"The most multi-ethnic country in the world": indigenous peoples in Russia's Eurasianist political narrative

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Author
Trienen, Lex
Chair
Boylan, Brandon
Committee
Ehrlander, Mary
Hirsch, Alex
Keyword
indigenous peoples
press coverage
Russia
government policy
government relations
Eurasian school
politics
government
ethnic relations
mass media
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URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/10545
Abstract
Since 2012, scholars have taken a renewed look at the philosophical and political ideas of Eurasianism within Russia to explain President Vladimir Putin's conduct and the Russian public's response to it. Eurasianism in its current form posits that the Russian state plays a unique role in the history of the world in opposing the avaricious, agnostic, and culturally oppressive "West," while uniting and elevating the peoples of the Eurasian continent in a peaceful, organic and spiritual "Eurasia." Indigenous peoples play a distinctive role in this narrative. Both the United States and Russia have Indigenous populations that have been subjected to both passive neglect and active violence over the past several centuries and currently suffer from poor social conditions compared to the dominant ethnic groups of their respective countries. This thesis addresses the question of how the Russian media's portrayal of Native Americans diverges from that of its own Indigenous peoples in order to perpetuate this Eurasian narrative. Articles were collected from various news outlets in Russia, coded for Eurasianist themes using the Atlas.ti program, and analyzed by news outlet, date published, and topic. The analysis finds that the Russian media portrays Indigenous peoples in Russia as largely having constructive working relationships with the Kremlin, while they depict Native Americans as striving towards secession and mired in constant conflict with the U.S. government, but having surreptitious affinities towards the Eurasian civilizational model.
Description
Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2019
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1: Introduction: the question -- 1.2: The history and development of Eurasianism -- 1.3: Russian government and media -- 1.4: Research methods -- Chapter 2: Eurasianism -- 2.1: Introduction -- 2.2: Early Eurasianism -- 2.2.1: Nikolai Trubetskoy -- 2.2.2: Peter Savitsky -- 2.2.3: Georgii Florovski -- 2.2.4: Analysis of early Eurasianism -- 2.3: The bridge Eurasianist: Lev Gumilev -- 2.4: Neo-Eurasianism -- 2.4.1: Aleksandr Dugin -- 2.4.2: Aleksandr Panarin -- 2.5: Analysis of Eurasianism -- Chapter 3: Russian news media landscape -- 3.1: Introduction -- 3.2: Development of Russian news media landscape -- 3.3: Overview of media development: from Soviet censorship to Putin's self-censorship -- 3.4: How self-censorship feeds Eurasianism -- 3.5: Public diplomacy and soft power -- 3.6: Information war -- 3.7: Conclusion -- Chapter 4: Research design -- 4.1: Introduction -- 4.1.1: Media content analysis -- 4.1.2: Coding -- 4.1.3: Data source selection -- 4.1.4: Data collection -- 4.1.5: Limitations -- Chapter 5: Data analysis -- 5.1: Indigenous Russian section -- 5.1.1: Civilizational unity in media coverage -- 5.1.2: Dismantling of RAIPON -- 5.2: Native American section -- 5.2.1: Media portrayal of Native Americans -- 5.2.2: American/Western fitness for indigenous governance -- 5.3: Conclusion -- Chapter 6: Conclusion -- 6.1: How Eurasianism is used -- 6.2: Research conclusions -- 6.3: Theoretical significance -- Bibliography.
Date
2019-05
Type
Thesis
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