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Previews articles about ethnic survival published in the March 2001 issue of the journal 'Nationalities Papers.' Authors who represent Russia's Finno-Ugrians; Introduction to the lives of eastern Finno-Ugrians; Eastern Finno-Ugrians' shared historical experiences within Russia; Positive and adverse developments concerning Finno-Ugrians in the 1990s.

This paper considers the role of Russian print media and government in forming and publicizing nationalist sentiment through a content analysis of newspaper coverage of ethnic conflict in Stavropol in 2007. It shows that though the government officially pursues an inclusive multicultural approach (which I call associative nationalism), newspapers owned by Kremlin-loyal business holdings printed quite nationalist and sensationalist versions of the events in question. I argue that this is a passive promotion of a dissociative type of nationalism on the part of the Kremlin, which works against its stated purposes of bringing together all those in the Russian territory into a united national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Russian migration and citizenship regime as encountered by forced migrants from Ukraine who fled to Russia during the period of 2014-2016. Based on legal and other official documents, media articles, and interviews, it gives an account of these migrants’ reception in Russia in theory and practice. Russia made great efforts to accommodate them, and in Russian media they were often spoken of as an easily integrated labor resource and as potential citizens. In 2015-2016, around 165,000 Ukrainians acquired Russian citizenship. While ethno-cultural similarity does privilege Ukrainian migrants in Russia, full asylum has been granted sparingly, and citizenship is not unconditionally granted. As this paper shows, Russian authorities have rather tried to control and distribute these forced migrants for the benefit of the state, according to principles of selectivity and economic interests - giving privileged access to permanent residency and citizenship to working-age people willing to settle in regions where population growth and more workers are deemed necessary. However, permanent residency and citizenship are also available to those able to circumvent or pay their way through the obstacles encountered - taking advantage of the flexibility inherent in a system that is not totally consistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates collective memory of the Soviet experiment in the narratives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), in the period of 1993–2004. My research finds that ideological differences within the CPRF led to the creation of multiple and contrasting depictions of the Soviet past in the discourse of its leaders. Challenging dominant assumptions, I argue that these differences did not conflict and undermine one another, but were structured to strengthen the public appeal of the CPRF. The paper adds empirical findings to the study of the CPRF and of collective memory at the (so far underdeveloped) level of public organizations. The paper also challenges the prevailing assumption that diverging historical narratives necessarily imply conflict and contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The late 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by the sudden rise of nationalist movements in almost all Soviet ethnic regions. It is argued that the rise ofpoliticalnationalism since the late 1980s can be explained by the development ofculturalnationalism in the previous decades, as an unintended outcome of Communist nationalities policy. All ethnic regions are examined throughout the entire history of the USSR (49 regions, 1917–1991), using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. This paper aims to make at least three contributions to the field. First, it is a methodological contribution for studying nationalism: a “quantification of history” approach. Having constructed variables from historical data, I use conventional statistical methods such as SEM. Second, this paper contributes to the theoretical debate about the role of cultural autonomy in multiethnic states. Finally, the paper statistically proves that the break between early Soviet and Stalinist nationalities policy explains the entire Soviet nationalities policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is based on a study which compares repatriation policies of Germany, Russia, and Kazakhstan. The choice of cases is based on a “most similar case design.” The Russian case results in unsuccessful and unsustainable repatriation, the German case exhibits a change from sustainable repatriation to a slow termination of the program, while the case of Kazakhstan is one of sustainable and relatively successful repatriation. The main argument of the paper is that in order for a repatriation program to be sustainable, the program must contain both a practical component and an ideological component. If a repatriation program lacks ideological backing which permeates other aspects of political life in a state, then the repatriation program grinds to a halt. If a repatriation program has ideological backing, but is rendered impractical and does not meet the economic, demographic and labor market needs of a state, then the further development of the program stops. The findings of this study merit further reflection on issues of changing national identities, on transnational migration pathways, and on the “post-Soviet condition” which has set the stage for all of the aforementioned processes and transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For several years, various nationalist groups and the Russian state have been competing over nationalism as a political concept and for popular support to nationalist claims. This paper analyzes the relationship between the state and anti-government, ethnocentric nationalistic groups that gather annually in an event called “the Russian March.” Emphasis is on the change in that relationship that happened in 2014, when the state added efforts to channel and mobilize the nationalists to its previous repressive and controlling measures. The article conceptualizes the competition over the nationalist argument in contemporary Russia as a case of dissentful and consentful contention in hybrid regimes, and shows how the dissentful nationalists have