Russian nationalists in the Komi Republic: a case study of the Frontier of the North

The article examines some generic traits of the “new” Russian ethnic nationalism, namely, de-ideologization of the nationalist milieu and its inclination for civic activism. It results from a case study of the Frontier of the North (FN – Syktyvkar), an ideologically ambivalent organization that combines dual Russian/Komi ethnic nationalism, anti-migration sentiments, white racism, and fragments of other ideologies. The article demonstrates that, unlike nationalists of the previous generation, FN is not hostile to public authorities and is ready to cooperate with them. FN’s grassroots activism, as well as sports and healthy recreational activities, attracts young people. The organization tackles the most acute social problems, often neglected by everyone else, and has become a working civil society institution. The authors argue that these tactics win the “new” nationalists sympathy among ordinary people and makes the groups politically stronger and more influential than the previous nationalist generation. However, state anti-extremist policy hampers the advancement of nationalists into mainstream politics.     

Restricting Russians: language and immigration laws in Soviet Latvia, 1956–1959

In 1956, a prominent faction within the leadership of Soviet Latvia, the Latvian national communists, launched two ambitious initiatives designed to redress perceived Stalinist Russification polices – a language law and residency restrictions. This article examines and evaluates these two policies and asks if they were part of a “Latvianization” program that deliberately targeted Russians for denial of residency permits and required Russians to gain Latvian-language competency within a two-year timeframe or face the threat of dismissal. In an effort to restore the primacy of the Latvian language, the national communists created a law enforcing knowledge of Latvian and Russian for Communist Party and government functionaries and service sector personnel. Using the Soviet legal system, the national communists also attempted to halt the influx of predominantly Slavic immigration to the Latvian capital, Riga. By instituting passport restrictions on settling in the city, the national communists sought to limit Slavic migration in order to maintain Riga’s Latvian character and reduce pressure on the city’s housing supply and municipal services. Existing studies deem passport restrictions in other Soviet cities a failure. The author argues, however, that the national communists’ scheme was generally successful, dramatically curbing migration to Riga during its operation.     

Blocked Mobility and the Rise of Cultural Nationalism: A Reassessment

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the blocked mobility thesis, especially in regard to its use to explain the rise of cultural nationalism. The thesis states that young university students see their upward mobility thwarted and as a result develop nationalist movements which, they believe, will provide them with an independent state and open up career opportunities for them. Using quantitative archival data from Ireland during the early 1900s and Canada during the 1960s, this paper challenges the major assumptions of the blocked mobility thesis. For these two cases it was found that there was neither an overproduction of graduates nor a contracting state structure, two essential preconditions of the blocked mobility thesis. This empirical finding forces us to develop an alternative approach to explaining the rise in cultural nationalism. Part of this paper is taken up with outlining this alternative approach.     

“The Magocsi Problem” (Problema Magochoho): a preliminary deconstruction and contextualization

An academic gathering – be it a symposium, a conference, or a round-table – to examine the work of a fellow scholar is invariably timely. At the very least it presupposes a consensus on the basic significance of the subject being addressed and a collective decision to address it. As a launch of a new book (in Ukraine a phenomenon known as prezentatsiia), it provides the welcome opportunity to discuss a new contribution and with that to fill in and redraw our map of the field. If more than one work or project is involved, it provides a still greater opportunity, and indeed poses a scholarly obligation, to see the larger picture and to engage in stock-taking and rethinking. By contextualizing, problematizing, and where need be, deconstructing, we recalibrate our understanding and thus revive the field and our commitment to it. Clearly, the process of laudatio, of paying homage to achievements spanning a whole career, also contributes to this.     

The Soviet origin of Russian chauvinism: Voices from below

The fledgling democracy of Russia is facing many challenges. Perhaps the most dangerous of all is the rise of an aggressive chauvinistic nationalism. Initially, political analysts regarded it as a “recent” phenomenon which was filling in the ideological vacuum left by communism. As time went on, however, scholars began to grasp its deep historical roots and investigate its ideological evolution during the Soviet period. In this process, they tended to focus on the “legitimate” domains of the Soviet system – such as the official press, the literary field of socialist realism, and so on – in order to investigate how “the Russian idea” overtly coexisted or even covertly prospered within the boundaries of officially sanctioned ideology. The main goal of this paper is to bring a new dimension to our understanding of contemporary Russian nationalism, by approaching the whole phenomenon from below. While focusing on the Soviet period, this paper traces the ideological evolution of Slavophiles and their selective degeneration into chauvinism at the social level. In particular, it analyzes the underground ideological field of samizdat – uncensored illicit publications – where Slavophiles played a significant role. In this way, we can hear the “unfiltered” voices of rising Russian nationalists during the Soviet era.     

Foes of our rebirth: Ukrainian nationalist discussions about Jews, 1929–1947

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, came into being in 1929 as an “integral nationalist” movement that set itself the goal of driving Polish landowners and officials out of eastern Galicia and Volhynia, joining hands with Ukrainians in other countries, and establishing an independent state. The OUN defined Jews, along with Russians and Poles, as aliens and enemies. There was no need, wrote an OUN ideologist in 1929, to list all the injuries that Jews caused Ukrainians. “In addition to a number of external enemies Ukraine also has an internal enemy … Jewry and its negative consequences for our liberation cause can be liquidated only by an organized collective effort”. The article examines archival documents, publications by OUN members, and recent scholarly literature to trace the evolution of OUN thinking about Jews from 1929 through the war years, when the German occupation of Ukraine gave the OUN an opportunity to stage pogroms and persecute Jews, and the prime minister of the state that the OUN proclaimed wrote that he supported “the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine”.     

The Communist Ideological Legacy and Serb–Albanian Relations in Kosovo∗

This article uses Central Asian examples to challenge theories of ethnic nationalism that locate its origins in intellectual activism (Hroch), state modernization processes (Gellner), or the rise of mass media (Anderson). Modern Uyghur cultural politics and traditional Central Asian dynastic genealogies reveal related processes used in constructing modern nationalist symbols and pre-modern ideologies of descent. Modern territorial states with ideals of social unification and bureaucratic organization rely upon nationalist discourses to elaborate and rework cultural forms into evidence for the ethnic nation. The state links citizens to institutions through nationalist content used in political discourse, schooling, and public performances. Because such content is presented as authentic but used instrumentally, its contingency and fabrication have to be concealed from view: the culturally intimate spaces of bureaucratic production of culture and narratives are separated from public performances. The creation of genealogies used to legitimate pre-modern states are similar: compositional processes and goals are kept offstage, and little is disclosed in the public historical narratives and performances.