ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces the concepts of political neomedievalism, the memory of the perpetrators, and mobmemory to analyze the formation and functioning of the right-wing populist memory that is now prevalent in Putin’s Russia. Political neomedievalism is defined as a memory politics that capitalizes on the current crisis of the future and on the belief that history can be repeated. The global spread of political neomedievalism does not mean that the world is “going medieval.” It is, rather, a propaganda instrument that legitimizes existing social inequalities and normalizes terror as a way of governance. Political neomedievalism thrives under a new memory regime – the memory of the perpetrators, which marginalizes the victims and exalts the perpetrators, ousting humanistic cosmopolitan memory and substitute it with the memory of the perpetrators. The memory of the perpetrators generates an artificial memory – mobmemory – that endorses and celebrates past atrocities. This concept helps identify the imprint of state propaganda, political and religious movements, academia, and popular culture on the formation of artificial memory. The chapter reviews Russian and Western theories about the return of the Middle Ages and considers their role in the ascendancy of political neomedievalism, in Russia and beyond.
