‘Russia Will Expand Until It Disintegrates,’ Norwegian Anthropologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 28 – Erika Fatland, a Norwegian anthropologist who has gained international attention for her studies of the impact of wars and violence on people, says on the basis of an eighth-long-long tour of countries adjoining Russia that “Russia will continue to expand until it disintegrates.”

            She says that she has concluded that Russians will seek to extend the borders of their country until the country falls into pieces.  Consequently, its borders are likely to include more territory until a crash means that they will include far less (b.dk/kultur/norsk-forfatter-har-rejst-hele-vejen-rundt-om-rusland; reported in Russian at regnum.ru/news/polit/2410181.html).

            Fatland, 35, earlier wrote a study on the Beslan terrorist attack entitled The Village of Angels, has a new book out, Sovietistan, based on her visits to all five of the countries of Central Asia.  She is also the author of the highly regarded study of the terrorist attacks in Norway, The Year without Summer.