Russian Nationalists and Constitutional Reform

The call to revise the Russian Constitution has given Russian nationalists in Moscow an opportunity to clarify what they stand for. At a meeting the other day, a list of preliminary suggestions were drawn up, discussed, and broadly agreed upon.

Translation:

  1. Preamble: “We, citizens of Russia, united by a common historical destiny, confirming the rights and freedoms of the person, democratic values, and civic peace; preserving and developing the centennial traditions of Russian statehood, as established by the Russian [russkie] people in their striving for national self-determination and identity with the help and participation of other indigenous peoples living on the territory of our Fatherland; respecting the memory of our forefathers; putting faith in good and justice; feeling responsibility before current and future generations for the prosperity and flourishing of our Motherland; understanding ourselves to be an equal partner of the international community, do accept the following Constitution.”
  2. Amendment #1: “The Russian Federation is the guarantor that the civic, cultural, and language rights of Russians [russkie] as a separated people, striving towards union with their historical Motherland, will be respected wherever they are resident outside the borders of the Russian Federation.”
  3. Amendment #2: “All Russians [russkie], as well as members of Russia’s other indigenous peoples, independent of their place of birth or residency, have the right to expedited citizenship of the Russian Federation.”

They were then handed over to Bogdan Bezpalko [furthest left on the photo], the chairman of the NGO “Russian Ukrainians” and a member of the Presidential working group on Constitutional reform. Bezpalko has voiced analogous ideas, including a comparison to Adenauer’s Constitution, which guaranteed the right of German lands outside West Germany to enter it in the future, which ended up being used during German reunification. He is currently gathering support for these general proposals, polishing them up, and preparing to submit them for consideration.

Now admittedly, the chances that any of these “radical” proposals (by Russian, if not global, standards) will be accepted is probably a longshot. In particular, the Russian Federation defines itself as a “multinational” state, and Russian officialese is reticent about even mentioning ethnic Russians [russkie], as opposed to the general term for Russian citizens [rossiyane]. Although there have been some encouraging moves in this direction in the past couple of years, it is still doubtful that the kremlins will be bold enough to take such a seminal step.

Nonetheless, the fact that these ideas and proposals are getting a hearing at the highest levels – virtually all of which, from defining Russia as a Russian national state to loosening naturalization requirements for Ukrainian and Belarusian citizens, have been covered on this weblog – puts the lie to occasional claims that they only exist in marginal Internet bubbles.

Comments

  1. Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.

    If you are new to my work, start here.

  2. Now admittedly, the chances that any of these “radical” proposals (by Russian, if not global, standards) will be accepted is probably a longshot.

    Well several days after your post “Towards a Russian Politics of Memory”, Putin challenged the Holocaust monopoly. Coincidence?

    There would certainly be plenty of shrieking around the globe about these changes if they went through. Putler Enacts New Nuremburg Laws: New Sanctions Needed, something like that I imagine.

    Russian officialese is reticent about even mentioning ethnic Russians [russkie], as opposed to the general term for Russian citizens [rossiyane].

    Wouldn’t want to make Yakuts, Buryats and Chechens feel sad with exclusionary language now would we?

    We, citizens of Russians

    Should that say We, citizens of Russia, instead of citizens of Russians?

  3. Maybe he meant русский граждане instead of citizens of Russia aka rossiyane?

  4. AnonFromTN says

    The wording is vague enough, but the push for an ethno-state is clear. I hope none of this makes it into the constitution. Primeval tribal nationalism of Hutu-Tutsi variety can ruin any country. There are lots of recent and not so recent examples of that. In case of multi-national RF it can ruin it quickly.

  5. Good point. Would sound better as We, the Russians or We, the Russian Nation though.

  6. AnonFromTN says

    That would be “русские граждане” (Russian grammar is even worse than French or Spanish). I think it should be “российские граждане”, so that there is no ethnic exclusivity involved. If Russia ever attempts to become a mono-tribal state, that would be its death sentence, as recent history of some “countries” shows.

  7. If Russia ever attempts to become a mono-tribal state, that would be its death sentence, as recent history of some “countries” shows.

    Fair point. Once ethnic rights are granted, it is impossible to retract them without causing major upheaval. The only way to get away with it is by doing slow salami slicing over a very long term assimilationist project.

  8. AnonFromTN says

    Assimilation works best when people of nationality that is being assimilated and the one that is assimilating a minority have equal rights and neither feels disadvantaged.

