the new russian nationalismfrom the analysis here all national democratic currents – not
because they are not part of the nationalist movement (they
are), but because they differ significantly from the main sector
and are notably fewer in number (in terms of various numerical
indicators). National democrats clearly have their own, emer-
gent path, and it would be a mistake to examine their dynamics
and potential together with the rest.
Who, then, makes up the mainstream, if we exclude those enu-
merated above? We are left with those groups who, as of 2013,
were somehow connected with the Russians (Russkie) movement
or the Russian All- People’s Union (Rossiiskii obshchenarodnyi
soiuz) (ROS), some individual organisations, as well as various
autonomous groups – usually youth groups – that do not asso-
ciate themselves with these well- known political organisations
although the latter are forever wooing them. Many, but far from
all, of these groups call themselves ‘autonomous nationalists’
(natsional- avtonomy), ‘national socialists’ or similar. They are
typically oriented towards various neo- fascist ideas and racist vio-
lence. This chapter thus focuses on those who participate in the 4
November ‘Russian March’, excluding the national democrats. I
refer to them as ‘radical nationalists’, simply to demarcate them
from the rest, who are either less clearly nationalist or more mod-
erate in their methods or their aims.
I have chosen 2008 as the starting point – not primarily because
of the change of president, but, as I will return to below, because
this proved to be an extremely significant year on several parame-
ters of greater importance for radical nationalists than the change
of president in itself. Similarly, the war in Donbas is a major land-
mark in the development of the radical nationalist movement, so
it cannot be avoided in this chapter. However, since that war is
not yet over, the consequences for radical nationalists are not yet
entirely clear.
In 2007 I wrote about how the Russian nationalist mainstream
had come to take the place of the ‘old nationalism’ (Verkhovsky
2007a). To sum up briefly: in the middle of the first decade of the
2000s a fairly powerful movement emerged, and one very differ-
ent from the nationalism of the 1990s. Instead of being motivated
by nostalgic visions or the like, it focused on the ultra- simplified