The review of two books published in 2006 and 2007 provides an overview of the development of Russian nationalism, broadly defined, in the last years of Putin’s tenure. The themes of the articles can be roughly divided into several types. The first deals with the general outlines of the development of Russian nationalism from the late Soviet era to the end of Putin’s regime and its confrontation with the regime. The second theme deals with the attempt of both authorities and representatives of Russian nationalism to engage in a mutual flirtation.
Aleksander Verkhovskii’s article “The Ideological Evolution of Russian Nationalism: 1990s and 2000s” provides a broad picture of the evolution of Russian nationalism from the Yeltsin era to the Putin era. In Verkhovskii’s view, Russian nationalism became an increasingly dominant trend in the political/intellectual life of society. He notes, in this respect, that the nationalism of the minorities, which played quite an important role in the 1990s, had declined dramatically by the beginning of Putin’s tenure. The nationalism of the minorities has been “privatized” by the local elite or has transformed itself in jihadism. And it is Russian nationalism that, according to Verkhovskii, started to play an increasing role in the country’s social/intellectual life.
Russian nationalism underwent several important transformations in the post-Soviet era.^[1] The early manifestation of Russian nationalism was the “idealization of the late Stalinist empire.” This image was also blended with the image of the Russian empire of the tsars.^[2] “Real Communism” was seen here as the “emanation of the Russian spirit but not as abstract Western ideology,”^[3] which provided Russian nationalism with the sense of universalistic bent. Consequently, the proponents of this creed regarded the restoration of the USSR as their major goal, for this would benefit not just the people of the USSR but all humanity.
Another form of Russian nationalism in the 1990s was the resurrection of the nationalistic movements of prerevolutionary Russia and their ideologies.^[4] This sort of ideology was the framework for groups and quasi-parties in the 1990s such as Pamiat’ (Memory), Chernaia sotnia (Black Hundreds), and so on.^[5] While the previously mentioned nationalistic groups and their ideologies were rooted in the traditions of the Soviet or even pre-Soviet past, others had appealed to the traditions of Russian emigration. For example, this was the case with the Eurasianists, whose creed became increasingly popular in the 1990s.^[6] While all of these modifications of Russian nationalism would decline in the future, this was not the case with the nationalism of skinheads and similar groups that developed their own idiosyncratic ideologies.
The skinheads and similar groups became increasingly violent. And the pogrom in Tsaritsyn market at the beginning of Putin’s tenure was one of the first major manifestations of racist violence.^[7] The racist-driven violence continued to be a salient characteristic of the country’s life and reached its peak by the end of Putin’s tenure. In Verkhovskii’s view, the violent outburst in Kondopoga can be seen as a watershed in the development of Russian racist nationalism.^[8] The importance of the Kondopoga events is also confirmed by other authors, such as Galina Kozhevnikova. Her article “Radical Nationalism in Russia and the Counteractions Against It During 2006 and the First Half of 2007” focuses on the violence of Russian nationalist extremists.^[9] Similar to Verkhovskii, she regards the Kondopoga events as a watershed in the development of Russian nationalistic extremism. She also states that the extremists became increasingly violent and well organized as time progressed.
The ideology of present-day radical nationalism is different, not just from moderate official/semiofficial brands, but also from the “Red-to-Brown” nationalism of the early post-Soviet era. One of the essential differences is the identification of foes and friends.
Some ideologists of the racist movement took an important step in changing nationalistic priorities. For the previously mentioned nationalistic movement of the 1990s (i.e., “Red to Brown”), the Jews were seen as the major enemy. At the same time, in the 1990s, Nikolai Lysenko, a prominent representative of racist nationalists, stated that people from the Caucasus, not the Jews, constitute the major threat for ethnic Russians.
Other observers have also noted the changes in Russian nationalists’ attitude toward Jews. For example, Lev Gudkov and Boris Dubinin admit this in their published discussions. Gudkov noted the increasing popularity of nationalistic and authoritarian models at the beginning of the Putin era.^[10] At the same time, both Gudkov and Dubinin agreed, with certain reservations, that Russian nationalism underwent a clear evolution from the beginning of the Yeltsin era to the Putin era. At the beginning of Yeltsin’s tenure, the Jews were seen as a part of the “Jewish-Masonry” conspiracy and the major threat to Russia. At the same time, during the Putin era, anti-Semitism, while still present, lost its centrality in the ideological construction of Russian nationalists; migrants, and especially people from the Caucasus, came to be seen as the major problem.^[11]
There are other important aspects of present-day radical Russian nationalism. Its proponents express their strong solidarity with European and North American whites, who, in their view, suffer from the same problem as the Russians, their racial kin: the increasing power of nonwhite minorities.
Viktor Shnirel’man’s article “A Study of Race in Action: The Dreams of Deputy Savel’ev”^[12] focuses on the views of Andrei Nikolaevich Savel’ev, one of the best-known Russian nationalists. Savel’ev is a strong proponent of racism. In his view, the white man is clearly superior. At the same time, he believes both Russia and the West are in the process of decay and under pressure from nonwhites. Savel’ev is in full support of similar-minded individuals in the West, such as Pat Buchanan. Another Shnirel’man’s article, “Fighting Dog of Race: A Sofa-type Study of Race as the Defender of the ‘White Man,’”^[13] also deals with racist trends among Russian nationalists and their solidarity with what they regard as the plight of the white man all over the world. Not only the kind of racial solidarity but also another aspect marked their ideology. Their ideologies emphasized not imperial expansion but, to the contrary, the ethnic homogeneity of Russia. In fact, these ideologies were anti-imperial and implicitly/explicitly separatist.
