PROGRAMM

The malicious Russian war against Ukraine raises questions about Russia’s historical and political origins. The history of Russian oppression of Ukrainian nationhood spans centuries. However, the Russian opposition prefers to describe Russia as a failed democracy, a country forcibly taken by authoritarian rule, rather than an ex-empire trying to rebuild itself.
In conversation with Vienna Humanities Festival co-founder DESSY GAVRILOVA, Russian writer and journalist SERGEI LEBEDEV will reveal how Russia’s colonial and imperial past, crucially overlooked by Russian liberals and the West, has determined Russia’s aggressive stance towards its neighbors ever since the beginning of the First Chechen war.