However events continue to develop
in southern and eastern Ukraine, one of the most important realizations that
European and U.S. politicians have had in recent months is that, in terms of
foreign and military policy, modern Russia no longer behaves like Estonia,
Slovakia or other former Eastern Bloc countries.
That should not surprise anyone.
After all, could the West have really expected that a political entity the size
of Russia would remain inert and never pose a challenge to its neighbors? True,
it remains a question as to which problem will be greater: the sudden and
somewhat theatrical renaissance of Russia’s imperial ambitions or the
inevitable collapse of that renaissance.
A recent issue of the German
magazine Stern ran a cover story titled “Understanding Russia.” To illustrate
the text explaining the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations, it included a
map showing the European and Caucasian borders of the Russian Empire in 1783
superimposed on a modern map of Eastern Europe. The old border passes through
Kiev and includes Crimea — dividing Ukraine in much the same way that some
Moscow leaders would like to partition it now.
That map shows that President
Vladimir Putin and his entourage are not the first Russians to lay claim to
Crimea and eastern Ukraine. However, it remains a question as to why the
authors chose to show the Russian Empire of 1783 as compared, for example, to
its border in 1914, when it included present-day Finland, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Belarus, much of Poland, Ukraine and Moldova along with Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and part of Turkish northeastern Anatolia.
And yet, the magazine article was
correct in demonstrating how territorial expansion has always played a major
role in Russia’s political development. Western historians have calculated
that, over the last 400 years of its existence, the Russian Empire expanded at
an average rate of 50 square kilometers per day. Both Russian and foreign
observers often fail to consider how this factor inevitably exerts a powerful
influence on the formation of the Russian identity.
In fact, that military and later
economic colonization of vast territories in northern and eastern Eurasia
helped form the Russian identity. This is the historical memory the Russian
president tapped into when he seized Crimea and cast it at the feet of his
enthusiastic supporters, venting the simmering resentment and thirst for
territorial revenge that for the past 20 years was considered the stuff of
marginal politicians.
Only someone who knows nothing of
the last few centuries of Russian history could have imagined that this
president would have contented himself with merely winning over the hearts and
minds of housewives and factory workers. Putin has truly felt the glory of
laying his hands on the age-old motor that has driven the forward motion of
this enormous country for centuries.
To some extent, this new strategy
was born of despair: Vladimir Putin stands at the helm of a country at the
downside of an economic boom full of missed opportunities for development. He
needs to find mechanisms capable of preventing the state from sinking into
mundane collapse.
In 2011, the Institute of Sociology
of the Russian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert
Foundation of Germany presented the results of a major sociological research
project: “20 Years of Reform in the Eyes of Russians.” Among its findings: 40
percent of Russians would like the country to become more ethnically Russian.
That was one of the first signs that nationalism had reappeared in mainstream
Russian politics.
That trend found confirmation in
elections held between 2011 and 2013. The authorities begin identifying Russian
nationalism as a likely motor for powering the next phase of Russia’s political
history, and Putin latched onto the growing trend.
Putin’s strategy boils down to good
old-fashioned expansionism. The annexation of Crimea elicited an unprecedented
groundswell of enthusiastic support while diverting the people’s attention from
such serious domestic problems as inter-ethnic animosities.
Now he confidently eliminates the
Regional Development Ministry — the only government agency responsible for
inter-ethnic relations in Russia — and transferred that task to the Culture
Ministry, thereby relegating what is actually a complex domestic issue into the
realm of folk festivals and the meaningless escapades of Culture Minister
Vladimir Medinsky.
The idea of imperial ethnic
nationalism as a means for “expanding and developing the state” only works as
long as no one in the empire doubts the status of the imperial nation. The
problems in managing the territories of the Soviet Union began immediately
after sociologists noted a “demographic shift” among ethnic Russians in which the
mortality rate exceeded the birth rate in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
It was then, and not in the 1990s as
is now commonly thought, that Russians reversed the centuries-old trend of
constant expansion and began departing from lands previously assimilated into
the empire.
That trend continues today, as the
percentage of Russians in this country continues to decline even as the number
of migrants and members of non-Russian ethnic groups within the country
increases. But on Moscow’s City Day, metro passengers heard a loudspeaker
proclaim congratulations reminiscent of Stalin’s famous toast: “To the Russian
people!” That drove home the idea that Moscow is a Russian city, a city of
Russian glory.
For people with roots in
Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chechnya, Tuva, Yakutia, Mordovia, Khanty-Mansiysk or
Ossetia, along with the members of dozens of other ethnic groups living on the
territory of modern Russia and daily using the same metro system in the
country’s largest and most rapidly developing city, that emphasis on everything
Russian presents a serious dilemma. In effect, it states: “Either you are
Russian like us, or else this holiday — in fact, this city and this country —
are not for you.”
Such a vision of “ethnic purity” is
simply inadequate when a country is no longer capable of using Russian ethnic
nationalism to expand and develop the state. In that case, the only hope
leaders have of preserving the territorial and political integrity of the state
is to foster a sense of community transcending narrow ethnic identities.
However, building such a society — a modern civic nation — is a more
complicated and expensive undertaking than sounding a nostalgic appeal to the
old empire. A civic nation is less focused on the “heroic past” and requires
common goals and the determination to achieve them.
In responding to the growing demand
for a nationalistic approach, Vladimir Putin is probably trying to find a
balance between the interests of ethnic Russians and the many other ethnic
groups in the country. The best way would be to contribute to the building of
the civic nation — but after the events in Ukraine, the Kremlin seems to be
rejecting that as an option. On the other hand, imperial nationalism cannot
work for long when the country is clearly becoming less ethnically Russian and
therefore less of an empire.
Of course, the Kremlin can keep
those “imperial fires” burning for a while by exploiting the weakness of
neighboring countries that only came into existence with the collapse of the
Soviet Union. But not only does that drive a wedge between Moscow and its
neighbors, it also puts Russia’s own regional integration projects at risk. In
the short run, though, this approach enables leaders to pander to widespread
imperial nostalgia and win — at least for now — the loyalty of the majority.
The awakening from this temporary
euphoria promises to be painful, and no less so for those who induced this
“mass hypnosis.” In fact, it could prove so painful that, in addition to the
map showing the Russian Empire in 1783, it might make sense to take out a still
older map showing the territory which was the starting-point for Russian
imperial expansion.
An illustration of Russia “before
empire,” it might also serve as a warning for what modern Russia might become
“after empire.” Indeed, the dangers of today’s imaginary imperial renaissance
might pale in comparison to the destabilization of the Russian state and a
newer, more fundamental collapse of its imperial structure.
Opinions expressed strictly the author's and do not reflect the editorial thinking of naijaGRAPHITTI.
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