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Contemporary Latin American Studies in Russia: Old and New Challenges
The changing of the political regime and the economic model in Russia after
the Soviet collapse in 1991 had a tremendous impact on all spheres of social
activities, including science. Latin American studies were not an exception. Once
a solid and influential school of scientific thought, Latinoamerikanistika faced
hard times.
The main challenges were the decreased funding and declining government
interest toward the region in the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. However,
better finances and Russia’s return to Latin America and the Caribbean in the
2000s did not necessarily signify a revival of the old Latin American school, as
one could imagine. One of the reasons for that was the partial loss of direct links
between academic institutions and governmental bodies responsible for designing
and implementing foreign policy. Besides, in line with other scientific centers, the
Latin American centers in Russia faced many difficulties due to the bureaucratic
confusion of early post-Soviet Russia. Moreover, there were serious issues of a
different nature as well. First, there is a sensible lag between Russian scholars
and their Western counterparts in methodological approaches. The “retreat”
from Marxist methodology did not immediately lead to easy adoption of other
methodological tools. In addition, many of the senior scholars of the old school
had insufficient capacity to publish their articles in the English language. The
lack of language skills became an additional obstacle for Russian–Latin American
centers wishing to join international scientific networks. Furthermore, while
academic research was one of the most prestigious occupations in the USSR, it
lost its former attractiveness to younger generations in post-Soviet Russia. As
a result, Latin American studies risked becoming an aging discipline in Russia.