In Calling for Book on Putin’s Ancestors, University Head Says He ‘Understands What the Kremlin Expects’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – Some of the most obsequious moves by Russian officials appear to be independent efforts to curry favor with the Kremlin, but others are clearly taking place because the Kremlin has ordered them or has ensured that it has put in place people who know in advance what Putin and the Presidential Administration want.

            A case of the latter concerns the actions of Andrey Loginov, rector of the Russian State University of the Humanities, who has pushed what to many seem actions more “Catholic than the pope” or in this case more Putinist than Putin but who is in fact ready to say that he knows what the Kremlin leader wants and is acting accordingly.

            Several weeks ago, Loginov’s university posted an announcement offering to pay someone to compile a book on the ancestors of Vladimir Putin between 1861 and 1917 (agents.media/rggu-nachal-iskat-biografa-roda-putinyh-kogda-rektor-ponyal-chego-ot-vuza-ozhidaet-kreml/).

            This announcement draw snickers from Putin critics but it was fully consistent with what Loginov, a longtime official in the Presidential Administration, has been doing since becoming rector two years ago in promoting Kremlin ideas and an extreme Russian nationalist agenda including courses on people like Ivan Ilin and books on the war in Ukraine.

            When others have taken similar actions, they have been careful to specify that they were acting on their own so that if too much criticism arose, those above them could change things quickly and in any case could avoid taking any responsibility for such steps. But Loginov has taken a different tact.

            The rector says that “in the course of two years of work in the university, I have formed a clear vision of our tasks and possibilities. We understand what is expected of the Russian State University of the Humanities in institutions above us, from the Presidential Administration to the Russian Academy of Sciences.”

            Loginov is thus saying that he is doing what he has been told is “expected,” a declaration that shows just how far Putin has gone in promoting his personalist and nationalist agenda and how even the most outrageous steps in this direction must be laid at his feet rather than blamed on anyone else.