DOCSLIB.ORG

Abuse of LGBT Rights and Government Legitimacy in Russia by Mitchell Walstad

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Abuse of LGBT Rights and Government Legitimacy in Russia by Mitchell Walstad z.umn.edu/MURAJ Abuse of LGBT Rights and Government Legitimacy in Russia By Mitchell Walstad Introduction Rights and protections for LGBT people have advanced at different paces and in different political moments around the world. The 1960s and 1970s saw the beginnings of the LGBT movement in the United States with a strong public reaction and support for the Stonewall Riots. Advances in LGBT protections in Europe were rapid throughout the beginning of the 21st century, with over two dozen countries there now recognizing same-sex marriage. But, in other parts of the world, LGBT people are still routinely killed for openly expressing same-sex attraction or non-cisgender identities. “Honor killings” of LGBT family members are common throughout Europe and Asia, and homosexuality is punishable by death in some places. When the Soviet Union dissolved between 1989 and 1991, it appeared as if there was an opportunity for the advancement of gay rights in many of the former Soviet states. Democracy was taking hold in some, and there seemed to be hope Putin is needed, along with an exploration of the for a genuine push for new protections for LGBT need for genuine democracy to advance the rights people internationally. While some former Soviet of LGBT people. While democracy may be states have made significant progress in support of requisite to advance gay rights, the absence of LGBT people within their borders, one state has democracy does not necessarily result in an attack notably pursued policies that seek to create barriers on gay rights. Rather, due to the need for for gay people in society: Russia. With hope for a legitimacy in many non-democratic political genuine transition to democracy less than 20 years regimes, I argue that through seeking legitimacy in ago, it seems that any democratic ideals are absent non-democratic governments, the absence of from the country’s government today. But with democracy diminishes gay rights. In other other former Soviet states making progress in countries that have comparable Freedom House democracy and in gay rights, there is an important Scores to Russia, gay rights are placed in higher question to ask: Why do LGBT people have fewer esteem. For democracy to be the decisive factor in rights and protections in Russia than in other the acquisition of gay rights, this comparison former Soviet states and communist states around creates a serious reason for doubt. Looking to the world? To answer this, a deeper understanding Russia, I argue that a comprehensive of domestic political factors that create legitimacy understanding of how the Putin regime creates its for the Russian government under Vladimir legitimacy is necessary to understand why gay 1 interplay between plants and bees, each helping the other. Development of prairieland for agricultural use affects indigenous bee communities, which have historically inhabited prairie regions. Adverse rights are under attack. Lack of political freedom, In addition to religion, democracy is a less- ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, anti-Western looked to but also important factor in assessing rhetoric, and public opinion of gays and lesbians how rights for LGBT people are obtained. One make it imperative that the Putin government analysis of gay rights and democracy comes from subjugate gay people. In order to maintain Omar Encarnación in Gay Rights: Why Democracy legitimacy from these other sources, rights of Matters. Encarnación notes that “the nature of LGBT people have been systematically denied in the political regime is a better predictor of gay Russia. rights than either economic development or cultural factors such as religion,” (Encarnación, Literature Review 2014, 97). This conclusion comes from Even in the West, rights of LGBT people comparing regime types in countries to laws on have only been recently normalized. As the same-sex adoption, military service, marriage, and expansion of gay rights around the world discrimination. The argument that democracy continues, so does the body of research about what increases the ability for gay rights to take hold in actually guarantees these rights. The currently a country relies on the ability for citizens to limited body of research into international gay advocate for them through civil society, strong rights provides challenges for relying on past rule of law, and evidence from the third wave research, while simultaneously providing an of democratization, in which countries like opportunity to contribute new and unique ideas to Spain and South Africa democratized and adopted this growing body of work. laws allowing same-sex marriage shortly after Much of the previous work that exists (Encarnación, 99). around LGBT rights assesses the impact of religion Correlation does not necessarily equal and wealth on LGBT rights within a country. causation, and the United States is an excellent Looking to Russia specifically, much of this focus is example of this when comparing gay rights and on the impact of religion. Radzhana Buyantueva’s democracy. While civil society can be used for article in the Journal of Homosexuality looks LGBT people and their allies to advocate for gay further into how the Russian state’s connection to rights, it can be used in the same way by people the Russian Orthodox Church makes difficult the who seek to hold back rights for gay people. In the acquisition of rights for gays and lesbians, and Cai United States, individual states are left to Wilkinson comes to a similar conclusion in his implement many laws regarding rights for LGBT article in the Journal of Human Rights. As the people, including non-discrimination laws, gender Russian government has intertwined itself with the marker changes on government documents, and Russian