We are pleased to introduce to you our third issue.

As an introductory paper, we offer our readers a reprint of an article written by Manfred Sapper and published in 1999 in the journal Neprikosnovenii Zapas. Manfred Sapper pictures the militarization of Soviet society and points out the strong influence of the military on the Russian political and social system. He describes this militarization process starting from its birth - with the civil war -  through its reinforcement with the Great Patriotic War, ending with its collapse - with the Afghan war.

The other contributions focus on the contemporary period. Nikolai Mitrokhine and Sergey Mozgovoy explore Church-Military relations. N. Mitrokhine offers an innovating analysis of the Army and Church relationship. Its main hypothesis suggests a progressive and mutual dissatisfaction of the two institutions that had counted on each other to get reinforced. S. Mozgovoy’s article  is based on a content analysis of  in-depth interviews with representatives of the church and describes its daily influence on the military.

The multiplication of movies or TV series picturing patriotic and military values has been noticeable over the past few years. Analysing such rich material, David Gillespie offers a content analysis of these films, connecting them to general context  characterized by the revival of patriotic feelings and military values.

Finally Larisa Deriglazova  surveys  the differences between civil society (represented by the Soldiers’Mothers’ organizations) and  State attitudes towards military reform. Theses approaches reveal a quite divergent conception of the army’s role in society.