Love for Russian People can ‘Split the Empire, But without the Russian People, the Empire ‘Can’t be Built,’ Malofeyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – At a Moscow seminar on Russians as the state-forming people, Konstantin Malofeyev, a wealthy supporter of Russian Orthodox nationalist projects, says his dilemma is that he understands that “a love for the Russian people can split the empire” but that the empire “cannot be built without the Russian people.”

            That internal contradiction, he suggests, can be resolved only by insisting that Russians are as a civilization the state-forming people of the empire and understanding that in the fighting in Ukraine today, “no one is dying for the Russian Federation.” People are “dying for Russia” (business-gazeta.ru/article/712130).

            The current Russian constitution is out of step with reality and must be change because it fails to recognize Russians as the state-forming people, threatens them with dilution by insisting that they must come together with others, and fails to require that non-Russians within the country’s borders recognize the special role of the Russian people and defer to its members.ut

            If nothing is done, Malofeyev suggests, there exist two dangers: either Russians will cease to be Russians or the Russian empire will come apart. And to avoid either of those outcomes, Russia must become Russia rather than try to be something else as all the other means of holding it together are now out of date.

            Rarely do Russian nationalists speak about the contradiction between their love for their nation and their love for the imperial state as clearly as Malofeyev does on this occasion. Whether his words represent only his own internal angst at the difficulties this generates or represents the views of others is difficult to say.

            But it is important to recognize the fact that Russian nationalism and Russian statism are in conflict and that the resolution of this conflict either by the transformation of Russians or the disintegration of the state they dominate is the choice they and others must make – and even more must be clear about as they all think about the future.