Books about Russia – What makes Putin tick? – Politics

What drives Vladimir Putin? How has the President in the Kremlin changed Russia since 2000? What else does he have in mind for this vast empire? Many people have wanted an answer to these and many other questions since February 24 at the latest, when the war of aggression against Ukraine began. Long before the war, which no one could or wanted to imagine, scientists, historians and journalists were dealing with Moscow’s politics and writing intelligent analyzes about it (of course, some perhaps not so intelligent analyzes were also included – there were so-called Putin understanders not only among politicians quite a lot, also publicists were among them).

On the page “The Political Book” of Süddeutsche Zeitung many of these books have been reviewed in the past five years, at this point we would like to present the five most recommendable again. You won’t find any concrete answers here either, but many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle from which you can put a picture together – to at least get an idea of ​​what’s going on in the Kremlin.

Joshua Yaffa, The Survivors (Econ, 2021)

The US journalist Joshua Yaffa has not written an analytical explanatory book on Russia, but seven books in a very large one. The reporter has profiled seven personalities – “immensely proud, brilliant men and women who believed that acquiescence with the state was the best or only way to realize their visions”. It’s about people who have no illusions about the true nature of the state, prefer to swim with the current rather than against it, look for freedom and loopholes, who know how to use the rules and circumvent them at the same time. In short: Many are balancing between their own goals and the requirements of a repressive state, and an uprising against the system is not to be expected.

One Large-scale reportage about landpolitics and people and told in a colorful and gripping way.

Angela Stent, Putin’s Russia (Rowohlt, 2019)

Angela Stent, American political scientist and former adviser to the US government, has presented a classic analysis of Russia’s foreign policy since the end of the Soviet Union. A broad overview of Russia’s relations with Europe, NATO, Ukraine, China, Japan, the Middle East and finally the United States of America is presented. Stent also explains how the construction of an external enemy – be it the US, NATO or Ukraine – has always served to consolidate Putin’s rule at home. In addition, Stent attests Russia an ever virulent “urge” to expand and claims that Russia has never “accepted territorial losses” in history.

A good start from a US perspective, with a strong focus on the Kremlin’s foreign policy. Country and people hardly appear.

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Masha Gessen, The future is history (Suhrkamp, ​​2018)

Russian-American publicist Masha Gessen tries to tie two strands of the story together. Her book primarily follows the life stories of four young Russians who were born when a democratic upswing was prophesied for the country and whose hopes were later dashed. The story is based on the theory that Putin had long since established a regime in Russia that is classified here as totalitarianism. In the English original, the title is therefore: “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia”. Although this model ultimately remains vague, a discussion of central social science and humanities explanatory models for the development of Russia over the past decades is provided here almost in passing. Gessen received the 2019 Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding for the book.

Strength Analysis of a real Putin understander – and brilliantly told.

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Manfred Quiring, Putin’s Russian World (Ch. Links, 2017)

Manfred Quiring, Moscow correspondent for many years world and excellent knowledge of Russia, painted a very ugly picture of Putin’s world five years ago. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, he described the president as the ruler of a secret service state in which power and mafia are inextricably entangled, as a single-minded destroyer of democracy at home, who uses fear and violence internally and externally to pursue the plan of Russia restore imperial power. The eastward expansion of NATO also plays a central role in Quiring – here it becomes particularly clear how wrong Putin is with his claims.

One precise analysis with a clear attitude.

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Reinhard Krumm, Russia’s Dream (JHW Dietz Nf. 2020)

In his essay, Reinhard Krumm, historian of Eastern Europe and former Russia correspondent, attempts to focus on Russian society since the tsarist empire. Arguing convincingly against the cliché of an always passive Russian society, Krumm shows how this society repeatedly fought for freedom at different times – for example towards the end of the 19th century in the Tsarist Empire or during the “thaw” period under Khrushchev.

A fine little bookwhich does not reduce Russia’s citizens to the high approval ratings for Putin.

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