Culture Wars – How the Kremlin Securitizes Youth Culture

Abstract

Since the 2010s youth popular culture has become an object of close attention and management on the part of political actors and institutions in Russia, with substantial funds being diverted towards young people via a national project of patriotic education (Kukulin, 2020) (Hemment, 2015, p 7). From school curriculums that discourage critical thinking to the formation of youth groups such as the infamous Nashi (Ours), the Kremlin has sought to imbue the Russian youth with the “correct” moral values. This article explores how youth culture is firstly securitized and then leveraged, to justify the expansion of further security measures into wider parts of society.

By Jack Cathcart

‘In Russia, youth are the new subjects of state policy’ (Hemment, 2015, p 7.)

At a glance, one would assume that any securitization of the Russian youth would exist to protect the state from the threat of the alternative cultural milieu inhabited by young people. This is indeed to an extent correct. An elaborate system has been created to redirect young people away from critical thinking and provide alternatives to cultural outlets that might lead them astray. One of the first examples of this was the formation of Nashi in 2005, a youth group with a self-described pro-Putin and anti-fascist outlook, which was founded as a direct consequence of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (Mijnssen, 2014, p 21). At its peak, during the 2007–8 election cycle, Nashi claimed over 300,000 members and had 50 regional branches (Hemment, 2012). Despite the original group disbanding in 2012, it spawned numerous similar programmes such as the more recent Youth Army movement of 2016  (Finch, 2019).

Nashi succeeded in utilizing Russian history and traditions to shape the framework of the movement, leaning heavily on the mythology of The Great Patriotic War to influence the beliefs of its members. For example, in one Nashi-produced brochure entitled Fascists. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow?, commissars of the movement narrated stories of relatives who were killed defending Russia from fascist invaders (Belov, 2008, p 50). The promotion of idealized narratives of the war were a key component of Nashi's patriotic education and ‘the war myth’ became a template through which to interpret obstacles in Russia's future (Mijnssen, 2014, p 22). In the patriotic discourses that Nashi adhered to, public protests were considered to be ‘alien acts’ pursued under pressure from outside forces (Beissinger, 2009, p 331). Therefore any young people participating in these protests were acting against the ‘very fabric’ of Russian society.

University education and school life has also played its role in shaping the political framework of Russia’s youth. The European University of St Petersburg, which focuses on the social sciences, has repeatedly been under threat of closure by the Russian state, even being briefly shut due to “fire safety concerns” after being accused of interfering in the internal affairs of the government in 2008 (Dubrovsky, 2017). In 2017, Scholars at Risk also warned about the future of the university on its site after a gender studies programme received a complaint and courts ordered its education license be revoked (SRW, 2017). In schools, subtler incentives exist such as presidential grants for the right type of students. Indeed pupils are often discouraged from developing an interest in subjects which value critical thinking (Petrov, 2020). In a recent study of national history textbooks for the Journal of Social Science Education, Natalia Potapova noted how works primarily ‘approached history  as  a  set  of  “true”  facts and instructed students  to be  subordinate  to tradition  and  authority,  to rely  on  official  media and support  official  statements’ (2015, p 54).

There is, however, another side to the narrative of youth securitization. After students have been distracted with patriotic summer camps and the cultural dangers have been identified, the Kremlin can then leverage these external influences by constructing an existential threat and panic over youth morals in order to justify further security measures that reach into other areas of life and society (Kukulin, 2021)  (Ostbo, 2016). For example, in 2018 six concerts by the tech duo IC3PEAK were shut down and at least 36 performances in cities across Russia were cancelled due to official intervention (HRW, 2019). One Interior Ministry Official described the cancellations, saying “this (music) should not expose people’s disgusting and low vices... but (instead) cultivate the values of leading a decent, full and healthy life, serving the country...” (Khmelnitsky, 2018). One of the varied reasons given for these closures was to ‘protect the youth’ against what might be deemed as LGBTQ ‘propaganda’ under a law passed in 2013.

This idea of “protecting” young people against immoral and subversive influences seems to drive much of Russia’s social policy, not only for the youth themselves but also for the rest of society. The 2013 law regarding homosexuality, for example, helped position Russia as a champion of traditional family values and won support from conservative groups both at home and abroad. The law banned the ‘promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors’ and has even been used to limit access to LGBTQ support sites on the internet (HRW, 2018).  A similar narrative has also been presented with the decriminalization of the crime ‘simple battery’ in 2017 which was often used in domestic abuse cases (Oleg, 2020). Those who pushed for the 2017 decriminalization felt the law was ‘interfering in the Russian family unit’ and that ‘women should tolerate abuse for the sake of their children’ (Hendin, 2021).

Moving forward, the Russian youth remains a strong pillar of the regime's base and youth engagement in anti-government demonstrations remains consistently low (Gukova, 2020, p 17). However with economic problems growing, signs of opposition have become much more threatening (Freedom House, 2019). The tactic of controlling youth culture from the top down may therefore become more difficult and the panic over youth morals used to justify further measures might no longer be enough. In the age of Alexei Navalny, as politics penetrates into youth culture through social media, ‘today’s politically active adolescents understand that being an “adult” means being more engaged and savvy when it comes to current affairs’ than their predecessors. Recent studies have found that Russian young people are far more likely to view themselves as fully fledged political actors than at any point in the last twenty years (Erpyleva, 2018, p 12). Set against an uncertain backdrop of wider Russian domestic politics, youth securitization is therefore likely to be a major issue in the years ahead as the government seeks to remain in control of its young people.

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