THE WAR AT HOME: DICTATORSHIP AND VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA

Cathrin Kahlweit in conversation with Julian Hans
THE WAR AT HOME: DICTATORSHIP AND VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA

Where does the monstrous brutality with which Russian soldiers are murdering, plundering and raping in Ukraine come from? Why are so few Russians resisting the war? How does the Russian state use structural violence for its political goals? Julian Hans, Russia expert and former Moscow correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, uses five spectacular crimes to show how violence and humiliation have eaten into people's lives. Anyone who wants to understand what makes Russian society tick will find seismographically accurate answers.
Even if Putin no longer sits in the Kremlin one day, he analyses, Russian society will still be riddled with violence. Because people who have been humiliated all their lives are more willing to humiliate others. People who have never learnt that their own lives are protected and respected find it difficult to develop respect and compassion for others. People who have learnt that there is no truth that cannot be turned into its opposite tomorrow become suspicious and hard.

Julian Hans has been focussing on Russia and Eastern Europe for more than 30 years. From 2013 to 2018, he was a correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Moscow. Today he lives as an author in Munich. He studied cultural studies and Eastern European history in Frankfurt (Oder), Moscow and Poznań. He then trained as a journalist at the Henri Nannen School in Hamburg. From 2006 to 2011, he was an editor at DIE ZEIT. He works as an editor for the portal www.dekoder.org .

Cathrin Kahlweit, journalist and publicist, Süddeutsche Zeitung correspondent for Central and Eastern Europe

Julian Hans:
CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE. A portrait of Russia in five crimes
C.H. Beck, Munich 2024, ISBN 978-3-406-80886-9, 18,00 €