O vercoming the T ime of T roubles: O n Putin, Russia and the Political M yth
of the Smuta
Bo Petersson, Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University
([email protected])
F irst-draft paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Swedish Political Science
Association, Gothenburg, 30 September ± 2 October, 2010, workshop on Post-communist
Politics
1 Introduction
More than twenty years of observations of the Russian political scene have led me to the
conviction that in Russian national identity construction the insistence on being recognized as
a great power is inseparable from national identity (Lo 2002:20). This notion has been well
FDSWXUHGE\9ODGLPLU3XWLQLQKLVVWDWHPHQWWKDW³HLWKHU5XVVLDZLOOEHJUHDWRULWZLOOQRWEHDW
DOO´ (Shevtsova 2003:175). Apparently3XWLQ¶VWDNHRQWKHJUHDWSRZHUGLPHQVLRQKDValso
been popular among the wider public, and his largely successful quest to reestablish Russia as
a great power in the eyes of both domestic and foreign audiences has contributed to
consolidating his legitimacy at home (Anderman et al 2007:32). Indeed, in the words of one
REVHUYHUµWKHJUHDWSRZHULGHQWLW\LVIXQGDPHQWDOQRWRQO\in an identity perspective but for
the very SURVSHFWVRIWKHUHJLPHRIUHPDLQLQJLQSRZHU¶9HQGLl Pallin 2009:268).
Interestingly enough, however, even in the years of seemingly bottomless political and
economic weakness, during the Yeltsin presidencies in the 1990s, there was a stubborn
insistence on Russia being a great power in spite of all current problems (Lo 2002). The very
thought that Russia was not to be regarded as a great power at the time seemed to be
unacceptable and maybe even unimaginable to the public and elites alike. During the 1990s
there were not many areas characterized by consensus in Russian politics, but the unwavering
belief that Russia had global responsibilities through its being a great power certainly seemed
to be one of them (Lo 2002:19-20). <HOWVLQ¶VILUVW, markedly liberal and pro-Western foreign
minister, Andrei Kozyrev, thus UHPDUNHGWKDW5XVVLDZDVµGRRPHG¶WREHDJUHDWSRZHU/R
2002:19). Expressing similar trains of thought, a regional parliamentarian in Volgograd
mused in the midst of the deep political and economic crisis in1998³Russia has always been,
is still WRGD\DQGZLOODOZD\VUHPDLQDJUHDWSRZHU´3HWHUVVRQ$WWKat time such
statements amounted to little more than mantras, but they were deeply indicative of the key
importance that the wielding of great power status has in Russian national identity
consciousness.
2 The Putin presidencies and the return to great powerhood
Much can be said about the two tenures that Vladimir Putin so far has had as a president of
the Russian Federation and all of them may not be very positive from the point of view of a
Western outside observer. Even though he is since 2008 Prime Minister and thus formally
only second in rank to the present incumbent, Dmitry Medvedev, he is still considered the
most authoritative force in Russian politics, and assessments of the present political situation
are still very much connected to his influence and agendas. The tendencies towards increasing
authoritarianism, the repression of political freedom and freedom of the press, as well as the
deteriorated situation for human rights and the rule of law are well-known ingredients to the
picture of contemporary Russian politics. There is however one thing that I would venture to
label a positive and durable achievement of the Putin presidencies; during his time at the
formal helm of executive power, self-esteem and a positive sense of national identity was
regained at a large scale among the Russian majority population. Identity became forged in
predominantly positive terms; and I would argue that Russia was made great again in the eyes
of domestic beholders. This may indeed have substantial consequences for Russian politics,
domestic as well as external.
Whether having a confident and self-assertive Russia is preferable to having a basically
LQVHFXUHRQHLQVHDUFKIRULWVµWUXH¶QDWLRQDOLGHQWLW\LVof course up to each individual
observer to decide. Several consequences may ensue from both scenarios, were they to be
realized, but I would still argue that the scenario of a confident Russia on balance would seem
to have positive effects, for the outside world and for previously beleaguered minorities at
home. I would for instance argue that it has contributed to relieving the Chechens on some of
the pressure previously put on them.