    Yet the reality is that while more than 7,000 languages are spoken today (https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages), many of those are dying out or will do so in the foreseeable future. I’d be surprised if in ~100 years more than 1,000 languages survive. Today 23 languages are spoken by more than half of living humans, so those have a chance to stay around long-term. However, someone must make a serious effort to develop these languages to include modern technical and scientific terminology. Even among the top 20 languages (https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/ethnologue200) about half desperately needs that.

  9. I hope Russian Nationalists expand their definitions. I just got my Russian (internal) passport, though because i was born and bred in Leningrad, RSFSR, it was never in doubt. But my kids, they need to have the option too. As long as they speak Russian, which is on me.

    Which is where cultural heritage comes in. So its lineage, language, culture. I humbly suggest those be the criteria.

  10. AnonFromTN says

    Recent history shows that tribal nationalism destroys countries much faster than lack thereof. Russia should not turn itself into Yugoslavia or USSR, but it should not go down the slippery slope of Ukraine, either.

    Russia should preferentially accept people whose ancestors came from it and are culturally connected, but I don’t think that Buryats or Udmurts living abroad should have lesser right to return to the RF than ethnic Russians. Besides, “pure” nationalities exist only in sick imagination of nationalists: if you dig 3-4 generations back, virtually everyone has some admixture. The only exception might be hillbillies, but you don’t want those in a normal country. I’d say cultural connection, including language fluency, should be more important than bloodline. In my book, half-Tuva Shoigu, half-Armenian Lavrov, or even Chechen Kadyrov is more Russian than genetically much closer banderite scum.

  11. Glad to see that all 16 of the Russian nationalists finally made it out of the Internet bubble and into what looks like the ante-room of a nice old fashioned hotel. Anatoly, make sure that you keep us all here informed when this faction’s influence continues to guide some of the Kremlin’s more rational actions, like when they finally closed down the only Ukrainian language library in Moscow (probably in all of Russia) in 2017.

    http://www.dw.com/image/37946729_303.jpg

    “They want to prove that we are ‘one people,’” wrote Vitaly Portnikov, a Ukrainian commentator for Radio Free Europe. “To do that, you need to destroy everything that constitutes the cultural uniqueness of the Ukrainian people. In such a situation why have a Ukrainian library in the center of Moscow?”

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-library/disappearing-books-how-russia-is-shuttering-its-ukrainian-library-idUSKBN16M0PW

  12. Well several days after your post “Towards a Russian Politics of Memory”, Putin challenged the Holocaust monopoly. Coincidence?

    Well as I keep saying PUTLER does read my blog. 🙂

    Same thing with citizenship requirements being eased for Donbass residents a couple of months after my 31 Steps for Ukraine.

    Thanks for correction.

  13. Besides, “pure” nationalities exist only in sick imagination of nationalists:

    Hello! How many years have you been blogging at this site now, Tovarisch? You haven’t figured it out yet, that our gracious host, Anatoly Karlin, is nothing at all if not a Russian nationalist. He’s always stood up for limiting Central Asian and Caucasian encroachment on “pure” Russian lands in Central Russia? This kind of malfeasance should automatically disqualify you from your highly coveted “gold star” status! 🙂

  14. Today 23 languages are spoken by more than half of living humans, so those have a chance to stay around long-term. However, someone must make a serious effort to develop these languages to include modern technical and scientific terminology.

    I can confirm a dearth of technical vocab in Arabic. They just use English words.

    Yet the reality is that while more than 7,000 languages are spoken today , many of those are dying out or will do so in the foreseeable future.

    Papua New Guinea has 820 of those spoken languages, and yes most are not likely to last.

  15. As I keep saying AP and Mr. Hack should stop being so hard on AnonFromTN. They share the same ultimate strategic goals. 🙂

    In case of multi-national RF it can ruin it quickly.

    “Multinational RF” is 81% ethnic Russian (or 85% since Ukrainians and Belorussians in Russia are Russians for all intents and purposes). Even so, the proposed amendments do not in any way discriminate against the rights of Russia’s indigenous peoples. If some ethnic minority activists have a problem with spelling out ethnic Russians rights, that’s too bad, but a tiny minority has no right to dictate to the majority.

    Anyhow, it’s certainly news to me that the proudly and officially “Jewish State” of Israel (which is 75% Jewish) is getting ruined quickly.

    Or Germany with its jus sanguinis citizenship law.

