archive / ideas / Russia-Ukraine War Ideology

Russia-Ukraine War Ideology

Zizekian Diagnostics, Culture & Media · 3 concepts · 3 talks · 3.3 hours · 2022–2025

Žižek tracks how the term 'denazification' migrates from Putin's justification for invading Ukraine to Serbian politicians threatening the Balkans, treating it as a spreading ideological virus.

≤2000talks carrying this idea, per year2026

The stories that teach it

the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page

anecdote · in 2 of its talks

Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution

When asked in 1953 what he thought about the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied 'It's too early to tell', which Žižek uses to illustrate retroactive historical judgment: after 1989 the French Revolution looked like a mistake, but now it is rehabilitated.

example · in 1 of its talks

Oscar Wilde on charitable remedies prolonging the disease

Žižek quotes Wilde's 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism': those moved by poverty try to remedy its symptoms, keeping the poor alive, amusing them, but these remedies do not cure poverty, they prolong it and are part of the disease. The proper aim is to reconstruct society so pov…

example · in 1 of its talks

Steve Bannon as Leninist

Steve Bannon openly proclaims himself a Leninist, wanting to destroy the state apparatus. Žižek notes the tragedy that the new right has 'stolen the revolution' from the left.

example · in 1 of its talks

January 6 Capitol riot as populist 'revolution'

Trump supporters invading the Capitol claimed to be acting freely to protect their liberty, the paradigm case of abstract freedom deployed to destroy concrete freedom.

example · in 1 of its talks

FBI agent orgasm imitation at Trump rally

Trump publicly imitated an FBI agent's phone sex conversation at a mass rally, an act of spectacular obscenity that his supporters cheered rather than condemned, illustrating that obscenity now strengthens rather than destroys political authority.

anecdote · in 1 of its talks

Slovenia's 'End of History'

Žižek recalls that in Slovenia, the demand for 'freedom and democracy' at the end of socialism was actually a demand for 'more open socialism' with social justice, not just Western liberalism.

Groucho Marx Idiot Joke1 Life is a disease transmitted by sex1 gilets jaunes and Podemos1 Don Giovanni 'Viva la libertà'1 Dinner invitation: paying the bill ritual2 Tibetan prayer wheel1 Sartre under German occupation1 God Created Fossils1 Tony Blair as Most Unpopular Person1 Taliban-China Deal1

Where it comes up 3

3 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

The Flight of Minerva in the City of God2022-08-29 · 1:39:07

~33:46 denazification (as spreading rhetoric)

to topic, to the topic which is in front of our eyes all the days, the ongoing war. What worried me is that a couple of days or weeks ago when a new tension erupted in northern Kosovo, Vladimir Đukanović from the ruling Serbian Progressive …

Slavoj Žižek - How to become freepub. 2024-05-24 · 1:35:15

~1:18:14 peacekeeping mission within sphere of influence

exist formally but they will be subordinated to this. This is the vision which you should bear in mind this which is no longer the vision of war as a war between nation states. No, this is why I think within their view of the …

Slavoj Žižek: Kurdistan & Ukraine, Comfort & Action (Courage) - Comparison of EU and the Middle Eastpub. 2025-11-07 · 06:34

4:41 cultural symbolic genocide

… It's not a literal genocide, but it's a let's call it, I don't know, cultural symbolic genocide.