Gvosdev's Nationality Theses

I presented these thoughts at a roundtable yesterday at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies--on Russia's national identity in the 21st century. Submitted for your consideration.

1. Growing convergence between nation and citizenship. Twenty-three years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev's famous slip in Kiev, when he talked about "Russia" as the Soviet Union, implied Russians and Soviets were interchangeable. Solzhenitsyn's 1990 essay on rebuilding Russia went narrower--Russia was not the Soviet Union but it was more than the Russian Federation. Today, I think we are moving in the direction that a Russian is someone who carries the passport and citizenship of the Russian Federation. These are the people that Russia is seen as having an obligation to protect. Russian-speakers, people of Russian heritage, the Russian "diaspora"--they may form part of a community of culture with Russia, but unless they carry Russian passports, they are not Russian in the same way.

2. Emergence of post-Soviet "markers" for Russian identity. Aided tremendously by the enormous resurgence of the Russian-language media--films, internet, book publishing--creating a new post-Soviet Russian popular and elite culture. Emphasis on "cultural Orthodoxy" providing norms. Vladislav Surkov's attempts to define a "Russian political culture"--and the fact that his opponents also debate the same ground. Resumption of old imperial notion that to be Russian is to be part of the Russian state.

3. The wild card: Russia cannot fully define its national identity as long as Ukraine's remains undefined. 17 percent of people in Ukraine define themselves as Russian; 14 percent of those who define themselves as Ukrainian cite themselves as Russian-speakers. But is there a defined identity of "Russian-Ukraine"--where the Ukrainian state is the focal point of loyalty but the cultural identity is seen as Russian? In other words, could this 30 percent or so of Ukraine end up being like the Austrians vis-a-vis Germany? (Think what might have happened if Skoropadsky's Hetmanante of 1918 had lasted longer.) And in Russia itself, what would be the reaction? And over the next several decades, how will Ukrainization proceed, and will it begin to change these numbers--and again, what would be the reaction in Russia? Right now there is (reluctant) acceptance of the reality of a separate Ukrainian state but also the sense that there really isn't a major border that prevents and cuts off contact. That certainly changes if Ukraine gets in NATO.

The current financial crisis, of course, has ramifications for all of this. Much of Russia's cultural soft power--films, for instance, could wither away if the funds dry up. Also some of this has rested on Russia being attractively economically so that people have wanted to live and work there. If Russia goes down economically and (even if highly unlikely) the EU moved rapidly to integrate Ukraine, this would have a major impact, I think, on attitudes in Ukraine.