The Duck of Minerva

Lisa Gaufman

Elizaveta Gaufman is Assistant Professor of Russian Discourse and Politics at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She is the author of "Security Threats and Public Perception" (2017) and "Everyday Foreign Policy: Performing and Consuming the Russian Nation after Crimea" (2023)

Recent Posts

Voldemort, Trump, and the other usual suspects of Putin’s press conference

by Lisa Gaufman | 17 December, 2020 | , , ,

Klimentyev, RIA Novosti. Sing it with me: It’s the most Putinist time of the year! For the 16th time the Dear Leader addressed the nation and the world from through their TV screens during a carefully choreographed almost 5-hour long annual press conference that could count as a State of the Union Q&A. there were some adjustments to the usual format: the lidded cup was still there, but almost no journalists in the actual room with Putin, his answers were televised from his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo. It’s almost impossible to go through all the press conference and not bore the readers...

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Writing about Violence During the Pandemic

Writing about Violence During the Pandemic

by Lisa Gaufman | 17 December, 2020 |

This is guest post from Philipp Schulz, a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) at the University of Bremen. His work focuses on the gender dynamics of political violence, armed conflict and post-conflict transitions, with a focus on wartime sexual violence. Writing, and researching, about violence is never easy, involving complex ethical, moral, methodological and epistemologieschallenges. This makes it difficult enough to write about violence under ‘ordinary’ circumstances and in ‘normal times’ – and most...

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Coffee and TV: Election Edition

Coffee and TV: Election Edition

by Lisa Gaufman | 9 November, 2020 | ,

A couple of years ago, I conducted a Gary Steyngart-esque experiment and watched Russian TV for a day, to find out in what kind of information bubble a regular Russian person lives. This year, I can’t use the remote because I bit all my nails during the American election week, but also the borders are closed, so both Russia and a Russian TV are beyond my reach. Never fear, I fired up Ye olde Tube to see what’s happening with the American elections in the Russian media. Let’s flip to one of the most odious guys on Channel Two – Dimitry Kiselyov, aka “let’s burn gays’ hearts”....

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Race and the Russian IR

Race and the Russian IR

by Lisa Gaufman | 9 September, 2020 | ,

This is the fifth post in the our series Race&IR. Black Lives Matter has spearheaded a massive reckoning of race relations in the US and around the world, but not so much in Russia. The discipline of IR may have started a bit earlier than this year’s protests: there have been a number of interventions that have brought the issue of race to the forefront of teaching and research – even though it should have always been there at least since DuBois. Not everyone is happy though: right-wing media cry “cancel culture” and debates on the merits of critical approaches somehow...

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A Tale of Two Protests

by Lisa Gaufman | 31 August, 2020 | , ,

The artist Rufina Bazlova has used traditional embroidery to describe current events in Belarus This past weekend, two European capitals witnessed large-scale protests. Both of them protested against the government, both carried the flags that once symbolized their state, in both cases the police was involved, and during one of them the crowd was chanting “Putin! Putin!”. If you think the latter happened in Minsk you are sadly mistaken: the crowd in Belarus is much more creative than the Neo-Nazi conspiracy theorists in Berlin.  The 38,000-strong crowd in Berlin was doing yoga against German...

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Cooking up a Constitution

Cooking up a Constitution

by Lisa Gaufman | 6 March, 2020 | ,

In an attempt to distract myself from the thought that today my small university town will be overrun by 900 frat boys who went to Northern Italy on a skiing vacation despite the Dutch government’s warning, let’s discuss something that might have gone under the radar – future changes to the Russian Constitution.  Amid a global pandemic what could be better than voting in a Referendum? Only voting for a President, amirite? But let’s start from the beginning. Mid-January Russian President Vladimir Putin suddenly announced that the Russian Constitution might need some freshening up....

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Practicing Academic Kindness in the Classroom

by Lisa Gaufman | 17 February, 2020 | , , , ,

This is a guest post by Philipp Schulz, who is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) at the University of Bremen. Philipp’s research focuses on the gender dynamics of armed conflicts, with a particular focus on masculinities and wartime sexual violence. His book ‘Male Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence – Perspectives from northern Uganda’ is forthcoming with University of California Press.  Academic competitiveness and pettiness is alive and real. From expediting demands of the competitive academic job...

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The Russian Enigma

by Lisa Gaufman | 27 December, 2019 | , , ,

On an ice-cold winter evening I arrived in Moscow to untangle the riddle that is Russia. After reading two op-eds by Anne Applebaum and Bill Browder I knew what this country was about but I just wanted to see it for myself. The eyes of the border control guards reflected the thousand years of Russia’s repressive regime. I was half-expecting the KGB to arrest me there and then because four years ago I posted on Facebook that I didn’t like Vlad, but they let me through. My Moscow adventure had begun.  The shadow of Stalin still looms large over this sprawling city. As soon as you approach the...

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Russians Love Their Children Too

by Lisa Gaufman | 23 December, 2019 |

Sting said it best What kind of questions do you usually expect from a Town Hall meeting in the US? Healthcare? Climate change? Pensions? Schools? Roads? You would be surprised, but these are also the kind of questions journalists asked President Putin last Thursday at his annual presser (his 15th one, no less). Apart from the recurrent theme of the Great Patriotic War, it was your run of the mill, banal Q & A session; just instead of concerned citizens you have a room full of 1895 journalists from Russia and abroad with varying level of sanity and servility.  The range was big...

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Lessons from Radicalization Narratives on Social Media

by Lisa Gaufman | 4 December, 2019 |

This is a guest post from Dr. Sybille Reinke de Buitrago, who is a Researcher and Project Manager of “VIDEOSTAR – Video-based Strategies Against Radicalization” at PolAk Nds, the Academy of Police Science and Criminology, Germany. Her research focuses on processes of identity, perception, emotions and discourse in security policy and international relations. With the multitude of ‘stuff’ anyone can say online, why does it matter what someone says? It depends. When it comes to extremists posting content, we should be concerned, because spreading hatred online can incite actual violence....

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