By way of contrast to tRGD\¶Vpolitical climate, the chaotic years of the Yeltsin presidencies
during the 1990s were characterized by a widespread and painful awareness of the political,
economic and social conundrum that Russia found itself in. During those years there was a
frantic search for some essential Russian post-Soviet national identity, and tellingly, a
national commission was even appointed by Yeltsin to come up with a formula of what
constituted the Russian national idea (Hunter et al 2004: 127). The commission largely and
3 perhaps predictably failed in its task, but both its appointment as well as its meager results
bore witness to the Russian predicament during those years.
The Chechen card and Vladimir Putin¶s rise to power
As national identity was not generally perceived to be secure and unquestionable, there was
fertile soil for forging national identity, provisionally, in negative terms. Consequently, the
national Self had to be defined through the appropriation of what proper Russians were not,
and thus there was a dire need of identifying an Other who epitomized the negative
characteristics that the bulk of Russians could unite against. Consequently, the seductively
simple answer to the questions about the causes of 5XVVLD¶VVKRUWFRPLQJVwas presented by
Vladimir Putin as he launched his successful bid for the presidency in the second half of 1999
(Petersson 2001). Thus, those Others so intensely sought for were quite simply the Chechens,
who allegedly were to blame for all misfortunes and problems befalling Russian political and
economic life since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. There was undeniably a casus belli .
Moscow and other cities in mainland Russia had during the fall of 1999 been stricken by a
series of bomb explosions taking a toll of hundreds of civilian lives. The responsibility was
never conclusively proven by the authorities (Litvinenko & Felsjtinskij 2007), but it was
commonly attributed to Chechen terrorists by the Russian authorities. Also, Chechen militants
had in an ill advised move occupied and taken the control over a number of countryside
villages in the neighboring republic of Dagestan, allegedly as a first step towards the
establishment of an all-Caucasus Islamic republic. The stage was set for a firm response by
the central power.
Indeed, by launching a second war against the Chechens everything was ostensibly to be put
right again, and the Chechens were consequently scapegoated for being behind everything
from separatism and secessionism over Islamic fundamentalism and terror to corruption and
organized crime (Petersson 2001). For a political craftsman these explanations were quite
handy; by blaming all ills on an external enemy, albeit one existing within, the idea could be
UHWDLQHGWKDW5XVVLD¶VRULJLQDOFRQGLWLRQDQGULJKWIXOSRVLWLRQZDVRQHRIDJUHDWSRZHU$V
long as this alleged obstacle, the universal scapegoat, UHPDLQHG5XVVLD¶VUHVXUJHQFHWR
greatness was inhibited.
4 In late 1999 it was a common opinion among Western observers WKDW3XWLQ¶VHOHFWRUDO
platform consisted of but one issue: the renewed war effort against Chechnya, and when it
came to more burning problems where immediate answers were sorely required, above all
KRZWRGHDOZLWKWKHFRXQWU\¶VSHUHQQLDODQGGHHSSROLWLFDOHFRQRPLFDQGVRFLDOFULVLV, critics
argued that his political contours were as discernible as the ones of a black cat in a pitch black
room. As is well known, the political recipe presented by the top contender for the presidency
was successful and Putin won a landslide victory at the polls. Since then his contours have
become very much clearer, even unmistakable at times, but in those early years the
shapelessness seemingly served him well. By directing the focus to the campaign against
Chechnya, he avoided closer examination of his program for dealing with the social and
economic malaises of the country. He could buy some valuable time which allowed him to
deal with those issues later, when he was already installed as a president. This was, one is
tempted to say, classical populism in action.
Even though the victory in Chechnya was hard-won and difficult to attain this time as well,
WKHSXEOLFFRQILGHQFHLQ3XWLQ¶VOHDGHUVKLSDELOLWLHVSersisted. The first war on Chechnya, in
the years 1994-96, almost cost Yeltsin his presidential office and he had to opt for an
armistice and a peace agreement to be able to be voted into office for a second term
(Wagnsson 2000). By way of contrast, the war never turned into a real domestic liability for
Putin. Just a few weeks before stepping down from the presidential office in 2008 his
popularity rating was an impressive 85 per cent (Carriere-Kretschmer & Holzwart 2008), and
the figures had been consistently high throughout his two periods of incumbency. Though
Putin in 2008 formally took a step downwards to the post of the Prime Minister he
consistently kept on eclipsing President Medvedev in the polls even after the transition in
power.
