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'Russia for Russians'
Sergey had the old tsarist imperial flag hanging on his wall, the white-gold-black tricolour that nationalists have taken as their banner. ‘I believe Russia is a great empire that other powers want to tear away parts from. We need to restore our power, retake our lost lands,’ he would say. Then in the same breath: ‘I want a Russia for Russians, all these churki from the Caucasus and Central Asia need to go home.’ This has always been the paradox of the new Russian nationalism: on the one hand wanting to conquer all regions around, on the other wanting an ethnically pure great power. It never made sense.
The new nationalism was long considered a fringe movement. But then in 2010 a Spartak Moscow supporter was killed by a North Caucasus gang member. Ten thousand hooligans stormed Manezhnaya Square opposite the Kremlin, chanting ‘Russia for Russians’, ‘Moscow for Muscovites’ and beating up anyone who didn’t ‘look Russian’. Putin laid flowers at the grave of the dead supporter. In the Moscow mayoral elections two months ago, every candidate – ‘liberal’, ‘communist’, ‘Kremlin’ – included harsh anti-migration measures and rhetoric in their campaigns.
...
There are also an increasing number of so-called ‘intellectual nationalists’. Some of them believe that ‘ethnic Russians need to liberate themselves from Russia.’ After the break-up of the USSR, republics such as Georgia or Lithuania were liberated to become nation-states. National republics inside Russia, such as Tatarstan and Chechnya, have special status and enjoy special privileges. The only people not to have received their own state, the argument goes, are Russians, who are now enslaved by a corrupt Kremlin which works with the national republics to crush ethnic Russians and deny them basic rights. Other nationalists think that Russia needs to get rid of the ‘Muslim’ republics in the North Caucasus and Tatarstan – 11 per cent of Russian citizens are Muslim; the figure is set to grow to 30 per cent by 2030 – and reintegrate Ukraine, Belarus and Northern Kazakhstan: they say this will make Russia more ‘democratic’ and ‘progressive’. Still others want to see a restored Orthodox tsar single-handedly ruling over the whole of Eurasia.
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Ukrainian nationalists take a rather different view. As a writer in Kiev told me recently:
- See more at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/11/05/peter-pomerantsev/russia-for-russians/#sthash.H5C3J3VZ.dpuf
The new nationalism was long considered a fringe movement. But then in 2010 a Spartak Moscow supporter was killed by a North Caucasus gang member. Ten thousand hooligans stormed Manezhnaya Square opposite the Kremlin, chanting ‘Russia for Russians’, ‘Moscow for Muscovites’ and beating up anyone who didn’t ‘look Russian’. Putin laid flowers at the grave of the dead supporter. In the Moscow mayoral elections two months ago, every candidate – ‘liberal’, ‘communist’, ‘Kremlin’ – included harsh anti-migration measures and rhetoric in their campaigns.
...
There are also an increasing number of so-called ‘intellectual nationalists’. Some of them believe that ‘ethnic Russians need to liberate themselves from Russia.’ After the break-up of the USSR, republics such as Georgia or Lithuania were liberated to become nation-states. National republics inside Russia, such as Tatarstan and Chechnya, have special status and enjoy special privileges. The only people not to have received their own state, the argument goes, are Russians, who are now enslaved by a corrupt Kremlin which works with the national republics to crush ethnic Russians and deny them basic rights. Other nationalists think that Russia needs to get rid of the ‘Muslim’ republics in the North Caucasus and Tatarstan – 11 per cent of Russian citizens are Muslim; the figure is set to grow to 30 per cent by 2030 – and reintegrate Ukraine, Belarus and Northern Kazakhstan: they say this will make Russia more ‘democratic’ and ‘progressive’. Still others want to see a restored Orthodox tsar single-handedly ruling over the whole of Eurasia.
...
Ukrainian nationalists take a rather different view. As a writer in Kiev told me recently:
Ever since Moscow incorporated Kiev in the 16th century we’ve been their connection to Europe. Religious humanist philosophy, Latin, scholastic education, universities all came to Muscovy from Kiev. Now that we’re free and are returning to our rightful place in Europe, Moscow is reverting to where it was before we joined them: barons who beat their serf-like population, dominated by a growing political Islam. Just like in the period of Tatar-Mongol domination. That’s the essence of Russia.
- See more at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/11/05/peter-pomerantsev/russia-for-russians/#sthash.H5C3J3VZ.dpuf
