'Yes' to Reviving the Modernization Discourse: Anti-Soviet Mafia State and Trans-Soviet Society

• In Event: Soviet Legacy: Rejecting, Reshaping, Overcoming

Abstract

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, both the Russian state and society have undergone independent developmental trajectories. Since the mafia capture in the early years of Putin's presidency, the state followed a de-Sovietizing trend towards archaization, despite some modernization efforts. Meanwhile, Russian society has been following classic modernization patterns that extend beyond those of the Soviet era. Questions regarding the negation and transcendence of the Soviet modernization model will particularly find answers referencing ‘Slovo patsana’ (‘The Lad's Word: Blood on the Sidewalk’), a 2023 Russian TV crime drama. 

Author

• Sergei Erofeev, Rutgers, The State U of New Jersey