    In fact, come to think of it, both Israelis and Germans have expanded the territories they control in the past 30 years. Meanwhile, the multinational RF run by sovoks and noviops has retreated to its 17th century borders in Europe.

  16. Russia should preferentially accept people whose ancestors came from it and are culturally connected, but I don’t think that Buryats or Udmurts living abroad should have lesser right to return to the RF than ethnic Russians.

    All Russians [russkie], as well as members of Russia’s other indigenous peoples, independent of their place of birth or residency, have the right to expedited citizenship of the Russian Federation.

    Russian nationalists literally care more about the welfare of ethnic minorities in Russia than sovoks, liberals, novips, multinationalists, etc.

    Besides, “pure” nationalities exist only in sick imagination of nationalists: if you dig 3-4 generations back, virtually everyone has some admixture.

    Again, you’re arguing with a strawman. (And a pretty stupid one at that. There are a few exotic cases like that, and they tend to be more prominent in the elites. I would qualify, for that matter. But it doesn’t describe the vast majority of ethnic Russians).

  17. AnonFromTN says

    My impression is that Mandarin (which is in the 1st or 2nd place by the number of speakers, roughly where English is) has a similar problem. I once saw a few Chinese scientific papers (submitted by a post-doc candidate), where I found passages like “squiggle-squiggle-squiggle-electrophoresis”. Apparently, the don’t have the word and just use English instead. So, it’s not only Arabic that has this severe problem.

  18. Russian nationalists literally care more about the welfare of ethnic minorities in Russia than sovoks, liberals, novips, multinationalists, etc.

    Are you serious, or just trying to add to your responsibilities as the czar of this blog, but now as the court jester as well? 🙂

  19. “There has so far been no official announcement of the library’s closure, but Moscow city officials said in December they planned to give its collection to a new center of Slavonic culture that will house books from 13 countries.”

    This seems like making a mountain out of a mole hill on your part.

    “There is no intention to ‘destroy’ or ‘kill something off,” she said in emailed comments. “On the contrary, by transferring the books … we are not only preserving the Library of Ukrainian Literature’s books, but also believe it will facilitate the popularization of the Ukrainian literary legacy.”

    “The Kremlin has declined to comment, but when asked about the Ukrainian library in December 2015, President Vladimir Putin said he knew nothing about its problems, but that it was important it should not “in any circumstances” be lost.”

    “A spokeswoman for the Moscow city authorities said the most popular books were already available in their new home. Others would be transferred later. More readers went to the new library than frequented the Ukrainian library, she said.”

    Is the official story so implausible?

  20. Belarusian Dude says

    Indeed, Russia needs a million more black men on the double

  21. AltSerrice says

    The very mild ethnonationalism espoused in these constitutional suggestions do not qualify as what I would term ‘hostile ethnonationalism’ where you suggest other groups are of some low status or not ‘real’ (insert_ethnic_group) – that kind of ethnonationalism can indeed cause trouble. In this case it simply affirms the historical/cultural primacy of ethnic Russians. The hostile reactions to such a benign piece of text from otherwise learned individuals do seem rather strange to me.

    Russia is about 19% non-Russian, but then there are 5%+ Russian-related groups (e.g. there will be no angry Mordvins), and many of the other groups have quite a melded and highly integrated identity at this point. It’s only really the Islamic caucasus that could cause issues again – but with the amount of gibs they get that is unlikely in the short-term (though it is an issue that will need to be confronted eventually regardless of whatever the Russian constitution espouses).

    From a pragmatic perspective, why would Russia want Buryats or Chechens living abroad coming to Russia? They don’t particularly add any value. Actual ethnic Russians and their minor sub-species (Ukrainians, Belarussians, etc) can add great value – even moreso if their actual countries are re-absorbed. All that is easier achieved if the identity and aims of the great Russian state is clear and proud.

  22. Great Russians seem to be pretty enlightened about ethnic minorities to be honest. Here in the states we wiped out most of the Indians. The Australian settlers exterminated the native Tasmanians entirely. The Bantu treat Khoi and Pygmies like animals. The Turks really did a number on the Armenians. I could go on. Russians come across pretty favorably in their treatment of minorities compared to most other nations.

    It’s not like the Ukrainians treat the Rusyns like a separate and unique nation.

  23. From a pragmatic perspective, why would Russia want Buryats or Chechens living abroad coming to Russia?

    Actually it would allow Buryats and Chechens abroad to go back. (see #16).

