the ethnification of russian nationalismorganisation or its own branch of the Academy of Sciences: it was
felt that this would duplicate the respective Soviet structures and
be redundant. Moreover, Russian- language schools and cultural
institutions were available throughout the Soviet Union. For these
reasons, Russians to a much larger degree than non- Russians
came to identify with the USSR as a whole, not with any particu-
lar geographical area (Kolstø 1999). To be Russian was in a sense
an unmarked quality, the opposite of being ‘ethnic’ (Brubaker
1996: 49). This was reflected also in Russian nationalism, which
generally focused on state strength and state size. Hardly any
Russian nationalists at the time would contemplate a truncation
of state territory.
Only when the Soviet Union unravelled during perestroika
did the RSFSR for the first time become a serious contender
for the loyalty and identity of the ethnic Russians. But also in
its new incarnation as the Russian Federation it was officially
a multi- ethnic state and not a ‘nation- state’. Tishkov made a
resolute attempt to develop a civic Russian nation- state model
- that virtually all Russian nationalists have found lacklustre
and anaemic. Their alternative visions for a Russian state idea,
however, point in two very different directions. On the one hand,
quite a few still adhere to a statist or imperial nation concept; on
the other, ‘the new Russian nationalists’ prioritise ethnic culture
and the interests of ethnic Russians over state grandeur. Finally,
some also try to combine an imperialist and an ethnic national
idea, and end up with what I have here called supremacist
nationalism. This means that in the post- Soviet debate on the
future of the Russian national idea all four boxes in my typology
of nationalisms are populated. Even so, some of them are more
crowded than others and gain new recruits by interlopers from
the other positions. The supremacists are a small and dwindling
minority – certainly in the Russian population, but also among
professed nationalists. This leaves three contenders fighting for
the hearts and minds of the Russians, as well as for influence over
the political leadership.
An ethnification of popular attitudes among the Russian public
can be seen from opinion polls fed primarily by growing migran-
tophobia. For various reasons, the Russian state authorities for a