Ekaterina Schulmann: The State of Mind. Transformations of public opinion in Russia 2018-2023. Freiburger Horizonte, 4. Mai 2023

Russian politics has shifted to more aggression, but what do Russian people think? Using a range of sociological data collected by official and independent polling agencies as well as circumstantial evidence and indirect markers of behavioral changes, including demographic data and crime statistics, Ekaterina Schulmann attempts to trace an evolution of public opinion in Russia from the final erosion of the Crimean consensus in 2018 until into the full-scale war in 2023. Inglehart–Welzel World Values Survey results and studies of proto-party groups ("political preference clouds'') are used in this overview in an attempt to sketch possible lines of behavior of a post-authoritarian society in a weakened state of power.

Ekaterina Schulmann is a political scientist and a major voice in the Russian opposition. Her contributions reach large audiences. Over one million people follow her analyses on her YouTube. After speaking out against Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine, she left the country in the spring of 2022. She has been Fellow at Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. On May 4, 2023, she followed an invitation of FRIAS and Zwetajewa Zentrum an der Universität Freiburg e.V.

More information: https://www.frias.uni-freiburg.de/de/veranstaltungen/freiburger-horizonte/freiburger-horizonte-e-schulmann