Orthodox Church since the Soviet Union’s conversion therapy (Human Rights Campaign collapse, state policies have been influence by the 2018). Understanding how civil society can be used desires of religious leaders. These leaders have both for and against gay rights is important to publically voiced support for anti-LGBT acts understand when assessing how rights of these committed by the Russian government people can be advanced internationally. (Buyantueva, 2017, 469). Drawing on past literature, it is clear that MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 2 genuine democracy is a necessary prerequisite for LGBT equality due to the necessity for a strong civil society and rule of law. All legislative gains for LGBT people have come as a result of advocacy campaigns by LGBT people and their Figure 1- Categories of the Global Barometer of Gay Rights allies, while rule of law has created an avenue (Dicklitch et al. 2016) through judicial systems to advance gay rights as well. However, due to the experiences around gay Some of the 29 items taken into rights in the US, it is understood that democracy consideration include the presence of a death alone cannot secure gay rights. As outlined below, penalty for homosexuality, whether homosexuality legitimacy related to political freedom, religion, is legal, civil unions or marriage for homosexuals, public opinion, and Russia’s role in the world whether a majority of citizens are accepting of against the West create conditions for LGBT rights homosexuality, if gays are allowed to organize, to be pushed aside. whether there is anti-discrimination legislation for housing, and if there are known acts of violence or The Status Quo of LGBT Rights murders against homosexuals (Dicklitch et al. The 21st century has seen a rapid expansion 2016). In Figure 2, these countries can be seen of rights for LGBT people. Marriage equality has geographically. The scale follows the same coloring passed in many places, along with rights for as Figure 1. adoption, gender designation on government documents, and health care for members of the LGBT community. However, almost all of these advances have come from western democracies. Some were guaranteed through the legislative process and others through the court system, but they all fell back on the principles of democratic forms of governance. The Global Barometer of Gay Rights provides an analysis of the current status of gay rights around the the world. This analysis takes Figure 2- Map of Global Barometer of Gay Rights Categories into consideration 29 factors, giving each a score of (Dicklitch et al. 2016) either “+1” or “0”. The total score out of 29 is then divided by 29 to create a percentage. The Perhaps the most striking part of this image percentages for each category, persecuting through is the concentration of red, the persecuting protecting, can be seen in Figure 1. classification, in African and Asian countries. MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 3 While religion and government type may “persecuting” gay people by the Global Barometer of account for part of this geographic divide, other less Gay Rights, they are not places where LGBT people are obvious factors also appear to cause an impact. killed for their sexual orientation. For these countries and the former Soviet Union states, I have reworked Democracy and LGBT Rights the Freedom House and Global Barometer of Gay To further correlate regime and government Rights scores to more clearly show how they compare type with gay rights, I have complied a comparison to each other. The Freedom House Scores in this between Freedom House Scores and the Global section are inverted, where a 7 is most-free and a 1 is Barometer of Gay Rights for former Soviet Union least-free (8-Original Freedom House Score= States. I briefly touch on Western democracies and Scores Presented). The Global Barometer of Gay communist states in this section to provide a Rights scores are originally out of 100 percentage comparison to the former Soviet Union states. points. To better compare these scores, I have scale this percentage to be out of 7 as the Freedom Western Democracies House Scores are.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Putin Finds an Ally in Resurgent Orthodox Church
    The Washington Times November 12, 2015 Putin finds an ally in resurgent Orthodox Church by Marc Bennetts MOSCOW — How times have changed in Russia. Earlier this year, on the 145th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, the head of the present- day Communist Party compared the founder of the officially atheist Soviet Union to Jesus Christ. Speaking at a ceremony on Red Square, where Lenin’s embalmed body remains on public display, Gennady Zyuganov said both Lenin and Jesus Christ had preached a message of “love, friendship and brotherhood.” Mr. Zyuganov also declared that the Soviet Union had been an attempt to create “God’s kingdom on Earth.” Mr. Zyuganov’s controversial statement was the culmination of a dramatic upturn in fortunes for the Russian Orthodox Church, which has seen its religious revival in the post-Soviet era matched by a growing, behind-the-scenes political clout, most recently by — literally — giving its blessing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to escalate the country’s military mission in Syria. Under the Soviet authorities, at least 200,000 members of the clergy were murdered, according to a 1995 Kremlin committee report, while millions of other Christians were persecuted. “The more representatives of the reactionary clergy we shoot, the better,” Lenin once said. Although Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin permitted a carefully controlled revival of the Orthodox Church to boost morale during World War II, anti-religion propaganda was common until the mid-1980s. Today, with some 70 percent of Russians identifying themselves as Orthodox Christians, no serious politician can afford to be seen as lacking in belief.
