Book. In 1961, the idea came to the poet Yevgeny Yevtouchenko (1932-2017) to write a song called Do the Russians want war? with peaceful intonations, intended to pay tribute to the junction of American and Soviet forces on the banks of the Elbe, at the end of the Second World War.
Popularized by the choirs of the Red Army, it resurfaces today in the title of the essay by Vera Grantseva (The Stag, 186 pages, 19 euros). Equipped with this literary sesame, the author, former associate professor at the Russian School of Advanced Economic Studies, emigrated to France a few years before the invasion of Ukraine, attempts to answer this other, much more nagging question by West: what do the Russians want?
No, she says straight away, the Russians are no more going to war – the men did not rush to enlist, on the contrary, many fled – than human beings “servile”. If the system, built by Vladimir Putin on corruption and loyalties inherited from the KGB, remains “neofeudal”, “the past century (…) taught them that radical political changes could only make their situation worse, no matter how unbearable. It is therefore not a supposed slave conscience but rather the painful experience of history which commands the current apathy in the face of recent events.
Generational divide
“Putin’s war against Ukraine, insists Vera Grantseva, is above all a clash between two opposing worldviews concerning the individual and his place in politics. » And for the head of the Kremlin, the Ukrainian model, attracted by Europe, capable of debating and taking to the streets to demonstrate his discontent, “had everything repulsive”. Then, from the annexation of Crimea in 2014, “Russian television has been tasked with focusing on Ukraine, its domestic politics and, in particular, the situation in Donbass. In fact, since 2014, the government has methodically fueled Russian hatred towards a neighboring country, preparing them for a future war..
Despite this bludgeoning, attempts to resist appeared, but they were then systematically crushed. Fear has crept into all of society. And yet… The author notes a fundamental element: a generational divide has occurred between young people and their elders. The ideological gap between the former and those in power, she writes, has continued to widen: “many considered that Putin buried their future” And, “very often, they do not want to bear moral responsibility for the crimes committed in Ukraine”.
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