The New Russian NationalisM ‘There are several excellent books on Russian national identity, but this collection surpasses them all. The New Russian Nationalism should now be the starting point for anyone studying contemporary Russian nationalism.’ Peter J. S. Duncan, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London Assessing the transformation of Russian nationalist discourse in the 21st century Russian nationalism, previously dominated by ‘imperial’ tendencies – pride in a large, strong and multi-ethnic state able to project its influence abroad – is increasingly focused on ethnic issues. This new ethno-nationalism has come in various guises, like racism and xenophobia, but also in a new intellectual movement of ‘national democracy’ deliberately seeking to emulate conservative West European nationalism. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent violent conflict in Eastern Ukraine utterly transformed the nationalist discourse in Russia. This book provides an up-to-date survey of Russian nationalism as a political, social and intellectual phenomenon by leading Western and Russian experts in the field of nationalism studies. It includes case studies on migrantophobia; the relationship between nationalism and religion; nationalism in the media; nationalism and national identity in economic policy; nationalism in the strategy of the Putin regime as well as a survey- based study of nationalism in public opinion. PÅL KOLSTØ is Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Oslo. He has AND Helge BlakkisruD authored two books and a number of articles and book chapters on Russian politics, KolstO PAl Edited by Russian history and nationalism. HELGE BLAKKISRUD is Head of the Research Group on Russia, Eurasia and the Arctic at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo. He is Editor in Chief of the Nordic journal for East European and Eurasian Studies (Nordisk Østforum). The New Russian Nationalism Cover image: protest in Crimea, 2014 © Bulent Doruk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Cover design: Andrew Henderson Imperialism, Ethnicity and ISBN: 978-1-4744-1042-7 Authoritarianism 2000–15 Edited by PAl KolstO AND Helge BlakkisruD The New Russian Nationalism THE NEW RUSSIAN NATIONALISM Imperialism, Ethnicity and Authoritarianism 2000–15 2 Edited by Pål Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: www. edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organisation Pål Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud, 2016 © the chapters, their several authors, 2016 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 1042 7 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 1043 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 1044 1 (epub) The right of Pål Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents List of Figures vii List of Tables x Acknowledgements xi Notes on Contributors xii Introduction: Russian nationalism is back – but precisely what does that mean? 1 Pål Kolstø 1. The ethnification of Russian nationalism 18 Pål Kolstø 2. The imperial syndrome and its influence on Russian nationalism 46 Emil Pain 3. Radical nationalists from the start of Medvedev’s presidency to the war in Donbas: True till death? 75 Alexander Verkhovsky 4. Russian ethnic nationalism and religion today 104 Anastasia Mitrofanova 5. Everyday nationalism in Russia in European context: Moscow residents’ perceptions of ethnic minority migrants and migration 132 Natalya Kosmarskaya and Igor Savin v the new russian nationalism 6. Backing the USSR 2.0: Russia’s ethnic minorities and expansionist ethnic Russian nationalism 160 Mikhail A. Alexseev 7. Rallying ’round the leader more than the flag: Changes in Russian nationalist public opinion 2013–14 192 Mikhail A. Alexseev and Henry E. Hale 8. How nationalism and machine politics mix in Russia 221 Henry E. Hale 9. Blurring the boundary between civic and ethnic: The Kremlin’s new approach to national identity under Putin’s third term 249 Helge Blakkisrud 10. Russia as an anti- liberal European civilisation 275 Marlene Laruelle 11. Ethnicity and nationhood on Russian state- aligned television: Contextualising geopolitical crisis 298 Stephen Hutchings and Vera Tolz 12. The place of economics in Russian national identity debates 336 Peter Rutland Bibliography 362 Index 407 vi Figures Figure 1.1: A typology of Russian nationalisms 23 Figure 6.1: Search