Russians Must Stop Restraining Themselves Ethnically Out of Political Correctness, Remizov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – Ethnic Russians are threatened in many ways by immigration and non-Russian ethnic groups within their country, but the most insidious form of these threats is the rise of a false “political correctness” based on the notion that any assertion of Russianness undermines the rights of others, Mikhail Remizov says.

            In an interview with Sergey Rykov of the Russian nationalist Stoletiye portal, the director of the Moscow Institute for National Strategy argues that the resulting “self-censorship” affects not only the links of Russians to the state but also their individual self-identification (stoletie.ru/obschestvo/mihail_remizov_u_rossii_dolzhno_byt_silnoje_russkoje_jadro_189.htm).

            “The right to identity is for the people equivalent of the right to life,” he continues. And it is “precisely this right which is now under threat when the reproduction and strengthening of identity is blocked or made more difficult” in the name of integrating migrants or living in peace with non-Russian groups.

            According to Remizov, “the identity of a major people is reproduced in public spaces, in mass culture, civil society, the school, and the educational system. Russian identity is being driven out of these spheres on the pretext that our country is multi-national. But this argument is absolutely inappropriate.”

            “Unfortunately,” he continues, “the present-day status of Russian identity looks quite problematic.” That is driving many Russians to seek out separate “subcultures or other traditions, be they the exotic like “’ethnic Russian Muslims’” or “’pagans,” or the most disturbing which Remizov calls “’Russian Ukrainianism,’” the sympathy of Russian intellectuals for Ukraine.

            But those are far from the only “versions of the turning away from Russian identity.”  Among the others are regional identities. “This is when people say: we are not Russians; we are Cossacks.” This is a dangerous development because it “deprives the history of the Russian people of the lion’s share of its energy and its content.”

            Such phenomena carry with them the threat to the territorial integrity of the country. The precedent of “the de-Russification of tens of millions of people” in Ukraine and Belarus must be a warning. “If it is possible to separate Western Russians from Russians, then why can’t this be done with the Northern Russians, the Southern Russians and the Eastern Russians?”

            “Russia must have a strong Russian nuclear and only in that case will be established the necessary cultural-civilizational gravitation for the preservation of the unity of the country. We must find that formula of integration which does not require from Russians that they cease to be themselves and dissolve into some kind of supra-national existence.”

            For this to happen, Remizov says, requires “making Russian identity more attractive … one must ‘produce’ Russian identity. That is the task of the national intelligentsia and civil society as the state is not taking this function on itself … If this work is done successfully, it is quite possible that the relations of the state to the state-forming people will change.”

            “To begin with, it is necessary to realize the right of identity. If Russia is a multi-national country, then let us recognize that one of these nations is the Russian. And Russians have the right to self-identification … to think, speak, and be concerned about their specific interests as an historical community.”