The New Russian Nationalism Imperialism, Ethnicity and Authoritarianism

the ethnification of russian nationalism

or as a territorial area that could be developed into such an entity

• he called ‘nation- builders’.
  Today, a quarter- century after Szporluk wrote his article, the
  USSR has ended up in the dustbin of history and a new genera-
  tion of Russians have grown up who have never known any other
  ‘homeland’ than the Russian Federation. This is not to say that
  the ‘empire- savers’ have evaporated. They are still around, now in
  the guise of various kinds of ‘empire- nostalgics’ or ‘Eurasianists’.
  Some celebrate the fact that the Soviet Union was a multinational
  state (quadrant 1), while others combine a desire for a large and
  strong state with Russian supremacism (quadrant 2).
  On both axes intermediate positions can be found. With regard
  to territory, it is not uncommon to hear among contemporary
  Russian ethnonationalists that, while the Soviet Union is irredeem-
  ably lost and should not be resurrected, the two Slavic republics
  of Ukraine and Belarus, plus perhaps the Russian- populated part
  of Kazakhstan, ought to be incorporated into a Russian nation-
  state. The main motivation here is ethnic commonality among the
  Eastern Slavs rather than any harking for a big and strong state.
  As Oxana Shevel has pointed out (2011: 187–9), some Russian
  ethnonationalists include also the Ukrainians and the Belarusians
  among those whom they regard as ‘Russians’ alongside the Great
  Russians, or ‘Russians proper’.
  In this chapter I trace the historical trajectory of Russian
  nationalism, arguing that a clearly discernible movement has

Territorial orientation

Primarily statist

A

Primarily ethnic

B

I ‘Empire’ oriented

1

empire-saving

nationalism

2

supremacist

nationalism

II ‘Core’ oriented

3

Russian

Federation

nationalism

4

ethnic core

nationalism

Figure 1.1 A typology of Russian nationalisms