After four series of debates devoted to international justice, addictions, Africa and security, Korine Amacher, professor of Russian and Soviet history at the University of Geneva, gives the floor to those who have devoted their lives to studying the history, culture, literature, art and societies of Central and Eastern Europe.
Our file: Russia-Ukraine, archipelago of war
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Gone are the days when Mikhail Gorbachev called for a “common European home” and endeavored to deconstruct the “image of the enemy”! Putin’s Russia is now devastating a “brother country” that has chosen Europe. Even before this treacherous attack, 50 new anti-democratic laws have been passed since 2012 (according to the International Federation for Human Rights). One of the most used is that which classifies as “foreign agents” NGOs (since 2012), the media (since 2017), Russian citizens (since 2020) who receive donations or subsidies from abroad or “are under foreign influence” (June 2022). Historians will write the chronicle of this deterioration of East-West relations, from the hopes of perestroika to the current offensive against the West, by distributing responsibilities between the two camps. For the historian of ideas, there is rather a continuity here, after a short Westernophile interlude.
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