Quite clearly, however, in sustaining his high popularity rating Putin was much aided by the
fact that world market prices in oil and gas increased six times over in the period from 2000 to
2008. 7KLVGLGUHPDUNDEOHWKLQJVWR5XVVLD¶VQDWLRQDOHFRQRP\Being the exporter of about a
WKLUGRIWKH(XURSHDQ8QLRQ¶Vdemand of natural gas and believed to wield about half of the
ZRUOG¶VNQRZQSURGXFWLRQUHVHUYHVRIsuch gas, Russia was suddenly elevated to the position
of being what in popular parlance became known as an energy superpower. The actual use of
this label has been contested (Kivinen 2010) but it certainly catches a discernible tendency in
the development of 5XVVLD¶VVWDWXVLQWKHYLHZVRIWKHRXWVLGHZRUOGThere was indeed a
5 remarkable change from EHLQJDµ%XUNLQD)DVRZLWKPLVVLOHV¶LQWKH<HOWVLQ\HDUVWRthe
coming back to the world stage with a vengeance already during the early years of his first
successor.
In the repeated crises involving Russian use of the µgas weapon¶ against former Soviet
republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania and Turkmenistan from 2004-2005
on it also became clear that the Russian leadership was keenly aware of the power potential
inherent in being a strategic gas supplier. There was no mistaking that Russia had increasingly
started to move with some assertiveness on the world arena. The outside world had also taken
in this circumstance, and even if Russia has been careful not to apply the gas and oil weapon
against countries outside the post-Soviet realm (Larsson 2006), there has been a reappraisal
also with regard to Western perceptions of Russia.
I would venture to say that the perception of Russia as a country which has rapidly regained
its great power position still stands, even despite the dire consequences for Russia of the
world financial crisis from 2008 on. The Russian stock exchange was the one hardest hit in all
Europe, but crucially, the rest of the developed world suffered too, and Russia was this time
not perceived to be alone in its predicament. Even so, one cannot avoid noting that Vladimir
Putin has been lucky about timing. His successor Dmitry Medvedev was immediately
confronted with the onset of the financial crisis and its ensuing drop in world market prices of
fossil fuels, and even if Putin was still highly publicly visible as a Prime Minister, his was
now an office that is not as heavily laden with symbolic importance as is the presidency itself.
Specific periods of time are in everyday Russian discourse associated with their presidents,
not their prime ministers.
Recognition as great power
So, the great power status was at least partially restored to Russia, in the domestic public
opinion as well as in eyes of the outside world. According to Iver B. Neumann (2008), there
are two main dimensions to be reckoned with when it comes to the international recognition
RI5XVVLD¶VJUHDWSRZHUVWDWXV+LVWRULFDOO\, such recognition has largely been denied to
Russia, Neumann holds. The first criterion is above all about international influence, and at
least for most of the time after the end of WWII this component would seem to have been
6 there. However, following Neumann, the second aspect has been the critical and lacking one,
namely assessments of the internal dimension of Russian politics. Neumann argues that
recognition has been withheld on the grounds that the principles of governance in Russia have
been too distanced from Western ideals of how good, or at least effective, governance is to be
enacted.
I fully concur with the idea about the importance of the effectiveness of internal governance
for the DVVHVVPHQWVRI5XVVLD¶VVWDWXV+RZHYHU,ZRXOGOLNHWRDUJXHWKDWWKese assessments
are more about the effectiveness of internal control than about its inherent quality, and that
this is actually more crucial for the recognition on the part of the domestic public than by the
international community (cf. Rich 2009). The domestic concern is more than anything about
order, not about good governance or democracy, which has actually often been counterpoised
to order in the Russian debate (Shlapentokh 1994:595). By way of example, the Pew Research
Center, Washington DC, found in a poll conducted in 2006 that whereas a meager 29 per cent
of Russian respondents confessed to favour democracy, 61 per cent expressed their preference
IRUKDYLQJµDVWURQJKDQG¶DWWKHKHOPRI5XVVLDQSROLWLFV7KLVZDVDKLJKO\QHJDWLYH
development as compared to the findings made in the early 1990s when a majority of the
respondents (51%) preferred democracy, whereas µRQO\¶39 per cent had a predilection for a
strong hand in Russian politics (Morin & Samaranayake 2006).