While some Russian nationalists take a position against the regime and, in some cases, the country as a whole, others, tried to incorporate themselves in officialdom. In his article “The National-Bolshevik Party: Ideological Evolution and Political Style,” Mikhail Sokolov notes that the Western liberal ideology so popular in the 1990s was increasingly replaced by Russian nationalism during Putin’s tenure and by a variety of other anti-Western ideological and quasi-political trends.^[14] Sokolov also admitted that while some of the radical movements continued to be in opposition to the regime, others started to profess their loyalty to Putin, as was the case with the Eurasianists.
The decline of the popularity of Western liberalism can also be deduced from the content of Marléne Laruelle’s article “Aleksandr Panarin and ‘Civilized Nationalism’ in Russia.” She demonstrated how Aleksandr Panarin – who started his intellectual evolution as a liberal intellectual – moved in the last years of his life to a mixture of conservative Slavophile and Eurasianist. Conservative intellectuals, including those who, at least indirectly, were affiliated with officialdom, appreciated Panarin’s works by the end of his life, as demonstrated by his being awarded the Solzhenitsyn prize.^[15] Nationalists of all types paid considerable attention to religion. Indeed, even racist-type nationalism could be in a curious way interwoven with quasi-religious ideology, as shown in Anton Shekhovtsov’s article “Religious-Nationalistic Radicalism and the Political Process.”^[16] Finally, the Roger Griffin article, “From Slime Mold to Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular Right,” translated into Russian, places Russian extremists in a broader context, and discusses the role that small groups can play in causing major political changes.
The increasing popularity of Russian nationalism among ethnic Russians and the increasing desire of some Russian nationalists to flirt with the authorities induced the authorities to incorporate elements of nationalism in the official ideology. In this interpretation, Russian nationalism should both appeal to ethnic Russians and, at the same time, not arouse racist passions, which, in the context of the ethnic and political arrangements of present-day Russia, could well lead to the country’s disintegration or at least to violent ethnic clashes. These attempts led to the ideological construction known as “Russian Doctrine” – the subject of Galina Zvereva’s article “Russian Meanings for a New Russia? The Case of Propagandizing Russian Doctrine.”^[17]
Russian Doctrine had several ideological building blocks. First, its proponents stated that Russia is absolutely different from the West. Moreover, any attempt to join the West would lead to nothing, for the West would never accept Russia regardless of anything.^[18] Second, ethnic Russians should not be dissolved in rossiiane, in a quasi ethnic/cultural/political entity that blurs the apparent differences between ethnic Russians and the minorities of the Russian Federation. Proponents of the Russian Doctrine implicitly confronted Eurasianism, which regards historically Orthodox Russians and Muslims of various ethnic origins as a “Eurasian” quasi-nation “symbiosis.” Here, the criticism of Alexander Dugin – the major proponent of Eurasianism in Russia and a strong supporter of Eurasian “symbiosis” – is clear. And this criticism was despite Dugin’s positive evaluations of the doctrine. At the same time, however, the proponents of the doctrine separated themselves clearly from any racist manifestation of Russian nationalism. They proclaimed that Russians include in their midst everyone who would be absorbed by Russian culture. In their view, Russia should also fully embrace those minorities, who, while preserving their ethnic identity, see themselves as part of Russia’s cultural and political commonwealth.^[19]
Proponents of the “Russian doctrine,” ideologists of the regime in general, tried to avoid emphasizing the open confrontation of Russia and ethnic Russians with other ethnic groups/civilizations. Still, these ideologists created such images of the enemy indirectly, by appealing to historical images. Tat’iana Smirnova’s article “The Image of ‘the Other’ in the National Cartoon Project ‘Prince Vladimir,’”^[20] focuses on images of the enemies at the time of Prince Vladimir, who accepted Christianity as the state religion of Kievan Rus’. According to a film, at that time the Russians had several enemies. One is evident: the nomadic tribes/people. The other enemies are hidden, so to speak: for example, the Varangians/Vikings, one of whom was officially incorporated in Vladimir’s retinue. Still, he actually brought harm to Vladimir and other Russians for he encouraged them to engage wrongly in a policy of senseless brutality. Similar images can be found in other films on historical subjects, such as a very popular one about the end of the Byzantine Empire, where the allusion to the present is clear: Russia has an open enemy (the Muslim East) and a hidden enemy (the West).
It is clear that the articles presented in the book under review make an important contribution to the study of constantly changing Russian nationalism. Besides providing a wealth of new data, the contributors also debunk some stereotypes about Russian nationalism. The most important are: First, there is a clear decline of interest in anti-Semitism among at least some segments of Russian nationalists. Second, radical extremists are not imperial-bound but actually parochialists and, in some cases, separatists. In this sense, they are quite similar to European neofascists who also dreamed not of Europe expansion but of making Europe ethnically “pure.” Third, Russian neofascists/extremists are not anti-European or anti-American. They see in white Europeans and white Americans kindred spirits, a brotherly people who suffer from the same problem: the onslaught of nonwhite minorities. Regardless of the nature of Russian nationalism, it has become a clearly dominant trend in Russian thought since the end of Yeltsin’s tenure; and it has continued to change, requiring ongoing study of this important subject.