Pre-History of a Murder
Aleksei Naval'nyi and Protest Politics in Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Aleksei Naval'nyi stood like no other for Russian society’s resistance to Putin’s authoritarianism. With his heroic fearlessness, he won tens of thousands of followers and created the ethics of a new resistance. For more than ten years, he formulated and coordinated the politics of protest. His popularity over the past 15 years can be explained primarily by the hopes and expectations that he bundled and embodied. These hopes and expectations are an expression of a social capital that parts of the post-Soviet generations in Russia had at their disposal. The war against Ukraine launched by Putin is intended to destroy this social capital. Russia is to be transformed into a haven of conservatism and militaristic obscurantism.
(Osteuropa 4/2024, pp. 109–129)