A Parting of Ways? : The Kremlin Leadership and Russia’s New-Generation Nationalist Thinkers

Abstract

Abstract: This article focuses on what appears to be a turning point in the complex relationship between the political leadership of post-Soviet Russia and the new generation of nationalists, who are increasingly setting the tone in the nationalist movement. My objective is to explore how this nationalist New Wave critiques the nationalist tradition--not least the relationship between nationalism and the state--and to discuss nationalists' views on how nationalism should be reinvigorated it can become a truly influential popular movement. I argue the moral and political revulsion of nationalist thinkers at the Kremlin's attempt to masquerade as a nationalist force marks a crucial watershed in contemporary history--namely, a definitive parting of ways between the new-generation democratic-oriented nationalists and the Kremlin leadership. ********** Russia's annexation of Crimea, and in particular the Kremlin's rhetoric justifying this move, threw into the sharp relief, yet again, the has been hotly debated ever since the Soviet Union's breakup: Where does Russia (as a community and as a state) begin and where does it end? In all of President Vladimir Putin's recent speeches, especially those related to Ukraine and the simmering conflict in the country's two eastern provinces, a murky notion of the Russkii Mir (Russian World) figures prominently. We will always defend ethnic Russians in Ukraine, said Putin, adding Moscow's protection will be extended also to that part of the Ukrainian people who feel they are linked by unbreakable ties to Russia--not only by ethnic but also cultural and linguistic ties; who regard themselves as part of a broader World. Russia is highly concerned, in Putin's ambiguous formulation, about the wellbeing and security of all those people--not necessarily ethnic Russians, but those who regard themselves as Russian and who constitute the so called broader World. (1) But what are the concrete political contours of the Russkii Mir project? How does it relate to the formulation of nationhood enshrined in the Federation's Constitution? Has the Kremlin launched a kind of irredenta--a gathering of the (ethnic) lands? Or is Putin pursuing what essentially is an empire-building policy? Is Vladimir Putin a bona fide nationalist and what kind of nationalist is he--a champion of Eurasianism or a builder of a Russkii state? And finally, what do nationalist ideologues (largely belonging to the national-democratic wing of Russia's fractured nationalist movement) make of the Kremlin's tackling of the national question? This article intends to explore these questions, focusing specifically on what appears to be a turning point in the complex relationship between the political leadership of post-Soviet Russia and nationalism. (2) Indeed, Vladimir Putin once famously said both he and his protege Dmitry Medvedev are staunch [Russian] nationalists, in the good sense of the word. Yet this statement as well as Putin's programmatic disquisition on the national question were met with incredulity (if not outright scorn) on the part of the new generation of nationalists, who are increasingly setting the tone--at least intellectually--in the nationalist movement. This nationalist cohort is a loosely organized group (a network community) of intellectuals (mostly trained in the humanities disciplines) is formed around several nationalist-minded publications--the thick journals, such as Moskva (particularly in 2009-2010 when the historian Sergei Sergeev was its chief editor) and Voprosy natsionalizma, as well as a number of websites such as www.apn.ru and www.rusplatforma.org. (4) This group comprises such nationalist ideologues and writers as Oleg Kil'dyushov, Konstantin Krylov, Aleksandr Khramov, Oleg Nemensky, Mikhail Remizov, Aleksandr Samovarov, Pavel Svyatenkov, Sergei Sergeev, and Valery Solovei. …