    [Show full text]
  • An Ethnographic Account of Disability and Globalization in Contemporary Russia
    INACCESSIBLE ACCESSIBILITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF DISABILITY AND GLOBALIZATION IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA Cassandra Hartblay A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology. Chapel Hill 2015 ! ! ! ! Approved by: Michele Rivkin-Fish Arturo Escobar Sue Estroff Jocelyn Chua Robert McRuer © 2015 Cassandra Hartblay ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ! ii! ABSTRACT Cassandra Hartblay: Inaccessible Accessibility: An Ethnographic Account Of Disability And Globalization In Contemporary Russia (Under the Direction of Michele Rivkin-Fish) Based on over twelve months of fieldwork in Russia, this dissertation explores what an ethnographic approach offers disability studies as a global, interdisciplinary, justice-oriented field. Focused on the personal, embodied narratives and experiences of five adults with mobility impairments in the regional capital city of Petrozavodsk, the dissertation draws on methods including participant observation, ethnographic interviews, performance ethnography, and analysis of public documents and popular media to trace the ways in which the category of disability is reproduced, stigmatized, and made meaningful in a contemporary postsoviet urban context. In tracing the ways in which concepts of disability and accessibility move transnational and transculturally as part of global expert cultures, I argue that Russian adults with disabilities expertly negotiate multiple modes of understanding disability, including historically and culturally rooted social stigma; psychosocial, therapeutic, or medicalized approaches; and democratic minority group citizenship. Considering the array of colloquial Russian terms that my interlocutors used to discuss issues of access and inaccess in informal settings, and their cultural antecedents, I suggest that the postsoviet infrastructural milieu is frequently posited as always opposed to development and European modernity.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion, State and 'Sovereign Democracy' in Putin's Russia
    Religion, state and ‘sovereign democracy’ in Putin’s Russia John Anderson School of International Relations University of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 8EB (01334 462931; [email protected]) John Anderson is Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He has published widely on religion and politics in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states, on religion and democratisation, on Christianity and politics in Russia, Europe and the USA, and on the politics of Central Asia. His most recent book is Conservative Christian Politics in Russia and the United States (Manchester University Press, 2015). 1 Abstract This article explores the role of the dominant Russian Orthodox Church in the evolution of the post-communist Russian Federation. This is not a classic case where religion may have contributed to the democratisation of society because this has not been a primary goal of political elites, and the regime that has emerged might best be described as ‘hybrid’ with growing authoritarian tendencies. Having played little role in the ending of communism, having little historical experience of working within a democracy, suspicious of liberal- individualist visions of public life and committed to a vision of its role as the hegemonic religious institution, the promotion of democratic governance has not been a priority of church leaders. At the same time the political structures created by the Kremlin encourage a degree of conformity and support for the regime by key social actors, and in the wake of the political crisis of 2011-12 there have been further incentives for church and state to work more closely together.
