Contemporary researchers regularly note the significant changes taking place with the Russian language in its use by officials and state media in Putin’s Russia. An in-depth understanding of these changes, which have accelerated and radicalised since the beginning of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, is absolutely necessary for analysing the social, cultural and political processes taking place in contemporary Russia that have a global impact. A major obstacle to such an understanding is the absence of a detailed dictionary of the political language of Putin’s Russia, reflecting the different periods of political transformation from 2000 to the present and presenting a multidimensional picture that allows for deep comparisons with political terms belonging to different intellectual traditions. The goal of the present project is to prepare this dictionary.

The Dictionary will include key concepts that require detailed explanations and comments. Many have a long history of use in various languages but have significant specific features of use in the Russian public sphere. Others are unique, as they emerged in connection with new phenomena of Russian political life. Our main goal will be to clarify the current use of the concepts and their previous transformations from the background of the Russian political tradition before the 2000s and (in some cases) with other traditions. Our sources will be Russian official media, mainly publications of state officials and ideologists, texts of laws and draft laws, methodological materials and manuals for governmental organisations, and publications of foreign media affiliated with Russian state structures and officials.

The project’s authors would like to invite colleagues from the humanities and social sciences (philology, philosophy, political science, sociology, history, psychology, etc.) to cooperate in the preparation of dictionary articles. The project will result in the publication of a printed version of the Dictionary in several languages and an online version available to a broad audience.