Aspirations for Urals Autonomy have Deep Roots, Involving Democratic Novgorod the Great and Later Even Boris Yeltsin, Sarutov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – When the idea of autonomy for the Urals is discussed, most Russian commentators focus on the Urals Republic created by Edvard Rossel after the collapse of the USSR. But in fact, Dmitry Sarutov says, Boris Yeltsin pushed the idea as early as 1990. And support there for autonomy from Moscow has roots extending to medieval times.

            “The Slavic colonization of the Urals occurred primarily from the north, from the lands of Novgorod and the Vyatka Republic,” the Urals regionalist says. “And it practically had no connection with the activities of the Moscow principality.” The character of the population then made pursuit of autonomy “historically inevitable” (region.expert/ural-freedom/).

            As many forget, Yeltsin was from the Urals and originaly supported Urals autonomy even though later he worked to crush it, Sarutov continues. “And now Yekaterinurg as the capital of the Urals so actively opposes ‘the special military operation’” that the Kremlin has become hysterical (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/solovyev-continues-attacking.html).

             The Urals mentality, Sarutov says, is an inner freedom and an unwillingness to submit to authority that has not been won but only imposed; and that includes opposition to the use of aggressive military tactics, as in the case of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

             Put in broadest terms, the regionalist continues, “the Urals is the advance post of freedom” within Russia. It has given the country “the most liberating sons of Russian rock. It is opposed to Moscow clericalism. And it was one of the first to oppose the war in Ukraine. Indeed, Moscow wants to crush that but fears the Urals would revolt if it imprisons Yevgeny Royzman.

             Sarutov makes five points about the future of the Urals and regionalism there. First, he says, “for internal stability, the Urals Republic should include in itself primarily those territories in which the majority of the population has aa northern identity … and have passed through the rigors” of defense industry, Perm Kray, and Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Kurgan oblast.

             Second, the new Urals Republic must find common ground with its Turkic and Muslim neighbors. Otherwise, Moscow will exploit any differences to bring both to heel. Third, relations with Moscow must be based on a treaty negotiated by both sides rather than one imposed by the center.

             Fourth, the Urals Republic must promote from the first day of its existence “the development of a Urals identity” separate from the Russian. And fifth, it must seek alternative transit routes for trade with the outside world, routes that bypass areas controlled by the central government in Moscow.

No Chinese Ships Using Northern Sea Route This Year, Stoking Russian Fears

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – In a blow to Moscow’s hopes, China has joined other international shipping powers in boycotting the northern sea route above Russia, reducing the chances that it will displace the Suez Canal as the primary east-west pathway and raising the specter that when China does return, it will muscle Russia out of the Arctic.

            So far in 2022, Moscow has granted passage along the route to 889 ships. All of them are Russian, the result of a general pull out by Western countries and also by China. If the first was expected in Moscow; the second very much was not given Beijing’s past support for Rusisan projects there (https://thebarentsobserver.com/ru/promyshlennost-i-energiya/2022/08/kitayskie-perevozchiki-obhodyat-rossiyskuyu-arktiku-storonoy).

            The absence of Chinese ships is striking because there had been an increasing number until this year and because Chinese yards had helped to build many for Russia, almost becoming Moscow’s partner in the development of what some believe Beijing views as “a reserve silk road” for its shipping (newsite.gecon.ru/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Korabel.ru-2-22-pp-50-58.pdf).

            Not surprisingly Moscow is upset and playing down this development, especially as looming behind it are fears that China all along has planned to help Russia there and elsewhere until it is in a position to push Russia aside and dictate its own conditions along this route. (For discussions on those fears, see this author’s articles at jamestown.org/program/china-moves-toward-becoming-dominant-player-on-northern-sea-route/  and jamestown.org/program/china-helping-russia-on-northern-sea-route-now-but-ready-to-push-moscow-aside-later/.)

 

 

Only One Ukrainian Resident in 20 has a Positive View of Stalin, Down from One in Four before 2022, Poll Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – Residents of Ukraine not only have a low opinion of the current Russian leadership which has invaded their country; they have an increasingly negative one of Putin’s hero Stalin, with only five percent saying they view him positively, down from 23 percent in 2021, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

            Sixty-four percent of Ukrainians now have a negative opinion about Stalin, an increase from before and one that will make it even less likely they would ever be willing to live under the control of a state that celebrates Stalin (thinktanks.by/publication/2022/08/21/ukraintsy-stali-huzhe-otnositsya-k-stalinu.html).

