Moscow Says Pandemic has Weakened Russian-Centric Civic Identity

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 14 – The latest Russian government statement on the realization of the 2012 program on nationality policy says that the coronavirus pandemic has had a negative impact on the level of all-Russian civic identity, a concept that three years ago, Vladimir Putin defined as having an ethnic Russian core for all the peoples of the country.

            That implies, although the statement did not address this issue, that all-Russian civic identity with its Russian core is now relatively weaker than it was compared to ethnic identities of both Russians and non-Russians, a development that points to a weakening of inter-ethnic integration in the Russian Federation.

            And that in turn means that many or perhaps most of the members of all nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation are focusing relatively more on their own ethnic communities than they are on the countrywide nominally non-ethnic civic Russian identity that Moscow has been promoting over the last decade.

            This conclusion is certainly suggested by the latest evaluation of how well the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs has managed the implementation the government program in this area (programs.gov.ru/Portal/programs/subActionsList?gpId=46&pgpId=da2fd044-ae3b-4562-bd5f-9ffb601a9a78 as discussed at idelreal.org/a/31608687.html).

            The strategy document calls for “the strengthening of national concord,” “securing political and social stability,” “the development of democratic institutions,” “the preservation and support of ethno-cultural and linguistic diversity,” and “traditional Russian spiritual-moral values” in order to boost “all-Russian civic identity and the unity of the multi-national people of the Russian Federation (the rossiiskaya nation).”

            In December 2018, Vladimir Putin amended the strategy document to make it more Russo-centric. He called for promoting this all-Russian identity “on the basis of the preservation of the [ethnic] Russian [russky] cultural dominant inherent in all the peoples populating the Russian Federation” (idelreal.org/a/29645239.html).

            If that common identity that Putin has long wanted to promote is weakening, then civic identity as a basis for the political order in Russia today is weakening as well, something that calls into question the widespread assumption that the Kremlin’s promotion of such a common identity has overwhelmed other identities.

            Instead, it appears that many of these, including both ethnic Russian and non-Russian, remain stronger and more vital than the identity he says he prefers. On the one hand, many Russians aren’t pleased that their ethnic identity is being subordinated to some vaguer countrywide identity much as was the case with the new Soviet people in the past.

            And on the other, many non-Russians are not happy to give up their identities to a nominally civic one especially as it is becoming increasingly obvious that that identity really conceals an ethnic Russian one that if it spreads will lead to assimilation and even disappearance as communities.