Emperor without an empire

Anthropologist Alexei Yurchak, author of the book “It was forever until it ended”, in an interview with the Ostwest YouTube channel says :

“Regarding nostalgia <...> the post -Soviet people about the Soviet. I do not think that this is something constructed, invented <...>. I think that people can nostalgic for some things <...>.

Again, we return to the concept of the system. The system is a very complex, social structure that has different layers. People can nostalgia for society in which communication and sociality are very important. They were destroyed in the 90s. There was a different type of freedom, but there are a lot of freedoms of the Soviet era, when you had a lot of friends <...> there are a lot of communication, some social (ties-Polit.ru) when you believed in what you were doing <...> ( you were unsuccessful-Polit.ru ). <...>. And people, quite, can nostalgic for these socialist things, and not in the party and Brezhnev. Although all this is united.

As for Putin, I think that there is a great misconception (by the way, in the West there is a huge misconception) that Putin is trying to recreate the USSR. He hates the USSR, he hates the Soviet project, hates communism, hates the party, he hates Lenin. He says that Lenin is the reason that the Bolsheviks created Ukraine in general.

Putin Imperial. For him, only one thing is important in the Soviet Union that the Soviet Union ( possessed features - Polit.ru ) of the empire. It is impossible to reduce it completely to the empire, he still had the features of anti -imperia, anti -colonial <...>. But <...> he inherited both the territory and many principles of the empire, which was before. This is Putin. Therefore, he all the time appeals to both Peter and to ancient-Russian history. Putin does not believe at all in communism or in the Soviet project. He does not want anything of this, he does not at all nostalgic for this. He is nostalgia only by imperial. ”