ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical analysis of Russian cultural policy and its priorities, stressing the role of different discursive communities in the production of knowledge about the culture and techniques of its steering and the shift in its priorities from 'cultural diversity' towards conservation, securitization and promotion of 'traditional' national culture. It addresses some research questions concerning the role of the hegemonic myth in establishing a particular order of power relations and knowledge reproduction in cultural policy. The chapter presents an overview of the conservative project from 2012 to 2016, which opposed and restrained the potential of 'cultural governance' by increasing centralization and censorship. It concludes with attempts to explore the logic of equivalence and difference in order to characterize and explain the cultural hegemony of Putin's regime.
