Blog Post 1

 Blog Post 1

National Identity is a nation as a whole based on its culture, traditions, and language, all playing a large role in creating what we know as national identity. A sense of unity and belonging is created when people with similar experiences live with one another. However, national identity can be viewed in a variety of ways and the definition can be different to everyone. There are two general meanings of national identity as outlined by Omar Dahbour in his article, “National identity: An Argument for The Strict Definition,” the first definition is a very strict and defined meaning that claims nationality is based on one’s origin, ancestry or ethnicity. The second definition explains that National Identity is a loose term and does not have a set definition, as the meaning has been argued upon by historians. However, there is unanimity that ethnicity and race are involved in defining national identity. 

Russia’s National Identity is somewhat of a confusing one. Russia in it’s own didn’t exist up until the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union. While this post will focus on Russia, a lot of it’s national identity correlates with the identity of the Soviet Union. Russia in itself is a large and vast country with a large population of people with a variety of ethnicities. Russian, the primary language is spoken throughout and plays a large role in national identity. In Russia’s political vocabulary, nationalism has a negative connotation. Despite this, nationalism played a key role in developing modern states and remains a major political ideology to this day (Tishkov, 2008). Furthermore, there are three key ideas that outline the development of Russia’s national identity, according to Valery Tishkov in his article “The Russian People and National Identity,” the first idea is that Russia is a multinational state, creating a distinction from other countries. The second idea is that Russia is a state of ethinic Russians with a variety of other ethnic minorities who identify as Russian or acknowledge the Russian ethnic majority built the state status. The last point mentioned is that Russia is a national state that is a mult-ethnic nation made up by the culture, Russian language and acceptance and embracing of people from other ethnic communities. The Russian president, Vladmir Putin has also embraced this point of acceptance. (Tishkov, 2008). While Tishkov argues that Russia does have a national identity, others argue that due to Russia’s short time period, it’s identity stems mainly from that of the Soviet Union. “Russian ancestry can be traced back for centuries to the russian Tsardom and later Empire” (Markova, 2020). During the time of Imperial Russia, people often identified with Empires rather than having a sense of nationality with one another. Hosking argues that Russia never was a nation. The association with empires rather than with people, meant that Russia never had a sense of nationality and belonging for its people, but rather had a powerful state but it’s society lacked in terms of nationality. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, people had a sense of nationality with the USSR. The single union brought together the population and allowed people to have a sense of belonging and unity. However, after the collapse people were not able to identify with the USSR and had to find a new nationality to identify amongst. The legacy of the Soviet Union is something that carried over into Russia. According to Yuri Kofner in his article “The National Identity of Russia in the 21st Century,” there are four key points for this, first, Peter the Great brought European modernity, allowing Russia to have its three political theories of communism, liberalism, and nationalism. The second point is that communism was an implanted western ideology, yet, the USSR turned out to be Eurasian in its implementation. Third, the national-patriotic version of socialism won. Fourth, the Russian Federation inherited a variety of achievements from the USSR. (Kofner, 2017). Due to these points, Russia did not transition to the postmodern era such as the west, mainly due to the strongly enforced ideological and political regime of the USSR.   Russia being the largest in terms of area and population after the collapse of the USSR,  allowed it to develop its nationality due to its vast population and ethnicities. These different viewpoints on Russia and its nationality lead us to ponder whether Russia ever had a nationality to begin with or if it is just an underdeveloped nationality.  

Another concept of national identity to explore is “others.” Nationality is often defined as sameness, where people may dress the same and speak the same language, along with other features the population may have in common. “Others” in this sense differ from members of their community due to these exact features. The differences can be seen once again with dress code and language. (Triandafyllidou, 1998). The history of a nation can be influenced strongly or even develop its nationality through significant others. Significant others can be defined as, “any nation or ethnic group that is territorially close to or within the national community and threatens its ethnic and cultural purity or independence” (Triandafyllidou, 1998). Russia has had its fair share of significant others. While Russia is a polyethnic state, Russian enemies attempt to break up the country through two key points. Both of these threats can be considered political, the first being that westernizers or otherwise known as liberals (Kofner, 2017). The political ideology is considered an internal threat as the population within Russia is attempting to bring change to the nation. However this attempt was not carried out successfully due to the lack of support for the group. The second threat is also an internal threat which involved “incitement of narrow and nationalistic-ethnic extremism” (Kofner, 2017). This is especially dangerous as there are radical islamic and Russian nationalsitic separtisms. Russia actively attempts to oppose these threats by educating the population about Russian patriotism and providing support for the indigenous people of Russia. 

Russia in itself is a relatively new nation. However, it has strong roots in the USSR and further ancestry. Russia’s national identity is highly debated and may be for years to come. Through time and shared experiences, Russia’s national identity may become more developed and prevalent. The sense of belonging and unity will only get stronger over time. Russia is home to a vast and expansive population from a variety of ethinic backgrounds. The culture, traditions and language make up how we view Russia and its national identity.

References:

Dahbour, O. (2002). National Identity: An Argument for the Strict Definition. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40441311.

Kofner, Y. (2017, September 13). RIAC :: The National Identity of Russia in the 21st Century. https://russiancouncil.ru/en/blogs/GreaterEurasiaEnglish/the-national-identity-of-russia-in-the-21st-century/.

Markova, M. (2020, July 14). The Political Use of Soviet Nostalgia to Develop a Russian National Identity. https://www.e-ir.info/2020/07/14/the-political-use-of-soviet-nostalgia-to-develop-a-russian-national-identity/.

The World Factbook. CIA Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/. 

Tishkov, V. (2008). The Russian People and National Identity. Russia in Global Affairs. https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/the-russian-people-and-national-identity/. 

Triandafyllidou, A. (1998). National identity and the 'other'. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(4), 593-612.