Thread by @Matthew_Kupfer

Not sure even the best Russian Studies grad can explain this in a few tweets.

The short answer: For complex reasons, Russian Orthodox Christianity and Soviet nostalgia became fused in #Russia and among other Russia-oriented populations in the ex-USSR.

https://twitter.com/Mortis_Banned/status/1537818998427078656?s=20&t=eYhuXa9H6ycgq226nQ7LoQ

In #Russia, there is a politically expedient, post-Soviet tendency to portray the imperial, Soviet, and independence eras as a continuum, glossing over the contradictions.

That allows for the situation described (correctly) in this tweet.

https://twitter.com/warlockracy/status/1537826512023474178?s=20&t=s4oLBKkkUmHrk-uEl6xz-w

The Ukrainian scholar Mykhailo Minakov once described this heady brew of "back to the USSR" Sovietism, Russian nationalism, and nominal Orthodox traditionalism as "Soviet conservatism."

In #Ukraine, it was quite common in parties that (incorrectly) identified as left-wing.

This is why Natalia Vitrenko, who for many years led the incorrectly named "Progressive Socialist Party of #Ukraine," could run a racist campaign ad back in the mid-aughts promising her pro-Soviet voters she would "defend canonical Orthodoxy."

https://twitter.com/Matthew_Kupfer/status/1391135621784166400?s=20&t=qiuF7DxzCD2AVtXk1vy_GA

For the curious, you can watch the 2006 ad here. Worth emphasizing: There are tens of millions of Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia, so the ad is not just racist, but also religiously illiterate.

So much for defending Orthodoxy...

Here's a 2004 Vitrenko political ad. It links NATO, Nazism, America, for-pay medicine, & the sale of #Ukraine's land and contrasts them with "good Soviet" values like salaries & pensions, labor, sports, culture, etc.

Such rhetoric continues to this day.

https://twitter.com/ymatusik/status/1391119765544923137?s=20&t=41NFAQQpyzTXRDmNlud7KQ

Those are a few small thoughts on the linkage of Soviet nostalgia and Orthodox Christianity in #Russia. I am sure hundreds of other Russian studies graduates will have other things to add.