Crucially, the point that I will be trying to make in the remainder of this paper is that in
Russian political discourse, domestic order is conceptualized as the ability to avoid internal
weakness, or above all its epitome, lengthy states of disorder and times of trouble. In the
paper I will dwell upon the image of the Time of Troubles, or smuta, in Russian political
mythology.
Political myths
In the terms of social psychology, political myths are shared beliefs (Bar-Tal 2000). They
provide a sense of belonging and togetherness, underpin shared identities and help to provide
popular legitimacy to political leaders who act in manners consistent with those political
myths (Esch 2010). The actual truth of a political myth is not relevant for determining its
political impact. Regardless of whether the myth happens to be historically true or false, what
7 is of paramount importance is that it has a broad popular following, and that it provides a
sense of origin, identity and purpose to its followers (Davies 1997; Tanasoiu 2005). Myths are
in other words narratives which are believed to be true by a group of people. Moreover, myths
have strong tendencies towards simplification, much for the sake of achieving accessibility
and appeal (Tanasoiu 2005). They provide building blocks for the JURXS¶VHIIRUWVWRGHILQHD
common purpose and a collective identity. In other words, myths are culturally and socially
shared beliefs which represent and express the perceived social reality of the society
members.
Furthermore, myths constitute part of everyday political discourse, contain taken-for-granted
truths and serve to mould public opinion and consciousness. They do so by providing frames
for the interpretation of social and political processes and events, as well as for the
interpretation and perception of inter-group relations and group characteristics (Esch 2010). In
the following I will argue that the ideas about recurring Times of Troubles in Russian politics,
and the desirability of avoiding or overcoming such periods through the resurrection of order
by strong political actors, is an influential shared belief in Russian political discourse.
In an analysis of political myths one will have to engage with such myths at different levels of
generality and abstraction. Mid-range myths thus form parts of more overarching ones.
Therefore, it is reasonable to state that the political myth about the smuta forms part of more
wide-ranging myths, lLNHHJWKHRQHDERXW5XVVLDDVDJUHDWSRZHURUWKHRQHDERXW5XVVLD¶V
special mission in the world (cf. Hosking 1997)1. In this context the smuta is to be seen as
something which temporarily inhibits the natural course of things prompted by 5XVVLD¶V
rightful great power status. A smuta will for a while halt the fulfillment of the global mission,
but by overcoming the smuta and showing its nationally inherent strength, Russia will in the
end set an example and manifest its greatness in and to the world. This interrelationship and
the resulting interaction between myths at different levels of generality is something that will
have to be scrutinized in a more detailed and elaborate study than this one. I hope to be able to
undertake such a study in the near future.
1
Lo (2002:53) refers to the Russian insistence on always being a greaƚƉŽǁĞƌĂƐĂŶ͚ŝĚĞŽůŽŐLJ͕͛ǁŚŝĐŚŝƐŝŶŚŝƐ
ƵƐĂŐĞƌĞĨĞƌƌĞĚƚŽĂƐĂ͚ƉƌĞĚŝƐƉŽƐŝƚŝŽŶĂůŝŶĨůƵĞŶĐĞ͛ŽŶƉŽůŝĐLJƚŚŝŶŬŝŶŐĂŶĚĚĞĐŝƐŝŽŶ-­‐ŵĂŬŝŶŐ͘ůĞĂƌůLJ͕>Ž͛ƐƵƐĞŽĨ
ƚŚĞĐŽŶĐĞƉƚ͚ŝĚĞŽůŽŐLJ͛ŚĂƐŐƌĞĂƚƐŝŵŝůĂƌŝƚŝĞƐƚŽŵLJƵƐĞŽĨ͚ŽǀĞƌĂƌĐŚŝŶŐŵLJƚŚƐ͛͘ 8 Main contents of the smuta myth
One of the most turbulent periods ever in Russian history has become known as the Time of
Troubles and lasted between 1598 and 1612/1613. The period was characterized by political
disorder, chaos, and foreign occupation by the hands of European powers such as Poland and
Sweden (Dunning 2001). During the period the collapse of the Russian state seemed
imminent (Coalson 2007). Internally a number of false pretenders had tried to use the political
vacuum to make it all the way to the throne, presenting themselves as the miraculously
resurrected Tsar Dmitrii, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. In 1612 the noblemen Minin
and Pozharskii initiated and led a popular uprising which ultimately led to the ousting of
foreign powers from Russian soil. Finally, the ascendancy of Mikhail Romanov to the throne
of the tsars in 1613 marked the symbolic end of the Time of Troubles, or as it is called in
Russian, the smutnoye vremya .
