The Z Generation: How are Russians engaging in Putin’s Ukraine invasion?

Speaker:
Ian Garner

Commenters across the West are vexed by the question “To what extent do Russians really support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?” Alarming videos of mass rallies, social media campaigns, and opinion polling have led some to identify the Ukraine invasion as the tipping point that will see the emergence of a new, highly motivated generation of fascistic Russians. By comparing today’s state-organized social movements with those of the late Soviet era, I will attempt to separate the phenomena of “engagement” – genuine conviction – and “engagingness” – pantomime fealty – in today’s Russia. Finally, I'll ask: what comes next for Putin's citizens and propagandists?

Ian Garner’s research interest is in cultures of Russian and Soviet propaganda. He has written for outlets including Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and the Calvert Journal. His first book, Stalingrad Lives! Stories of Combat and Survival (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2022) explores how the USSR’s leading prose writers created an enduring myth of Stalingrad at the front in 1942-3. Garner graduated with a PhD from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto in 2017 after studying at the University of Bristol (England) and St. Petersburg State Conservatory (Russia). He has taught Russian language, literature, history, and politics at the university level.

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