Why Do Russians Support Censorship of the Media?

This article analyses support for censorship in Russia as part of the democratization process. Censorship has been an important part of Russian history and it was strengthened during the Soviet era. After the collapse of the Soviet system formal censorship was banned even though the reality has been different. Therefore it is not strange that many Russians would like to limit the freedom of the media and to censor certain topics. The views of Russians on censorship have been studied on the basis of a survey carried out in 2007. According to the results, three different dimensions of censorship were found. These dimensions include moral censorship, political censorship, and censorship of religious materials. Support for these dimensions varies on the basis of socio-demographic characteristics and media use. The article concludes that many Russians reject new phenomena, while support for the censorship of political criticism is not as high, but political censorship seems to enjoy more support among elites than among the common people.

Paganism, Traditionalism, Nationalism : Narratives of Russian Rodnoverie

The topic of this dissertation is Rodnoverie, a religion that revives pre-Christian Slavic spirituality. Rodnoverie has been noted to be one of the fastest growing new religions in Russia and the aim of the study is to analyse why and how the movement has attained its popularity. First, the analysis asks how Rodnovers themselves explain the revival of ancient Paganism at this particular historical moment. Secondly, these interpretations are reflected in the framework of sociological discussions about contemporary religiosity. The analysis discusses how the Rodnoverie movement corresponds to some tendencies that are considered to characterise late modern religiosity. The primary material of the research is Rodnoverie texts: books, newspapers and electronic articles. The published literature is supplemented by fieldwork material which includes interviews with some Rodnoverie leaders and the author s participant observation of rituals and gatherings. Methodologically, the study draws on a sociological narrative approach that is focused on examining how individuals and groups use narratives to construct their identities and to challenge mainstream discussions and interpretations. The analysis discerns three narratives. The first one of these portrays Rodnoverie as a revival of the native Russian or Slavic religion. The narrative provides a new version of the old Slavophile idea, according to which imitation of the West has misguided Russia and, therefore, Russians should turn to their own tradition. In the second narrative, Rodnoverie is presented as a nature religion that features tolerance and pluralistic values. According to these perceptions, the emergence of Rodnoverie marks the dead-end of the earlier hegemonic universalistic world-views, the mono-ideologies . While the nationalist narrative focuses on Russia s national heritage, the third narrative interprets the tradition in more universal terms as an alternative to modern values and way of life. The main argument of this narrative is that contemporary people have become alienated from nature, their roots and their community. The themes that are discussed in the theoretical literature on late modern religiosity often configure in Rodnovers interpretations either directly or when looked at through an analytical framework. Of the various themes that are addressed in a sociological study of religion the ones that have most relevance for Rodnoverie are the discussions on individualisation, globalisation and secularisation. Rodnoverie reflects such tendencies as the subjectivisation of religion and the modern crisis of authority. The movement also both exemplifies and actively promotes religious pluralisation in Russia.

The Home of Hearing : George Lindbeck's understanding of community

The aim of this thesis was to examine the understanding of community in George Lindbeck s The Nature of Doctrine. Intrinsic to this question was also examining how Lindbeck understands the relation between the text and the world which both meet in a Christian community. Thirdly this study also aimed at understanding what the persuasiveness of this understanding depends on. The method applied for this task was systematic analysis. The study was conducted by first providing an orientation into the nontheological substance of the ND which was assumed useful with respect to the aim of this study. The study then went on to explore Lindbeck in his own context of postliberal theology in order to see how the ND was received. It also attempted to provide a picture of how the ND relates to Lindbeck as a theologian. The third chapter was a descriptive analysis into the cultural-linguistic perspective, which is understood as being directly proportional to his understanding of community. The fourth chapter was an analysis into how the cultural-linguistic perspective sees the relation between the text and the world. When religion is understood from a cultural-linguistic perspective, it presents itself as a cultural-linguistic entity, which Lindbeck understands as a comprehensive interpretive scheme which structures human experience and understanding of oneself and the world in which one lives. When one exists in this entity, it is the entity which shapes the subjectivities of all those who are at home in this entity which makes participation in the life of a cultural linguistic entity a condition for understanding it. Religion is above all an external word that moulds and shapes our religious existence and experience. Understanding faith then as coming from hearing, is something that correlates with the cultural-linguistic depiction of reality. Religion informs us of a religious reality, it does not originate in any way from ourselves. This externality linked to the axiomatic nature of religion is also something that distinguishes Lindbeck sharply from liberalist tendencies, which understand religion as ultimately expressing the prereflective depths of the inner self. Language is the central analogy to understanding the medium in which one moves when inhabiting a cultural-linguistic system because language is the transmitting medium in which the cultural-linguistic system is embodied. The realism entailed in Lindbeck s understanding of a community is that we are fundamentally on the receiving end when it comes to our identities whether cultural or religious. We always witness to something. Its persuasiveness rests on the fact that we never exist in an unpersuaded reality. The language of Christ is a self-sustaining and irreducible cultural-linguistic entity, which is ontologically founded upon Christ. It transmits the reality of a new being. The basic relation to the world for a Christian is that of witnessing salvation in Christ: witnessing Christ as the home of hearing the message of salvation, which is the God-willed way. Following this logic, the relation of the world and the text is one of relating to the world from the text, i.e. In Christ through the word (text) for the world, because it assumes it s logic from the way Christ ontologically relates to us.

