Introduction Scope And Context Of The Essay

The goal of this essay is to focus on the short but extraordinarily charged
period of time between 12 May 1999—when Evgenii Primakov was abruptly
fired as Russian prime minister by Boris Yeltsin—and 9 August 1999 when
Primakov’s successor, Sergei Stepashin, was likewise cashiered by the
Russian president. Before we move on to an examination of this period,
however, it behooves us briefly to consider several key developments that
occurred earlier on in Yeltsin’s reign: the decision to invade Chechnya taken
during the late fall of 1994; Yeltsin’s March 1996 decision, which he later
reversed, to cancel or postpone Russian elections and to ban the Russian
Communist Party; and, finally, several major developments occurring in
March of 1999. In addition to briefly examining these three periods, this
essay will also touch upon several theoretical issues that are germane to our
topic.