the new russian nationalismThe 2013 and 2014 NEORUSS surveys
Our data come primarily from two surveys carried out by Russia’s
well- established and respected Romir polling agency as part of the
University of Oslo’s ‘Nation- building, nationalism and the new
“other” in today’s Russia (NEORUSS)’ project. The first survey
included a nationally representative sample of 1,000 respondents
interviewed face- to- face from 8 May to 27 May 2013, selected
through a five- stage random sampling design.^1 This questionnaire
was created and administered before any of the participants could
have had any inkling of the major crisis that was to come so soon,
but it was nevertheless designed to measure the extent of a wide
range of nationalist attitudes in Russia.
After the outbreak of the 2014 crisis, it was decided to conduct
a new survey that would replicate most of the questions from
2013 so as to see what had changed, supplemented with a new
set of questions about attitudes to the ongoing crisis. This new
survey was carried out from 5 November to 18 November 2014,
according to the same methodology, except that it included 1,200
instead of 1,000 respondents, an increase possible thanks to the
availability of funding.^2
The sections that follow discuss the central findings, beginning
with attitudes to the Ukraine crisis itself, followed by an examina-
tion of what has changed in the interim between the two surveys.
We also draw on evidence from before 2013, where appropriate,
including a 2005 survey organised by one of the present authors
that asked some of the same questions included in the 2013 and
2014 surveys.^3 All surveys were conducted in every federal district
of the Russian Federation, with standard quality controls by mail
and by phone.^4
Perceptions of the Ukraine crisis
The bulk of the population have fallen – hook, line and sinker –
for some elements of the Russian state media’s version of events.
One of these concerns depictions of the post- revolutionary lead-
ership in Ukraine, which by the time of the survey had held
presidential elections in May 2014, won by Petro Poroshenko,