Culture Wars in the Post-Soviet Space

This article explores the phenomenon of culture wars in the post-Soviet space. It provides an introduction to this special issue by addressing a series of themes which deepen and more importantly complicate our understanding of culture wars in the post-Soviet space, but also more generally. The paper analyses: the multifaceted nature of culture wars, illustrating the way in which these normative-based conflicts are more complicated than the typical binary reading of the phenomenon suggest; the religious dimension to such cultural conflicts; the multiple causal explanations for culture wars and the varied levels of agency and agents involved; the perceptibly dominant role of Russia in the region’s ideological and cultural conflicts; and finally, the under-conceptualisation of culture wars. Overall, the paper unpacks how the concept of culture war can be used analytically to comprehend tensions and conflict over competing interpretations of the moral ordering of the post-Soviet public space.