Regional Identities Absent in Predominantly Ethnic Russian Areas but Strong in Non-Russian Republics, Shulga Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – The Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast has highlighted the absence of an all-Russian civic identity given that few Russian citizens there or elsewhere have been inspired to take up arms to repel the Ukrainians, precisely the kind of attitude the Putin regime has wanted to develop lest it result in challenges to itself, Aleksandr Shulga says.

            But the reaction to Kursk also has called attention to something else that may be even more significant as far as the future of the Russian Federation is concerned, the sociologist who serves as rector of the Kyiv Institute for Conflict Studies and the Analysis of Russia says (moscowtimes.ru/2024/08/28/osen-avtokrata-a140539).

            Along with “the complete absence of civic self-consciousness in Russian society,” there has been revealed a striking difference between predominantly ethnic Russian areas and non-Russian ones. In the former, there is “an absence even of regional identities;” but in the latter “and in the first instance the republics of the North Caucasus,” it is “very strong.”

            That means that most of the protests in the Russian areas are likely to remain pre-political, that is focus on issues other than the future of Putin or the country, while those in the non-Russian areas are likely to be about precisely those questions, something that the Kremlin is certain to respond to be growing repression in the latter.

            The implications of Shulga’s analysis are clear: If the Kremlin moves in that direction, it will appear more Russian nationalist than it in fact is, further alienating the non-Russians but doing little to mobilize ethnic Russians to its side, a pattern that recalls what happens when in 1990 Gorbachev turned to the right and ended by losing both groups.