The Duck of Minerva

Lisa Gaufman

Elizaveta Gaufman is Assistant Professor of Russian Discourse and Politics at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She is the author of "Everyday Foreign Policy: Performing and Consuming the Russian Nation after Crimea" (2023) and "The Trump Carnival: Populism, Transgression and the Far Right" (2024).

Recent Posts

Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale

by Lisa Gaufman | 28 November, 2016 | , ,

After Donald Trump won the elections in the US, Twitter was abuzz with the picture of potential UN Security Council country leaders that included Theresa May, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Marine Le Pen. So now all eyes are on France and its upcoming presidential elections. The possibility of ‘Frexit’ in case of Le Pen’s win is alarming enough, but Russia is also on the agenda. Russian-French relations have been strained since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, but have got even worse after President Hollande accused Russia of war crimes in Syria that purportedly prompted...

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Love Me Tender

Love Me Tender

by Lisa Gaufman | 20 November, 2016 | ,

‘I want to ride around Moscow with an American flag in my car. If I find one. Join me! They have earned it'. If you were wondering who else was celebrating Trump’s win, it was the Editor-in-Chief of Russia Today Margarita Simonyan. Overnight, a deep-seated Russian Anti-Americanism and disbelief in American democracy was turned into almost unending love, although Russian Prime-Minister Medvedev still finds the name ‘Americano’ too unpatriotic for coffee and proposed to rename it into ‘Rusiano’. The US election results came as a big surprise in Russia as well. According to many sources, most...

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In Cheese We Trust

In Cheese We Trust

by Lisa Gaufman | 30 October, 2016 | ,

Mass media in the US often portray Donald Trump as an American version of Putin, if not his puppet. But it makes sense to take a closer look at the essence of Trump’s and Putin’s appeal to their respective populations. Let’s recap three broad topics: foreign policy, domestic policy, and the economy. Both Putin and Trump focus on ‘foreign policy populism’ trying to sell the idea of great power resurgence. Showing the West “Kuzma’s Mother” has been Russia’s operative battle cry since Khrushchev didn't slam his shoe at the UN General Assembly in 1960. Russia’s current leadership is carefully...

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Jokes Aside

Jokes Aside

by Lisa Gaufman | 18 October, 2016 | ,

Russia has been one of the spectres haunting the US presidential election. President Obama’s latest press conference is a case in point: Mr. Trump's continued flattery of Mr. Putin, and the degree to which he appears to model many of his policies and approaches to politics on Mr. Putin, is unprecedented in American politics and is out of step with not just what Democrats think but out of step with what up until the last few months almost every Republican thought, including some of the ones who are now endorsing Mr. Trump It is rather bewildering for a Russian observer: the party that gave...

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Why don’t you like me?

Why don’t you like me?

by Lisa Gaufman | 8 October, 2016 | , ,

We’re not so different, you and I. We both dislike Hillary. It doesn’t really matter that she was among key players in the Russian reset policy back in 2009, we really don’t trust her – just like you! We also like a strong leader. Our leader is much better at doing business than yours though. You have a misogynist pig for a presidential candidate? We’ll take that and raise you a foreign minister who jokes about female journalists on their knees. Not to mention a former children’s ombudsman who thinks that after 27 women shrivel up, and that it’s ok for a teenager to be married off as a...

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