Moscow Must Fight to Prevent Ethnic Russians from Re-Identifying as Members of Other Nations, Selivanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 12 – In the former Soviet republics, Aleksey Silivanov says, those who are ethnic Russian by birth and even upbringing are choosing to identify not with their roots but with the civic nations some of these countries are promoting; and the phenomenon has become sufficiently widespread that Moscow must take steps to counter it.

            The Cossack ataman and commentator says that such people which he and other Russians call “Ex-Russians” include those of Russian origin who have lost their Russian identity and have joined the non-Russians.” Such a trajectory is unnatural and must be countered lest it spread (versia.ru/rus-i-vyrus).

            The Baltic countries and Ukraine are “full” of such people, Selivanov says, raising the question as to why this is happening given that “in the overwhelming majority of conflicts, participants choose sides on the basis of their ethnic origin or religion” and not on some civic identity.

            That it is happening, he continues, reflects “a crisis of Russian identity,” one that emerged because “for many years, calling yourself Russian was somehow unworthy and sometimes even shameful. More precisely, this attitude was instilled in us, and we all remember how liberals in the 1990s boasted about the percentage of non-Russian blood they had.”

            “I am not calling for understanding and forgiving this post-Soviet” phenomenon which in Russia is vyrus, a word that means both “virus” and “ex-Russian.” Instead, Selivanov says that he is “calling for understanding the reasons for the de-Russification of our kinsmen and reversing it,” something that is entirely “possible.”

            According to Selivanov, “there is an enormous demand for the preservation of Russianness.” As a result, all that is necessary is for Moscow to exploit that and thus block more people born as Russians from reidentifying as members of civic nations opposed to the Russian Federation and the Russian people.

            If Moscow does that, he argues, “the number of those desiring to become ‘ex-Russians’ will rapidly diminish.”

            The reidentification of non-Russians by the Russian nation is something the Kremlin promotes and that widely recognized abroad, but this form of assimilation of ethnic Russians by other nations is not, given that it goes counter to Putin’s assumptions about the permanence and superiority of Russian civilization.

            But it does take place, albeit in smaller numbers in most cases; and Selivanov’s article is much less an outlier than many might think. For some earlier discussions of the issue of Russians reidentifying as members of other nations, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/04/window-on-eurasia-assimilation-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/08/moscow-needs-to-be-worried-about.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/ethnic-nationality-less-important-in.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/08/russians-shouldnt-fear-multiple.html.