The new tsar, Mikhail Romanov, not only managed to restore order to the Russian house. He
has also become famous as the founder of the dynasty of the Romanovs, who less than a
hundred years later would see 0LNKDLO¶Vgrandson Peter the Great as its most renowned
descendant. More than anyone else Peter came to symbolize the attainability of the Russian
dream about great power status. In less than ten years¶WLPH he moved the country away from
a state of national humiliation by the hands of the Swedes at the battlefield of Narva to the
resounding viFWRU\RYHU6ZHGHQDW3ROWDYDZKLFKPDUNHGWKHEHJLQQLQJRI5XVVLD¶V
WUDMHFWRU\DVD(XURSHDQJUHDWSRZHUDQGWKHGHILQLWHHQGWR6ZHGHQ¶Vgreat power
aspirations. $OVRUHWXUQLQJDJDLQWRWKHLPSRUWDQFHRIWKHLQWHUQDOGLPHQVLRQ3HWHU¶VIDPHDV
a reformer and modernizer brought Russia recognition and respect from the outside world. In
short, Russia was made great again, feared due to its successful power projection in Europe,
and respected because of its progress and gains in the internal economic development and
modernization of the country.
To delve somewhat deeper into the concept of smuta itself one can first of all, like Solovei
(2004) has done, distil from the contemporary scholarly discussion the idea that periods of
smuta come and go in Russian politics. The period associated with the original Time of
Troubles was the one to give rise to the term, but the phenomenon had been known in Russia
even prior to that. For instance, Parland (2005) discerns four principal periods of smuta in
Russian history: the collapse of the Kievan state 1200-1350 (the onset of which made the
9 country an easy target for the Mongol invasion); the paradigmatic Time of Troubles, or
smutnoe vremya, in 1598-1613, the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, and the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
Regardless of what subdivisions one may undertake, more than one smuta has followed after
the one giving rise to the name itself. The early years of the reign of the young Peter the Great
have for instance already been mentioned. Depending on political perspective, the entire
Soviet period could be read as a smuta, or at any rate the years of civil war following in the
wake of the October coup in 1917. Likewise, the final years of the Soviet era, the ones
associated with the name of Mikhail Gorbachev, could without doubt be regarded as a smuta,
as could, most typically, the Yeltsin presidencies of the 1990s.
The idea that gives great mythological strength to the conception of the smuta is above all that
smuty are recurring periods of weakness and humiliation which temporarily get in the way of
WKHUHDOL]DWLRQRI5XVVLD¶Vtrue and rightful greatness. The connoted meaning of the concept
has it that there is hope, even in the darkest of moments, because Russia will always prevail in
the end. Thus, the state of weakness will be overcome and greatness and order will be
restored, almost no matter what. Russia will rise again, thanks to resourceful, wise and bold
actors who will appear in the nick of time and lead Russia out of the crisis (Solovei 2004).
Putin and the ending of the last smuta
In contemporary Russian political discourse the Yeltsin era has been characterized as a period
of deep national humiliation, of quintessential smuta (Hedlund 2006). The Russian openness
to the major Western powers, above all the United States, and its adoption of large-scale
economic experiments and reform associated with the term of shock therapy, has in the
Russian debate been branded almost as the equivalent of treason. While the US model of
political and economic development in the early 1990s experienced a brief heyday in Russian
elite perceptions and in the public debate, it was in popularity terms soon overtaken by the
preference of the Chinese model, which of course has vastly different connotations with
regard to sovereignty versus the outside world and internal control at home (Petersson 2001).