            Given what Ukrainians have long known about Stalin’s role in the Holdomor, the terror famine he organized to destroy the peasantry in Ukraine and other republics, it is surprising that as recently as a year ago, almost one resident of Ukraine in four still had a positive view of the Soviet dictator.

            It is likely that many of those who did were ethnic Russians living in the eastern part of Ukraine. But the new data can only be explained if a significant number of them changed their mind or perhaps weren’t counted because they are in areas currently controlled by Russian forces.

            Such a conclusion is suggested by the fact that Ukrainian residents in the western and central parts of the country were the most negative about Stalin, while those in the south and east, areas where the percentages of ethnic Russians are higher, were less negative, the polling agency said.

Russians Received Only 550,000 Visas for Foreign Travel in 2021, Down from 12 Million a Decade Earlier

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – According to the “If to Be Exact” portal, the number of Russians who received visas needed for travel abroad fell to 550,000 in 2021, down from 12 million in 2011. Some of that decline is attributable to the coronavirus pandemic, but it is very likely that this year’s figure will be even lower as ever more countries block Russian visitors because of the war in Ukraine.

            At the very least, this collapse in the number of Russians travelling abroad in the years since the Russian Anschluss of Ukraine’s Crimea may be one of the reasons that the decline since February 24^th has not sparked more anger (tochno.st/materials/v-2021-godu-rossiyane-poluchili-vsego-550-tysyach-viz-v-135-raz-menshe-chem-do-prisoedineniya-kryma-my-izuchili-kak-izmenilis-poezdki-za-granitsu-za-poslednie-10-let).

            That is because the earlier decline was so precipitous that the more recent fall has hit fewer people and thus is less likely to anger Russians who had already seen their chances to travel abroad greatly diminished by Putin’s foreign policy. This year’s debacle only increased a trend that had been in place for almost a decade.

            According to the FSB, the portal continues, since the start of this year, Russians crossed the borders of countries requiring visas 1.3 million times. Of these, approximately half are into and out of Estonia or Finland. But compared with the first half of 2021, the share of Russians going to countries requiring a visa fell from 18.3 percent to 14.7 percent.

            In contrast to what one might expect, Western countries did not limit visas extended to Russians after the 2014 Anschluss. Instead, according to a prominent Russian lawyer, they continued to give visas on the assumption that those who visited the West would be attracted to its values and carry them home. The pandemic sent the numbers down.

            But now Europeans are more supportive of imposing restrictions on visas for Russians not only to punish Moscow for its war in Ukraine but out of fears that those who come on visas will apply for political asylum and seek to remain in the West permanently, something the populations of many countries do not want to see.

            In fact, fewer that one in five Russians applying for asylum in a European country since 2012 have been granted that status, a total of 153,000. But because of the war in Ukraine, many in the West think that number could explode in their faces if they were to provide more visas to more Russians.

Divisions in Russian Society ‘Unprecedented’ Since Russian Civil War, Gozman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 21 – “The horrific split in Russia, not only between the powers and the people but also among the population is unprecedented,” embattled Russian historian Leonid Gozman says. It may have been as bad during the Civil War as it is now, but it was not like that after the end of that conflict.

            Russians, he says, “are beginning to be afraid not only of the authorities,” hardly something new in their country, “but also of each other. And the person who was killed a few day ago for expressing a pro-Ukrainian position is only one of the first victims of this new Civil War” (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/08/21/ne-synovia-protiv-ottsov-a-sila-protiv-pravdy).

            According to Gozman, certain recent cases like the dispute between a pro-war senator and his anti-war daughter have prompted Russians to revive the old hope that the younger generation will be better and will replace the evil current one if everyone will just show patience. But such hopes have never been realized because people experience the same events differently.

            For example, the generation which came of age during World War II included not just those who fought at the front lines but also those who didn’t fight at all and those who served in SMERSH units. The members of these various groups despite having similar birth years had very different wars and thus a very different future.

            The same is true now. And technology has not changed it, the historian says. Those who think otherwise are “unforgivably primitive.”  The current divides in Russia are “not between generations;” they involve “other more important factors, each of which is behind only part of the variance.”