    [Show full text]
  • The Russian Orthodox Church,” in Andrei P
    Page 1 of 19 “The Russian Orthodox Church,” in Andrei P. Tsygankov, ed., Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy, (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 217-232. Nicolai N. Petro Silvia-Chandley Professor of Peace Studies and Nonviolence University of Rhode Island Abstract: The recent “conservative turn” in Russian politics has raised to new levels the role of spiritual and moral values in political discourse. The new partnership formed between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the state, a modernized version of the traditional Byzantine symphonia, has also affected Russian foreign policy. One notable example is the emergence of the “Russian World” as a key concept in Russia's relations with Ukraine and the rest of the CIS. Although the Church plays a subordinate role in this relationship, it is far from being merely the Kremlin’s puppet. By decentering the nation, this investigation seeks to shed light on the Church’s distinct approach to politics, and show where it draws the line on cooperation with civil authorities. Only by viewing the ROC as an autonomous political and eschatological actor, will we be able to appreciate how it influences Russian foreign policy. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has emerged as an influential actor in Russian foreign policy. This chapter explores the relationship between church and state in Russia. It examines the scholarly debate over the actual role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian foreign policy, as well as arenas for potential for conflict and cooperation between the church and the state in foreign policy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Growing Influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Shaping Russia’S Policies Abroad
    02 BLITT.DOC (DO NOT DELETE) 11/28/2011 10:25 PM RUSSIA’S “ORTHODOX” FOREIGN POLICY: THE GROWING INFLUENCE OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN SHAPING RUSSIA’S POLICIES ABROAD PROF. ROBERT C. BLITT* TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ................................................................................364 2. The Russian Orthodox Church’s Foreign Policy Mandate ......................................................................................365 3. Russian Foreign Policy and Disregard for the Constitutional Obligations of Secularism, Separation, and Nondiscrimination .............................................................367 3.1. The Ideological Centrality of Orthodoxy in Russian Foreign Policy as Expressed through Euphemism ...................... 368 3.1.1. The Role of “Spirituality" in Russia’s National Security Strategy .................................................................. 368 3.1.2. A Note on Culture as a Synonym for Orthodoxy ......374 3.1.3. “Spiritual Security” & “Spiritual Revival” ..............377 3.2. Putting Rhetoric into Practice: The Ascendancy of “Spirituality” in Russia’s Foreign Policy ....................................380 3.2.1. Russian Orthodox Church-Ministry of Foreign Affairs Working Group .........................................................380 3.2.2. Russkiy Mir Foundation: A Chimera State-Church Foreign Policy Tool ................................................................383 3.2.3. Support for Days of Spiritual Culture .....................390 3.2.4. Facilitating an Exclusive
    [Show full text]
  • THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH Department for External Church Relations
    THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH Department for External Church Relations Inter-Council Presence Commission meets to discuss the Russian Orthodox Church’s attitude to non- Orthodoxy and other faiths July 16, 2015 – The Inter-Council Presence Commission met to discuss the attitude to non-Orthodoxy and other faiths at the conference hall of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR). The meeting was chaired by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, head of the Metropolitan District in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The meetings was attended by Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations; Metropolitan Augustine of Belaya Tzerkov and Boguslavsk, Archbishop Feofan of Berlin and Germany, Archbishop Alexander of Baku and Azerbaijan, Bishop Nestor of Chersonese; Bishop Gennady of Kaskelen, chancellor of the Metropolitan District in Kazakhstan; Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the synodal department for church-society relations; Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), secretary of the commission and DECR vice-chairman; Archimandrite Anthony (Sevryuk), rector of the Parish of St. Catherine in Rome; Prof. Valentin Asmus, St Tikhon’s University of the Humanities; Archpriest Dimitry Kiryanov, Tobolsk Seminary; Archpriest Andrey Novikov, rector of the church of the Life-Giving Trinity-on-Sparrow-Hills, member of the Biblical- Theological Commission; Hieromonk Stephan (Igumnov), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations; Rev. Sergey Yeliseyev, lecturer at St Tikhon’s University of the Humanities and Moscow Theological Academy; Deacon Andrew Psarev, lecturer at the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, and Ms. Margarita Nelyubova, DECR staff member. There was a substantial discussion on the preliminary draft documents ‘On the Prayer for Living and Dead Non-Orthodox Christians’ and ‘The Russian Orthodox Church’s Concept of Interreligious Relations’.
