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The Ukrainian issue as a tool for the consodilation of Putin's Russia
Vaidišová, Natálie ; Kolenovská, Daniela (advisor) ; Šír, Jan (referee)
This thesis investigates the Russian domestic political context of the escalation of relations. It verifies the claim that the Ukrainian issue has served the Russian political leadership over the past two decades to gradually consolidate internally Russian society, caught off guard by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Russian elite's use of anti-Ukrainian historical narratives can therefore be interpreted as a tool to stabilize post-Soviet Russian identity in a form that suits the current interests of the Russian power centre. What role historical politics has played in the use of the Ukrainian issue for Russia's internal consolidation is explored in this thesis through an analysis of the argumentation of the Russian Federation's leaders towards Ukraine, from the rise of Vladimir Putin to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This examination presupposes a detailed theoretical argumentation, to which I devote the first half of the thesis. Subsequently, I apply the theoretical-methodological findings in the second part of the thesis in the analysis of the speeches of Russian representatives, which I divide into the following main analytical units: the development of Russian-Ukrainian relations based on the performances of Russian presidents, the Ukrainian theme and narrative of the legacy of the...
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Russia's Soft Power in Belarus: The Myth of the Great Patriotic War
Michalovič, Lukáš ; Šír, Jan (advisor) ; Litera, Bohuslav (referee)
Goal of this master thesis is to show that the myth of the Great Patriotic War is a source of Russian soft power in Belarus. After the methodology chapter, the thesis continues with connecting the concept of soft power authored by Joseph Nye with the concept of myth which is here defined on the basis of theories of Eliade and Malinowski. The next part discusses Russian soft power in the Post-Soviet area in general and in Belarus in particular. It demonstrates that Russian soft power rests largely on common history shared by Russians and other Post-Soviet nations. As a consequence, the main sources of Russian soft power rest on identities and narratives, including myths. The myth of the Great Patriotic War was at the center of Soviet mythology and it has preserved its dominant position also in the Post-Soviet period, what holds true particularly for Belarus. The following part retraces the evolution of the myth of the Great Patriotic War from its emergence during the Second World War until today. It shows that the essence of this myth is a feeling of togetherness and of community that unites the former Soviet nations. The last part presents an interpretative analysis of five qualitative interviews with Belarusians. The analysis of individual cases to a large extent confirmed that the myth of the...
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