Amid the varying readings of the dissident mood currently sweeping through Russia, my attention was drawn today to a piece by Paul Starobin in the Boston Globe, who sees the current situation through the optic of the ‘family feud’ borne out of a centuries-old pattern of patriarchal rule.  Using historical and literary reference points, Starobin develops the idea that the current state of affairs is the inevitable progeniture of a perennial Russian model in which the nation’s omniscient leader runs the country as a father a household.  The whole article makes for interesting reading, but below is one extract where he clarifies how Putin has fit neatly into the role of the great white father:

When Putin, an ex-KGB colonel born in 1952, took the reins of power, at the end of 1999, he satisfied a yearning for a strong leader who could make the Russian family proud. As I gleaned from my own reporting — I was living in Russia at the time — ordinary Russians hailed him as a strongman, a silne chilovek. A worshipful pop song about Putin played on the radio, with the all-girl band singing of its desire for “a man like Putin, full of strength/ a man like Putin, who doesn’t drink/ a man like Putin, who doesn’t hurt me/ a man like Putin, who won’t run away.”