Global Russians and Millennials in Academic Environment. RIAC Discussion

On April 21, 2018, RIAC conducted an open discussion with young scholars on the topic: "Fathers and Children in the Academic Environment" within the framework of the annual all-Russian action "Biblio Night" in Fyodor Dostoevsky library. Anton Tsvetov, expert in the Foreign Policy and Security division at the Center for Strategic Research, and Olga Breininger, Ph.D. candidate in Slavic and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, a literary anthropologist and writer, discussed how young scholars differ from their predecessors.

The discussion focused on the issues of definition and identification of generations, the attitude of the millennials to the disintegration of the USSR, the phenomenon of "global Russians," the impact of globalization, the clash of political correctness concepts, new sincerity, and post-truth in the expert environment.

On April 21, 2018, RIAC conducted an open discussion with young scholars on the topic: "Fathers and Sons in the Academic Environment" within the framework of the annual all-Russian action "Biblio Night" in Fyodor Dostoevsky library. Anton Tsvetov, expert at the Center for Strategic Research, and Olga Breininger, Ph.D. candidate in Slavic and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, a literary anthropologist and writer, discussed how young scholars differ from their predecessors.

The discussion focused on the issues of definition and identification of generations, the attitude of the millennials to the disintegration of the USSR, the phenomenon of "global Russians," the impact of globalization, the clash of political correctness concepts, new sincerity, and post-truth in the expert environment.

Below are selected talking points of the participants of the discussion.

One of the main features of the generation of millennials (generation Y or Q) is quick adaptation to new technical innovations.

What can be perceived as distinctive features, markers of a generation? Life experience, socio-economic or political, that influenced the generation at large, is very important.

Traumas of the Generation of Millennials

Some events can become traumatic, and these "traumas" determine both each representative of the generation and generation as a whole.

For the post-Soviet generation, the disintegration of the USSR is no longer one of the most important events in life, perceived as some "mythical" or "mythologized" event. Most representatives of this generation did not live in the Soviet Union, and all the information about life there was received from older generations and from discussions in the socio-political space. The collapse of the USSR for this generation is an important historical phenomenon that does not bear any personal psychological significance. Moreover, today, young scholars transform the disintegration of the USSR issue into an issue of a former "closed space" entering the global world, the collision of an opening and an open space.

Can we now list the events that have already had a strong influence on the millennials? There is an opinion that compared to the previous generations, such events have not happened yet. Others believe that, over the past five years, perhaps, it could be the transition from globality to a "a look inside oneself". Still others would consider the "trauma of the generation" to be a long period of tenure of state authorities, covering the entire conscious life of a person or, at least, most of it. The terrorist attack on September 11 can also be considered one of such "traumas". This event gave the generation the feeling that wars are constantly taking place in the world, and that this is a normal state. War in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Syria can also be on the list of such events. All this creates a sense of instability and the absence of a "safe" zone. It turns out that a constant war occasionally interrupted by truces is the usual state of the world order.

At the same time the "traumas" for the post-Soviet generation are wars "on TV" and in newspapers. Such concentration of information about wars and the specifics in the work of experts on international relations with materials on conflicts normalizes the constant presence of conflict both intra-social and international for them. There is an opinion among the older and younger generations that this fact made the younger generation of experts more cynical and negatively affects the level of tolerance for violence.

Global Complexities of International Expertise

Some representatives of the younger generation are disenchanted with the globalized Russia of the 2010s. This was caused by such events as the Arab Spring and how it was perceived here, rallies on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue, Dima Yakovlev Law, also claiming to be the "generation trauma", the crisis in Ukraine and all that followed it. The terrorist attack on September 11 was more connected with the state of the world order, while the crisis in Ukraine affected the personal space, our country.

Today young scholars work in conditions when not only Russia began to close from the world, but other countries are also getting "canned". Since 2013, the United States has increasingly started to move away from building a common intellectual world. The geopolitical agenda has led to a strong polarization of discourse. It is difficult to talk about relations between Russia and the United States in both countries today. Experts working in the U.S. and Russia sometimes unconsciously act as "devil's advocates". In the attempt to keep the opinion neutral and not to draw conclusions solely on the basis of the current political agenda, an expert in the U.S. tries to refer to judgments that are not based on the events of the last three, five, ten years. However, at the same time, the expert unwittingly turns into a defender of Russia and its political regime. Being in Russia and discussing the same issues unexpectedly makes an expert an advocate of the United States. It is very difficult to find a "point of mediation" and maintain neutrality in political judgments, since there is a request for a strong formed opinion, for unambiguity. Any attempts of a young expert to avoid unambiguity are lost in the "spiral of silence". It is almost impossible to make a nuanced judgment. This results from the specific feature of the media environment, and the peculiarities of international relations.

