the ethnification of russian nationalismtion held together by a russkii cultural core. By dint of the fact
that Russia continues to exist, the russkii people is therefore gosu-
darstvoobrazuiushchii, the ‘state- forming’ nation, in that state.
Historically, Russia is not an ethnic state and not an American melting
pot... The Russian experience of state development is unique: we
are a multinational society but we are one people... attempts to
preach the idea of a Russian ‘national’, monoethnic state contradict
our thousand- year- long history. Indeed, it is the fastest path forward
towards the destruction of the russkii people and russkii statehood.
(Putin 2012b)To a large extent Putin was here lashing out against a straw man,
as few Russian ethnonationalists are in favour of a monoeth-
nic state (Sevastianov being one exception). Instead, most eth-
nonationalists want the current Russian state to be regarded as
an expression of ‘russkii statehood’, with the Russian nation
declared as ‘state- forming’. Both of these terms were in fact used
by Putin himself in his article. Two core tenets of the ethnonation-
alists had then, surprisingly, crept into official Kremlin rhetoric.
Leading ethnonationalist theoretician Oleg Nemenskii (2012: 18)
therefore chose to interpret Putin’s message not as criticism, but
as indirect acceptance of some of their main ideas. Nemenskii
maintained that Putin’s
complete rejection of the previous attempt to establish a rossiiskii
nation, together with his new accentuation of the Russian ethnic
dominant element, represents a major shift in official discourse on
nationality policy; V.V. Putin’s article legitimises the Russian ethno-
nym in the official vocabulary. (Nemenskii 2012: 18)The ethnonationalists take the very fact that Putin found it neces-
sary to attack them as confirmation that the Russian leadership
recognises the importance of the issues they raise.