Bolsheviks Made Russians an Ethnic Group, But Many Russian Nationalists Today Reject That

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 17 – Yevgeny Fyodorov, a United Russia Duma deputy, argues that “not everyone understands that initially there was no such thing as a Russian ethnos; rather, Russians were a unifying term for the entire state” and that the Bolsheviks, by making Russians an ethnic group, “destroyed the Russian state” (t.me/DvuglavyiOrel/5504).

            His words, of course, reflect the fact that in the only pre-1917 census, there was no question about nationality because the tsarist authorities did not divide people on that basis and instead viewed the tsar’s subjects as Russians. The ethnic data later researchers have derived from the 1896 census are derived from declarations about language and religion.

            Only after the Bolsheviks came to power did the authorities make nationality a key identity. Typically, Russian nationalists, including Vladimir Putin, criticize this action because they believe that nationality became the basis for the formation of the union republics which in turn ultimately led to the demise of the USSR.

            But Fyodorov’s observation reflects something else as well, the efforts of the Putin administration to downgrade the importance of ethnicity by promoting a common non-ethnic Russian (rossiisky) identity, by reducing the importance of ethnicity relative to language, and by allowing citizens of Russia to declare more than one ethnicity.

            These three things have all come to a head in the current Russian census, and the last has opened the door to a contest between those who want to do anything to keep the share of Russians above 80 percent and those who hope to cut the share of ethnic Russians so as to protect both non-Russians and the multi-national status of the Russian society and state.

            In a path-breaking article on the Idel.Real portal, Prague-based commentator Kharun Sidorov argues that this division has created a new contest with new participants over what nationalities Russian citizens declare themselves to be not only for the census but more generally (idelreal.org/a/31502982.html).

            Traditionally, both ethnic Russians and non-Russian nationalities have called on those in their respective categories to identify as Russians or non-Russians. But now members of both are urging anyone who has at least some ancestors in one or the other to identify not as they have but in terms of those ancestors regardless of what they feel themselves to be.

            Some non-Russian activists have called on people who have any non-Russian background to identify as members of their ancestors’ nationality both to defend these non-Russian nationalities but also to ensure that the share of those identifying as Russians does not rise and give rise to a Russian nation state in which their rights will be compromised.

            Non-Russians took the lead in this effort, but not surprisingly, Russian nationalists have responded with many urging people with any Russian background or even a sense of being Russian in terms of values to identify as ethnic Russians. Such efforts have attracted less attention, but they may matter more.

            On the one hand, by calling on those with any Russian background to identify as Russian, Russian nationalists may succeed in keeping the share of ethnic Russians in the population above 80 percent, the level they insist means that Russia is a nation state with minorities rather than the multi-national state the Soviets and the Russian government have proclaimed.

            But on the other, as Sidorov also points out, this effort means a change in the meaning of the Russian nation. It will no longer consist of people with certain objective characteristics like language but rather include some who identify in terms of the values of what the nationalists see as the state nation.

            Those calling on anyone with any Russian ties to identify as an ethnic Russian “constantly assert that Russian is not a nationality but some special state of the spirit” and cite the observation of philosopher Ivan Ilin who said that his father was a Turk, his mother was a Greek, but he was “a Russian man.”

            In the short term, this may have the Kremlin the 80 percent Russian share of the population it wants and even provide new fuel for the center’s drive against non-Russian republics, languages, and nations. But in the longer term, as other Russian nationalists recognize, it will dilute the meaning of the Russian nation.

            At a minimum, it will return Russia to the situation in was in before 1917 when the state identified people not on ethnic grounds but on linguistic and religious ones. But it will do so after a period in which many non-Russians have developed their identity and thus will view such an effort to turn the clock back as a threat to themselves.

            They will resist, and the center will then discover that the Russian nation on which the Kremlin thought it could rely to dominate non-Russians and attract ethnic Russians from abroad will be replaced by a shadow of its former self, one that will prove incapable of performing either of the tasks the current rulers of Russia have set for it.