    It’s only really the Islamic caucasus that could cause issues again – but with the amount of gibs they get that is unlikely in the short-term…

    Agreed with that. And, frankly, it if makes DICh leave – I for one wouldn’t be shedding any tears over an amicable divorce. But it won’t, because as you say, gibs.

    All that is easier achieved if the identity and aims of the great Russian state is clear and proud.

    This is also a very important point. What do ethnic Russians formally owe their loyalty to? Some entity called the Russian state, which has no formal obligations to them. Why would anyone want to serve it, at least in a non-mercenary capacity? At least Americans get to pledge loyalty to some abstract ideas of “freedom” and “pursuit of happiness”

  24. AnonFromTN says

    To respond to both your answers.

    First, Israel. It is on a suicidal course. Unless they change their geographic location dramatically or move to the Moon or Mars, Jews living in Israel are in grave danger of being massacred by “friendly” neighbors within 20-25 years. They stupidly count on the protection by the Empire, but the Empire itself is sinking: even a regional non-nuclear power like Iran can shell its military base in Iraq, and the Empire just slinks off muttering.

    Second, Germany. It is also committing a national suicide, in this case by allowing Islamic savages to enter under the guise of “refugees”. Germany had very nationalistic rules just 30 years ago. One of my colleagues, an ethnic German, moved there and received full benefits, but her son, who was half-Russian, received only half benefits. Then they opened the floodgates, first to Turks, and recently to all comers. It is entirely possible that the Fourth Reich will pray five times daily in the direction of Mecca.

    Third, mixed nationalities. Practically all Russians I know, none of whom belongs to the elites, have some Tatar and/or Ugro-Finnish (Mordovian, Chuvash, Udmurt, Komi, etc.) ancestors in the last 3-4 generations. The ones that either don’t or don’t know about it are uncouth village louts you don’t want to live in the same country with, roughly equivalent to the retards called “ragul” or “vuiko” in Ukraine.

    It is one (and smart) thing to be against the flood of people with medieval mentality, like many residents of Central Asia, to avoid the fate of Germany. It is entirely different (and very stupid) thing to try to exclude those who are not ethnic Russians, but live on the territory of RF. Or even civilized and educated Central Asians. I had Kazakhs and Kirgizs in my University class, and none of them had an accent for the simple reason that Russian was their mother tongue and Russian culture was the only one they belonged to. BTW, mixed Kazakh-Russian or Tatar-Russian chicks are on average a lot prettier than “purebred” chicks of all these nationalities. For example, Chinghiz Aitmatov or Fazil Iskander are Russian writers, even though one is ethnically Kirgiz and the other Abkhazian. My view is that culture is the key, genes are secondary. That’s where I disagree with tribal-minded nationalists (funny thing is, most of them are mongrels).

  25. AnonFromTN says

    Sarcasm noted. My point is, Russia should accept culturally compatible people, and reject culturally incompatible. By that measure, Nigerians would be ahead of Banderites, although both varieties should be way down the list of desirables.

  26. AltSerrice says

    On that last point, we actually have some experience with it here in Ireland. As you’re probably somewhat aware from previous discussions, Irish identity as moulded by de Valera and co. in the mid-20th century was on shaky ground, but what really held it together was the defining issue of Northern Ireland – that is to say ethnic Irish in a foreign nation on ethnic Irish land. The irredentist and, to an extent, ethnic aims of the state were actually enshrined in the constitution.

    In 1998 we voted to remove that section of the constitution as part of the Good Friday Agreement to end the Troubles and were left as a nation without a mission, because the Irish state became a state without an aim and an identity. Its logical reason for existing essentially ceased. Obviously this was merely the capstone on a whirlwind of cultural change, but it does have great significance. Nations need to know who and what they are if they are to succeed. Much like people really.

  27. Russians come across pretty favorably in their treatment of minorities compared to most other nations.

    It is just a matter of exposure to historical events that took place where Russians were the perpetrators of various genocides and ethnic cleansing by current standards. Read about the conquest of Siberia:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia

    or about the Circassian genocide:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide

  28. Does it count as German expansion if it is just one German state annexing territory of another German state?

  29. AltSerrice says

    There’s a lot to unpack here.

    Firstly, Israel is doing a fantastic job at assuring its own existence in regards internal policy. Your suggestion that the ethnonationalist element of Israel will be its downfall is not accurate, its downfall (if it comes) will come from its geographic and geopolitical position – that is to say being surrounded by (rightfully, I would argue) hostile neighbours. If it were not ethnonationalist it would not be Israel since that ethnonationalist identity is what actually enabled the colonisation of Palaestina to begin with. Russia is not in a remotely comparable situation and largely dominates its geographical position – even moreso with the additions of Ukraine, Belarus, and N. Kazakhstan.