frequency on Google for the term ‘Crimean Tatars’ in the Russian language in Tatarstan and the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg (January 2013–June 2014) 164 Figure 6.2: Preferences for Russian territorial identity, ingroup pride, political preferences and economic valuations among ethnic Russian and non- Russian respondents in the 2013 NEORUSS surveys 175 Figure 6.3: Russia territorial identity preferences in the 2013 NEORUSS surveys among ethnic Russian and non- Russian respondents 177 Figure 6.4: Dominant preferences for Russia’s state identity across ethnic groups in the 2013 NEORUSS survey 185 Figure 6.5: Prospective group status in four Russia state identity scenarios 186 Figure 7.1: Agreement that the current Ukrainian leadership is . 196 Figure 7.2: ‘If presidential elections were held today, for whom would you vote?’ 199 Figure 7.3: ‘Do you believe the ethnic diversity of the population strengthens or weakens vii the new russian nationalism Russia?’ – based on nationwide survey samples from 2005, 2013, and 2014 205 Figure 7.4: Share of respondents who strongly opposed their family members marrying migrants belonging to ethnic groups other than their own 208 Figure 7.5: Factors singled out by the respondents as most uniting/dividing the peoples of Russia and Ukraine 211 Figure 7.6: Preferences for the territorial boundaries of the Russian Federation 214 Figure 8.1: Per cent responses to ‘What should be the borders of Russia?’ 242 Figure 11.1: Frequency and intensity of ethnicity- related news as a percentage of the overall news content 306 Figure 11.2: Frequency of ethnicity- related news inside and outside the Russian Federation, Vremia and Vesti 307 Figure 11.3: Intensity of ethnicity- related news inside and outside the Russian Federation, Vremia and Vesti 308 Figure 11.4: Salience of ethnicity- related news, Vremia and Vesti 309 Figure 11.5: Intensity of each category as a percentage of all ethnicity- related news, Vremia 311 Figure 11.6: Intensity of each category as a percentage of all ethnicity- related news, Vesti 311 Figure 11.7: Frequency of Russian Orthodox Church- coded stories over the total recording period, Vremia and Vesti 314 Figure 11.8: Intensity of Russian Orthodox Church- coded stories over the total recording period, Vremia and Vesti 315 Figure 11.9: Frequency of migration- coded stories inside and outside the Russian Federation over the total recording period, Vremia 321 viii figures Figure 11.10: Frequency of migration- coded stories inside and outside the Russian Federation over the total recording period, Vesti 322 ix Tables Table 6.1: Comparison of means test between ethnic Russian and non- Russian respondents in 2013 NEORUSS surveys on select outcome variables 173 Table 6.2: Responsiveness to Putin’s message that ethnic diversity strengthens Russia in a split- sample experiment, 2013 NEORUSS surveys in the Russian Federation and the cities of Moscow, Vladivostok and Krasnodar 181 Table 7.1: ‘What is Novorossiia?’ 198 x Acknowledgements This book has been made possible through a research project on ‘Nation- building, nationalism and the new “other” in today’s Russia’ (NEORUSS)1 funded by the Research Council of Norway, under the NORRUSS programme, project number 220599. Additional funding has been provided by the Freedom of Expression Foundation (Fritt Ord). The project involves research- ers at the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages at the University of Oslo, Norway and the Research Group on Russia, Eurasia and the Arctic at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway in addition to ten researchers from five different countries (France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States). 1 <www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/neoruss> (last accessed 9 March 2015). xi Notes on Contributors Contributors Mikhail A. Alexseev is Professor of Political Science at the San Diego State University, USA, where he has taught since 2000. His publications focus on threat assessment in interstate and internal wars, ethnic relations, immigration attitudes and nationalism, with a regional focus on Eurasia. He is the author of Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2006), ‘Societal Security, the Security Dilemma, and Extreme Anti-Migrant Hostility in Russia’ (Journal of Peace Research, 2011) and ‘The Asymmetry of Nationalist Exclusion and Inclusion’