Panel on Russian youth and nationalism, AAASS conference

Dear colleagues,

Let me inform you that I with my two colleagues from Finland are planning to organize a panel in the AAASS conference in the next November concerning contemporary Russian youth and nationalism. We´re
terribly sorry for such a late enquiry, but since we think you could make such a significant contribution to this topic, we would like to ask, are there still available participants of the conference who
might be interested to be discussant in this panel, or a chair?

The headline of the panel is "Russian youth and the contradictious national identity".

Here is a short outline of the three papers:

Nelli Piattoeva (University of Tampere, Department of Education) will have a presentation concerning the post-Soviet official civic education since 1991; how the concept of ideal citizen is balancing between national and international demands, and what kind of "ideal citizens" are represented in these official outlines and plans.

Jussi Lassila (University of Helsinki / Aleksanteri Institute, Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä) will have a presentation of symbolic production of ideal youth by the movement
Nashi His interest is to examine how this pro-governmental movement aims to upgrade low currency of official political and administrative structures and programs among the Russian youth by its symbolic
production. In other words, how Nashi reproduces or "stimulizes" didactically orientated state level programs by bringing its own voice to these programs (for example by "stealing" symbolic repertoires of
"non-political" or anti-governmental youth culture into its own representations).

Kaarina Aitamurto (University of Helsinki / Aleksanteri Institute, Department of
Comparative Religion) will have a presentation about the Rodnoverie neo-pagan movement. In general, her paper examines national aspects of this (non-official) movement in relation to official outlines of
nationalism/ patriotism of the present day Russia.

Our panel aims to draw red line from official framework/political outlines (Nelli) through its semi-official applications (Jussi) up till
marginal settings/fragments of the contemporary Russia (alternative spirituality, religion) (Kaarina). Our preliminary hypothesis is that in all three papers the tension between local and global, national and
transnational is well present, and the current national self esteem in Russia is seemingly capable to absorb various, and often contradictory influences into its symbolic and representational reserve.

We deeply sorry for this late enquiry!

Those who are interested, please
contact jussi.lassila@helsinki.fi

Best wishes

Nelli, Kaarina and Jussi

Jussi Lassila, Researcher M.A.
Aleksanteri Institute
Finnish Centre for Russian and East European Studies
University of Helsinki