Module 6. Discussion Board.

For Discussion Forum 6, please address any of the questions below. As always: you are required to make a minimum of THREE (3) posts per module. At least one of your three posts should be your own original comment; at least one – should be a response to or comment on something another classmate has posted; the third post can be either your own original post or a comment on a classmate’s post. Keep in mind that your response should NOT simply be a summary of the assigned reading. A higher grade will be awarded to posts that demonstrate student’s ability to provide an original interpretation of the topic while also applying relevant concepts, issues, and theories covered in the module.

1. Read the article from The Guardian titled “St.Petersburg residents reject bridge honoring former Chechen leader. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” discussing an unusual controversy that just recently unfolded in my hometown of St.Petersburg. Based on the information of this module (and any other information you’ve learned in this class), provide your own insight and expert analysis of the situation as a cultural anthropologist of contemporary Russia. What are the roots of the issue discussed in the article? How do you think citizens of your country / home town would have reacted if they had to deal with a situation equivalent to the one described?

2. While discussing Anna Politkovskaya’s stories from Chechnya, Prof. Georgi Derluguian writes that Politkovskaya “does not romanticize the Chechen guerrillas and barely refers to their purported struggle for national independence. Her sympathy is with the civilians, the medical personnel and especially the women…” (p.24). Based on the two samples of Politkovskaya’s prose (and another one of her essays that you can hear in the documentary 211:Anna), agree or disagree with Prof. Derluguian’s statement. Did you find Politkovskaia’s prose effective in delivering the message of the brutality and horrific impact on individual lives on both ends of this war? (Russia and Chechnya).

3. Discuss the unique and perhaps somewhat paradoxical position of Chechnya within the Russian Federation, especially today, during Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term. What is your take on the “Chechenization” debate discussed in the “Prisoners of the Caucasus” article (esp. pp. 29 – 30)? How does the documentary Chechnya. War Without a Trace contribute to your opinion on this debate?

4. What is your opinion in the debate of Chechen’s secession? As you read in this module, some critics argue that the Chechens had good moral grounds for claiming independence in November 1991; others content that Boris Yeltsin had solid reasons, defensible in legal terms, for defending Russia’s territorial integrity. Some also argue that even if Moscow had granted Chechnya independence, this would not have created peace and stability. Make sure to support your arguments with facts that you have learned.

5. Read Maria Lipman’s essay Freedom of Expression without Freedom of the Press that discusses the general apathy and cynicism of today’s Russians. As an example Lipman quotes statistics that only 6% of Russians were aware of any of the writings of the assassinated anti-establishment journalist, Anna Politkovskaia. From what you know (through the course readings and viewings), how can you explain the public indifference of the Russian population? Are you at all surprised that a vast majority of Russians don’t even know the names of human rights activists, such as Natalia Estremova, Stanislav Markelov, or Anastasia Baburova, killed over the past decade?

6. An interesting topic that seems to surface from several documentaries we have seen so far is the attempt of today’s Russian state to unite the country through a “manufactured” view of the world (this, of course, ties into the famous 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media by Noah Chomsky and Edward Herman, who argue that mass media in the U.S. is a powerful ideological tool that defends economic, political and social agendas of the “dominant elite.”). First, discuss specific examples of this argument in the Chechnya. War Without a Trace documentary. Second, discuss whether media in any country (including the U.S.) creates such a “manufactured view of the world” based on the country’s current cultural, socio-economic and political values.

 

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