Russians have a State but Kursk Shows They Don’t have a Country, Gozman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 18 – Beyond doubt, Russians have a state, admittedly a weak, corrupt and cruel one, Leonid Gozman says; but the reaction of Russians to the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast strongly suggests that they don’t have a country – and creating a country will be harder than creating a democratic state after Putin is gone.

            The Russian politician now in emigration says that Russians overwhelmingly have not reacted when the territory of their country has been invaded as typically other peoples who do have a country react. Instead, they have tried to get on with their lives rather than volunteering to fight or to help in other ways (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/08/18/strana-ischezaet).

            “If a country really exists,” Gozman says, “then an attack on its territory, even if that is far from your home ought to elicit in you anger, concern and sympathy.” But that hasn’t happened in the case of the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk. Few are attending funerals for the victims, and even fewer are lining up at recruitment offices to go and fight.

            That the Kremlin hasn’t declared “’a holy war’” likely reflects its own calculation as to how dangerous that might be to itself, he continues; but what is even more important now is that “the population does not have any of the feelings” about the attack that one would expect if they identified more than bureaucratically with the country.

            This relationship of the population to the country they are supposed to be part of has deep roots, he suggests. Even during World War II, the vast majority of those who fought in the Red Army did so not as volunteers but as draftees, although it must be said that many of them fought heroically after donning their uniforms.

            As Gozman points out, there is a widely used term “stateless people,” those who do not enjoy the protection of a state. But those who do not have a country find themselves in “an even more difficult” position People want to be attached to and proud of their country, and when they can’t, they suffer.

            Today, he concludes, “we don’t have a country; and as long as those who now are in power remain there, we won’t. After they leave, it is possible.” Russians have much in their past they can use to construct one. “But finding a country again probably will be even more difficult than building a normal state on the ruins that will remain after this government.”