    [Show full text]
  • LEVELS of GENERALITY and the PROTECTION of LGBT RIGHTS BEFORE the UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY Anthony S. Winert
    LEVELS OF GENERALITY AND THE PROTECTION OF LGBT RIGHTS BEFORE THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY Anthony S. Winert I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 81 II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ................................. 82 A. The Position of the GeneralAssembly in the United N ations .......................................................................... 83 B. The Record of GeneralAssembly Resolutions in Advancing H um an Rights................................................................. 86 III. THE POWER OF LEVELS OF GENERALITY .................................. 91 A. Levels of GeneralityDescribing Rights................................... 92 B. United States Supreme Court Perspective on Levels of Generality ...................................................................... 93 C. A Prominent Illustrationfor the Importance of Levels of Generality ...................................................................... 96 D. A Variant-FormSense of Generality ................................. 99 IV. LEVELS OF GENERALITY AND THE INTERNATIONAL ADVANCEMENT OF LGBT RIGHTS .......................................... 100 A. Key Recent Developments ................................................... 101 B. The Yogyakarta Principles................................................. 102 C. The United Nations High Commissionerfor Human Rights ............................................................................... 104 1. Office of
    [Show full text]
  • Patriot Games: the Russian State, Kosovo and the Resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church by Jacob Lokshin, Alexis Turzan, Jensen Vollum
    1 Patriot Games: The Russian State, Kosovo and the Resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church By Jacob Lokshin, Alexis Turzan, Jensen Vollum Key Terms Vladimir Putin Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) Eastern Orthodoxy Kosovo Patriarch Kirill Yugoslavia Serbia Vuk Jeremic Nationalism Ethnic conflict United Nations/United Nations Security Council (UN/UNSC) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Nikita Khrushchev Russian Exceptionalism Sovereignty Dmitry Medvedev Pan-Slavism Soviet Union Case "There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended— Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord Put me to witness much for many years And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth.” -Alexander Pushkin “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” -Karl Marx As a new day dawns in Moscow, cathedral bells toll from Gorky Park to Red Square. After years of religious repression during the communist rule of Russia, believers can now congregate at the recently reconstructed Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They gather under the watchful gaze of gilded icons–an ordinary sight in 2008 that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago when images venerating Stalin were more common than saintly representations. The service inside the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, however, is no ordinary event. High ranking political officials, clergy, and laypeople alike have gathered to commemorate the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus when, in 988AD, Prince Vladimir converted the whole of Russia to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Rights in Russia: Challenges in the 21St Century ICRP Human Rights Issues Series | 2014
    Institute for Cultural Relations Policy Human Rights Issues Series | 2014 ICRP Human Rights Issues Series | 2014 Human rights in Russia: Challenges in the 21st century ICRP Human Rights Issues Series | 2014 Human rights in Russia: Challenges in the 21st century Author | Marija Petrović Series Editor | András Lőrincz Published by | Institute for Cultural Relations Policy Executive Publisher | Csilla Morauszki ICRP Geopolitika Kft., 1131 Budapest, Gyöngyösi u. 45. http://culturalrelations.org [email protected] HU ISSN 2064-2202 Contents Foreword 1 Introduction 2 Human rights in the Soviet Union 3 Laws and conventions on human rights 5 Juridical system of Russia 6 Human rights policy of the Putin regime 8 Corruption 10 Freedom of press and suspicious death cases 13 Foreign agent law 18 The homosexual question 20 Greenpeace activists arrested 24 Xenophobia 27 North Caucasus 31 The Sochi Olympics 36 10 facts about Russia’s human rights situation 40 For further information 41 Human rights in Russia: Challenges in the 21st century Human rights in Russia: Challenges in the 21st century Foreword Before presenting the human rights situation in Russia, it is important to note that the Institute for Cultural Relations Policy is a politically independent organisation. This essay was not created for condemning, nor for supporting the views of any country or political party. The only aim is to give a better understanding on the topic. On the next pages the most important and mainly most current aspects of the issue are examined, presenting the history and the present of the human rights situation in the Soviet Union and in Russia, including international opinions as well.