been forced to make way for the more consentful ones. Until recently, the room for maneuver for the radical nationalists was relatively wide. The events in Ukraine, however, divided the nationalists, and since 2014 radical nationalists have faced increased state repression. At the same time, pro-government nationalist actors have strengthened, and new players have appeared in the field. These developments tell us not only about the Kremlin’s diminished tolerance for dissentful contention, but also about the importance of the nationalist argument in Russian politics today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on diasporic youth identities in the British and American context has stressed hybridity, heterogeneity and multiplicity. This paper draws upon ethnographic research undertaken with Armenian girls to explore some of the tensions and ambivalences of negotiating diasporic identities in the Russian context. Diasporic identities are constructed through gender, and this paper illustrates how research participants negotiate their identities in relation to both belonging to the Armenian community and wider Russian society. At the same time, this paper examines how research participants draw differently on diasporic identifications in order to overcome tensions and ambivalences in their everyday lives. The paper shows that research participants are not inclined to reject their cultural roots in favor of new hybrid identities, but are able to recognize and appropriate different cultures in their identity negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that ethno-nationalist models of state organization encourage and strengthen sectarianism by accentuating differences between respective majority populations and those with non-majority characteristics as problematic, and identifies and explains the impacts of this for intra-state security in the West and for building partnerships with non-Western populations, citing negative implications on how we understand political behavior and for influence in military operations. The paper uses nineteenth-century Russian identity as a case study, considers the conflation between modernization and Westernization occuring at the time and uses Russian Art of the period as an analytical tool to uncover nuances that are relevant to debates concerning security, identity, and political behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Russian occupation policy in Ukraine as an adaptive tactic of Russia's grand strategy and a manifestation of its military culture. Based on a comparative analysis of the Russian occupation policy during the hybrid and conventional stages of the Russian-Ukrainian war, including the employment of a de facto state playbook, we find both continuity and shifts in Russia's approach. Although the main shift lies in the change of Russia's conflict management in neighboring countries from reactive to proactive, the main continuities are the subordination of occupation policy to Russia's geostrategic interests and path dependence in its military culture, which together lead to the employment of brutal violence against civilians and the demodernization of occupied territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With over one million people arriving in Europe as refugees, the UN Refugee Agency declared 2015 "the year of Europe's refugee crisis." This article explores the meaning-making process surrounding the "refugee crisis" in a Russian context, using discourse theory to analyze representations of refugees, Russia, and the West in opinion pieces and interview articles in three major Russian newspapers. In addition to the humanitarian and security discourses presented in existing studies, I identify a geopolitical discourse that represents refugees as victims of interventionism and democratization processes that the West has promoted in the Middle East and North Africa. More generally, this study adds to the literature on discursive construction of identity and difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on collective memories in the Baltic states often stresses the irreconcilable division between Russian and Baltic official interpretations of the Second World War. This paper seeks to challenge this popular notion of two polemic collective memories – “Latvian” and “Russian”. While there is evidence that Latvia's Russian-speakers are heavily influenced by Russian cultural and political discourses, I will argue that the actual positions taken up by Russian-speakers are more nuanced than a crude Latvian–Russian dichotomy would suggest. Based on survey data collected at the site of the 2011 Victory Day celebrations in Riga, this paper points to the germane existence of a partial “democratization of history” among Latvia's Russian-speakers, typified by an increasing willingness to countenance and take stock of alternative views of history. Through an examination of the data it will be argued that such tentative steps towards a democratization of history are most visible among the younger cohort of Russian-speakers, whose collective memory-myths have been tempered by their dual habitation of the Latvian, as well as Russian, mythscapes. In order to more fully understand this process both bottom-up and top-down pressures will be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that nationalism and neoliberalism should not be considered as conflicting ideologies, but can enter into a productive association. This association creates an entrepreneurial nationalism that people can actively embrace as self-governing subjects in pursuit of a good life and successful career, rather than as subjects governed through state-mandated projects from above. The paper illustrates this argument with material from nine months of fieldwork at a Russian elite university. While students at that university strive to develop their potential and increase their market value to be successful in the competition for the best jobs, they also emphasize that developing themselves is not antithetical to serving Russia and being true to one's country. On the contrary, advancing Russia and advancing one's own career are articulated as two sides of the same coin. At the same time, the Russian nationalist project is reframed in entrepreneurial terms: making the Russian nation strong is about developing its potential and raising its competitiveness in the global marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Polish history, Prince Adam Czartoryski is almost universally regarded as one of the most important Polish statesmen and patriots of the first half of the nineteenth century. In Russian history, on the other hand, he is remembered chiefly as the Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire, and a close personal friend of Tsar Alexander I. How did Czartoryski reconcile his commitment to the Polish nation with his service to the Russian Empire (a state which occupied most of Poland)? This paper will attempt to place Prince Adam's friendship with Alexander, and his service to Imperial Russia, in the broader context of national identity formation in early nineteenth-century eastern Europe. It will be argued that the idea of finding a workable relationship between Poland and Russia, even within the framework of a single state for a “Slavic nation,” was an important and forgotten feature of Polish political thought at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By answering the question of precisely how Czartoryski was able to negotiate between the identities of a “Polish patriot” and “Russian statesman,” the paper will shed light on the broader development of national identity in early nineteenth-century Poland and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia remains the destination of choice for Tajik migrants. Its migration policies have profound implications for migrants' legal status and capacity to remit and return home. This article draws on ethnographic research in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and explores how the enforcement of Russia's immigration laws affects Tajik migrants and their families. By 2016, over 300,000 Tajik migrants were issued entry bars (zapret na v'ezd) for three or more years for two or more administrative offenses, including the lack of a work permit or a residential registration and a traffic violation. Migration and the transnational lifestyle increase agency among Tajik men and women, informing gender transformations. Entry bars produce temporary constraints to spatial and social mobility as migrants readjust to well-defined gender roles in their home country. We note how immigration laws affect men and women in different ways, contextualizing the gendered effects of entry bars through the lens of gender relations and understandings of masculinity and femininity in Tajikistan. We argue that the constraints to migrants' mobility developed by Russian migration policies inform the reconstitution of gender relations in Tajikistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia is one of the world's largest migrant-receiving countries. The recession of recent years, changes in labor market and immigration policies, and an increase in anti-foreign sentiment have directly affected immigrants' lives in Russia. This has been reflected not only in how immigrants find employment and housing in the country but also in how they perceive Russia as a country in which to work and live. This article analyzes remigration as a coping strategy of Afghan immigrants in Russia. These immigrants face severe everyday difficulties as irregular migrants and suffer discrimination and uncertainty. Despite their low status and vulnerability, we argue that Afghan immigrants still have agency, evident in how they interpret and live in the Russian anti-immigrant atmosphere. The article is based on stories narrated by Afghan immigrants in Russia and a qualitative content analysis of the asylum application protocols of Afghan asylum seekers in Finland that was produced by the Finnish Border Guard, Police, and the Finnish Immigration Service. A total of 632 Afghan citizens applied for asylum after entering Finland from the Russian Federation along the "Arctic route" between 2015 and 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do young Russians relate to World War II and the violence of the wartime period? This article explores the degree to which societal and elite-driven narratives about history converge in the context of a crucial historical anniversary. We demonstrate that the memory of World War II serves as an integrative historical event for an abstract, temporally transcendent idea of Russia. Our analysis draws on focus groups conducted among young people of different political orientation in June 2019, survey data targeting urban youth, conducted over three consecutive years (2018–2020), and cultural artifacts such as film and literature. There is significant overlap between the views that young people express about victory and commemoration and the prevailing cultural, political, educational, and historical discourses. However, there is significant controversy when it comes to the actual ways in which the current political regime remembers the victory, the role of Stalin, and how to understand violence against the civilian population. The shared historical view that the Putin regime has created therefore remains contested. Disagreement limits the extent to which memory can be a foundation for today's political Russia as young respondents differentiate between their support for an abstract ideal of Russia and the existing political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the year 2000 on, Chechen official international relations – called "paradiplomacy" – have centered around legitimacy-building, security cooperation and investment attraction, priorities set by the republic's first official, pro-Russian president, Akhmat Kadyrov (in office 2000–2004). Kadyrov's successors, Alu Alkhanov (2004–2007) and Ramzan Kadyrov (2007–to date) developed Grozny's international engagements further, introducing new partners – such as China – and new dimensions to the external action – such as militarization. At each step, Grozny operated between full autonomy and collaboration with Moscow, involving itself in high-level diplomacy and furthering Moscow's agenda abroad, primarily in the Middle East. In this article, I argue that Chechen paradiplomacy is an instrument for the inclusion of Chechnya into the governance structures of Russia's federal order. The argument rests on two premises: Chechnya's paradiplomacy is framed by the Kremlin's proactive support and coordination, and Chechnya's paradiplomacy is closely connected to the Kremlin's security priorities. Since reincorporation, Chechen paradiplomacy has not been an addition to Russian federal