Accused of having failed to predict the fall of communism, Russian studies after 1991 has struggled to redefine its identity and to adapt to the challenge of a more open field. Do the skills honed to understand an essentially closed system remain relevant for the study of a dynamically changing society committed to international political and economic integration? Do area studies have a future or should Soviet and post-Soviet analysis become part of comparative politics and transition studies? Is there something unique about Russian studies, and if so, what language can we use to describe this essential ‘difference’? Russian studies has now been ‘normalised’, integrated into the mainstream social science disciplines, but there remains the danger that this might be at the price of losing some sensitivity to factors that make Russia ‘Russia’.
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