The great replacement of narrative: Conspiratorial thinking and collective anxiety in wartime Russia

Abstract This article examines the rise of conspiratorial thinking in wartime Russia as a response to a deeper collective anxiety – not merely the replacement of people, but the erasure of narrative agency. While the Russian version of the ‘Great Replacement’ echoes familiar Western themes such as elite betrayal, cultural erosion, and demographic decline, its central concern shifts towards symbolic displacement. Drawing on Mark Sedgwick’s interpretation of the Great Replacement as a stable narrative structure and J.V. Wertsch’s concept of narrative as a cultural tool, this article argues that conspiracy operates here as a means of reclaiming authorship in a national story whose core meanings have grown unstable. The analysis draws on social media discourse, pro-war commentary, volunteer statements, and nationalist media, showing how anxieties are shaped through emotionally resonant storylines of betrayal and erasure. Yet the reassertion of control paradoxically intensifies fragmentation, turning the Great Replacement into a narrative of narrative disappearance – where the gravest loss is not demographic, but symbolic.