    I don’t particularly understand your point on Germany. Yes, we all know third world immigration is bad. But you seem to be endorsing its old ethnonationalist German right-of-return policies? Perhaps I read you wrong. And no, it is not likely that the ‘4th Reich’ (I wish) will be praying to Mecca. Muslims in Germany are quickly converted to the far more dangerous creed of globohomo and the future coffee-coloured dopamine gay sex themepark.

    And the fact that many Russians have some non-ethnic Russian admixture somehow discredits ethnonationalism? Again you seem to have this view that ethnonationalism immediately takes on a worse-than-nazis approach of genetic purity screening and expulsions. No one cares if you’re 37/256ths Komi, you’re a Russian.

    I do sympathise with you on the point about hot hapa girls, but what your penis likes is not a basis for the constitution of a great nation.

  30. The real threat to German nationhood are not the Muslim immigrants and their descendants, it is Europeanism.
    Germans won’t convert en masse to Islam, but they are much more willing to embrace Green Europeanism.

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1220520164900384768

  31. German_reader says

    Or Germany with its jus sanguinis citizenship law.

    You’re way out of date with that, citizenship laws were reformed by Schröder’s government in 2000, it’s no longer just jus sanguinis, children born to foreigners in Germany automatically get citizenship, if at least one parent has permanent legal residency (lots of people whose families basically cheated their way into Germany as fake asylum seekers etc. already have it as well). Large-scale influx of ethnic Germans from abroad ended long ago (and if one’s brutally honest, even many of them had only been residually German in any meaningful way, though still far preferable to non-European immigrants of course).
    In any case, there have long been very strong efforts to strip Germanness of any ethnic or even just cultural associations and replace it with a purely civic patriotism (Verfassungspatriotismus).

    In fact, come to think of it, both Israelis and Germans have expanded the territories they control in the past 30 years.

    Massively dumb take, sorry. The GDR may have been a Soviet satellite, but fundamentally it still was a German state (actually more German than West Germany in some ways, e.g. military uniforms). Reunification didn’t expand the German national space at all, in fact its end result is likely to be merely opening up the east as well to demographic transformation by non-European mass immigration. Would be like Russia uniting with Belarus and then proceeding to flood it with Central Asians (with Moscow liberals who never wanted reunification complaining all the time how ungrateful and racist Belarussian peasants are for objecting to this). If that’s a nationalist success story, your standards are really low.

  32. AltSerrice says

    True, though the supremacy of Green Europeanism is much easier to recovery from if non-European genetic elements are not involved. Still, not a desirable outcome at all.

  33. They shouldn’t approve a new constitution until it has been put through years of wargames against teams of people playing globalists and cucking bureaucrats.

    Ideally, a constitution needs the proper checks and balances to defend itself.

    In the end, I suspect the best option will be to create an indestructible golem out of depleted-uranium alloy, imbue it with constitutional AI, and power it with its own MSR. That should be enough to stop the internationalist judges and set them running off to Sweden.

  34. The official story is not at all implausible, except that you conveniently forgot to include anything from the first part of the article and even managed to censor out some related parts that betray the nefarious and heavy handed measures taken to close the library. The libraary had been opened in 1918 and even survived the dark period of Stalin and WWII. No one associated with the library requested a change in venue and the employees within were treated with little respect:

    Tatyana Muntyan, a library employee, said that even before the transfer its director had reduced opening hours, stopped home lending, halted acquisitions, and made readers show passports to gain entry. The library’s director declined to comment…The Ukrainian library’s problems got serious in October 2015 when armed, masked police carried out a pre-dawn raid and arrested Natalya Sharina, then its director, confiscating books the authorities called illegal anti-Russian propaganda…One of the books, by Dmytro Korchinskiy, a Ukrainian nationalist author banned in Russia, was on a list of “extremist” literature. Library employees said at the time that investigators had planted extremist books to frame them…The new cultural center does not appear to have the space to display the Ukrainian library’s 52,000 books and periodicals. It said in December it would only be able to hold 12,000 books.

    Come on, be honest now, is this the way to handle these sorts of things in any civilized country? The authorities went to the extreme extent of framing the former Dirctor of the library with a number of made up crimes, which even if true, was not any reason to move the location of the library.

