SUMMARY:

Emil’ Pain poses the problem of the relationship between liberal democracy and nationhood from a normative liberal perspective. The urgency of this analysis is determined by the fact that Russian post-Soviet reformers paid scant attention to importance of liberal nationalism as an aspect of transition to democracy. Still, issues of nationalities’ policies, positive national self-identification of the Russian population and interethnic relations are in the forefront of public debates. The author devises a stipulate definition of empire, nation, and ethnicity, arguing that Russia’s transition from empire to civic nationalism is far from complete and is still complicated by resurgent traditionalism. Pain focuses on the sequence of Yeltsin’s and Putin’s presidential terms and analyzes mobilization of ethnic minorities and the titular Russian nation as a result of political reforms, modernization, and migrations.