            Above all there are differences in intellect and education. There are intelligent and educated people who support Putin’s war in Ukraine, but one has to have a low IQ to think that the West is conspiring there against Russia and that despite problems, “’everything is going according to plan,’” Gozman says.

            Another factor is how much this or that group of Russians has accepted a European way of life as legitimate and how the members of these groups see themselves in the future. And there are also “completely unpragmatic parameters which divide us today. Chief among them is the value of freedom for an individual.”

            That is not some “pragmatic understanding that it is needed if the economy is to develop or the like but rather, if you like, an unselfish love for it and its elevation to the status of a super-value.” For such people, the choice is clear – “either the special military operation or freedom,” the historian says.

            Fortunately, he argues, there are not a few people even in Russia who are on the side of freedom. “All history of progress is not from Malyuta Skuratov to the gas chambers but from Homer to Goethe, from the lay of the host of Igor to Brodsky, and from the research of Mendel to contemporary genetics.”

            That isn’t about generations; its about the commitment of people from all generations to the values of freedom and a willingness to act to put their own country back on normal rails, Gozman concludes.

Tatar Language has Changed Radically both Lexically and Even Grammatically Over Last 50 Years, Safina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – Because most Tatars are bilingual, their native language has changed radically in terms of both its lexical base and its grammatical structure, with the importation of many words and phrases and the loss of some verb forms, according to Liliana Safina, head of a Tatar language school and former host of the ‘Let’s Speak Tatar’ on Ekho Moskvy.

            Many worry about the declining number of Tatars who speak Tatar, she says. That is a real problem, but equal in concern is the fact that the Tatar language is being undermined by the importation of foreign and most often Russian words and the loss of its traditional grammatical structures (milliard.tatar/news/liliana-safina-situaciya-s-tatarskim-yazykom-neutesitelnaya-on-rastvoryaetsya-na-nasix-glazax-2002).

            When one language borrows from another, that is usually a good thing because it is a sign that the language is alive; but in the case of Tatar, the borrowing is both massive and mostly in one direction, something that can threaten the future of the language and of the nation which speaks it, Safina says.

            She says reversing the longstanding trend in which Tatars have adopted Russian words within their own language because they reflect new developments is not going to be possible. But Tatars should be selective; and they should even more concerned about the loss of certain verb forms which all Tatars knew a century ago but which only isolated Siberians ones do now.

            Safina says she is pleased that so many Tatars who may not have spoken their national language in the past are now doing so, using schools like her own to acquire or better reacquire the language. Learning about one’s language, culture and history is a requirement not only for development but for survival.

            She notes in passing that every Tatar family should acquire the recent reprint of Karl Fuch’s Kazan Tatars in Statistical and Ethnographic Terms. This 1844 study by the rector of the Kazan Imperial University remains perhaps the best introduction to Tatars that any Tatar or indeed anyone interested in Tatars could possibly have.

            All around the world at the present time, Safina concludes, “languages and cultures are disappearing before our eyes. Such is life; and if in our century of globalization and unification a people does not have a striving to the preservation and development of them, this means that it has no future.”

            “Peoples who do not have their own national systems of education and a national part of the Internet will ceases their existence before the end of the 21^st century,” Safina says. Kazan understands this and is doing all it can to prevent the Tatars from being among those who will pass from the scene.

Duma Moves to Criminalize Display of Any But Official Maps of Russian Federation

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 16 – At the behest of Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Vasily Piskaryov, head  of the chamber’s security and anti-corruption committee, has introduced amendments to the Russian law on countering extremism that would impose arrests or fines for any display of maps of Russia that do not correspond to Moscow’s position.

            Under its provisions, any display of maps showing Crimea as part of Ukraine, the Kuriles as part of Japan or portions of the Russian Federation as potentially independent could bring 15 days of detention to individuals and one million ruble (15,000 US dollars) fines to institutions (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63246B5AA68DB  and thinktanks.by/publication/2022/09/17/v-rossii-za-nerossiyskie-karty-kryma-budut-sazhat.html).

            According to Piskaryov, “In recent times, we are seeing that maps and other pictures where Crimea, the Kurile islands and other territories of our country are disputed. It is especially dangerous when such materials are directed at children” as this is “part of the hybrid war unleashed by the West against Russia.”