Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 5 – Irina Volynets, the children’s ombudsman in Tatarstan, says that Russian officials should have the power not to register names that they consider to be strange or likely to cause problems for the children as they grow older and that registration offices should employ linguists and psychologists to make this determination.
Her idea is attracting attention not just because its adoption would give the Russian authorities further power to homogenize the country but also because it might be used against non-Russian names that the powers that be don’t approve of (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-02-04/v-rossii-predlozhili-sozdat-reestr-razreshennyh-imen-dlya-novorozhdennyh-5315607).
That would become more likely if Volynets’ proposal were to grow into a list of names that the authorities would permit and thus exclude other names that parents might choose, the likely consequence of allowing the registration offices to make decisions about which names would be permitted and which banned.
Window on Eurasia -- New Series
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Russian Officials Should have the Power to Refuse to Register ‘Strange’ Names, Children’s Ombudsman in Tatarstan Says
Russia’s Multi-National and Poly-Confessional Character Doesn’t Make It Unique or Give It a Competitive Advantage, Silantyev Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 5 – Roman Silantyev, an outspoken critic of Islam who is closely tied to the Russian Orthodox church and is rumored to be close to the Russian security services, argues that multi-national and poly-confessional character of the Russian Federation doesn’t make it unique among nations or give it any competitive advantage.
His argument against this idea -- which is enshrined in the Russian Constitution and regularly cited by Putin and Kremlin ideologists -- is clearly intended to further undermine such official support as there is for both and thus open the way for new attacks on non-Russians and non-Orthodox faiths (vz.ru/opinions/2025/2/5/1312945.html).
The reason that Silantyev makes this argument is that many people, including Kremlin loyalists, maintain that Russia’s numerous nations and religions set it apart from other countries and give it a comparative advantage in dealing with others and thus should be celebrated rather than be a source of concern.
But by making this argument, Silantyev clearly hopes that others in Moscow will drop any references to these features of the Russian population and that they will then be more willing to insist as he does that the Russian Federation is an ethnic Russian country with minorities and an Orthodox Christian one with minorities rather than something else.
If that becomes the dominant view – and Putin and his entourage have been moving in that direction – it will remove one of the most important ideas that has acted as a partial constraint on attacks against ethnic and religious minorities who will thus be reduced to marginality rather than seen as an essential element of Russian life.
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Stepashin Says Stalin Made a Major Mistake in Annexing Western Ukraine, But Other Russian Historians Dissent
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 4 – Western analysts have long debated whether Stalin made a major mistake in annexing the Baltic countries, western Belarus, Western Ukraine and Moldova after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact assigned those areas to the Soviet Union as part of Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Some argue that this action helped Moscow to prevent Japan from joining Germany in an attack on the USSR and that it helped Stalin win the war by forcing the German army to begin its initial advance far further from major Soviet cities, while others suggest that by absorbing these regions, Stalin inserted a delayed action mine under the Soviet Union that blew it apart in 1991.
Soviet and more recently Russian historians have generally approved the action either because they have until recently denied the existence of the secret protocols involved or because they focused on the tactical issues of the start of the war rather than the social and political consequences of absorbing anti-Moscow territories.
But now the debate has been joined seriously. Speaking at a conference this week on the 80th anniversary of the Yalta Conference, Sergey Stepashin, a former Russian prime minister, said that by absorbing Western Ukraine, Stalin has committed his “greatest error” (vz.ru/news/2025/2/4/1312734.html).
Speaking as a military man, Stepashin says, Stalin’s action prevented Moscow from having the time to “establish a new line of defense.” But even more than that, the Soviets annexed areas that contained anti-Moscow and anti-Russian populations who later allied with the Germans and worked to destroy the Soviet Union.
Now, he suggests, Western Ukrainians have spread their anti-Moscow and anti-Russian views to the rest of Ukraine, something that would not have happened had Stalin not absorbed them and their territory. Consequently, Stalin’s mistake continues to echo across the region with negative consequences.
Other Russian historians have already responded with sharp attacks on Stepashin’s position (vz.ru/news/2025/2/4/1312776.html). But it seems clear that this is just the beginning of a larger debate, one that may very well affect the Kremlin’s approach to redrawing Ukrainian borders in the course of a potential peace deal.
Russian Scholars will be Forced to get FSB Approval for Contacts and Cooperation with Foreign Colleagues, if Government Bill Passes
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 3 – Under the terms of a new law the Russian education and science ministry has cleared, the FSB will have the power to approve or disapprove any plans by Russian scholars to cooperate with their foreign colleagues, Vedomosti reports on the basis of statements by two sources “close to the government.”
