SUMMARY:

Riccardo Nicolosi argues that Putin’s regime constructs normative Russianness by cultivating the paranoia, resentment, and reenactment of a mythologized past. Based on a common emotional regime and a politically controlled historical narrative, this identity discourse is fundamentally irrational and hence not falsifiable. Arbitrarily constructed tradition and values bear identity-forming significance and prompt a war on everyone who fails to comply with the normative identity – both inside and outside the country.