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L’outillage mental du poutinisme: Prolegomena to a research project
ORCID: Alexey Vasilyev: 0000-0003-1199-9107
Afiliacja: Uniwersytet Warszawski
Pages: 105-129
Edition: Lublin 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.1.5
Citation method: A. Vasilyev, L’outillage mental du poutinisme: prolegomena do projektu badawczego, „Rocznik Instytutu Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej” 23 (2025), z. 1, s. 105–129, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.1.5
Keywords: “archaeology of knowledge”, “the code of Putinism”, Brian Taylor, cultural hegemony, cultural memory, essentialism, genealogy, ideology, Juan Linz, l’outillage mental, la mentalité, Lucien Febvre, primordialism, Putinism
Abstract: The article is motivated by an analysis of the Dictionary of Putinism, published in Paris in 2025 by the French scholar of Russian culture, Michel Niqueux. The author proposes to interpret this book as an initial attempt to reconstruct the mental tools (“l’outillage mental”) of Putinism, understood in the sense articulated by Lucien Febvre, one of the founders of the French “Annales” School. In this perspective, Putinism is considered as the mentality of the ruling elite that has succeeded in transmitting its worldview to the majority of the Russian population. The trauma of the Soviet Union’s dissolution and the subsequent post-Soviet ressentiment created a predisposition for the reception of this worldview. On this basis, the question arises concerning the necessity of studying the “l’outillage mental” employed and manipulated by the bearers of this mentality. The article outlines key research principles and approaches that could serve as the foundation for a scholarly project provisionally entitled “L’outillage mental” of Putinism.
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