by Anna Shitova, University of Helsinki
Political scientist Ekaterina Shulman famously stated that ordinary Russians are ‘the new oil’ for the Kremlin. In this argumentation, Shulman implies that the state’s treatment of its young men – sending them to the frontline in Ukraine with barely any training – can be easily compared to its use of oil and gas – as if they were an inexhaustible resource. This text will present a similar claim – Putin’s regime has routinely, from its very beginning, stripped its citizens of their personhood and treated them as if they were life forms without identity. This is crucial to understanding the Russian state and its current tactics in Ukraine.
Putin’s regime has routinely, from its very beginning, stripped its citizens of their personhood and treated them as if they were life forms without identity.
Prominent Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, when analyzing modern societies, made a distinction between bios (“qualified life” in Greek, which refers to a person’s legal existence) and zoē (“bare life,” referring to a person as a natural being). Zoēpolitics, therefore, indicates the process of reducing a person or a group of people to their natural state. Through this process, a person can end up becoming a homo sacer – someone who is banned from society and forcibly reduced to one’s mere physical existence. This person can be killed with impunity, in the same way Jews and other minorities were murdered in concentration camps under the Nazi regime.
Zoēpolitics is patently present in Russia’s current war in Ukraine, but the process started much earlier – during Putin’s first term as president. Elements of zoēpolitics can be seen, for example, in the visual promotion of Putin’s image as an “alpha male” at the top of the “biological hierarchy.” In terms of domestic policy, the “purification of the Russian nation,” or more concretely, the traditionalist, pro-nuclear family, anti-LGBTQI+, and anti-Western policies, are all the result of zoēpolical thinking from above. Those who do not adhere to the Kremlin’s notion of “patriot” (e.g., a liberal queer person) are treated as if they were dangerous bacteria inside an otherwise healthy organism.
Zoēpolitical thinking can be recognized in the discourse surrounding the invasion of Ukraine as well. “Protecting” Russian speakers in Ukraine from “neo-Nazis” can be analogized to protecting one’s offspring from predators. During Putin’s address to mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine, he said that it is better if a man dies fighting for his motherland than of alcohol and drugs – as if they were a resource that could either be utilized efficiently or wasted. Lastly, a Russian soldier can be reduced to homo sacer and killed with impunity by both, a Ukrainian and a fellow Russian soldier in case of insubordination, for example.
Overall, zoēpolitics – the phenomenon of reducing people to their natural state – is present on both policy and discourse levels in Russia. It can take different forms, from less extreme (e.g., Putin presenting himself as a “nature-loving alpha”), to the overt dehumanization of citizens. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it turned out that the distance from zoēpolitics to thanatopolitics (“the politics of death”) is very short. Putting the theory aside, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a suicidal move in almost every possible sense. Deaths on the frontline, low birth rate, brain drain, and the absence of any kind of long-term strategy, have made Russia an actual dying state.
- This blog is a part of a blog series written by the BAMSE Riga intensive course students. The blog series analyses the concept of resilience from five different viewpoints: democracy in crises, regional responses, social consequences, relevance of history politics and cultural approaches. This blog belongs to the democracy in crises part of the blog series. Read more about the blog series on Bamse News & Events website.