As Russia’s attempt to rebuild its “external empire” through the Ukrainian war enters its third year, Osteolopa It focuses on Moscow and its relations with its “internal empire” – the myriad republics, oblasts and regions that make up the Russian Federation.
Although the 1993 Russian constitution provides for a federal system of government, “in reality, Russia has been a de facto empire for the past two decades,” the editors write in the introduction.
In his paper on “Russia’s Inner Empire”, political scientist Andreas Heinemann-Gruder provides a concise history of Russian federalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, detailing how the balance of power between Moscow and the hinterland has shifted as Moscow has loosened and strengthened its control over the interior.
The Russian Federation is a collection of 83 regions with different ethnic compositions and legal statuses, most of which are legacies of the Soviet era. Most were originally given significant autonomy by the Bolshevik government, which needed allies in the civil war, but whose governmental apparatus was not strong enough to rule through repression alone.
But the ruthless centralization of the Stalin era put an end to all of this, Heinemann-Gruder writes, necessitating the complete dissolution of the Soviet Union so that peripheral states could reassert their relative sovereignty.
In addition to drafting the 1993 Constitution, which formalized the federal separation of powers, the Yeltsin government negotiated 46 bilateral agreements with the regions, specifying in each agreement the precise powers that would be delegated and the extent of autonomy that would be granted. This largely peaceful transition to a system in which regional governments enjoyed relatively high levels of self-determination demonstrated that “Russia was not destined for eternal empire; in the 1990s it was still unknown how the situation would develop.”
However, the backlash against centralization after the First Chechen War (1994-96) revealed the shallow roots of federalism in Russia. Unlike in the United States, India or West Germany, for example, federalism was not a component of Russian political culture. “In the end, federalism was just a tactic to prevent the collapse of the central government at a stage of weakness.”
Russian nationalism
Historian Nikolai Mitrokhin traces the development of three main currents of Russian nationalism to explain the ideology behind the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The first, which he calls “white racism,” is represented by a motley collection of neo-Nazis, skinheads, pan-Slavic activists and anti-immigration fanatics. (Mitrokhin points out the paradoxical fact that many members of such movements crossed over to Ukraine during the 2014 “Russian Spring” and fought in the Azov Brigade.) Against Russia concluded that such an aggression against a “fraternal nation” was unjustified.
Then there were the “traditional nationalists” and “ethnonationalists,” whose organizing (and exclusive) principle was the particular conglomerate of language, culture, and religion that they conceptualized as the “Russian world.”
But what ultimately won out was the third type of “imperialist” nationalism that Putin referred to when he told think tank conference participants in 2018 that Russia represented “true and successful nationalism” – a nationalism that is less interested in the specifics of the Russian state. View of the worldMitrokhin has written about “Borders and Territories” and “The Cult of Victorious Russia’s Weapons,” among other topics.
Open wounds
In an interview with Russian author Sergei Lebedev, Chechen activist and writer Lana Estemirova reflects on Russia’s war against Chechnya and the ways in which Russian society has justified its atrocities. Her mother, Natalia, a prominent human rights activist, was murdered in 2009, almost certainly on the orders of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.
Thirty years after Russia launched its first operations to conquer the breakaway republic, and 80 years after the Soviet NKVD carried out a mass deportation of all Chechens (still unrecognized in official Russian history), Chechnya remains an “open wound” in the Russian political establishment, Estemirova says, one that continues to fester invisibly, its memories systematically suppressed in the collective consciousness.
Under the tyranny of Kadyrov, a one-time independence fighter turned Putin governor, Chechnya is now a “shining shell”, the capital Grozny’s gleaming skyscrapers are built on foundations of “emptiness and poverty” and the society is “thoroughly traumatized”.
Estemirova applies the Chechen precedent to the Ukrainian war, arguing that it is no coincidence that Chechen forces have become so visible (and infamous) in Ukraine: “Kadyrov’s forces have been deployed for propaganda purposes, for intimidation purposes. Look at the Chechens. We defeated them, we killed them. And now… They are I’m going to kill you you“‘.
An attack on intellectual freedom
The issue also alarmingly illustrates the perilous state of intellectual freedom in Russia, as the Russian government recently called the German Association for East European Studies (publisher of the German Association for East European Studies) a “dangerous situation for intellectual freedom in Russia.” Osteolopa) as an “undesirable organization” means that Osteolopa You are now committing a crime punishable by anything from a fine to several years in prison.
The issue was to contain a critique of the long-standing bias towards natural sciences and engineering in public appointments in the Republic of Tatarstan, which has led to the neglect of issues of culture, identity and religion. The manuscript was nearly complete, but the author decided at the last minute to withdraw his contribution, fearing for his own safety.
“With this policy, the Russian government is destroying academic freedom in the country,” the editors wrote. “The Putin regime is undermining the international exchange of research findings and deepening Russia’s isolation. It is pursuing an agenda to criminalize social and academic dialogue and intimidate its own people. This attempt is doomed to fail. History teaches us that the truth will come out.”
Reviewed by Nick Siwak
