Destructive Imagination

Male Fantasies and the Emotional Roots of Russia's War in Ukraine
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-3-032-17685-1
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, 198 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 421 g

Reihe: Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict

Russian soldiers did not go to war with only guns and orders—they went with fantasies that made killing feel meaningful. Drawing on diaries, social media posts, memoirs, poems, and battlefield songs, Maria Kurbak reconstructs the war from below. She shows how Russian combatants turn old wounds—NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, the collapse of the USSR, personal shame, and perceived national betrayal—into narratives that make violence feel purposeful and necessary. These fantasies echo official slogans but also exceed them, binding private grievances to collective myths and turning imagined injuries into real acts of brutality. 

The book moves backward through time: from the full-scale invasion, to the myths of “Novorossiya” in Donbas, to deeper crises of masculinity and memory carried from the late Soviet decades. Across this arc,   demonstrates that fantasies do not distort war; they design it. The result is a new framework for understanding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—one that brings into view the emotional and symbolic worlds that structure political behavior and make violence imaginable long before it becomes real.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kurbak, Maria

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Friedens- und Konfliktforschung
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Museumskunde, Materielle Kultur, Erinnerungskultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part One: The Full-Scale Invasion (2022– ).- Chapter 1: The Full-Scale War and the Shaping of Male Fantasy Narratives.- Chapter 2: Representations of Ukraine and Ukrainians.- Part Two: Novorossiya. Ukrainian Land, Russian Dream (2014–2022).- Chapter 3: Donbas Between Memory and Fantasy.- Chapter 04: The Nation They “Loved,” The Mission They Chose: Russians in Donbas.

Über Autor(innen)

Maria Kurbak is a Postdoctoral Associate in Global Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her PhD from the Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences. From 2013 to 2022, she served as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of World History and as a Lecturer at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Her work focuses on national narratives, memory, masculinity, and the cultural roots of political violence in Russia.