Enter "the hero"

pp. 55-81

in: Käte C. Langdon, Vladimir Tismaneanu, Putin's totalitarian democracy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

Abstract

Langdon and Tismaneanu offer a brief biographical investigation of Vladimir Putin's life. In chronicling his rather ordinary rise to extraordinary power, the authors choose to examine in greater detail the time Putin spent in Dresden as a KGB agent, in local St. Petersburg politics, and in the Yeltsin administration. Each proved to be formative periods for both Putin and the Russian population, solidified within them an animating nostalgia for autocratic rule that promised stability and security. Putin then capitalized off of those already-present popular fears and desires—as particularly demonstrated through the mysterious Federal Security Service (FSB)-linked bombings preceding Putin's first presidential election and his subsequent decision to launch the Second Chechen War—to successfully portray himself as Russia's protector and to curry mass popularity as president.