Jussi Lassila 
The Quest for an Ideal Youth in Putin’s Russia II 
The Search for Distinctive Conformism in the Political Communication of Nashi, 2005-2009

In this timely intervention, Jussi Lassila explores the so-called Democratic Antifascist Youth Movement ‘Nashi’ in Russia. Government-organized but scandal-stricken, the public’s attitude towards ‘Nashi’ oscillates from broad support to a reluctance to accept all implications of Putin’s new system.



Based on discourse analysis, Lassila argues that Nashi anticipates an ‘ideal youth’ within the framework of official national identity politics and as an attempt to mobilize largely apolitical youngsters in support of the powers that be. The book demonstrates how Nashi’s ambivalent societal position is the result of a failed attempt to reconcile incompatible communicative demands of the authoritarian state with those of the apolitical young.

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Dr. Jussi Lassila is a researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute (Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies) of the University of Helsinki.