relations but an intrinsic part of the post-2000 political arrangement between Grozny and Moscow. To empirically ground this argument, I trace the evolution of Chechen paradiplomacy across the three post-incorporation presidencies, ending in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 is widely framed as an outside-in process, not only enabled but also enacted by the Kremlin. Prevailing accounts privilege geopolitical analysis and place those developments in a broader narrative of tension and competition between the West and Russia. Such a narrative downplays the involvement of local actors and the importance of the choices they made prior to and during those events. This article revisits the period leading up to March 2014 through a focus on critical junctures, critical antecedents, a near miss, and the path not taken. It argues that a full account of Crimea's incorporation into Russia – while acknowledging Moscow's role – cannot ignore the local contingencies that preceded and shaped it. We understand the region's annexation as a key moment of institutional change in Ukraine and focus our attention on explaining how that outcome was determined, identifying the path to such a political outcome. Yanukovych's decision to "catapult" political-economic interest groups from Makeevka and Donetsk into the peninsula led to the marginalization of the local elite. Regime change in Kyiv and a slow and cumbersome response from the new authorities in February-March 2014 triggered, but did not cause, Crimea's exit option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pussy Riot affair was a massive international cause célèbre that ignited a widespread movement of support for the jailed activists around the world. The case tells us a lot about Russian society, the Russian state, and Western perceptions of Russia. It also raises gender as a frame of analysis, something that has been largely overlooked in 20 years of work by mainstream political scientists analyzing Russia's transition to democracy. It has important implications for how Western feminist categories can be applied to the Russian context. This introduction summarizes the main events associated with the trail of the three group members who were accused of staging a “punk prayer” performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2012. It also introduces the findings of the six papers that make up this special section. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Baltic Pearl is a 205-hectare development project underway southwest of St. Petersburg, Russia, originally financed and designed by a consortium of firms from Shanghai, China. This paper analyzes the discourse surrounding the development of one section of the Baltic Pearl, the commercial multiplex Southern Square, particularly the use of the term “European” as used to signal the project's intended cultural orientation and to exert control over the interaction between Russian planners and Chinese developers. In the negotiation over the form of the multiplex, control over architectural style emerges as leverage for preservation of cultural norms and local autonomy. In further analysis, the situation emerges as an example of Sassen's [(2008)Territory, Authority, Rights. From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton: Princeton University Press] shifting assemblages, that is, a reassembling of global influences in a space invoked as national as well as local. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the major political consequences that the August 2008 war had (or did not have) for Georgia: how the war affected Georgia's internal political dynamics and its policies toward its separatist conflicts, its neighbors, and the world. I start by briefly summarizing my views on the nature of and reasons for the war, and on its impact (or the lack thereof) on the global security architecture. These constitute the backdrop against which changes in Georgia can be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on problems of the national movement of the Circassians – a small nation in the Caucasus, most of whose population is dispersed all over the world. The paper researches the development of the Circassian movement from 1989–2000 and its contemporary structure since 2005. The modern Circassian movement as a whole has never been approached from a political science viewpoint. This research aims to answer several core questions: What are the different strands of the movement? What principles are they based on? Who are the participants? What political forces support them? How do these political forces interact with each other? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines a key attribute of Russian national identity—national pride—as it is reflected in mass consciousness. To trace the dynamics of multiple facets of national pride and related phenomena from 1996 to 2015, we use data from five surveys. The results demonstrate a substantial growth in Russian national pride in specific country achievements and general pride in Russian citizenship over the last 20 years. This change is the result of the population's and state's need for positive social identity as well as from both real and imagined progress in the Russian economy and political influence, and it started long before the Crimea mobilization and Olympics of 2014. The structural difference in pride in various achievements persisted for the 20 years examined here, but became less distinct. Across the years examined here, Russian national pride has become more strongly related to belief in the superiority of the country and is therefore increasingly competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers hypotheses on the role that state social welfare measures can play in reflecting nationalism and in aggravating interethnic tensions. Social welfare is often overlooked in theoretical literature on nationalism, because of the widespread assumption that the welfare state promotes social cohesion. However, social welfare systems may face contradictions between the goal of promoting universal access to all citizens on the one hand, and social pressures to recognize particular groups in distinct ways on the other. Examples from the post-Soviet context (particularly Russia) are offered to illustrate the ways in which social welfare issues may be perceived as having ethnic connotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was first presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalities 2005 World Convention at Columbia University, New York City. The author is grateful to Beth M. Admiraal and Tanya Dunlop for their comments on the earlier drafts of this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of place-based identity politics in constructions of the Russian nation by nongovernmental actors in the cities of Kazan and Ekaterinburg. Departing from more established approaches to the study of nation building concerned with elite strategies and actions, it contributes to an emerging line of inquiry focused on the agency of mesolevel actors. Drawing on interviews and analysis of public communications, the article demonstrates that actors such as museums, activist groups, and religious institutions creatively employ mainstream discursive practices present also in state narratives to anchor the nation in local symbols. At the same time, they position themselves in locally specific identity cleavages concerning city, regional, and ethnonational minority identities. The findings show that the imbrication of local identity politics in their narratives can problematize nation building by exposing contradictions in federal discourses or troubling the association of nation and state. Emphasizing the importance of locally situated processes of constructing the nation in conjunction with other scales of belonging, the article argues that nation building in Russia is complicated by mesolevel practices of identity making that can simultaneously support and subvert it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union and China resurveyed their border in order to restart their long-stalemated border negotiations. These negotiations resulted in only a partial border settlement: the agreement was signed in 1991. By the end of 1989, nationalities openly expressing their wish to secede from the Soviet Union caused the Soviet government to slow down the negotiation process, and Moscow insisted on setting aside the most contentious sections. China's nationalities issue had the opposite effect on Zhongnanhai: Chinese leaders wished to settle the entire Sino-Soviet border as quickly as possible. However, once the collapse of the Soviet Union became imminent, the Chinese saw advantages of delaying the negotiations on the disputed sections of the border. They calculated that would allow for China to negotiate with weaker, newly independent countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's post-1991 nation-building project has been torn between competing interpretations of national identity. Whereas the other former Soviet republics opted for nation-building centered on the titular nation, Russia's approach to national identity was framed by the fact that the RSFSR had been defined not as a designated national homeland but as a multi-ethnic federation. This, coupled with Russia's definition as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, suggesting continuity and a history of uninterrupted statehood, has enabled a range of rivaling understandings of how to define the "nation." Focusing on top-down official nation-building, this article examines how, against a backdrop of shifting political contexts, structural constraints, and popular attitudes, the Kremlin has gradually revised its understanding of what constitutes the "Russian nation." Four models for post-Soviet Russian nation-building are identified – the ethnic, the multi-national, the civic, and the imperial. Over time, the correlation of forces among these has shifted. The article concludes that, despite some claims of an ethno-nationalist turn after 2014, the Kremlin still employs nationalism instrumentally: National identity has undoubtedly become more russkii- centered, but, at the same time, the Kremlin keeps the definition of "Russianness" intentionally vague, blurring the boundaries between "nation" and "civilization." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship between Orthodox religiosity and voting in Russia in 2011–2018. Using the theoretical framework of desecularization from above, which claims that church structures play a key role in the religious renaissance policy, we argue that the rise of the political influence of the ROC (Russian Orthodox Church) may be explained by its capacity for dissemination of traditional values that ultimately results in votes for United Russia and President Vladimir Putin in national elections. This study reveals the emergence of a new area on Russia's political map—the belt – into Belt, which combines higher levels of Orthodox religiosity and pro-Kremlin voting in national elections. Using multiple empirical strategies we construct an index of religiosity on the regional level and identify the Orthodox Belt regions, test the relationship between Orthodox religiosity and voting in the national elections in 2011–2018, and test the differences in value orientations and electoral support between the Orthodox Belt regions and other ones. Finally, two model regions of the Orthodox Belt—Tambov and Lipetsk—are explored. We conclude that non-Orthodox Belt regions in Russia with higher Orthodox religiosity, conservatism, and loyalty are an emerging trend in Russian political geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that post-Soviet mayors are foreign policy actors that deserve more attention from area studies and foreign policy analysis scholars. Mayors have their own diplomatic preferences and goals – rooted in geopolitical and ethnonationalist views – that they can enact using city hall institutions and networks. They can work either in harmony or in opposition with central authorities by bolstering or compromising the executive's diplomatic goals and actions. These claims are explored in a case study of the foreign policy of Chișinău mayor Dorin Chirtoacă (2007–2017), whose diplomatic endeavors consolidated the Moldovan capital's ties with Romania and the European Union and minimized interactions with countries in the former Soviet Union, including Russia. At times, the mayor's actions abroad ran afoul of central authorities as he created an alternative foreign policy that undermined central foreign policy. The findings suggest that a more extensive investigation of how mayors interact with foreign actors would refine our understanding of foreign policy-making in the former Soviet Union and in Central and Eastern