the ethnification of russian nationalismPamiat and Russian National Unity, it was oriented towards
Russia and not the former Soviet Union.
The new ethno- national current in Russian nationalism includes
also various parties and personalities who represent pro- Western
and pro- democracy leanings. This is particularly true of the large
segment increasingly referred to as ‘the national democrats’. They
are a loose group that includes both thinkers who stress the impor-
tance of ethnicity and those who are more concerned with democ-
racy (see Kolstø 2014). In the former category we find Aleksandr
Sevastianov, who has declared: ‘national democracy is democracy
within the framework of the nation. And I emphasise time and
again that nation in this context means the ethnonation and
nothing else’ (Sevast’ianov 2013: 203, emphasis in the original).
This view is rejected by most other leading national democrats
who insist that in a future Russian nation- state full democratic
rights can and shall be extended to all citizens irrespective of eth-
nicity.^6 This is possible, they say, since ethnic Russians make up
the vast majority of Russia’s population, more than 80 per cent;
this will guarantee the national quality also of a fully democratic
Russian nation- state. The demographic predominance of ethnic
Russians is a result of the collapse of the USSR. Commenting on
this epochal event Sevastianov waxes lyrical:
For our country the pseudoimperial epoch of development is now
coming to an end. Having lived for three centuries in an internation-
alistic empire Russians suddenly find themselves in new realities, in a
mononational state, a state in which Russians make up almost 9/10.
This is truly a good fortune! (Sevast’ianov 2010: 139)Even if it was hard to accept the dissolution of the unitary
state at the time, explains Sergei Sergeev, managing editor of the
journal Voprosy natsionalizma and another leading ethnonation-
alist theoretician, this momentous turning- point in history must
be regarded as a blessing in disguise (Sergeev 2010: 236).^7 Such
ideas have led the ethnonationalists into a bitter struggle with
the Eurasianists and other empire nostalgics, whom the national
democrats call ‘impertsy’. According to Konstantin Krylov, the
leader of the National- Democratic Party (2011: 3) the conflict