Can Russia be grasped with the mind?

Abstract

The book criticized in this article is devoted to a very important and topical subject: the interaction between the young Russian political science and the old Russian historical scholar. The authors want to “return political science to history” and this intention one can only welcome. But the author of this review was extremely surprised when he found the idea that for a better understanding of the current political situation there is no need to immerse yourself in history. In the opinion of the reviewer, this is a big mistake that prevents understanding modern Russian history and explaining it to readers. But this error is a result of poor knowledge of Russian history and a mistaken attitude to historiography, which is used very selectively. The analysis of all the provisions made by the authors has not allowed the author of the review to agree with any of these provisions. This applies primarily to the interpretation of “self-government” in Russia. Then to the understanding of the role of the so-called clan system whose concept the authors took from a Western scholar. The authors were unable to demonstrate the existence of it in modern Russia. Their idea about the identity of modern Russian political regime with the regimes in Taiwan or Pakistan is amusing because the reviewer is sure that the West is West, East is East, and Russia is Russia. The authors do not understand this, and therefore their predictions and advices in connection with the future of Russia “hang in the air”. On this background, the last Chapter in which the authors still want to appeal to history in search of answers to the challenges of modernity looks quite curious. Since it is in contradiction with the authors’ previous statements, and as already noted, they do not want to know the history, their excursions into history thus do not go beyond banal and trivial findings. Final reviewer’s conclusion is: A. Lukin and P. Lukin are unable to “return politics to the history” or, in other words, they are unable to enrich the political scholar with great historical knowledge. Refs 11.