Russian Empire that views the Russian nation as having three sub-nations within it: Great Russians (those commonly identified as
ethnic Russians today), Little Russians (
Ukrainians), and White Russians (
Belarusians) from an early 20th century poster. The Russian motto "
Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" was coined by Count
Sergey Uvarov and it was adopted as the official ideology by
Emperor Nicholas I. Three components of Uvarov's triad were: •
OrthodoxyOrthodox
Christianity and the protection of the
Russian Orthodox Church. •
Autocracyunconditional loyalty to the
House of Romanov in return for
paternalist protection for all
social estates. • Nationality (
Narodnost, has also been translated as
national spirit). Many works concerning
Russian history,
mythology and
fairy tales appeared. Operas by
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,
Mikhail Glinka and
Alexander Borodin; paintings by
Viktor Vasnetsov,
Ivan Bilibin and
Ilya Repin; and poems by
Nikolay Nekrasov,
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, among others, are considered masterpieces of Russian
romantic nationalism. monument built in 1862 that celebrated one-thousand years of Russian history
Pan-Slavism and the
Slavophile movement of the 19th century, led by such figures as
Aleksey Khomyakov,
Sergey Aksakov, and
Ivan Kireyevsky drew a line between Western Europe and Russia, emphasizing Russia as a dominant regional power as well as spiritual unity among Slavs in their Orthodox religion, of which the Russian autocratic regime was the ultimate expression. However, their movement was suppressed by
Tsar Nicholas I, a law and order royalist, who surveilled and suppressed the Slavophiles. The movement was revived in the 1870s by
Konstantin Leontiev and
Nikolay Danilevsky. In the beginning of 20th century, new nationalist and rightist organizations and parties emerged in Russia, such as the
Russian Assembly, the
Union of the Russian People, the
Union of Archangel Michael ("Black Hundreds") and others.
Soviet era with an allusion of
Saint George and the Dragon with
Red Army leader
Leon Trotsky as being a Saint George figure who was slaying the dragon which represented
counter-revolution. The symbol of Saint George slaying the dragon was and still is a Russian national symbol. anti-
Soviet poster, , depicting the female personification of Russia known as
Mother Russia Under the outlook of
international communism that was especially strong at the time,
Vladimir Lenin separated patriotism into what he defined as
proletarian, socialist patriotism from
bourgeois nationalism. Lenin promoted the right of all nations to
self-determination and the right to unity of all workers within nations, but he also condemned
chauvinism and claimed there were both justified and unjustified feelings of national pride. Lenin explicitly denounced conventional Russian nationalism as "
Great Russian chauvinism", and his government sought to accommodate the country's multiple ethnic groups by creating republics and sub-republic units to provide non-Russian ethnic groups with autonomy and protection from Russian domination. Lenin also sought to balance the ethnic representation of leadership of the country by promoting non-Russian officials in the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union to counter the large presence of Russians in the Party. However, this policy was not strictly enforced due to domination of Russians in Soviet Union. This domination had been formally criticized in the tsarist empire by Lenin and others as
Great Russian chauvinism. Various scholars focused on the nationalist features that already existed during the Leninist period. Stalin reversed much of his predecessor's previous internationalist policies, signing orders for the
exiling multiple distinct ethnic-linguistic groups which were branded as "traitors", including the
Balkars,
Crimean Tatars,
Chechens,
Ingush (see
Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush),
Karachays,
Kalmyks,
Koreans, and
Meskhetian Turks, who were collectively deported to Siberia or Central Asia, where they were legally designated as "
special settlers", which officially meant that they were
second-class citizens with few rights and they were also confined within a small perimeter. Various historians see Stalin's deportations of minority and diaspora nationalities as evidence of the Russian nationalism of the Soviet state under Stalin. Chang wrote that the
Soviet deportations of Koreans (and other diaspora,
deported peoples such as Germans, Finns, Greeks and many others) illustrated the fact that in whole, essentialized views of
race, that is,
primordialism was carried over from the Russian nationalism of the
Tsarist era. These Soviet tropes and biases produced and converted the Koreans (and the Chinese) into a decidedly, un-Marxist Soviet "
yellow peril". The existence of
racism lay in the fact that others could occasionally be seen or judged in accordance with a class line or they could be seen or judged on an individual basis but the Koreans could not. According to historian
Jeremy Smith, "As long as Stalin was alive... nationality policy was subject to arbitrary swings. The most disturbing feature of this period was the growth of
official Anti-Semitism" including the campaign against "
rootless cosmopolitans". Smith observed that "Speeches and newspaper articles raised the spectre of an international Jewish conspiracy to overthrow Soviet power" leading to the
purges of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the
Doctors' plot which was associated with the persecution of Jewish Moscow doctors in planned show trials. If Stalin had not died when he did, the alleged Doctors' plot would have led to the deportation of Jews to Siberia. Meanwhile, the defense of the country during World War II had led to the emergence of a new wave of national pride in the non-Russian republics which led to purges in those republics. Historian David Brandenberger contrasts russocentrism characteristic of this era with Russian nationalism. In his view, ethnic pride and promoted sense of Russian national identity didn't cross the threshold of nationalism as "the party hierarchy never endorsed the idea of Russian self-determination or separatism and vigorously suppressed all those who did, consciously drawing a line between the positive phenomenon of national identity formation and the malignancy of full-blown nationalist ambitions." To define the "pragmatic" combination of Russian national identity promotion in Marxist–Leninist propaganda and "symbolically abandoned" earlier proletarian internationalism, Brandenberger describes Stalin's regime with the term "National Bolshevism". The creation of an
international communist state under control of the workers was perceived by some as accomplishment of Russian nationalistic dreams. Poet
Pavel Kogan described his feelings of the Soviet patriotism just before
World War II: According to
Nikolai Berdyaev: In 1944, the Soviet Union abandoned its
communist anthem
The Internationale and adopted a
new national anthem conveying a Russian-centered national pride in its first stanza, "An unbreakable union of free republics,
Great Russia has sealed forever." Although Khrushchev rose during Stalinism, his speech
On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences and
de-Stalinization signified a retreat from official anti-Semitism and Great Russian Chauvinism. Most, though not all nationalities deported by Stalin were allowed to return during Khrushchev, and the Soviet Union to a degree, resumed a policy of cultivating local national developments. Nonetheless, during Khrushchev's relatively more tolerant administration, Russian nationalism emerged as a slightly oppositional phenomenon within the Soviet elites.
