Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 27 – Duma deputy Vyacheslav
Nikonov’s call for dropping the reference to “the multi-national people” of the
Russian Federation and inserting instead “the multi-people people” of that
country has already been denounced by Tatar State Council head Farid Mukhametshin
(windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/01/hot-heads-in-constitutional-working.html).
But opposition to that change is far
broader and deeper ranging from the prudential – such a change would be
offensive to many without adding anything – to principled – this playing with
words would open the way to changing the fundamental nature of the Russian
state and represent an attack against both federalism and existing nations
within the country.
Kazan’s Business-Gazeta provides a useful
survey of opinion on this point, underscoring that opposition to this idea is
found not just among non-Russians as some might have expected but among Russian
experts and commentators who are nervous about what such a change could mean (business-gazeta.ru/article/455218).
Damir Iskhakov, a historian
who is a leader of the World Congress of Tatars, says that the proposed change
in language in fact represents “a change in the structure of the Russian state”
because the current language stresses that “Russian consists not only of subjects
but also of internal states, the republics.”
With the change, “the population of the republic and the subject of the
federation would be one and the same thing.” Both the republics and the
non-Russian nations would be put at risk.
Abbas Gallyamov, a former
Putin speech writer and now commentator, says that he has nothing against the
change in principle but wouldn’t make it because it would offend so many and create
a crisis. “Now, all nationalists in the republics will begin to shout that
Moscow wants to destroy the national republics and small peoples. Some won’t
believe this, but others will.”
Rimzil Valeyev, a Tatar
journalist, points out that the term “multi-people” doesn’t exist in Russian
speech but is only something Academician Valery Tishkov has dreamed up. It represents “a provocation.”
Indus Tagirov, a historian in
the Tatar Academy of Sciences, says that “such a change is impossible because
there is no such term … There are nations and there are peoples. There is a
country and there is Russia, and there is the multi-national people of Russia
and this formulation must never be changed” for both linguistic and political
reasons.
Konstantin
Kalachev,
a Russian political analyst, says that if the constitution is changed in this
way, then the republics should be scrapped and the peoples assimilated.
Consequently, even if there is some intellectual justification for the change
in wording, there are great risks of a political explosion if anyone actually inserts
this word.
Leokadiya Drobizheva, head of
the center for research on international relations at the Federal
Scientific-Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, suggests that
the entire debate on this term is moot because Vladimir Putin routinely uses the
term “multi-national people of Russia.” Consequently, there will be no change.
Viktor Avksentiyev, head of
conflict studies at the Southern Academic Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
says that it is all very well to talk about “a non-ethnic Russian nation” but
the term should not be inserted in the constitution. Too many people will take it to mean too many
things.
Sergey Sergeyev, a political
scientist and Kazan Federal University, says that “in principle, [he] considers
Nikonov’s proposal correct, but … this doesn’t mean that it ought to be
adopted.” It is at a minimum premature because “society has not yet evolved to
the point that it will agree with the idea of a civic nation.”
And Midkhat Farukshin, a
professor at Kazan Federal University, says the change isn’t necessary and that
Nikonov is simply trying to curry favor with the centralists in the Kremlin.
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