the new russian nationalismThe first sign of what would later be called the ‘democratic
turn’ of Russian nationalism was the formation of an anti- Soviet
platform at its heart. A clear example was the creation of a
separate anti- Soviet column in the 2012 ‘Russian March’.^3 After
this, in their speeches many nationalist leaders increasingly began
to repudiate not only Stalinism, but also authoritarianism as a
political principle. As a result, the politics of the Russian national
democratic movement took centre stage, and swiftly attracted
the attention of observers. It was precisely their leaders who
in the opposition demonstrations in Moscow in 2011–13 formed
the core of the nationalist wing under the banner of ‘for fair elec-
tions’. The historian Elena Galkina has identified the following
key differences between national democrats and those whom she
calls ‘national patriots’: ‘Natsdems [national democrats], as a
rule, in a very emotional fashion accuse Soviet Russia of destroy-
ing the peasantry and the tradition of self- government, and of
a tendency to suppress Russian ethnicity in national politics, of
the diktat of the state and of totalitarianism’ (Galkina 2012: 83).
Today these accusations are directed at the Russian Federation,
seen as the direct successor to the Soviet Union. The leaders of
the National Democratic Party – Konstantin Krylov, Vladimir
Tor, Rostislav Antonov, Aleksandr Khramov and others – have
adopted this position. In some respects Valerii Solovei, the leader
of the party New Force, holds similar views.
The ideas of Egor Prosvirnin have evolved at the junction
between national democracy and the opposing autocratic- imperial
model of nationalism. Prosvirnin is the founder and active leader
of the trendy nationalist Internet project Sputnik i Pogrom,^4 and
one of the most controversial figures in the Russian nationalist
sphere. In his programmatic writings he rages against the Soviet
communist regime, likening it to night- time (‘amidst the clear
Russian day suddenly the dark communist night fell’) (Prosvirnin
2012). He devotes considerable attention to the necessity of dem-
ocratic changes for the good of ethnic Russians: ‘We view the
Russian national democratic rule of law- based state as our ideal
... with economic life based on the principles of the rule of law
and free competition’ (Prosvirnin n.d.; see also Prosvirnin 2014a).
All this draws Prosvirnin close to the national democratic ten-