Mikhail Suslov

My research focuses on the evolution of illiberal ideologies in the non-Western contexts. I have examined Russian right-wing, geopolitical and Church-related concepts, visions and utopias. As a historian, I am mostly interested in intellectual development of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet political philosophy, but my current research aims mostly to understand the essence, role and intellectual roots of Putinism as a new competitor to liberal democracy – an  ideology with a considerable international appeal and potential to resonate with many other ideologies, such as populism, right-wing communitarianism, traditionalist anti-globalism, religious fundamentalism and so on. My most important recent publications include: co-edited volumes Contemporary Russian Conservatism: Problems, Paradoxes and Dangers (Leiden: Brill, 2019), The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia: Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Russia (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), Pan-Slavism and Slavophilia in Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan), and monographs Geopolitical Imagination: Ideology and Utopia in Post-Soviet Russia (Ibidem, 2020) and Putinism – Post-Soviet Russian Regime Ideology (Routledge, 2024).

Keywords

Ideology, utopia, geopolitics, political imagination, illiberalism, populism, conservatism, nationalism, communitarianism, Russian Orthodox Church, Putinism, Russian world, Pan-Slavism, Eurasianism, civilization, Russia, post-Soviet space

Teaching 

• Contemporary Russian politics and society
• Russian and East European history
• Main topics in Russian and East European studies
• Geopolitical culture in Russia
• Digital politics in Russia
• Identity politics in Eastern Europe