Abstract
Demonizing Putin’s Russia and its foreign policy has become quite popular in analytical papers and academic publications, especially in some Central and East European countries, with sophisticated metaphors used to describe the evil nature of Russia’s current political regime. One of the phrases used by analysts and scholars is the idea of Russia as a modern version of Mordor, the most frightening land created by J. R R. Tolkien in his famous novel The Lord of the Rings (Bershidsky, 2014; Kovalik, 2018). Although this comparison can be perceived as a biased simplification, Sauron – one of the key characters in Tolkien’s book – may be a useful metaphor illustrating the impact of Russia’s policy on the development of relations between the European Union and the countries of the Eastern Partnership.
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Kardaś, S. (2020). Sauron’s Eye – The Russian Factor in EU-EaP Relations. In: Hilz, W., Minasyan, S., Raś, M. (eds) Ambiguities of Europe’s Eastern Neighbourhood . Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29856-2_5
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