Navalny vs. Putin

Navalny vs. Putin

Two decades ago, a minor KGB operative named Vladimir Putin captured power in Russia, gradually installing a ‘managed democracy’. Many of its citizens supported his rule, a period of relative economic prosperity, political stability and international recognition, following the chaotic demise of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Yet economic stagnation, systematic corruption and brutal repression defined Putin’s regime over the last decade. Nationalist tropes and imperial nostalgia accompanied more aggressive interventions abroad.

Do the anti-government protests by a new generation of young activists currently sweeping Russia represent a transformative moment? Or will a durable autocracy, and deeper continuities, continue to jeopardize the future of its citizens?

Masha Gessen, the prize-winning author and New Yorker staff writer, examines the trajectory and prospects of democracy in Russia in conversation with Sanjay Ruparelia.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

One of our most trenchant observers of Russia and its history, Masha Gessen is the author of eleven books, including the National Book Award-winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. A staff writer at The New Yorker, they have covered political subjects including Russia, autocracy, L.G.B.T. rights, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump, among others.

A regular contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, and Slate, among other publications, Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker. They have taught at Amherst and Oberlin Colleges and currently serve on the faculty at Bard College. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, a Nieman Fellowship, the Hitchens Prize, and the Overseas Press Club Award for Best Commentary, Gessen has been living in New York since 2013 after more than twenty years as a journalist and editor in Moscow.

For more information on Masha Gessen, please visit them on Twitter (external link)  and their page on The New Yorker (external link) .

ABOUT THE SERIES:

On the Frontlines of Democracy is a new public lecture series to analyze its prospects in the twenty-first century. Around the world, democracies face serious challenges, old and new. Can we protect our constitutional democracies in an era of popular mistrust, severe partisanship and resurgent nationalism? Can they reduce inequalities of power, wealth and status, defend deep diversity and confront climate change in the new digital age? Can we develop innovative strategies to revitalize civic engagement and empower public institutions to renew the promise of democracy? And what lessons can Canada offer, and learn, in a spirit of critical dialogue required in our post-western world?

A special collaboration between Ryerson University, Faculty of Arts, and the Toronto Public Library.