It is much more difficult for experts on international relations to conduct research, since international relations are constantly discussed in public and are strongly politicized. The authors of scientific, expert analysts in Russia, the United States, and in any other country today are forced to understand that everything they write is part of the world politics. That is why it is so difficult for the study of international relations to meet one of the criteria of being scientific, namely, the differentiation of the subject and the object of research. At the same time, for many organizations and research institutes, such as RIAC, this is the objective of their work, they write research papers on international relations, trying to influence them. The crisis in Ukraine and the deep crisis that followed it in relations between Russia and the West have seriously traumatized the Russian discussion on international relations. It is paralyzed and it is very difficult to write on these topics. For example, the language that one used to describe international reality was lost because of the high concentration of terms that carry a hidden meaning, the marker terms (annexation, Anglo-Saxons, etc.).

Some topics are beyond the current agenda, and this gives some advantage to experts on international relations in carrying out research.

New Language for New Sincerity

The term "new sincerity" appeared in the current context. On the one hand, it is a literary term determining the way of not being postmodernistic, being serious, real and talk about the feelings and experiences of a person without the need for irony. In the current Russian social and political context, "new sincerity" is a reaction to a public inquiry. The density of the media space leads to distortion of information. Young generations are more sensitive to this than the previous ones. Due to the fact that information emerging in the media is always questioned, there is a lack of confidence in the usual government and media institutions. This trend is common for societies of developed countries. Those people who "make" the media and politics work have already felt a high level of distrust. The election of Donald Trump can be an example of such a "new sincerity" concept success. In the U.S., the election of D.Trump introduced such term as "post-truth". To some extent, both terms are an attempt to combat the multiplicity of realities, a way of saying that the world is simpler than it appears.

Yet, different generations of experts on international relations tend to think that the world is not becoming simpler, but rather becomes more complicated and this "complexity" becomes more and more obvious. Moreover, constant attempts to find the true motives of this or that statement force the experts to question any statements in the public space. It is important to understand why this or that proposition is pronounced. "There is no truth — there are narratives."

With regard to the text, it should be noted that experts try to avoid the "musty" terminology base, find a new language that does not have a lot of connotations, and in this sense English became the "new" language. Writing works in English allows you to take a more active part in international academic discourse. However, modern writers who choose Russian as the working language are more inclined to use cross-cultural metaphors, inventing a new language, influencing the Russian language, rather than translating terms and texts from English. One can also trace the conflict of generations in this area, since in Russia texts with cross-cultural metaphors are often not easily perceived by major newspapers, for example, in the literary environment. And mediation between the two languages ​​also takes part in the search of "new sincerity".

Representatives of the new generation of experts believe that purely academic discussions should be global. At the same time expert-analytical discussions do not have to become as such.

The younger generation of experts differs from the older as it has more opportunities to interact with the international community through literature, travel, etc. And this is one of the main competitive advantages of the first post-Soviet generation of experts.

However, neutrality or greater accuracy of English can lead to the increase in the number of political correctness cliches.

Discussion. Global Russians: Language Issue, Generation Conflict, Value Gap, Interdisciplinarity

Comment from the audience 1: Very often today people talk about multiculturalism, using only one language deprived of very many shades of tenderness and distant from a real person. Meanwhile, society needs to participate in the discourse of people who speak a simpler language. According to some, the transition to English leads to losing the Russian language and culture by the younger generation. In addition to dividing people into those who "write" and who don’t, there is a division of people into those who "read" and who don’t, those who "hear" and who do not.

Generations of the 19th century gave more importance to the history itself, and not how it has to be told. Generations of the 20th century gave birth to a beautiful form of filing stories. In the 21st century we lost both. And the new sincerity in this context is presented as a way to hide the fact that we can no longer expound our stories without referring to the West or the East just by looking into ourselves.

Making a choice in favor of English, we can lose both our language and our own culture.

Comment from the audience 2: An important question is if young experts on international relations feel responsibility not only before the expert environment in which they work, but also before the population in general, who rarely speak any English. Moreover, there is a large number of things that modern experts on international relations do much better in Russian than in English. And foreign experts often have to refer to Russian articles to understand what processes are happening in the world today, especially in the last four years. There is a greater interest in the Russian international expert community from other countries. This is happening, among other things, because many Russian experts are seeking grants abroad.

Comment from the audience 3: Shifting to English in discussions leads to the exclusion of the population from it. One of the issues of Russian political life is the absence of reasoned political debate. When foreign policy debates go into a closed expert environment, they lose their meaning. The expert community today must contribute to the development of a reasoned political debate culture, otherwise the country will face a difficult future.

The younger generation has no culture of a deep study of argumentation, concentrating only on the period after 2000, which does not allow to develop their own point of view. Political process must ensure that people in society can form their own opinion, which is influenced not only by education, but also by the issue of common culture. The current generation also has difficulties in self-education.

Political correctness, introduced into Russian political life by the Bolsheviks, has made the truth a "victim" through tabooing many topics that are important for a large part of the population.

People today can also be divided into those who feel at home everywhere (they make a minority), and those who are rooted in their own countries and communities (this is the majority). And the majority were left behind the globalization that began to destroy societies because of its uncontrolledness. Russia follows the general trends and we need to continue participating in international debates, at least in Euro-Atlantic, as this is our culture, and we are part of European civilization.

