Moscow Struggles to Come Up with List of ‘Historical Peoples’ of Russia

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 8 – The Russian government does not have an agreed-upon list of “the historical peoples of the country,” those nations whose members either now or in the past had such a status and therefore whose members currently abroad have the right to return as compatriots, Nezavisimaya gazeta says (ng.ru/politics/2024-12-08/1_9151_migrants.html).
    A major reason such a list does not exist is that the Kremlin doesn’t want to see an influx of people from some nations such as the Circassians because that would change the ethnic balance in various parts of Russia and could generate social and political instability (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscows-compatriots-program-allowing.html).
    But without such a list, Moscow must continue to rely on Russian language knowledge as the primary basis for deciding who can quality as a compatriot and who cannot, a reliance Putin favors but that has the effect of blocking the return of favored groups and allowing the return of some the regime would prefer not to have come back.
    Thus, the current struggle to come up with such a list, although unlikely to yield one anytime soon because of the political sensitivities involved, will remain an important indicator of where Russian official opinion now is regarding who’s in and who’s out as far as the formation of Putin’s favored “Russian world” is concerned.