Vladimir Medinsky may be the undoing of the current Russian regime.
As Minister of Culture, Medinsky is not in any formal sense a powerful person. But ever since President Vladimir Putin and his handlers chose to move towards a dichotomous, ‘us versus them’ kind of mobilization, culture warriors have become increasingly central to Russian politics.
Mostly, this has involved helping Russians to feel a widening gap of values, understandings and interests with the West: Hence Medinsky’s mooted culture policy of 18 months ago, which – had it not proved so scandalous – would have made “Russia is not Europe” official government policy. But as time has passed, the concept of the other has expanded to include others much closer to home, particularly Ukraine and, now, Turkey. […]
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