the new russian nationalism
1994 during President Clinton’s visit to Russia, when the Russian
leader announced that the confrontation with the West had cata-
strophic consequences for Russia and it should be ended once and
for all, returning Russia ‘to the family of civilised nations’ (Torkunov
1999: 56).
- On 25 April 2005, in an address to the Federal Assembly, Putin
called the collapse of the USSR ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe
of the 20th century’ (Putin 2005).
- In September 2004 President Putin initiated changes to the way
in which heads of executive power of federal subjects were to be
selected, proposing to appoint governors and heads of republics
by a decision made in the relevant regional legislative bodies on
the President’s recommendation, instead of their being elected by
the regional population. On Putin’s orders, the relevant legislation
was drafted in the shortest amount of time and passed already in
December 2004 (see Baberina 2010).
- This phrase is constantly repeated as Putin’s, but it is attributed
to Putin in the words of someone else. At the Worldwide Russian
People’s Council in Moscow, 13–14 December 2001, Aleksandr
Dugin said: ‘The words of our President are close to the heart of each
one of us: Russia may be either great, or not be at all’ (see Itskovich
2002).
