Skip to content
openDemocracy
Subscribe

Conspiracy theory has gone mainstream in Russia. But how does it work?

Inside Russia’s conspiracy machine, things are more complicated than they seem. A new book demonstrates the pitfalls of conspiracy thinking.

By Maxim Alyukov
Published:
Share
RIAN_02824387.LR_.ru__0_1_0_0.jpg
RIAN_02824387.LR_.ru__0_1_0_0.jpg

April 2016: journalists at a Moscow newspaper watch "Direct Line with Vladimir Putin". Photo: Aleksandr Vilf / VisualRIAN. All rights reserved.

A review of Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World by Ilya Yablokov (University of Leeds, Tomsk State University). 

Ilya Yablokov’s Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World is a solid and illuminating piece of scholarship. Based on the author’s PhD dissertation, this book investigates the role, scope, uses and implications of conspiracy theories in post-Soviet Russia. Tracing the origins of Russian conspiracy theories back to the Crimean War in 1853-1856, Yablokov investigates the evolution of conspiratorial thinking in Russia’s Imperial and Soviet periods and, finally, turns to his ultimate goal: the uses of conspiracy theories in post-Soviet Russia.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0