Russian Universities to Promote Common Civic Identity with New Course on Ethnology and Regional Studies

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 1 – Scholars at the North Caucasus Federal University have developed a new course, Ethnology and Regional Studies, to promote “civic unity and ethno-cultural multiplicity” in Russia as a whole. Nine other universities in other parts of the Russian Federation have announced they will do the same. 

            Dmitry Bespalov, NCFU rector, makes it clear just what the course is intended to do. He says that “one of the priority tasks” that the course will perform is “the strengthening of Russian civic identity and patriotism” (t.me/ncfulife/8051 and nazaccent.ru/content/42603-v-10-vuzah-rossii-zapustyat-novyj-kurs-etnologiya-i-regionovedenie/).

            While neither he nor Nazaccent provide details, this appears to be another Moscow effort to regain control over regional studies especially in non-Russian parts of the country, studies that had become increasingly at odds with the narratives about Russian history and territorial expansion that the Putin regime wants to promote.

            As such, these projects are likely to touch off new conflicts between local scholars and Moscow and even put many of them at risk of being dismissed from their jobs as has already happened in some places (e.g., windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/in-harbinger-of-worse-to-come-elsewhere.html).