Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World
Il'ya YAblokov
"Show everything that is hidden!", "The truth is somewhere nearby", "If you are not paranoid, this does not mean that you are not being followed"... How often do we hear these phrases that have become the slogans of our time? The bookshelves are filled with publications about the "enemies of Russia". Television programs talk about the intrigues of foreign intelligence services: now the Chinese coronavirus turns out to be an invention of the Americans! And Meduza, according to some Russian Facebook commentators, is working for the FSB! Politicians and oppositionists alike believe that world politics is made by the all-powerful clans of the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, or the Kremlin's security forces, or the US State Department. And ordinary Russians are convinced that nothing happens just like that: everything is someone's order, someone's black PR, and always someone's malicious intent. In his book, Ilya Yablokov, a historian, media expert and lecturer at the University of Leeds, shows that believing in conspiracy theories is not necessarily paranoid. This is not only the natural reaction of modern man to a complex world, the way in which an ordinary person, who has no influence on the events taking place around him, comprehends the world. It is also a powerful political tool, actively used by the Russian elites for their own purposes and, as shown in the book, incredibly changed the face of the country in the post-Soviet period.
