Tag: Russian nationalism

Beijing Wants Moscow to Agree to Massive Chinese Settlement in the Transbaikal

June 17, 2015

Staunton, June 16 – Transbaikal officials are working on a deal with China that would allow Chinese firms to rent more than 300,000 acres of land in that Russian region, but a Beijing official says that the deal won’t go through unless Moscow agrees to a massive influx of Chinese workers because there are no […]

To Build a Russian Nation State, Moscow Returning To Tsarist Russification Policies

June 11, 2015

Staunton, June 11 – The reduction in the role of non-Russian languages and their being driven out of many public spaces even in their homelands is “no accident and no indication that a multi-lingual society cannot be built but rather evidence of the existence of an intentional state policy for building a Russian nation state,” […]

Putin Launches Broad New Attack Against Non-Russian Languages

May 20, 2015

Staunton, May 20 – Vladimir Putin wants to make the number of hours of Russian-language instruction in Russian schools inviolable, something that will mean non-Russian parents will be able to secure instruction in their native languages only by sacrificing other programs and thus putting the future academic and professional careers of their children at risk. […]

‘Geopolitical Conquests will Not Save National Pride’ of Russians, Moscow Scholars Say

May 15, 2015

Staunton, May 15 – The pride the people feel in their country consists of two elements: a cognitively processed one in which individuals assess the actual past and present of their nation and a normative one which is imposed from above by governments and others to support their policies, according to two Moscow scholars. The […]

The Uneasy Reality of Antifascism in Ukraine

March 23, 2015

First published in German language in Beton International: Zeitung für Literatur und Gesellschaft (10 March 2015). For almost twenty years of Ukraine’s independence, the term “antifascism” used to have very limited currency in the established political discourse in Ukraine. Until 2010, “antifascism” was primarily used as a form of self-identification by an element of Ukraine’s […]

A Forgotten but Instructive Russian Anniversary

March 15, 2015

Staunton, March 15 — Ninety-eight years ago today, Nicholas II abdicated the throne for himself and his son, ushering in the Provisional Government and great hopes for Russian democracy at home and abroad, hopes that were soon dashed by destructive orders of the new government itself and by the Bolshevik revolution less than nine months […]

The Far-Right “International Russian Conservative Forum” to Take Place in Russia

March 10, 2015

The Russian fascist Rodina (Motherland) party that was founded by Russia’s current Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is organising a large conference titled the “International Russian Conservative Forum” (IRCF) to be held in St. Petersburg on 22 March 2015. According to Kommersant‘s journalist Grigory Tumanov, the following European organisations are taking part in the conference: […]

The Birth of a Nation

February 26, 2015

Paul Goble writes the latest in our series on the anniversary of the Maidan Revolution and the birth of a new nation, Ukraine. Read the others in the series here. The last twelve months have seen something remarkable in European history: the birth of a new nation not defined by blood or language or passport […]

Russians Haven’t Consolidated as a Nation Because Russian State Became an Empire First, St. Petersburg Historian Says

January 19, 2015

Staunton, January 13 – The continuing dominance of an imperial mentality among Russians and their failure to consolidate as a nation reflects the fact that the Russian state became an empire before the Russian people came together as a nation, according to Yevgeny Anisimov, a scholar at the St. Petersburg Institute of History. In a […]

Putin’s Orthodox Jihad

December 27, 2014

Yesterday Russia announced a revised military doctrine, signed by President Vladimir Putin, that names NATO as the Kremlin’s main adversary and clarifies that Russia’s military reserves the right to respond to conventional threats with both nuclear and conventional weapons. This is no big change, since it only amplifies existing doctrine, but its explicit emphasis on […]