Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Russia

What Kind of Nationalism is Produced by the Kremlin

Bibliographic Data

ID7313995
AuthorsПетр Панов (0000-0002-0759-7618, Perm State University, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume1
Issue2
Pages85-94
Publication date2010-05-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Eurasian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1879-3665 • E-ISSN: 1879-3673
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1016/j.euras.2010.04.001
OpenAlexW1964642286
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited26

After collapse and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia faced typical problems of state-building and nation-building. Nations are assumed as political communities of Modernity. They are constructed in the process of nation-building and are based on nationalism, defined as worldview which perceives social reality through the prism of dividing the world into nations-states. Nation-building is a discursive process where state's activities predefine the type of nationalism being rooted. Using as a starting point ‘civic versus ethnic nationalism’ dichotomy, the article develops a transformed version of this typology, which is based on two dimensions: model of national membership (openness/closeness) and model of interaction among members (universalism/hierarchical particularism). The analysis of Annual Addresses of the Russian Presidents demonstrates that the Kremlin certainly produces open model of national membership. The key feature of ‘Russianness’ in the Kremlin discourse is commitment to the Russian culture where anyone can be recognized as ‘Russian’ as long as he/she shares the Russian cultural values. At the same time, the openness is combined with neglect of ‘civicism’. In contrast to ‘civicism’, which is based on rational notions of equal rights and responsibilities and universalistic patterns of behavior, the Kremlin image of Russian nation focuses on rather sacral idea of ‘the Russian way’, great historical mission as the destination of Russia. Openness of nationalism entails permanent expansion of the nation ‘outside itself’ in order to ‘absorb’ those groups who are able to accept Russian culture. Since the acceptance requires definite period of time, at any point of time Russian nation includes both ‘core of the nation’ and ‘aspirants’ that are in hierarchical order. Consequently, from the point of the second dimension, Russian nationalism falls into the category of hierarchical particularism

Nation-building · Nationalism · Openness to experience · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Universalism · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Psychology · Soviet and Russian History

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