Language:
English
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
Nationalist Myths and Modern Media
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2006) 243-255
Keywords:
Protocols of the wise men of Zion
;
Antisemitism
;
Conspiracy theories
Abstract:
"The Protocols", a forgery concocted a century ago, gained new popularity in the USSR in the "perestroika" period and in post-Soviet Russia. The rediscovered propagator of the "Protocols", religious writer Sergei Nilus, is also very popular. In present-day Russia there is widespread belief in a conspiracy hatched by Satanic forces and their earthly helpers, often identified with Jews. One of the main advocates of the conspiracy theory is the popular, if mediocre, painter Ilya Glazunov. Concludes that the myth of a Jewish conspiracy possesses structural features shared with, on the one hand, the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of history and, on the other hand, Russian Orthodox eschatology, both of which held Russia in their sway for generations. Conspiracy theories derive their attraction from their capacity for radical simplification of a complex reality. Now that the "specter of communism" has died for Russians, the "specter of conspiracy" has become livelier than ever.
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