Europe more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the ideas and arrangements referred to as nonterritorial autonomy (NTA) in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the post-Soviet states. Many scholars regard NTA as a theoretical breakthrough and as a way to drastically rearrange diversity policies. The author seeks to clarify whether NTA had been a groundbreaking innovation and an area of political contestations. Two short periods of NTA-related initiatives after 1917 and in the late 1980s–1990s may look like attempts (albeit ineffective) to replace the earlier forms of diversity governance. The author shows that the ideas of group societal separateness, differential treatment of individuals, group agency, and cohesiveness, as well as a group's running of its internal affairs, were present in varying degrees in imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet governments' thoughts and practices. Academia and civil society were also appropriating and developing these views, and group self-rule on a nonterritorial basis was their logical extension. However, the practical implementation was, in most cases, on a top-down basis, and group agency and self-rule were affirmed mostly rhetorically. The continuity of discourses and practices demonstrates that NTA was an integral part of "normal" and broad ethnopolitical developments across the major historic divides in Northern Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing Is Russia Fascist? was a difficult intellectual exercise, as it feels counterintuitive to spend years working on a concept, only to refute its validity. Yet it eventually brought more than I envisioned, helping me conceptualize the notion of illiberalism as a more accurate term for capturing the pre-war Russian regime's ideological nature. Another important take I got from writing this book has been the centrality of memory wars for the whole of Europe, and the need to analyze Russia while looking in the mirror at "our" (read "Western") own ambivalent, multi-voiced, memories of the 20th century. I am therefore grateful to the reviewers for their interest in the book and for bringing forward so many new arguments to the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes phenomenon of "migrant schools" and "migrant classes" in schools that began to emerge in the 2010s in Siberian cities of Tomsk and Irkutsk. The study is based on 120 interviews with migrants and 36 express-interviews with parents of children from both local families and those that have migrated from Central Asia, as well as case studies of four schools in these two cities identified as "migrant" by local residents. Despite the ethnic diversity of these Siberian cities where most families themselves descend from migrants from other regions, the local population singles out new migrants from the countries of Central Asia as "others" in the urban space. While school administrations, teachers, and parents reproduce the narratives of tolerance and ethnic diversity, school segregation persists in these cities, manifested, among other things, in the emergence of "migrant" schools and "migrant classes" in schools. This study presents this segregation as an outcome of strategies pursued by school administrators and parents of both local and migrant children. In particular, creation of "migrant" classes in some schools is the school administrators' response to the lack of adaptation programs for migrant children. I conclude that rather than assisting the socialization of migrant children, such schools reproduce their isolation from other pupils, limiting their ability to succeed in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are living in a time of increasing authoritarianism around the world, with populism and illiberalism growing not only in states that traditionally have not been very democratic but also in established democracies. These troubling trends have led to alarms being sounded and much labeling of threats, including the use of the term fascist for some countries, as well as parties, movements, and individuals, within both democratic and nondemocratic countries. But who is actually a fascist? What does the term mean? And more specifically, is Russia fascist? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores diversity, belonging and representation in the city of Ulan-Ude, Buryatia (Russian Federation). In particular, it looks at their discourses and practices as they take spatial forms in the fast-changing post-Soviet urban environment. Through case studies of two central locations in the city – a statue of Lenin and a Buddhist prayer wheel – the article reveals recent tendencies of "indigenization" (Szmyt 2014) in Ulan-Ude's material and discoursive space, exploring them as instances that would suggest an image of a "contested city" (Low 1996). However, this article aims at complicating the latter concept, demonstrating that seeming contestations should be read in their particular context, taking into consideration local ideas and practices of accommodating diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lezgin irredentist movement is one of the less-studied national movements in the post-Soviet space, despite affecting the strategically important Russian-Azerbaijani borderlands and the bordering process between the two post-Soviet states. This article aims to fill this gap and to examine the impact of the Lezgin national movement on the development of territorial nationalism in early post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Based on the analysis of media publications in three Azerbaijani newspapers between 1992 and 1996, I argue that the movement contributed to consolidating the territorial vision of the Azerbaijani nation as incorporating groups historically settled in this territory. While media coverage stressed friendship between ethnic Azerbaijanis and Lezgins, the responsibility for secessionist claims was placed on external forces, particularly Russia and Armenia. In the long term, this framing led to the securitization of ethnic minority activism as a major threat to Azerbaijani statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When I cracked open Marlene Laruelle's new book, Is Russia Fascist? , I immediately wondered, who really thinks Russia is fascist? I was aware of Timothy Snyder's study of Russian President Vladimir Putin's glorification of the debatably