3XWLQ¶VLQVLVWHQFHRn 5XVVLD¶VLQGHSHQGHQFHin relation to the Western powers and his coining
of the expression µVRYHUHLJQGHPRFUDF\¶ZKLFKVWUHVVHVWKDW5XVVia will walk no path in its
internal development save from its own is fully consistent with the myth about the ending of
10 the smuta, through the actions of a strong domestic leader. The event which perhaps showed
most clearly to what lengths the Russian leaders were prepared to go to demonstrate their
sovereignty in relation to foreign powers occurred in connection with the parliamentary and
presidential elections in 2007-2008. At the time Russia imposed so severe restrictions on the
planned contingency of international election observers of the Organization of Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that the latter in an unprecedented move refrained from
sending any observers at all. The far-reaching openness towards observers had been instituted
during the earliest years of the Yeltsin presidencies, so again the contrast was evident. The
actions taken by the Russian authorities thus squared very well with the ideal of projecting an
LPDJHDERXWEHLQJWKHPDVWHURIRQH¶VRZQKRXVH
Putin, Peter and Mikhail
Even if Putin publicly has indicated Peter the Great to be one of his prime sources of
inspiration among Russians leaders in history (Bagger 2007:15), the parallels to Mikhail
Romanov are also easy to see in contemporary mythmaking. Putin, just like Mikhail, put an
end to internal weakness and outside meddling and brought order back to the Russian house.
The turmoil was terminated through his resolve and his resounding domestic legitimacy as a
leader. In short, Russia was reinstated to respect and recognition.
Significantly, in the Russian national calendar attempts have been made to underline the
parallel between Putin¶VWLPH and Mikhail Romanov¶V. Thus, instead of the old Soviet holiday
commemorating the start of the October revolution (the Concord and Reconciliation Day,
November 7) a new national holiday was in 2005 introduced on November 4th, which happens
to be the date of the ascension to the throne of Mikhail Romanov (Tobakov 2005). The name
of the new holiday caPHWREH3HRSOH¶V8QLW\'D\. On the very first day that the holiday was
FHOHEUDWHG3XWLQUHPDUNHG³7KLVZDVDYLFWRU\RISDWULRWLFIRUFHVDYLFWRU\IRUWKHSURMHFWWR
strengthen the state by uniting, centralizing and joining forces. These heroic events mark the
beginning of the spiritual revival of the fatherland and the creation of a great and sovereign
SRZHU´3XWLQE2QWKHVDPHGD\KHalso expressed his hopes that the ending of the
smuta through the united effort by the Russian people would serve as a source of inspiration
also in WRGD\¶V5XVVLD3XWLQD
11 Narratives of pride and shame
In order to fully appreciate the grip on popular imaginations that the idea of avoidance or
warding off of smuty seems to have in Russia, there is reason to connect to the ideas about
chosen traumas and chosen glories closely associated with the name of Vamik Volkan (2001).
According to him, these dichotomies are centerpieces in the construction of any collective
identity. In this parlance, smuty, then, would be deeply associated with traumas, and hence
with shame, whereas the overcoming of the recurring periods of weakness would be said to
give rise to glories and amount to being sources of national pride. The element of pride
provides necessary emotional glue not least for societies under development. Conversely, if
feelings of collective guilt or shame proliferate, national identity might fail to muster any
significant following (Petersson 2001).
WKHQ,VRPHWHQ\HDUVDJRLQWKHPLGVWRI5XVVLD¶VH[WHQGHGSHULRGRISROLWLFDODQGVRFLReconomic weakness, undertook a series of interviews with Russian politicians at central and
regional parliamentary levels, the reign of Peter the Great, as well as the defeat of Nazi
Germany in the Great Patriotic War, were repeatedly held out as golden ages in the history of
the Russian nation. Both are about the overcoming of smuty, of international humiliation and
perennial weakness. They are about victories against overwhelming odds. Both these
historical cases were by my informants cited as sources of national pride to be drawn upon for
inspiration in periods of weakness, and they were said to show that, no matter how
despairingly hopeless the prospects seemed to be, there was always hope for the great nation
of Russia to reassert and resurrect itself to its rightful position in the international arena. In
fact, the great power trajectory was depicted as a preordained development, which however
from time to time might need to be given a push by adequate, formidable, national actors.
What kind of stuff are, then, such national saviours woven of? Within the literature on
collective identities the observation has commonly been made that the construction of
identities often has dichotomies as a foundational element (Petersson & Tyler 2008; Esch
2010:370). The good and virtuous in-group is seen in a very light in contrast to the out-group,
the quintessential Other (Billig 1995). Therefore it is hardly surprising that national heroes
manifest characteristics that amount to the positive part of dichotomous pairs. They are the
good and noble, the wise and the virtuous who save the country from the reprehensible and
the decrepit.
