Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 13 – Non-ethnic or
civic Russian [rossiisky] nationalism isn’t nationalism at all but rather is a
means to hold back genuine ethnic Russian [russky] nationalism and to keep it
under the control of an authoritarian and pre-modern political system,
according to the editor of “Sputnik i Pogrom.”
In an article entitled “Ethnic Russians
Against Non-Ethnic Russians” [“Russkiye protiv Rossian”], Yegor Prosvirnin says
that those promoting non-ethnic Russian identity are not promoting democracy as
they claim but rather preventing ethnic Russians from achieving their democratic
rights (sputnikipogrom.com/
Membership in the ethnic Russian
nation, he says, “presupposes master of the Russian language, acquaintance with
Russian culture and history, the acceptance of certain rules of behavior in
Russian society and loyalty to the Russian nation ... the goal of the Russian
nation is extremely simple – the protection of the interests of all members of
the nation in all areas of life and the transformation of the Multi-National
Federation into a Russian nation state.”
That in turn, Prosvirnin argues, “presupposes
democratic reforms the return of real political life and the destruction of the
national republics as ethno-territorial formations of alien nations which have
[certain] characteristics of state sovereignty.” And it presupposes that the Russian
majority benefits from democracy because with democracy it can get its way.
Consequently, he says, “the main
strategy” of those opposing the ethnic Russian nation and ethnic Russian
nationalism is the use of “persons of Jewish or Caucasian origin who call
themselves ‘democrat’ and who push a program which 90 percent of the population
instinctively is alienated by in order to create a negative image of the very
idea of the rule of the people.”
“The task of [ethnic] Russian
nationalism under these conditions consists of the propaganda of the bases of
contemporary civilized society (democracy, the division of powers,
constitutional law, independent courts, a market economy, and a political
nation) and the struggle with those who seek to impose destructive myths and
images.”
The non-ethnic Russian [“Rossiyanskaya
natsiya”] in contrast “doesnot presuppose a single cultural code, rules of
behavior or anything else. It presupposes only the presence of Russian
citizenship and only that. An [ethnic] Russian cannot put up monuments to those
who are killers of [ethnic] Russians, [but] a [non-ethnic] Russian [like a
Chechen]” can.
“The essence of nationalism,”
Prosvirnin says, “is that all members of the nation are equal,” but the
non-ethnic version in Russia includes national republics which “presuppose
inequality among its components” and the subordinate position of ethnic
Russians “who do not have their own republics which could defend and preserve
them.”
The non-ethnic Russian nation thus “can
be compared with a union of feudal lords sitting in the castles of their
national republics,” oppressing everyone else and preventing the country from
modernizing, Prosvirnin says.
Thus it is possible to “assert that
the [non-ethnic] Russian nation is a hypocritical attempt to freeze the
situation of the rule of a multitude of non-Russian nations who have national
states, national capitals and national media over the [ethnic] Russian nation.” What that means, he says, is that “the
[non-ethnic] Russian nation is not a nation at all.”
For all their talk about democracy
and freedom, advocates of the [non-ethnic] Russian nation are in fact
anti-democratic and consider that it is “necessary” that 83 percent of the
population of the country “sit at home and drink vodka while 17 percent” divide
things up for themselves behind the scenes and without democratic constraints.
Non-ethnic Russians, Prosvirnin continues,
are “Asiatics who want to live in a closed static pre-modern world, with
communal-tribal traditions, religions and the supremacy of adat [Muslim
customary law] over formal laws,” while ethnic Russians “are Europeans who want
to live in an open, global, and changing world ... and not according to a
fetwa.”
What this means, he suggests, is that “in
Russia there is only [the ethnic] Russian national project. [Non-ethnic] Russianness is not a national
project but rather an attempt to freeze to the maximum amount possible [ethnic]
Russian national building by disorganizing and disorienting the [ethnic]
Russian public and introducing destructive ideas and distorted understandings
of reality in order to preserve the rule of numerically small organized
non-Russian nations over the large but un-organized [ethnic] Russian one.”
And that in
turn means that “the task of the [ethnic] Russian intelligentsia is to secure
the complete cultural and information rule of the [ethnic] Russian national
project and the penetration of national ideas in all strata of [ethnic] Russian
society.”
Prosvirnin’s
argument is important not because it is true or even possible -- he conflates
unrestricted majority rule with democracy and writes as if minorities not only
are the enemies of the majority group but are also undeserving of special
protection – but because it represents an ideological trope that some in Moscow
may try given what Vladimir Putin has been saying.
But
the adoption of such a program, unless seriously modified, would have the
effect of leading to a recapitulation of what happened to the Soviet Union a
generation ago. At that time, some recognized that a liberal Russia might be
possible but concluded that a liberal Soviet Union would be a contradiction in
terms.
Now,
if Prosvirnin’s ideas were accepted, the same outcome might occur again but
this time on a slightly smaller scale with a somewhat liberalized Russia coming
into existence only if and when many of the non-Russian republics of the
Russian Federation leave it and form their own independent states.
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