fascist political theorist Ivan Ilyin, but fascist? Really? But Laruelle quickly shows in the introduction that this is not a canard or a straw man. Many reputable scholars and public intellectuals have drawn parallels between the Putin regime, its actions, and European fascism, including Snyder, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Motyl, Vladimir Inozemtsev, Gary Kasparov, Anna Politkovskaya, Madeline Albright, and Hillary Clinton. The term "fascism" has become part of the Western discussion on the nature of the Putin regime, even more so since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, US president Barack Obama infamously called Putin's Russia "a regional power [...] threatening some of its immediate neighbours, not out of strength but out of weakness. [...] The fact that Russia felt it had to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicate[d] less influence, not more." Obama's words reportedly angered Putin, who had long striven to convince the West, and primarily the USA, to treat Russia as a geopolitical equal. Being considered a regional power fundamentally denied equality with superpowers such as the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centuries-old Turkmen community of Stavropol' Krai in southern Russia, while currently numbering only about 15,000 people, is an integral part of the famously diverse ethnolinguistic landscape of the North Caucasus. To the extent that Euro-Atlantic scholars have noted the existence of this community at all, their comments have been rather cursory and dismissive, and it has been claimed that the North Caucasus Turkmen (virtually alone among the dozens of similarly small ethnic groups of the region) have never published anything in their own language. Intensive investigations in the bibliographic record (and in secondary sources in Russian, Turkish, and Turkmen) show that this is not actually the case, and that the North Caucasus Turkmen do have a modest record of Turkmen-language publishing stretching back a century or more. What are the implications of these published works for our understanding of Turkmen identity, the Turkmen diaspora, and the complicated multiethnic and multilingual environment of the North Caucasus? What does it mean when groups like the North Caucasus Turkmen are made all but invisible in Euro-Atlantic scholarship and Euro-Atlantic library collections? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This past decade has seen the return of Russia into the public discourse. Moscow's influence has been making a comeback across its old sphere of influence and in other parts of the world. In particular, there has been a lot of talk lately of Russian soft power spreading across the Balkan region, especially in Serbia. However, the concept of power can be rather ambiguous, and only a theoretically informed analysis based on empirical methods can lead to genuine conclusions. This article aims to apply an existing theoretical framework on power to the context of Russian influence in Serbia, in order to find out whether Moscow has any power over Belgrade and to gauge its extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses Russian strategic narratives towards its interventions in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014–16) based on a new database of 50 statements posted on the websites of the Russian Mission to the United Nations and the President of Russia homepage. By looking more broadly at Russian strategic narratives aimed at persuading other global actors and publics abroad and at home, this article identifies how Russia attempted to develop a story that could win global acceptance. This analysis shows that contrary to traditional Russian emphasis on sovereign responsibility and non-intervention, Russia supported claims for self-determination by separatist groups in Georgia and Ukraine. Russia used deception and disinformation in its strategic narratives as it mis-characterized these conflicts using Responsibility to Protect (R2P) language, yet mostly justified its own interventions through references to other sources of international law. Russian strategic narratives focused on delegitimizing the perceived opponents, making the case for the appropriateness of its own actions, and projecting what it proposed as the proper solution to the conflicts. It largely avoided making any references to its own involvement in the Donbas at all. Additionally, Russia's focus on the protection of co-ethnics and Russian-speakers is reminiscent of interventions in the pre-R2P era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on more than 100 interviews in European Russia, this article sheds light on the bottom-up dynamics of Russian nationalism. After offering a characterization of the post-2012 "state-civilization" discourse from above, I examine how ordinary people imagine Russia as a "state-civilization." Interview narratives of inclusion into the nation are found to overlap with state discourse on three main lines: (1) ethno-nationalism is rejected, and Russia is imagined to be a unique, harmonious multi-ethnic space in which the Russians (russkie) lead without repressing the others; (2) Russia's multinationalism is remembered in myths of peaceful interactions between Russians (russkie) and indigenous ethnic groups (korennyye narodi) across the imperial and Soviet past; (3) Russian culture and language are perceived as the glue that holds together a unified category of nationhood. Interview narratives on exclusion deviate from state discourse in two key areas: attitudes to the North Caucasus reveal the geopolitical-security, post-imperial aspect of the "state-civilization" identity, while stances toward non-Slavic migrants in city spaces reveal a degree of "cultural nationalism" that, while sharing characteristics with those of Western Europe, is also based on Soviet-framed notions of normality. Overall, the article contributes to debates on how Soviet legacies and Russia's post-imperial consciousness play out in the context of the "pro-Putin consensus." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes an analytical framework to address why implemented autonomy outcomes may differ across ethnic republics in the Russian Federation. Composed of a long-range factor, inter-ethnic boundary making, and a short-term factor, titular elites' representation in the ethno-regional state, the framework is applied to a synchronic comparison of three republics of Russia with differing autonomy outcomes for the 2010s, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Yakutia, reliant upon state-generated data and fieldwork. Titular elites' representation in the ethnoregional state is used as a proxy for titular elites' bargaining capacity with the central state. It is argued that an "integration–distinction balance," or rather, higher inter-ethnic integration combined with robust consciousness of inter-ethnic distinction, can contribute to titular elites' bargaining capacity with the center, which can lead to greater autonomy outcome for the ethnic republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article dwells upon the use of the symbol of the "Motherland" in the legitimation and delegitimation of power. The Motherland symbolizes the matters that are essential for legitimacy-seeking: the unity of Russia, its territory and sacredness of its borders, the most important events of its history, the "authentic Russianness," and multi-ethnic peace in the country. The author argues that the Motherland serves as an important factor of the legitimation of power in contemporary Russia, which allows the authorities to have high popularity both in domestic and foreign policies. This symbol is also actively exploited by the opposition; one mode of the delegitimation of power through using the symbol of Motherland (the "populist" mode) implies the symbolic struggle for possessing this symbol, or for the right to speak on behalf of the Motherland, while another one (the "liberal" mode) implies the desacralization of the "Motherland" and deconstruction of the practices of employing the symbol by the authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the informal institutional settings that guide the social and economic lives of Muslim migrants in Moscow. Mosques and medresses (Muslim theological schools) serve as central locations from which these institutions emanate, evolve, and transform. Case studies of trade networks and Hijama (wet cupping) healing practices demonstrate the inner workings of such institutions. The article draws on the theoretical traditions of informal institutions and new institutionalists focusing on anthropological works on agency and institutions. These analytical frameworks and concepts help explain the mechanisms and processes involved in the institutionalization of Muslim lives in Moscow. I argue that individual agency and charismatic leadership of individual members of the community play formative roles in institutionalizing daily practices and constituting normative orders of Muslims in Moscow. The article is based on fieldwork conducted in Moscow and Perm during 2016, 2017, and 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to compare the conditions of migrants from Central Asia into Russia with that of migrants from the Maghreb into France. Despite many similarities in conditions (related to the experience of social exclusion), there are deep differences. The precarious legal status of the majority of Central Asian newcomers in Russia has prevented them from embarking on an effective struggle for public recognition; this is in sharp contrast with North African newcomers in France who have been engaged in such struggle since the 1980s. In addition, Islam plays different roles in the migrants' perceptions by host societies and in identification of the migrants themselves. Whereas Islam has become a marker of overarching collective identity among the Maghreb migrants' descendants, this is not the case with Central Asians in Russia, for whom Islam remains part of their individual identity, rather than the basis of social consolidation and political mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on ideological constructions of contemporary nationalism shaped by the influence of Dmitrii Galkovskii. At the dawn of the Russian Internet, Galkovskii's website, Samizdat, became the birthplace for intellectuals of contemporary Russian nationalism who emerged around Voprosy natsionalizma magazine and the online magazine Sputnik i Pogrom. Enemification strategies described in this article are understood as forms of self-representation of contemporary Russian nationalism. The goal of this article is to characterize one of the ideologies of contemporary Russian nationalism, which serves as a moral justification for some odious manifestations—xenophobia and racism. Three forces are characterized by contemporary Russian nationalists as the most dangerous challenges for the nation: the West, internal enemies, and migrants. Traditional and fundamental anti-Western rhetoric has turned into Anglophobia in the ideology of contemporary Russian nationalism. The most profound evidence might be found in Galkovskii's conception of the history of international relations. This idea is also used when defining the internal enemy. Caucasians have taken the place of Russian nationalism's previous main internal enemies, Jews, and are treated as representatives of the British colonial administration. The third enemy of modern Russian nationalism is migrants. They are seen as tools of the degradation policy toward Russians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "Strength in Diversity: Multiple Memories of the Soviet Past in the Russian Communist Party (CPRF), 1993-2004" in a 2017 issue is presented.

This article explores the role of maps in the construction and development of ethnographic taxonomies in the mid-century Russian Empire. A close reading of two ethnographic maps of “European Russia” produced by members of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Petr Keppen (1851) and Aleksander Rittikh (1875), is used to shine a spotlight on the cartographical methods and techniques (lines, shading, color, hatching, legends, text, etc.) employed to depict, construct, and communicate these taxonomies. In doing so, this article draws our attention to how maps impacted visual and spatial thinking about the categories of ethnicity and nationality, and their application to specific contexts and political purposes within the Empire. Through an examination of Keppen’s and Rittikh’s maps, this article addresses the broader question of why cartography came to be regarded as such a powerful medium through which to communicate and consolidate particular visions of an ethnographic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]