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The Origins of Russian Authoritarianism

Kraut · 1.9M views · 2021-08-20 · 21:09

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Overview

Kraut traces centuries of political development, from Mongol rule and the Orthodox church to Muscovite autocracy, that shaped Russia's authoritarian state. It uses countryball animation and compares Russia with Europe and China.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as a good introduction to Russian authoritarianism, though some commenters say it is flawed or wrong on many points.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2022–2023

Topics

World historyGeopolitics & foreign policy
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russiaauthoritarianismmongol rulehistorycountryballs

What people said

lambic2 · 2022-12 · Recommendation

I doubt this question can be answered in a short comment. The differences stem from thousands of years of diverging cultural influences, history and geography. As for Russia, this video gives a good introduction to the origins of Russian Authoritarianism (with comparison to power structures in China and Europe over history), that go all the way back to the 5th century A.D. with the Huns and the unique geography/climate of Russia: [VIDEO] .

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throwaways85989 · 2022-08 · Recommendation

It was not really a base for capitalism to take hold and effect. It needs a basic rule of law and democracy to work. All it got was brief window of chaos, before the kleptocracy returned. Best description of the cultural background i found so far was this: [VIDEO]

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bilegeek · 2022-07 · Recommendation

>How does it get to this point? I would imagine because, going back to even before Soviet times, all the people who do care are either disappeared or flee, leaving behind only the people who are too jaded to effectively resist. Russian absolutism is generally more, well, absolute than other places. Though it's imperfect, a video[1] by Kraut gets the gist across. [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Kraut, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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