NEWSLINK: “The Politics of Russian Nationalism. Vladimir Putin as Centrist.” – Public Seminar/ Richard Anderson

“Vladimir Putin rules Russia because he is a centrist.  Since the Soviet dissolution in 1991, strange bedfellows in a coalition that combines communists with tsarists have urged reunification.  They are opposed by a few democrats, who urge Russians to content themselves with those 1991 boundaries. Americans certainly should understand why people anywhere feel safer in a larger state that aggressively patrols its own border. The feeling is a snare, a trap and a delusion, but plenty of people feel that way, and an American like myself who relaxes about it already inhabits a big, safe country.  Russians live with the trauma of having witnessed half the population, and a third of the territory, separate in 1991. Putin occupies the political middle by promising to stand up for Russia without reunifying. …”