ABSTRACT
More than ten years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia is still in search of her political and cultural identities, and is still in the process of rediscovering her role in the world.1 The post-Soviet transition she has endured was complicated by the fact that Russia went through a ‘double disappointment’—in both socialism and liberalism. Indeed, on the one hand, most Russians comprehend (willingly or reluctantly) that there is no way to make a comeback to the communist past. Yet on the other hand, it is believed that ‘the liberal project in contemporary Russia has no prospects’.2 Some Russian theorists call Russian reforms of the 1990s ‘pseudo-liberal experimenting’, making the strong point that it was criminal groups who mainly managed to take advantage of it. The belief that market forces will set up themselves the most effective forms of economic activities failed to become widely accepted in Russian intellectual circles.3
