![]() None of the leaders of today’s political regime in Russia-from the representatives of bureaucratic capitalism to the Orthodox special services autocracy-have anything to do with victory in the war, Yury Gagarin’s spaceflight, or even the achievements of Soviet hockey. Naturally, the primary such event is victory in the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia. To be precise, it’s not the country that’s obsessed, but the regime, which bases its legitimacy on some very simple but effective myths about Russia’s exceptionalism and its special path (Sonderweg, Russian style), and the privatization of certain key historical events and figures that serve as the glue of the nation. No other country in the world is as entranced with its past-both real and imagined-as Russia. ![]()
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