What is Rossia?

1 Z. Brzezinski: `The Premature Partnership', Foreign Affairs, March/April 1994, pp. 67-82.

2 Lind M. `In Defense of Liberal Nationalism', Foreign Affairs, May/June 1994, pp. 87-99.

3 Pravda, 1,2 November 1994.

4 A. Tsipko, `A New Russian Identity or Old Russia Reintegration?', Security Dialogue, 1994, vol.25, no.4, pp.443-456.

5 A quote from Raphael Khakimov, Advisor to Tatarstan's President during negotiations on Russia-Tatarstan Treaty, summer 1992 (personal notes).

6 I. Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).

7 See Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

8 See, for example, Yulian Bromley, Theoretical Ethnography (Moscow: Nauka, 1986).

9 Data on ethnic groups are based on the 1989 USSR Census. See also V. Tishkov, ed., Narodi Rossii Encyclopedia (Peoples of Russia Encyclopedia), (Moscow: Rossiiskaya encyclopedia, 1994).

10 Dubravka Ugresic, `Parrots and Priests: “Before” and “After” in Yugoslavia', Times Literary Supplement, 15 May 1992, p. 12.

11 M.P. Smith, `Postmodernism, Urban Ethnography, and the New Social Space of Ethnic Identity', Theory and Society, vol.21, 1992, p.526.

12 In its initial form this new doctrine was introduced in a position paper `On the concept of nationality policy in the Russian Federation' at the federal Cabinet's meeting on 30 July 1992, presided by Boris Yeltsin. That discussion behind the Kremlin walls was a remarkable event because for the first time the Russian reformers had to talk not about economy or social issues but about what was not in their priority agenda before. The position paper was not rejected, nor was it approved formally. The President and members of the Government were ill-prepared to discuss the issue in suggested terms and formulas like co-citizenship, civic identity, cultural pluralism, consociational democracy. Even the meeting itself was closed to the press, and the document was not made public.

13 In the seven republics where the referendum did not carry a majority the voting figures were as follows: Adigea (38.9%), Bashkortostan (42.1%), Dagestan (20.9%), Karachaevo-Cherkessia (28.0%), Mordovia (37.1%), Tuva (31.2%), Chuvashia (41.2%).

14 Rossiiskaya gazeta, 25 February 1994.

15 According to the 1989 USSR Census, there were about 20 million people in the Soviet Union who could not speak Russian.

16 A sociological survey carried out in July 1993 in 10 regions of the Russian Federation (1082 respondents) on the question of self-identification gave the following result: 5.8% felt themselves `a Soviet man' (`sovjetski chelovek'), 47.9% - as citizens of Russia (`rossiyanin'), 14.2% - `representatives of their own nationality', 31.4% - `do not know who I am'. Civic identity is predominant among a majority and among all professional groups: it is highest among managerial personnel, qualified specialists, researchers and workers of commercial enterprises (from 51-58%); it is lowest among workers and technical personnel of state enterprises (32-37%). Ethnic identity as a priority value was declared by a striking minority among all social groups (from 10-23%). Vestnik sodruzhestva sociologicheskikh assoziazii (Newsletter of the Union of the Sociological Association), no.2, 1993, p. 10.

17 Y. Arutunyan, ed., Rossiyane: stolichnie zhiteli (The Rossians: profile of the capital). (Moscow: Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, 1994) pp. 138-139.

18 Eduard Bagramov, `Nazia kak sograzhdanstvo?' (Nation as co-citizenship?). Nezavisimaya gazeta, 15 March 1994.

19 Rech Gazeta Russkoi Partii, 1993, no.1, p.4.

20 Marika and Aksel Kirch's data (Institute of Social and International Research, Tallinn, Estonia). See also: Valery Tishkov, `Russkie kak men' shinstva: primer Estonii' (Russians as a minority: case of Estonia). Working Papers in Applied and Urgent Ethnology (Moscow: Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology), 1993, no. 52.

21 For more on this, see Valery Tishkov, `Nationalities and Conflicting Ethnicity in post-Communist Russia'. Working paper under the project Management of Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union. Conflict Management Group, Harvard, 1993. Updated version as Discussion Paper (Geneva: The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development) no. 40, 1994.