In recent years, the FSB has intervened to block various cooperation efforts, but the new measure will not only formalize that role but make it more likely that Russian scholars will be more isolated from contacts with scholars abroad than at any time since Soviet times (vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2025/02/03/1089832-sotrudnichestvo-potrebuet-soglasovaniya and thebarentsobserver.com/news/fsb-tightens-control-over-russian-science/424042).
According to the bill, which is almost certain to be passed and will go into full effect by the end of this year, the FSB must be “informed of any kind of cooperation or contact that Russian scientists have with colleagues abroad” and that the Federal Security Service will have the power to cancel in defense of Russia’s “intellectual sovereignty.”
Given the risks of punishment, Russian scholars are likely to feel compelled to get approval in advance rather than only informing the powers that be after the fact, a truly chilling step toward the total isolation of Russian scholarship from their colleagues abroad and one that will hamper Russian intellectual life in a wide variety of ways.
Pro-Kremlin Telegram Channel Calls for Sending Just-Released Ingush Seven Activist to Fight in Ukraine
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 4 – The travails of the Ingush Seven activists who were sentenced to prison for organizing demonstrations against the handing over of Ingush land to Chechnya aren’t ending with their release from prison, Now that one of their number, Bagaudin Khautiyev, is out, a pro-Kremlin telegram channel is calling for him to be drafted and sent to Ukraine.
In the past, Russian officials have often brought new charges against those who have been released from prison in order to keep them from continuing their dissident activity; but now they have more convenient method, forcing them to serve in Ukraine from which they may not return alive.
Khautiyev appears likely to be the first Ingush activist who will be treated in this way. (On his release, see fortanga.org/2025/02/ingushskij-aktivist-bagaudin-hautiev-osvobodilsya-iz-kolonii/; on the call that he be sent to fight in Ukraine, see t.me/s/rozyskri and fortanga.org/2025/02/proverit-na-mobilizacziyu-rupor-ingushskih-silovikov-otreagiroval-na-osvobozhdenie-politzaklyuchennogo-bagaudina-hautieva/).
If in fact Moscow succeeds in sending Khautiyeva to fight and die in Ukraine, it is likely that the Russian authorities will use this method elsewhere in the Russian Federation to remove from the scene more permanently and quite possibly with fewer protests against such actions those who have protested against its policies.
Human rights groups both inside Russia and beyond its current borders need to speak now about the risks Khatiyev faces. Any failure to do so may very well cost him and others not just their freedom but their lives.
Putinism, ‘an Unstable Isotope,’ Now Decaying into Its Component Parts, Pastukhov Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 3 – Putin by fighting in Ukraine “reconciled” two hitherto unreconcilable camps, that National Bolsheviks who wanted a Soviet Union and the Black Hundreds who wanted no Ukraine at all, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but as the war continues, this division is undermining both Putinism as an ideology and political stability in Moscow.
Putin was able to unite these two groups precisely because he did not announce or at a minimum was never clear about exactly what he wanted from the war, the London-based Russian analyst says; but now that there is talk about ending the conflict, the question of what he wants is central (t.me/v_pastukhov/1378 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67A0EA8C3FAB9).
And because that is happening, both the unity of Putinism as ideology and the unity of his political system in general is increasingly at risk given that Putinism has always been “an unstable isotope” ready at the first opportunity to “decay” into it component and in many cases competing component parts.
Mari Followers of Traditional Religion Expanding Their Formal Organizations -- and Promoting Both Nationalism and Democracy
Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 3 – The Mari, a Finno-Ugric nation in the Middle Volga most of whose members are followers animism, are now engaged in the establishment of new structures that will help them ensure the survival not only of their religion but their nationality and democratic traditions as well (mariuver.com/2025/02/03/mtr-birskogo-rajona/#more-80467 and birskpress.ru/news/natsionalnye-proekty/2025-02-02/v-birskom-rayone-poyavitsya-organizatsiya-traditsionnoy-mariyskoy-religii-4105419).
This is the second wave of such organizational efforts and seems likely to follow the earlier one in the 1990s when the advancement of the traditional faith played a major role in promoting Mari nationalism and Mari democracy. (On those interrelationships, see Victor Schnirelmann, “’Christians! Go Home’: A revival of Neo-Paganism Between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 17:2 (2002) 197-211.)
What makes this latest report of broader import is that all too often analysts dismiss animist groups as rural and backward-looking when in fact they may be the hearths on which the flame of democracy can spark. That is what happened with the Mari in the 1990s, and it appears to be what it happening with them again in the 2020s.