The Rise of Runet and the Main Stages of Its History

Abstract

The history of the Russian Internet begins in the late 1980s, when the Soviet users contacted the American ones for the first time. This chapter examines the literary, social, and political development of the Russian Internet through the 1990s and the 2000s, from the first literary experiments and the first experience in political technologies to the new form of social and political activism performed within social networks in the early 2010s. Being the first case of citizen journalism during the August Putsch in 1991, the Russian Internet rapidly switched to becoming an “apolitical” activity and, consequently, became a tool of political technologies. Several generations of the runet, from the first computer scientists to the Russian-speaking emigrants to the mass users, have changed each other along with their values and claim to the Internet. While the users in the 1990s developed the concept of Russkii Mir (Russian world) and inspired authorities to control the public sphere, users of the 2010s are rather searching for a technology sufficient to resist official policy.