Abstract

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, in a global cultural context enhancing the transnational and supranational dimension, we witnessed a re-evaluation of the category of “sovereigntyµ in the political debate in Russia. Vladislav Surkov, advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was a central figure of this ideological and political operation. In 2005 the formula “sovereign democracyµ was introduced in the Russian political debate. The emphasis was on sovereignty. The aim was to claim independence from external conditioning and to re-establish Russia’s status as a great power. The recovery of the political (and geopolitical) subjectivity of the state emerged as a priority, in the sign of the myth of the “strong stateµ. The formula of “sovereign democracyµ contained also an inherent claim to cultural and ideological sovereignty, i.e. it expressed a desire to emancipate from subjection to Western political culture models.