Experts' answers: There is certain skepticism when they say "it was better before". This argument is rather political, used by those who do not want to make any changes.

Of course, there are some losses in the language sphere. However, the language does not get better or worse, it only reflects the changes that occur in society. And despite the existing opinion about the tendency to shorten the texts, there is a request for long reads, as a wide variety of texts allows each person to choose the volume of material wanted.

If it seems to us that Russian experts on international relations are detached from the population, then it is necessary to learn to speak with the population in the language that they understand and speak as much as possible. Today, the Russian study of international relations and the market of international journalism are occupied by authors who have nothing to do with international science. This prevents the promotion of reasoned political discourse in society. This is what creates the impression of a deficit of argumentation and profanation of discourse. The English language for the expert is not the way to detach from Russian society. It's a way to discuss the current events with experts around the world and explain it to Russian citizens.

Young experts on international relations today lose the depth of reasoning, but at the same time they have the advantage of the breadth of disciplines they address. In regional studies, for example, there is a huge fixation on the classical understanding of disciplines, focusing on a specific range of issues that are usually considered. Today regional experts rarely use political and sociological terminology. The trend of interdisciplinarity dominates in scientific circles, some schools of other countries shifted to this trend much earlier. Interdisciplinarity is the competitive advantage of the current generation of experts. The domination of the interdisciplinary approach was also driven by the fact that over the past 25 years many experts have switched to different disciplines, since studies in only one area were poorly funded. Nevertheless, experts on international relations of the older generation have an indisputable advantage in the depth of knowledge.

The trends in the prevalence of interdisciplinarity do exist, for example, in Slavic studies, which is more often called "Eurasian studies." The region and a set of methods of the study have expanded, not being tied now to literature studies. The ability to add a set of tools from other disciplines to one's discipline makes it possible not only to treat questions differently, but also to set completely different tasks. At the same time, there is a slight sense of fatigue and skepticism towards the interdisciplinary approach, since one knows about different things but superficially. That is why it is important to form a "disciplinary spine", a solid disciplinary base, and to continue work on its basis, borrowing methods from other disciplines.

Globalization, though often a destroyer of culture and languages, is in fact meant to contribute to the balance on local and global level. English language in this situation allows us to fully represent ourselves in a dialogue with others. The young generation does not fear the globalization, moreover, it adheres to an extremely wide range of political views. Opening yourself to the world, you do not become less Russian, but, on the contrary, you feel it more distinctly and demonstrate your feature. There is a reverse threat in the form of an upsurge of nationalistic sentiment under the influence of globalization, that represents the characteristics of cultures in a "compressed world" more clearly and acutely.

By the way, it was noted that it is the generation of millennials that represents the maximum breadth of radical views: from neo-Nazis to communists.

Comment from the audience 4: Some representatives of the Russian younger generation have a desire to write and do something in Russian, without reaching the global level. There are some materials, for example, in the area of Arabic studies, that were translated into Russian, but do not exist in English.

Experts’ comment: "Global Russians" perceive themselves as people connecting both worlds. They want to present Russian culture (some of them consider it their moral duty) as a full-fledged element of the global space, which deserves certain interest and attention as well.

Comment from the audience 5: The younger generation today is inclined to speak out the truth, unlike the representatives of older generations who tend to keep silent about something or hide their opinions. Language today is a tool that promotes the spread of conformism. The younger generation prefers to remain silent.

Experts' answers: Silence in the real and virtual world can mean two things. Firstly, if a person does not constantly confirm his/her presence in social networks, being silent, this is equivalent to the fact that he/she does not exist. At the same time, silence, ignoring any issues can be an act of disagreement.

Today there is a very large gap between generations of experts. Middle-aged specialists are a very small group, which can adversely affect science in the future. This gap was provoked by the problems that Russian science faced in the 1990s. Many scholars had to quit the profession because of very low salaries. Therefore, now there is a very severe age-related polarization of scholars. This prevents the "smooth" transfer of experience, knowledge and techniques, as different generations of scholars find it difficult to find a common language.

The main social, ideological, and value gaps are not connected with the change of generations. The change of generations does not lead to changes in the socio-political or scientific environment. This is especially true for political and value discussions. A deeper gap can be observed in many countries between the residents of large cities and rural areas. A 30-year-old English-speaking Muscovite has a lot in common with a 30-year-old English-speaking resident of Berlin. But this does not mean that we always agree on everything.

Globalization, globality, and the English language are not part of the value nucleus for young experts. For them, these are tools for advocate Russia's position in the world.

Comment from the audience 6: The reasons for the growth of populism in the West are connected to the fact that politicians are using the language of everyday communication to win the sympathy of the broad masses. This way the Western elites are trying to overcome the crisis of the Western political system. In Russia, a similar situation is happening, that's why those representatives of the younger generation who consider themselves Global Russians need to transform their language in order to come to power. This is necessary in order to win the sympathy of a large part of the population.

Experts' answers: It is exactly the discussions like we are having today that can become the answer, the way to find the language that will make it possible to achieve greater understanding with the audience.

Video (In Russian)