Russia in Global Affairs

Ethnic nationalism cannot be a strategic ally of the forces interested in Russia’s modernization. Realizing the impossibility of a purely elitist modernization, these forces will inevitably need mass support and national consolidation. Consequently, they will need nationalism, although of a different strain – the civic one.

Notwithstanding Russia’s specificity, it is high time to remove religion from federal authority and include religious communities in the system of institutions that constitute civil society.

The Russian version of the multiculturalism policy is older and more complex in terms of its consequences than the European one. Multiculturalism as a form of promoting group and communal identity was an integral part of Stalin’s policy of creating ethnic republics, as well as ethnic areas and regions.

Any hopes to resolve the problems facing Russia today by derelict methods of state mobilization are a sheer illusion. Russia has lost its traditionalism and the goal it faces today is not so much to move forward, but, rather, to restore a balance between the elements of state and society that have already been reformed and those that still remain intact. It cannot be ruled out that ethnic consolidation in Russia could open up the road to the rise of a political nation – the way it happened in most European countries.

The peculiarities of Russia’s transformation and the essence of its unique development can be best understood from the position of its imperial past and present. In contrast to Central and East European countries, Russia cannot run away from the empire as it would from an external enemy; the empire complex can only be removed through its own efforts.