Abstract
Marlene Laruelle has written compellingly on the rise of Russian nationalism, and she extends upon and updates those examinations in Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines and Political Battlefields. In this work, Laruelle primarily challenges the understanding of nationalism in Russia as limited to groups on the far right: nationalism cannot be understood as a marginal movement and a fascist trend. Rather, she contends, it is a far more influential force capable of producing collective identities – and thus shaping Russia’s political and social landscape.
Such subject matter inevitably invites a book that is wide in scope, and it is therefore important that Laruelle defines and limits her terms carefully. For her, nationalism is an ideology ‘that promotes the interests of a particular nation’ (p. 8) and it can be carried in the form of doctrines, political movements or state ideologies. It has the potential to mobilise, making a claim for ‘something it does not have but aims to acquire’ (p. 9). Such a definition gives Laruelle purchase on the plurality of nationalism and its aggregate forms.
It is Laruelle’s analysis of nationalism’s political potential which offers particularly useful contributions to current discussions on the direction of Russian political movements. Importantly, she shows how nationalism is a phenomenon shaping Russian society today. Here, Laruelle makes an important distinction between nationhood and nationalism. Nationalism is a grassroots trend and is not state-sponsored. In contrast, concepts of nationhood are indeed mobilised in state narratives and by state actors. In this sense, we should be wary of terming the Russian state ‘nationalist’ – and the book therefore problematises the idea that nationalism can be confined to Kremlin-based patriotism. Laruelle maintains that it is in fact instrumentalised on various levels of Russian society.
Laruelle divides her book into three parts. In Part 1, ‘Nationalism as imperial imaginary’, she asserts that an imaginary realm is central to constructions of nationalism. This is an imaginary which is of an imperial nature, and which was discursively recreated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It relies on three primary imperial features – geography, history and space-religion – within which an alternative Russia is reinvented.
This is an original frame of analysis used by Laruelle to confidently distil a nationalist reading of the ‘multiplicity of alternate and plural histories’ which coexist in Russia: for Laruelle, ‘nearly all of them share the idea that Russia is an empire by nature and destiny’ (p. 65). She is therefore able to root nationalism in forms of authenticity that can be traced back to the ancient past.
In Part 2, Laruelle goes on to locate nationalism as a doctrine, examining the ideological experiments which have reshaped the post-Soviet nationalist landscape. She extends her ideological focus beyond Slavophilism, Pan-Slavism and Eurasianism to trace the roots of Aryanness in the nationalist movement. This is an ideology which is gaining traction in Russia, either in its version of racialism or in its ‘milder interpretation’ (p. 90) of Russia’s need to protect itself against migrants. It is thus that Laruelle sets the foundations to discuss the contribution of Aleksandr Dugin to Russian nationalism. With a refreshing perspective (which avoids excessive description of Dugin’s personality), Laruelle focuses on the ultra-nationalist’s role as a manufacturer of Russian neo-fascism. However, whilst, for Laruelle, Dugin is neither in nor out of circles of power, so too is his influence on Russian politics no longer direct.
In Part 3, Laruelle reaches the political battlefield, and offers a reading of Russian nationalism as a force in this contested terrain. Laruelle uses nationalism as an explanatory framework for social mobilisation, which will certainly be noteworthy for those interested in the political movements at work in Russia today. She does well in particular to show that the purposes of Russian nationalism can be multiple and therefore potentially contradictory. It can be democratic or authoritarian, illiberal or liberal – and Laruelle understands Navalny’s brand of nationalism in these terms. Laruelle points out that, whilst the opposition politician may promote democratic values, his nationalist tendencies are in many ways highly illiberal. She therefore proposes that Navalny can be understood as an illiberal democrat who has displayed a form of ideological opportunism – exploiting nationalist narratives to formulate ‘a social contract, which [relies] on xenophobic populism’ (p. 191).
The existing literature on Russian nationalism studies is extensive, and scholarship has seen a development from a rigorous adherence to social constructionism towards a consensus that both the nation and nationalism are constructed and relational. There is a continuing emphasis in the scholarship on the forms of nationalism which construct difference between ethnic Russians and ‘Others’. When growing phobia against migrants in Russia has mobilised nationalism, it is brought to the political agenda with a new urgency.
The book’s broad reach allows Laruelle to progress these discussions of Russian nationalism, offering a contribution to our understanding of the field to be commended for its originality and detail. A conclusion could have drawn together the book’s diverse strands – or the reader might understand as deliberate this hesitancy to conclude such a dynamic area of study.
In her comprehensive approach to the twisting strands of Russian nationalism Laruelle deserves praise and this is a book which should be brought even more firmly to attention in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since the war began in February 2022, countless attempts have been made to trace the rationale and underpinnings of Putin’s actions – and clearly no one explanatory framework is sufficient. Yet, when the President borrows ideologies which blatantly reject the nationhood of Ukraine and promotes nationalist narratives of a common historical destiny for the people of Eurasia, it is essential to look to Laruelle’s work on nationalism for a closer understanding.