    [Show full text]
  • RUSSIAN POLICY on ABORTION by Stanislav Kulov, Moses Kondrashin
    RUSSIAN POLICY ON ABORTION by Stanislav Kulov, Moses Kondrashin The present memorandum aims at providing a concise and documented analysis on the Russian policy on abortion through the understanding of the legal landscape’s evolution and the causes of such an evolution. SOCIAL CONTEXT 1 POSITION OF RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS 6 PRO-LIFE CIVIL MOVEMENTS 9 LEGAL LANDSCAPE 10 WHAT SHOULD WE DO? 13 SOCIAL CONTEXT An increasing support for a better protection of prenatal life. In 2003, the vice-speaker of the State Duma, Arthur Chilingarov, said that in terms of numbers of abortions, Russia came out top in the world. The MPs talked about the possibility of banning abortion or reducing the recourse to it, but Victor Medkov, associate professor at the Department of Family Sociology and Demography at the Faculty of Sociology at the Moscow State University, explained that the population would not increase as a consequence of a partial or total ban on abortion. According to him, if “a woman decides to have an abortion, she will do it anyway, and that is her right.”1 In 2004, participants in the church-public forum “The Spiritual and Moral Basis of 1 ЕЛЕНА Ъ-ВАНСОВИЧ, “Nothing will save Russia from mortality, Kommersant Newspaper No.57 from 03.04.2003, p. 8, Kommersant URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/374715 (last checked: 04.02.2020). 1 RUSSIAN POLICY ON ABORTION by Stanislav Kulov, Moses Kondrashin Russia’s Demographic Development” called on the Russian President to ban abortion by law and appealed to the Ministry of Health demanding “to introduce a reduction in their number as a criterion for women’s counseling activities” and “to qualify an artificial interruption in the criteria of medical ethics pregnancy without medical evidence as premeditated murder.”2 Mikhail Rokitsky, a member of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection, said in response that “we are often thrown in with requests to draft a law banning abortion.
    [Show full text]
  • Help Or Hindrance to Development of Civil Society? Roman Catholics
    Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe Volume 20 Issue 4 Article 3 8-2000 Religious Minorities in Russia: Help or Hindrance to Development of Civil Society? Roman Catholics Daniel L. Schlafly Jr. St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, and the Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Schlafly, Daniel L. Jr. (2000) "Religious Minorities in Russia: Help or Hindrance to Development of Civil Society? Roman Catholics," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 20 : Iss. 4 , Article 3. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol20/iss4/3 This Article, Exploration, or Report is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN RUSSIA: HELP OR HINDRANCE TO DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL SOCIETY? ROMAN CATHOLICS by Daniel L. Schlafly, Jr. Daniel L. Schlafly, Jr. is Professor of Russian History at St. Louis University, St. Louis Missouri. He has published extensively on 19th century Russian history. This paper was presented at a panel on Religious Minorities in Russia, during the joint sessions of the American Society of Church History and the American Catholic Historical Association, April 28-30, 2000 in Santa Fe, New Mexico The greatest obstacle to civil society in today's Russia is its long tradition of state supervision and control, embodied both in the actions of government bodies and the attitudes of Russian citizens.
    [Show full text]
  • PUTIN BETS on REPRESSION by David Satter
    September 2012 PUTIN BETS ON REPRESSION By David Satter David Satter is an FPRI senior fellow. His most recent book, It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past will be released next month in paperback from the Yale University Press. He is also the director of “Age of Delirium,” a documentary film about the fall of the Soviet Union based on his book of the same name. In his first four months in office, Putin has done little about Russia’s social and economic problems but he has made it clear that he intends to rely on repression to deal with growing opposition. The most famous case is that of the Pussy Riot punk rock band whose members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, were sentenced to two years in prison for performing a song in the Christ the Savior Cathedral asking for the help of the Virgin in removing Putin. The case attracted worldwide attention because of the use of a prison sentence to punish a nonviolent political protest. The fate of the women, however, was not an isolated incident. A series of repressive measures and the intensified persecution of opposition figures show that Putin has made a decision to rely on forcible measures. As a result, the political crisis in Russia is likely to worsen because repression may succeed only in energizing the opposition. In the face of the largest demonstrations since the fall of the Soviet Union, Putin has introduced a number of measures intended to impose limits on the opposition.
    [Show full text]