Division of civic and ethnic nationalism in russia. concepts of nationalism in the domestic policy of russian presidents after the collapse of soviet union

In 1991 after the official breakdown of the Soviet Union, Russian political elite had to search for and form a new political direction for the nation-state and new “national idea” in Russia, which would be concentrated not only on the central Russia and the Russian ethnic group, but also on other non-Russian territories. The new Federalist structure of the country had to focus on the multicultural society. It had to form such domestic politics, which would strive to secure the multiculturalism and prevent ethnic disputes in the country. This bachelor thesis, which topic is “Division of civic and athnic nationalism in Russia. Nationalism concepts in domestic policy of Russian presidents after the collapse of Soviet Union, focuses on nationalistic ideas (determining them to civic and ethnic) formed in Russian domestic politics by the Russian Federation presidents Borys Jelcin, Vladimir Putin and Dmitryj Medvedev. More specificly the aim of this thesis is to determine the devision between ethnic and civic nationalism in Russia by refering to historical evolution of the ideology of nationalism in Russia and by examining the main theories of nationalism created by A. D. Smith, E. Gellner, Anderson and others. The idea of Russian nationalism began to spread in the XVII century, when the Russian empire was ruled by Peter I and Catherine II, and then later after the foundation of the Soviet Union (1917, after the October Revolution) nationalism gained a new force and became an integral part of domestic poltics in which nationalism was used as a purpose to control the multicultural society and unite it for stability, social and economic wealth of the state. The first leader of Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin believed that ethnic nationalism will lead Soviet Union to instability, however when Joseph Stalin came to power, he changed the purpose to create an equal civic community to creation of a russian community. Russian Federation after the collapse of Soviet Union had three presidents – the first being Borys Yelsin, whose nationalistic ideology was more reffered to civic nationalism, than ethnic. However when he came to power he shared more messaged reffered to ethnic nationalism than in the end of his term. The second president was chosen to be Vladimir Putin, whose domestic politics was much more based on ethnic nationalism, than on civic. Vladimir Putin thought, that ethnic russians has to be the dominat culture in Russian Federation and that every other ethnic group has to accept the russian cultural values, russian language and exalt Russias history. The third president Dmitryj Medvedev was the most liberal president in the history of Russian Federation and his domestic politics was based almost only on civic nationalism. However as the fourth president of Russian Federation was chosen to be Vladimir Putin again and now he is on his third term as Russias president. His domestic politics gained a new form of ethnic and civic nationalism. His views on nationalism and cultural identity became much more radical than they were during his first and second terms