The aggressive political myth used to justify war – not only against Ukraine but against the entire Western civilization – penetrates much deeper into the public consciousness than Kremlin propaganda, disinformation, or fake news.
If Soviet ideology was monolithic, the current ideology of the Russian authorities appears loose, combining seemingly incompatible elements – for example, the cultivation of the Soviet past alongside the idealization of Tsarist Russia. Nevertheless, Russian propaganda has shown significant success, attracting a wide range of political forces, sometimes even those hostiles to each other. This demonstrates that modern Russian ideology functions differently from the Soviet one
Will the Russian people have the right to self-determination after their defeat in the war, or will their fate be decided by a coalition of the victors? To answer this question, it is necessary to clarify the concept of “agency,” to which Nikolai Karpitsky has devoted another article in the Dictionary of War on PostPravda.Info.
Over the years of the war with Russia, the word “Rashism” has become firmly established in Ukrainian usage, although some political scientists regard it as a vague and unscientific notion. However, Ukrainians clearly understand what rashism is and how it differs from other forms of fascism. On May 2, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a definition of the term “rashism,” enumerating its main characteristics. This definition is descriptive in nature, and has therefore become the subject of another article by Nikolai Karpitsky for PostPravda.Info’s Dictionary of War.
An ordinary person perceives as evil anything that harms them or contradicts their ethical and religious beliefs. On this basis, researchers often conclude that evil is an evaluative concept and should therefore be excluded from the objective analysis of social processes. However, with the outbreak of the war, Ukrainians came to realise through their own experience that the question of evil is not abstract but existential: it is bound up with their right to life.
The tragedy in Kryvyi Rih prompted the editorial team of PostPravda.info to choose the term “necro-imperialism” as the subject of the next article in the Dictionary of War by Prof. Nikolai Karpitsky.
Why do Ukrainians draw on J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagery from The Lord of the Rings to depict Russia nd its soldiers, rather than references from zombie or vampire films and series? Is this connected to aesthetic intuition, the existential experience of war, or value orientations? These questions are addressed in another article by Nikolai Karpitsky ffor the Dictionary of War, a project developed by the PostPravda.info editorial team.
The word "Russia" has two meanings. It is both the name of a modern or previous state entity in northern Eurasia and an ideological construct that replaces the concept of a country.
