activities of the International Coordinating Council “Our Common Home - Altai”, which unites state and public structures of the border regions of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China. This experience is considered as a possible guideline for the future of a new unification of mankind.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the latest trends in the indirect political influence of external actors — China, Turkey, UK, the USA and the European Union — in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member-states through humanitarian and economic projects. The special features of the approaches of the leading actors are brought to light, including emphasis on military-ideological expansion (Western countries), trade and economic advancement (China) and cultural-ideological penetration (Turkey). It is concluded that there was no fundamental revision of indirect influence strategies after the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation, but significant adjustments in methods took place. Non-Western countries are still trying to work in the region mainly in the framework of globalization, i.e. multivector relatively peaceful coexistence and competition.

The article attempts to improve the theoretical basis of the concept of the ‘Greater Eurasian Partnership’ (GEP) — a flagship continental-scale integration initiative. An analysis of the GEP through the lens of current theories of international political and economic relations shows, among other things, that this project is a key element in the process of forming a balanced and more just (for non-Western states) multi-polar globalization, limiting the dominance of any civilization, group of countries, or political culture. To describe modern integration processes in Greaterer Eurasia, the concept of ‘new transregionalism’ is proposed. It can be seen as a phenomenon driven by the rapid geopolitical and economic restructuring of the world, and simultaneously as a theoretical concept optimal for building and successfully developing the GEP. Such an approach reveals both traditional and completely new aspects of the interdependence of segments of the modern world in the face of unprecedented transformation of the world order. Concrete cooperation projects in specific areas (NTI, climate, eco-economics) are briefly considered, the algorithm and integration matrix of which can be scaled to other promising areas of cooperation. At the same time, the chances of effective integration of Greater Eurasia can be increased by implementing a convergent socio-economic model, which implies an optimal combination of market and state-regulated elements. The work contributes to the process of more in-depth elaboration of geopolitical and project scenarios of integration, including the construction of a unique transregional regime for the GEP.