Spouse Marina Medinskaya Role Russian Political figure | Name Vladimir Medinsky Preceded by Aleksander Avdeev | |
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Full Name Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky Born Profession ProfessorDoctor of Sciences in politic and historic studies Religion Russian Orthodox Christian Political party Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Independent politician, Our Home – Russia, Unity, United Russia Similar People Vladimir Kekhman, Vitaly Milonov, Sergey Sobyanin, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Olga Golodets Profiles |
Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky (Russian: Владимир Ростиславович Мединский, Ukrainian: Мединський Володимир Ростиславович) (born July 10, 1970) is a Russian political figure, publicist, and since May 2012 serves as the Minister of Culture. He is a member of the General Council of the United Russia party. His dissertation thesis and publications on history of Russia were criticized as plagiarism and pseudoscience.
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Dissertations and accusation of plagiarism

The third thesis of 2011 has been widely debated in the Russian media and a large number of fragments have been shown to bear a significant resemblance to existing academic works, which caused numerous accusations of plagiarism.
On 23 May 2014, the Dissernet community, an informal group of academics and journalists concerned with dissertation plagiarism, declared to have found plagiarism in two previous dissertations by Medinsky, of 1997 and 1999. According to Dissernet's expertise, in the first thesis 87 pages out of 120 have been borrowed from the thesis of Medinsky's scientific advisor S.A.Proskurin. In the second thesis, 21 pages textually coincide with other people's works.
Views
Medinsky has been described as a "nationalist enamoured of classicism and traditional values."
Vladimir Medinsky supports the removal of Vladimir Lenin's body from the Lenin's Mausoleum to bury it.
Medinsky believes that Stalin statues should be erected in places where the majority of local people are in favour.
In 2013, Medinsky's Culture Ministry proposed an updated cultural policy blueprint. Calling for "a rejection of the principles of tolerance and multiculturalism", it emphasizes Russian "traditional values" and cautions against "pseudo-art" that may be at variance with those values.
In 2015, Medinsky called for the creation of a Russian "patriotic Internet" to combat Western ideas, adding that those who are against Russia are against the truth.