Like Its Tsarist and Soviet Predecessors, Russian Federation has had a Hard Time Creating a Structure to Oversee Ethnic Issues

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Apr. 2 – Like its tsarist and Soviet predecessors, the government of the Russian Federation has had a hard time creating an institutional structure to oversee ethnic issues. The reason has remained the same: Any structure powerful enough to direct these issues would threaten other agencies; and any not powerful enough to do that would become marginalized.
    This week, as the Russian authorities mark the 10th anniversary of the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs (FADN), this challenge remains unresolved, a fact of life highlighted by the Nazaccent portal which recounts the evolution of institutions overseeing ethnic issues in the Russian Federation since the end of Soviet times.
    The chronology it provides of the changes in government structures overseeing ethnic issues makes that clear and is especially useful because comparisons with today’s FADN and earlier bodies are often confusing given that the FADN is far more limited in power than they were (nazaccent.ru/content/43753-ot-upravleniya-duhovnyh-del-do-federalnogo-agentstva/).
    Below is the chronology it provides:
1989 – the State Committee of the RSFSR for Nationality Questions is created.
1990 – it is renamed the State Committee of the RSFSR for Nationality Affairs.
1991 – it is transformed into the State Committee of the RSFSR for Nationality Policy.
1993 -- it is renamed the State Committee for the Affairs of the Federation and Nationalities.
1994 – a Ministry of the Russian Federation for Natinlaity Affairs and Regional Policy is established.
1996 – it is reorganized into the ministry for nationality affairs and federative relations.
1998 – it is renamed the ministry for regional and nationality policy.
1998 – it is divided into the ministry for nationality policy and the ministry for regional policy.
1999 – the ministry of nationality policy is transformed into the ministry for the affairs of the federation and nationalities.
2000 – it is transformed into the ministry for the affairs of the federation and nationality and migration policy.
2001 – this ministry is abolished.
Between 2001 and 2015 when the FADN was created, the Putin regime managed nationality issues in its own way. Between 2001 and 2004, it assigned Vladimir Zorin as the minister without portfolio to supervise work in this area. And between 2004 and 2014, nationality issues were handled by the Russian Federation’s ministry of regional development.  

    As an agency rather than a ministry, FADN has a much smaller remit and far less power to make policy on ethnic issues. And over the past decade, many have suggested that it should be elevated to ministerial status (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-set-to-re-establish.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/kremlin-said-planning-to-set-up.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/moscow-to-recreate-nationalities.html).
    But Putin clearly prefers to prevent the rise of a ministry that someone might use to hallenge his power and thus appears set to keep the FADN in its reduced circumstances even though that means that there is no single structure in the Russian government with the power to coordinate what is going on regarding ethnic issues or even to define what these consist of.