The Rise of Russkaya Obshchina in Putin’s Russia: Echoes of the Black Hundreds? A Conversation with Sergey Sukhankin and Paul Goble

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the Eyes on Eurasia podcast with Glen Howard! Another menacing cloud is emerging within Putin’s Russia known as: Russkaia Obshchina (Russian Community), which is a new utra right wing nationalist group that is rapidly attracting thousands of new followers across the country.

Once a marginal nationalist initiative, Russkaia Obshchina has rapidly evolved into a powerful, state-linked paramilitary formation that fuses xenophobic populism, Orthodox fundamentalism, and ultranationalist ideology. Russkaia Obshchina bears a disturbing ressemblance to the anti-semitic Black Hundreds group that terrorized Russia’s Jewish community in Tsarist pre-revolutionary Russia prior to World War I and continued to plague Russian society until the country’s collapse in 1917.

Helping us to examine the rise of Russkaia Obshchina—its similarities and differences with the Black Hundreds, and the nature of Russian state support for the group—are two leading experts on the issue: Sergey Sukhankin, a Senior Fellow at The Saratoga Foundation and Paul Goble, a Distringuished Fellow Emeritus at The Saratoga Foundation and author of the blog: Window on Eurasia.

Enjoy the podcast!

Glen

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