Russians have had acute difficulties in coming to terms with their status as minorities in the unwelcoming — sometimes openly hostile — successor states of the Soviet Union. Severed mentally, politically, and geographically from their homeland, these “new” immigrants have had to rethink what it means to be part of a diaspora community and to mentally place themselves within that conceptual space.
Cyberspace offers great promise for the preservation of identity and national culture. Through computer-mediated communication, nations – especially challenged nations like the Russians in the ‘Near Abroad’ – have the ability to maintain and reinforce their identity in new and compelling ways.
Russians have had acute difficulties in coming to terms with their status as minorities in the unwelcoming — sometimes openly hostile — successor states of the Soviet Union. Severed mentally, politically, and geographically from their homeland, these “new” immigrants have had to rethink what it means to be part of a diaspora community and to mentally place themselves within that conceptual space.
Cyberspace offers great promise for the preservation of identity and national culture. Through computer-mediated communication, nations – especially challenged nations like the Russians in the ‘Near Abroad’ – have the ability to maintain and reinforce their identity in new and compelling ways.
When the Baltic countries entered NATO and the European Union a couple of years ago, many thought it was the end of the centuries-old "red line." Euro-Atlantic organizations had crossed into the former Russian and Soviet empires.
In September 2004, the Russian city of Novgorod hosted an international conference entitled Russia at the Turn of the Century: Hopes and Reality. Its organizers were the RIA Novosti news agency, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia in Global Affairs, and The Moscow Times.