The Russia Anxiety: And How History Can Resolve It

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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.” that we’d lost control of how we talk about Russia, potentially with disastrous results. My response was to put aside my narrower research into Soviet history and to write a chronologically and thematically wide-ranging book about the West’s historic ‘Russia problem’ and the ways that history has normalised Russia rather than made it a hopeless aberration. In this sense, the same big question unites all my research: where do Russian and Soviet examples fit into our wider European and global histories?”

She is recovering from Covid and had been looking forward to going out again. “But I’ve lost all inclination to socialise. It feels too trivial.” Instead, on Saturday she went to a local church to donate clothes for Ukrainian refugees. Mann–Whitney test ( U) and Kruskal–Wallis test ( H) were used with a significance level ( Sig.) ≤ 0.05. The life of the Soviet worker’, in Simon Dixon (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Russian History (Oxford University Press, 2016; currently available online) 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

The Russia Anxiety is a valuable effort to assess the long history of the West's Russia-related worries ... Regrettably, more than five years [since the annexation of Crimea], the United States seems no closer to developing either a strategy or a policy to manage its relationship with Russia. Mark Smith's provocative book won't solve that problem alone, but it does offer some valuable guidance in thinking about solutions.

The author is a highly informed guide, [who] prompts a review of prejudices ... Smith makes an important fundamental point: we must talk to the Russians and live alongside them. Faded red paradise: welfare and the Soviet city after 1953', Contemporary European History , 24:4 (2015): 597-615The target population of this study were Czech university students who were recruited to participate in this study through a nonrandom sampling strategy (snow-balling technique). Inclusion criteria were (i) being a full-time/part-time student enrolled in any study program at any Czech university/higher education institute, and (ii) being able to communicate fluently either in Czech or English. Exclusion criteria were (i) Erasmus or exchange students, and (ii) the students enrolled in preparatory courses. The participants were not offered any incentives to take part, and their willingness was not coerced by any form of threats. 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. Mark Smith has written a fluent meditation on Russian history, a gallant attempt to reason with those who believe that Russia is condemned to an endless cycle of failed reform and resurgent authoritarianism because Russians have despotism and imperialism ‘in their genes’.

Mark B. Smith, university lecturer in 20th-century European history at the University of Cambridge, studied history at Oxford and then at UCL’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. His teachers there, he recalls, were “major historians But one cannot make judgements about the ‘normality’ or otherwise of Russian history in a vacuum. Comparison is a legitimate analytical tool. Democracy is a comparatively modern phenomenon, even in Europe, and Russia is far from alone in having failed to secure it. Many besides Russia have suffered murderous repression and bloody civil war. ‘What we understand by modern Russian political violence’, says Smith, ‘is largely limited to the years between 1904 and 1953’, from the first Revolution to the death of Stalin. Then it ended. Whatever else it is, Putin’s Russia is not Stalin’s.

Discussion

The cognitive theory of anxiety suggests that it is a response to threat, which can be entirely rational but needs intervention when it becomes disabling, explained Salkovskis, who is also a consultant at Oxford Health NHS foundation trust. The modern response that many have of watching events unfold on social media means there are fewer people to empathise with, since other social media users seem distant and anonymous, even if they are identifiable. Dr Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist and honorary research associate at Cardiff university, said the fact the crisis was still unfolding meant people were experiencing a kind of perpetual cliffhanger that made it harder to disengage. 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. A fluent meditation on Russian history, a gallant attempt to reason with those who believe that Russia is condemned to an endless cycle of failed reform and resurgent authoritarianism ... a welcome antidote to the overwrought stuff about Russia so widespread in the West today. had moderate-severe anxiety; 71.26% of participants had increased stress and anxiety levels; 43.25% could cope with stress

When asked about suicidal ideations, 3.6% of the students responded that they have suicidal thoughts nearly every day and 4.8% for more than half of the days. This is a warning sign that requires more attention given that suicide is among the leading causes of death in this age group and that experiencing disasters and conflicts is strongly associated with suicidal behaviors [ 58, 59]. The findings on the relationship between stress and anxiety during the pandemic and RUW are important in informing the decisions on implementing coping strategies. With Rogowska et al. ( 38) reporting using task-oriented coping to effectively manage stressful events leading to increased anxiety, the findings support the current knowledge on problem-focused coping. On the other hand, Kasi et al. ( 47) found that while problem-focused coping is common among people experiencing anxiety, it does not always guarantee the expected results. The uncertainty presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and the RUW implies that problem-focused coping is insufficient as one gets increasingly frustrated by developments outside their control. Additionally, the level of “feeling concerned by the RUW-22” was significantly higher among our older students (>22 years old), which is consistent with previous studies. Numerous studies found perceived risk to be positively correlated with the age of the participants [ 35, 36]. Kim et al., 2018, demonstrated that older adolescents had significantly higher risk perception levels than younger adolescents [ 37]. It is entirely understandable that Russia’s neighbours fear a country which has so often invaded and occupied them. It is harder to explain the near hysteria of a distant country such as Britain, which has only twice encountered Russia on the battlefield – and then as the invader, not the invaded. 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.

Khrushchev’s promise to eliminate the urban housing shortage: rights, rationality and the communist future’ in Melanie Ilic and Jeremy Smith (eds), State and Society Under Nikita Khrushchev (Routledge, 2009): 26-45 Khoshaim et al. ( 43) examined four coping strategies and found that avoidance was the most preferred coping strategy, followed by mental disengagement and humanitarian work. The researchers found that support-seeking was the least-used coping strategy, with its use being significantly lower in male students. Huang et al. ( 20) compared the use and impact of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies among nursing students. They found that problem-coping was the most utilized strategy. The researchers also found that problem-coping led to increased anxiety among the participants. While 71.26% of participants in the study by Wang and Zhao ( 28) reported increased stress and anxiety, only 43.25% utilized coping mechanisms. Perceived stress was significantly associated with depression; Insomnia mediated the association between perceived stress An expert on life in the USSR, Smith has written on cities, class and the Soviet “welfare state”, as well as the monograph Property of Communists: The Urban Housing Program from Stalin to Khrushchev (2010). But he has become “very worried Uncertainty plays a role in assessing those questions, he said, and is part of the motivation underlying behaviours such as doomscrolling: the urge to understand the nature of the threat – how likely it is, what the consequences might be, how you might cope and who might be able to help.