The Russia Anxiety: And How History Can Resolve It

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Then we get to the meat of the book: the five alleged charges made against Russia: of dictatorial, violent, expansionist and warmongering tendencies, and then most crucially (I felt) the relationship between Russia and Europe. With all five, he successfully shows that the received wisdom is crucially flawed in some way or other, though with a fair share of non sequiturs ("Whataboutism might sometimes be crass, making it easy for the Russia Anxiety to dismiss it out of hand. Yet the history of democracy across Europe is an unlikely story full of cynical subplots rather than an inspiring fairy tale based on the triumph of values.") Nonetheless, insightful points are made: he discusses the unique weakness of both liberal and conservative ideas as an alternative to totalitarianism in Russia, importantly singles out 1904-1953 as a uniquely painful and turbulent period of Russian history ("Tears Without End"), points out the ways in which European ideas have drawn from the Russian tradition, and not just the other way round, discusses the unique nature of the Russian Empire, in which the dominant ethnic/cultural group suffered as much as the minority, peripheral groups and cleverly undermines the traditional assumption of a warmongering Russia by instead pinpointing the Anxiety as the true cause for the emergence of these wars. He offers two central propositions. The first is that the Western world (not Asia, Africa, or Latin America, where perceptions are quite different) has, for perhaps 500 years, been gripped by what he calls ‘The Russia Anxiety’ – a cycle of fear, disregard and contempt. Instead of saying, ‘I hate feeling this way, I’m not going to be able to perform at work because I’m feeling so anxious,’ say, ‘It makes a lot of sense I’m feeling so anxious right now’ and really reflect that acceptance to yourself,” she noted. Realize you won’t feel this way all day long In a fascinating chapter on “The Dictatorship Deception”, he sketches a complex picture of “democratic strains” within Russian authoritarianism in its various forms, from Rus to the Revolution and beyond, where “amid the long development of autocracy, the Russian lands underwent various experiments in limited constitutionalism and democratic participation”, even if these did not always resemble Western representative models. Smith also squeezes all the juice he can from the rare fruits of Russia’s historical liberalism. Here is a more positive overview of this subject than you are likely to read anywhere else, perhaps stretching it in places, yet it is an analysis firmly grounded in a sensible handling of the scholarly literature.

For the study, electronic libraries and databases were used to search and extract articles. This included PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and ProQuest. There is nothing inevitable about the triumph of liberal democracy. For every thing that we criticise Putin or Xi for, there is bound to be a counter-argument for similar atrocities committed by Western countries in the past. Our review examined the mental health outcomes, protective factors, and predictive factors during the COVID-19 pandemic and the RUW. Natural disasters and man-made events can disrupt college students’ daily lives and increase their stress and anxiety levels. Generally, the prevalence of stress and anxiety increased during the pandemic and the war. Gender differences were observed in the prevalence of stress and anxiety and the coping mechanisms used by the students. The female students also tended to have high levels and severity of stress and anxiety than male students. While the male students utilized problem-focused coping strategies, the female students used support-focused coping mechanisms. As Smith says, simply asking such questions destabilises the Russia Anxiety and helps to deflate the excessive and bombastic moral certitude of Western policy towards Russia.Ranging from the earliest times to the present, Mark B. Smith's remarkable new book is a history of this 'Russia Anxiety'. Whether ally or enemy, superpower or failing state, Russia grips our imagination and fuels our fears unlike any other country. This book shows how history itself offers a clearer view and a better future.

with Moritz Foellmer, 'Urban societies in Europe since 1945: towards an historical interpretation', Contemporary European History , 24:4 (2015): 475-91 Beyond the psychological impact, the workload or emphasis on academic performance is another area to be reexamined during pandemics and crises to improve student outcomes. Previous studies have found that academic performance is a key source of stress and anxiety ( 14, 18). Workload management and timely communication with students during crises might help mitigate or reduce the severity of their stress and anxiety. Strengths A total of 591 students participated in this study, of which 400 (67.7%) were females and 335 (56.7%) were aged 22 years or below. The most contributing region was South Moravian Region (59.9%), followed by Moravian Silesian Region (7.8%), Vysočina Region (6.8%), and Zlín Region (5.4%). Regarding their pre-university residence, 38.6% of the participants came from cities with >100,000 inhabitants, while 30.6% came from towns/villages with ≤10,000 inhabitants and the rest came either from cities with >10,000 or >500,000 inhabitants. It would be great if you could just say, I don’t want to engage with this Ukraine situation, because it caused my anxiety to spike,” he said. “But because of the way the world works now, you’re cutting yourself off. It’s a lose-lose scenario.”More than 2,400 people have also been arrested at unsanctioned anti-war protests in more than 30 towns and cities, according to the OVD-Info organisation. Some were promptly given call-up papers – something the Kremlin said was perfectly legal. The title and abstract of each article were screened to determine their relevance to the study’s objectives. The full-text copies were also assessed for eligibility, based on the prescribed criteria. The inclusion criteria were studies (1) reporting stress and/or anxiety related to the COVID-19 pandemic and/or the RUW among graduate, college, or university students; (2) published in the English language; (3) published until October 2022; and (4) having their primary research design as a cross-sectional, longitudinal, or randomized clinical trial. The prevalence of anxiety was 53.87%; 47.85% = Mild anxiety, 23.36% = Moderate anxiety; 14.35% = moderately severe anxiety, and 1.44% = severe anxiety; Younger (< 20) and female students were more anxious Haikalis et al. ( 19) study was the only longitudinal study in our review that compared patients’ anxiety in an ongoing pre-pandemic study with the outcomes during the pandemic. The PSS and PHQ instruments showed that students’ stress and anxiety increased with the campus being closed compared to how they were in the pre-pandemic period. The increased anxiety and stress levels in the pandemic and the war reported by the studies are attributed to multiple factors. First, the uncertainties and instabilities created by the pandemic and the war explain the rise in the stress and anxiety of the surveyed students.