Przegapiony „weimarski etap” poradzieckiej Rosji. Retrospekcja i refleksja
The missed ‘Weimar stage’ of post-Soviet Russia. Retrospection and reflection

Summary/Abstract: Shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, analyses compar- ing the democratisation process of the states that emerged from the break- up of the two empires, the German Empire and the USSR, began to appear in the academic literature. Authors compared the Weimar Republic with the Russian Federation, reflecting on possible scenarios for the fate of reforms in post-Soviet Russia. This article proposes a critical analysis of the most impor- tant scholarly works from 1991 to 2022 addressing this topic. It will verify the arguments cited since the 1990s, both those alarmist ones warning of the fascisation of Russia and those giving grounds for optimism. Especially the latter are important, as they allow one to assess which of the indicated factors did not work and why. The aim is to reflect more generally on the reasons for the failure of the democratisation of the former empire and Moscow’s return to an imperial policy towards its neighbours, showing what role ideology and identity issues played in this process.

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