Alexander Shelepin, a Communist Party hardliner and KGB chairman, called for a return to Stalinism and policies more in line with Russian cultural nationalism, as did conservative writers like
Sergey Vikulov. The
Komsomol leadership also hosted several prominent nationalists such as
Sergei Pavlovich Pavlov, an ally of Shelepin, while the
Molodaya Gvardiya published numerous neo-Stalinist and nationalist works. Before its breakup in late 2000 the Russian National Unity was estimated to have had approximately 20,000 to 25,000 members. Others include
Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists which was involved in the murder of
Stanislav Markelov, the neo-monarchist
Pamyat, the
Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers, and the
Movement Against Illegal Immigration, which revived the slogan "
Russia for Russians." These parties organised an annual rally called the
Russian March. at the
party congress of
United Russia in 2011. in Moscow on 11 June 2014 The Kremlin conducted a campaign against radical nationalists in the 2010s, and as a result, many of them are currently imprisoned, according to a Russian political scientist and a senior visiting fellow at the
George Washington University Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies
Maria Lipman. At the same time,
Eurasianism has emerged as the dominant nationalist narrative in
Putinist Russia. In a poll conducted by
Levada Center in 2021, 64% of Russian citizens identify Russia as a non-European country; while only 29% regarded Russia to be part of Europe.
Sociologist Marcel Van Herpen wrote that
United Russia increasingly relied on Russian nationalism for support following the
2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Nationalist political party
Rodina cultivated ties with
Eurosceptic, far-right and
far-left political movements, supporting them financially and inviting them to
Eurasian conferences in Crimea and Saint Petersburg. However, the Kremlin scaled nationalism down out of fears that prominent figures such as
Igor Girkin began to act independently, following a brief period of stirring activism that resulted in Russian men volunteering to fight in
Donbas in 2014 and 2015, according to Lipman. In Lipman's view, the Kremlin's aim is to prevent emotions that "might get out of control and motivate people to act independently". In November 2018, Vladimir Putin described himself as "the most effective nationalist", explaining that Russia is a multiethnic and multireligious state and preserving it as such serves the interests of the ethnic Russians. He remarked that Russian ethnicity didn't exist at some point and it was formed by multiple
Slavic tribes. According to
Michael Hirsh, a senior correspondent at
Foreign Policy: Putin's views evolved over time. In his speech on 18 June 2004 at the international conference
"Eurasian Integration: Trends of Modern Development and Challenges of Globalization", Putin said about the problems hindering integration: "I would say that these problems can be formulated very simply. This is great-power chauvinism, this is nationalism, this is the personal ambitions of those on whom political decisions depend, and, finally, this is just stupidity, ordinary cavemen's stupidity". on 24 February 2022. Minutes after Putin's announcement, the
Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Since around 2014, the Putin regime has adopted Russian nationalism and great-power chauvinism as its main policy. In July 2021, Putin published an essay titled
On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, in which he states that Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians should be in one
All-Russian nation as a part of the
Russian world and are "one people" whom "forces that have always sought to undermine our unity" wanted to "divide and rule". In 2020
Russian Constitution went through a significant reform which, among other changes, added a notion of Russians being "state-forming nation" of the Russian Federation, gaining a dominating role over other ethnic groups. In
a speech on 21 February 2022, following the deployment of Russian troops in the
Donetsk and
Luhansk People's Republics, Putin made a number of claims about Ukrainian and Soviet history, including stating that modern Ukraine was created by the
Bolsheviks in 1917 as part of a communist
appeasement of nationalism of ethnic minorities in the former
Russian Empire, specifically blaming
Vladimir Lenin for "detaching Ukraine from Russia". Putin spoke of the "historic, strategic mistakes" that were made when in 1991 the USSR "granted sovereignty" to other
Soviet republics on "historically Russian land" and called the entire episode "truly fatal". He described Ukraine as being turned into the "anti-Russia" by the West. In his speech in November 2023, Putin claimed that the
Mongol-Tatar yoke resulting from the
Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' was better for the Russian people than Western domination, saying: “Alexander Nevsky received a
jarlyk [permission] from the khans of the
Golden Horde to rule as a prince, primarily so that he could effectively resist the invasion of the West." According to Putin, the decision to submit to the
Tatar khans preserved "the Russian people - and later all the peoples living on the territory of our country."
