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<p>The article deals with the problem of compatibility of applying two predicates to the contemporary Russian regime: conservative and cynical. This application is not obvious: conservatism is a defender of established and/or past norms and institutions, while cynicism opposes them and strongly favours ‘life by nature’. Cynicism is a highly complex ideological and praxeological formation. In its ancient forms and variants, it existed for almost a thousand years before being revisited by medieval, Renaissance and New European thought. To understand the functioning of cynicism in contemporary Russia, it is necessary to take into account a combination of factors of different chronological reference interacting within Putinism: the Chaadaevian “deficit paradigm” (in which a flaw becomes an advantage, or even a sign of superiority), the Marxist concept of the proletariat as the vanguard force of world history (a concept nationalised in favour of the <i>Russian</i> proletariat) and, finally, the last important ‘station’: specific Soviet cynicism as a defensive-reactive rejection of communist ideology.</p>

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How can conservatism be reconciled with cynicism?

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年7月15日

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  • Michail Maiatsky

摘要

The article deals with the problem of compatibility of applying two predicates to the contemporary Russian regime: conservative and cynical. This application is not obvious: conservatism is a defender of established and/or past norms and institutions, while cynicism opposes them and strongly favours ‘life by nature’. Cynicism is a highly complex ideological and praxeological formation. In its ancient forms and variants, it existed for almost a thousand years before being revisited by medieval, Renaissance and New European thought. To understand the functioning of cynicism in contemporary Russia, it is necessary to take into account a combination of factors of different chronological reference interacting within Putinism: the Chaadaevian “deficit paradigm” (in which a flaw becomes an advantage, or even a sign of superiority), the Marxist concept of the proletariat as the vanguard force of world history (a concept nationalised in favour of the Russian proletariat) and, finally, the last important ‘station’: specific Soviet cynicism as a defensive-reactive rejection of communist ideology.