12 By the portrayal of Vladimir Putin in contrast to his predecessor, the president of the time of
the most recent smuta, Boris Yeltsin, the former is consistently depicted as the wielder of
good traits. He comes across as the young and energetic, whereas Yeltsin is described as
ailing and listless. Putin is the strong and resourceful, whereas the impression of Yeltsin is the
one of a weak and faltering man. Resolve is contrasted with vacillation, and, fundamentally,
order is contrasted with chaos.
'XULQJWKHILUVW\HDURI3XWLQ¶VSUHVLGHQF\law-and-order was a theme consistently brought
up in his speeches. The connotations are that before he took over the position of prime
minister in 1999, chaos and budding anarchy reigned. People were insecure and uncertain
about their future. At the outset of his presidency Putin was very cautious in his criticism of
Boris Yeltsin but he became clearly damning in the characterization of his predecessors in the
office of the Prime Minister. With regard to the situation in Northern Caucasus, especially in
Chechnya, he argued e.g. in August 2000 that the previous JRYHUQPHQWµGLGQRWKDYHHQRXJK
guts to tackle the problHPVFRQIURQWLQJLW¶(Putin 2000 d).
Significantly, the bulk of the speeches that Putin gave during his first year as a president were
about law and order. Not surprisingly perhaps for a man with a professional background in the
security services, he dealt extensively with matters such as crime, corruption and challenges
WRVWDWHVHFXULW\+LVUDWKHULQIDPRXVVWDWHPHQWDERXWWKHQHFHVVLW\RIHVWDEOLVKLQJµWKH
GLFWDWRUVKLSRIWKHODZ¶ZDVPDGHGXULQJWKLVILUVW\HDURIKLVSUHVLGHQF\(Putin 2000 c). µ7KH
state has to be strong, and it has become weaN¶KHunderlined (Putin 2000b). Thus, an end
had to be put to the prolonged smuta, and the President acted accordingly.
Similarly, democracy which was widely hailed in the years of Yeltsin is in the public debate
of today depicted as a rather dubious phenomenon when transposed to the Russian soil,
especially since it is often cRQWUDVWHGZLWKRUGHU7KHWHUPµVRYHUHLJQGHPRFUDF\¶that is so
closely associated with Putin is presumably a response to this; µVRYHUHLJQ¶LVDQLPSRUWDQW
qualifier to stress that the mode of JRYHUQDQFHLVRQHRI5XVVLD¶VRZQFKRRVLQJ1RIRUHLJQ
powers must ever dictate how Russia is to be governed (Anderman et al 2007:31). The smuta
is not to be repeated, and no meddling will be tolerated from the outside world, neither from
foreign powers nor from international terrorism. No civil war will be allowed, and there will
be no secession from the Russian Federation (Putin 2000a).
13 Conclusion
The political myth about the smuta and its eventual overcoming serves to weld Russians
together and instill hopes about favourable political developments. Conversely, allegations
and experiences of being in the midst of a smuta lessen the popular legitimacy of political
incumbents. This is one way of understanding the popularity of Putin, and it serves also to
comprehend the intense dislike with which the Yeltsin years are discussed in contemporary
political discourse.
It would thus be my contention that one explanation of 9ODGLPLU3XWLQ¶VVWXQQLQJSRSXOarity
figures is his aptness to connect to the political myth about the overcoming of the smuta. He
manages to acquire domestic legitimacy from the fact that he was the actor to step forth from
the chaotic 1990s to guide Russia out of its perennial crisis and back to a reclaimed position
of international respect and greatness. Even though the global financial crisis led to severe
problems in Russia, Putin¶s reputation has not been tainted. In fact, in the selectivity of public
memory he might even stand to benefiWIURPWKLVDVKHLVDVVRFLDWHGPRUHZLWK5XVVLD¶V
fortunes during the years of his presidential tenures than with the difficulties experienced
GXULQJKLV\HDUVDVDSULPHPLQLVWHU,QIDFWKLVSUHVLGHQFLHVDQG5XVVLD¶VHOHYDWLRQWRDQ
µenergy superpower¶ during those years may in the public imaginary come across as yet
DQRWKHUJROGHQDJHLQWKHFRQVWUXFWLRQRI5XVVLD¶VQDWLRQDOLGHQWLW\7Ke current Prime
Minister therefore remains a formidable contender for the presidential position already in
2012.
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