Ultranationalism Extremist nationalism in Russia is used in reference to many
far-right and a few
far-left ultra-nationalist movements and organizations. In Russia, the term
nationalism is frequently used in reference to extremist nationalism. However, it is frequently conflated with "
fascism" in Russia. While the meaning of this terminology does not exactly match the formal
definitions of fascism, the common denominator is
chauvinism. In all other respects, the positions vary over a wide spectrum. Some movements hold a political position in which they believe that the
state must be an instrument of nationalism (such as the
National Bolshevik Party, headed by
Eduard Limonov), while others (for example,
Russian National Unity) promote the use of
vigilantist tactics against the perceived "enemies of Russia" without participating in politics. , inspired by
Italian fascism, in the first half of the 20th century. The slogan "Let's get our homeland!" is also used by the modern
far-right in Russia. In the 1990s and the early 2000s ultranationalist/xenophobic movement was represented by
neo-Nazi skinheads, Orthodox–Christian nationalists and national-Imperial forces such as
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia headed by
Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In 1997, the Moscow Anti-Fascist Center estimated that 40 (nationalist) extremist groups were operating in Russia. The same source reported 35 extremist newspapers, the largest among these being
Zavtra. In spite of repression by governmental authorities, a far-right extremist movement has established itself in Russia.
Neopaganism and the Aryan myth y) without the
Talmud." Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the
Aryan myth has gained publicity in Russia. Numerous series of collections of works by popularizers of the Aryan idea are published (
Secrets of the Russian Land,
The True History of the Russian People, etc.). They are available in Russian bookstores and municipal and university libraries. These works are not marginal: they have a circulation of tens of thousands of copies (or millions, for example, for books by
Alexander Asov), their content is involved in the formation of the worldview basis of a stratum of the population regarding ancient history. Authors who develop the Aryan theme are often employees of new amateur academies and geopolitical institutions. Only a small number of them have a history degree. Most of them were educated in the field of technology and exact sciences. The "Aryan" idea in the version of Slavic neo-paganism (the origin of the Slavs from the "Aryans" from
Hyperborea or Central Asia, also called the "race of white gods"; the connection of the Slavs with India; ancient pre-Christian Slavic "runic" books; origin from the "Slavic-Aryans" of the ancient civilizations; the neo-pagan symbol "
Kolovrat" as an ancient Slavic symbol; a variant of the alien origin of the "Aryan-Hyperboreans") was popularized in the "documentary" programs of the
REN TV television network, including broadcasts by Igor Prokopenko and Oleg Shishkin. In a number of areas of Russian nationalism, the "Aryan" idea is used to justify the right to the territory of modern Russia or the former Soviet Union, which is declared to be the habitat of the ancient "Slavo-Aryans". In a number of post-Soviet countries, "
Aryanism" is cultivated by neo-pagan movements that are not satisfied with the real history of their peoples. The pre-Christian past is idealized, allowing one to present one's ancestors as a great victorious people. The choice falls on paganism, since, according to these ideologists, it is endowed with an "Aryan heroic principle" and is not burdened by Christian morality, calling for mercy and ignoring the idea of the priority of "blood and soil". Christianity is seen by neo-pagans as a hindrance to a successful "racial struggle". The rejection of Christianity and the return to the "ethnic religion", the "faith of the ancestors", according to neo-pagans, will help overcome the split of the nation and return to it the lost moral "Aryan" values that can lead it out of the crisis. Neo-pagans call for a return to the "Aryan worldview" in the name of public health, which is being destroyed by modern civilization. Within this discourse, the slogans of the
Conservative Revolution of the 1920s are once again becoming popular. Declaring themselves "Aryans", the radicals seek to fight for the "salvation of the white race", which results in attacks on "migrants" and other representatives of non-
titular nationalities. In many areas of
Slavic neo-paganism (rodnovery), Slavs or Russians are credited with historical and cultural or
racial superiority over other peoples. This ideology includes Russian messianism, with the Russian people being considered the only force capable of resisting world evil and leading the rest of the world. of the 1970s and is associated with the activities of antisemitic supporters of the Moscow Arabist
Valery Yemelyanov (neopagan name - Velemir) and the former dissident and neo-Nazi activist
Alexey Dobrovolsky (neopagan name - Dobroslav). ==Russian nationalism and ethnic minorities==