‘In Russia, There are No Non-Russians’ Only Russian-Non-Russian Hyphenates, Karaulov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 8 – That is how poet and publicist Igor Karaulov headlines his latest commentary in Vzglyad, using the ethnic term russkiye rather than the political one rossiiskiye and arguing that it is time to update Stalin’s words about national cultures to indicate that they may remain national in form but that their content must be that of the core Russian people.

            Because that is so, the Moscow writer says, Russia has “not simply Buryats but Russian Buryats, not simply Evenks but Russian Events, and not simply Avars but Russian Avars. And when we understand that and feel it in out hearts, then our multiplicity will cease to confuse us and will frighten only our enemies” (vz.ru/opinions/2025/11/8/1371978.html).

            Karaulov takes as his point of departure Vladimir Putin’s recent speech in which he said that “without the ethnic Russians, there will be no Russia;” but the poet’s words go much further than even Putin did although perhaps not further than the Kremlin leader intended (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/11/putin-says-that-without-ethnic-russian.html).

            Indeed, the extension of Putin’s ideas that Karaulov has made suggests that many in the Russian bureaucracy, even those who nominally still support the existence of non-Russian nations are committed to transforming them in ways just as radical as Stalin did but in a somewhat different direction.

            Many non-Russians in the current sense are likely to be outraged by that possibility because a completely Russianized and Russified non-Russian nation is far more likely to be at risk of absorption by the dominant ethnic Russian nation, exactly the opposite of what Karaulov suggests he favors but precisely the end that his words point to.

            That he should reintroduce Stalin’s words about national culture in this context is especially worrisome because of what Stalin did to destroy pre-existing nations and to homogenize them. It seems entirely likely that Karaulov and those who think like him would like to see an equally radical transformation of all the non-Russians who still exist in Putin’s Russia.