The German Military Entrepreneur Ernst von Mansfeld and His Conduct of Asymmetrical Warfare in the Thirty Years War

The dissertation examines aspects of asymmetrical warfare in the war-making of the German military entrepreneur Ernst von Mansfeld during his involvement in the Thirty Years War. Due to the nature of the inquiry, which combines history with military-political theory, the methodological approach of the dissertation is interdisciplinary. The theoretical framework used is that of asymmetrical warfare. The primary sources used in the dissertation are mostly political pamphlets and newsletters. Other sources include letters, documents, and contemporaneous chronicles. The secondary sources are divided into two categories, literature on the history of the Thirty Years War and textbooks covering the theory of asymmetrical warfare. The first category includes biographical works on Ernst von Mansfeld, as well as general histories of the Thirty Years War and seventeenth-century warfare. The second category combines military theory and political science. The structure of the dissertation consists of eight lead chapters, including an introduction and conclusion. The introduction covers the theoretical approach and aims of the dissertation, and provides a brief overlook of the sources and previous research on Ernst von Mansfeld and asymmetrical warfare in the Thirty Years War. The second chapter covers aspects of Mansfeld s asymmetrical warfare from the perspective of operational art. The third chapter investigates the illegal and immoral aspects of Mansfeld s war-making. The fourth chapter compares the differing methods by which Mansfeld and his enemies raised and financed their armies. The fifth chapter investigates Mansfeld s involvement in indirect warfare. The sixth chapter presents Mansfeld as an object and an agent of image and information war. The seventh chapter looks into the counter-reactions, which Mansfeld s asymmetrical warfare provoked from his enemies. The eighth chapter offers a conclusion of the findings. The dissertation argues that asymmetrical warfare presented itself in all the aforementioned areas of Mansfeld s conduct during the Thirty Years War. The operational asymmetry arose from the freedom of movement that Mansfeld enjoyed, while his enemies were constrained by the limits of positional warfare. As a non-state operator Mansfeld was also free to flout the rules of seventeenth-century warfare, which his enemies could not do with equal ease. The raising and financing of military forces was another source of asymmetry, because the nature of early seventeenth-century warfare favoured private military entrepreneurs rather than embryonic fiscal-military states. The dissertation also argues that other powers fought their own asymmetrical and indirect wars against the Habsburgs through Mansfeld s agency. Image and information were asymmetrical weapons, which were both aimed against Mansfeld and utilized by him. Finally, Mansfeld s asymmetrical threat forced the Habsburgs to adapt to his methods, which ultimately lead to the formation of a subcontracted Imperial Army under the management and leadership of Albrecht von Wallenstein. Therefore Mansfeld s asymmetrical warfare ultimately paved way for the kind of state-monopolized, organised, and symmetrical warfare that has prevailed from 1648 onwards. The conclusion is that Mansfeld s conduct in the Thirty Years War matched the criteria for asymmetrical warfare. While traditional historiography treated Mansfeld as an anomaly in the age of European state formation, his asymmetrical warfare has begun to bear resemblance to the contemporary conflicts, where nation states no longer hold the monopoly of violence.