  35. Sorry to see Germany move in that direction. But is it Russia forcing Germany to do that? If not, why begrudge Russia (or at least some Russians) trying to move in the opposite direction?

    The GDR may have been a Soviet satellite, but fundamentally it still was a German state (actually more German than West Germany in some ways, e.g. military uniforms).

    Our interpretation is that Germans were the world’s biggest substantially divided nation (and Koreans). In 1990-92, that status passed to Russians.

    Would be like Russia uniting with Belarus and then proceeding to flood it with Central Asians (with Moscow liberals who never wanted reunification complaining all the time how ungrateful and racist Belarussian peasants are for objecting to this).

    Some would appear in Minsk as salaries rise to Russian levels and attract Gastarbeiters, but there’ll be practically none in small towns (just as there are practically none in small Russian towns). Which is where most Russians and Belorussians live. Anyhow, I don’t see how that criticism applies to Russian nationalists, since they ofc want to cut guest worker programs. That should be addressed to UR/kremlins.

  36. AnonFromTN says

    No one cares if you’re 37/256ths Komi, you’re a Russian.

    That’s the crux of the mater from my perspective: if you fluently speak the language and are culturally Russian, you are a Russian. That includes a lot of people who are ethnically not Russian at all, or only partially related (I think I posted somewhere the words of Bezler, former commander of Gorlovka, Donetsk People’s Republic: “my father is German, my mother Ukrainian. So who am I? A Russian!”). BTW, it also applies to half-blood chicks, them being pretty is just an added bonus. However, if a person with the same national makeup rejects Russianness and Russian culture, that person should never be allowed to move to Russia.

  37. FWIW, Israel’s Jewish percentage should probably be increased by a couple of percentage points in order to take patrilineal Jews into account–and let’s face it, some people (including myself) consider the halakhic definition of a Jew to be both sexist and outdated.

    BTW, what is your issue with indigenous homelands within Russia? For instance, Tatarstan, Yakutia, et cetera? I mean, shouldn’t as many ethnic groups as possible have their own homeland–if not necessarily their own independent country, then at least a separate homeland within a particular country?

  38. Meanwhile, the multinational RF run by sovoks and noviops has retreated to its 17th century borders in Europe.

    Interestingly enough, Russian nationalists should be happy for the loss of Central Asia. After all, it reduced the number of Muslims under de facto Russian rule by several tens of millions. That’s pretty good, if you ask me.

    If Russia really wanted all of Novorossiya and Belarus back, it could have theoretically conquered one or both of these territories, but this might have resulted in even more crippling sanctions on Russia from the West. It does seem like perhaps a policy of mass voluntary Russian emigration from the ex-Soviet space back to the Russian homeland–along with some minor territorial changes such as Crimea and perhaps the Donbass–might have been more effective and less painful for Russia.

  39. Who are novips?

  40. Apart from serving as potential focal points for separatism, there’s a number of practical human rights related reasons to oppose these republics: Their borders don’t match ethnic realities.

    Take the ur-example, Tatarstan, where until recently, all schoolchildren had to study the Tatar language at school, despite Tatars barely making up half its population. So the other minorities, primarily Russians, wasted their time on a language they have no connection to and will never use. While most Tatar children in, say, neighboring Bashkortostan, had no chance to study their native language – and had to study Bashkir instead.

    This is the sort of absurd situation you get by empowering nationalist-lite ethnocracies within your own borders (as opposed to, say, letting locals make such choices – which is the state of affairs now, thanks to very recent reforms that were opposed by Tatar nationalists and Western journalists alike).

    https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/956669043947261952


    PS. See also this:

    https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/924228024458981377

  41. They do come across pretty favorable and here comes the key part “compared to most other nations”.

    Comparable nations would be those with significant minority populations. I would say that minorities in Russia are better treated than aboriginal Australians, Amerindians across the Americas (but for instance in the US things like the refusal to give the Sioux Nation their sacred land in the Black Hills) and Kurds and certainly Armenians in Turkey (some still live).

    There’s certainly stuff like this in Africa to this day:
    https://youtu.be/2Kuf1TgaCgk

    Compared to other countries or regions where one dominant ethnic group has displaced or now rules over an indigenous ethnic group, the Russians come across favorably.

    There would not be a Republic of Tatarstan in the US if the Tatars were native to America. If they survived then they would’ve been shunted onto a reservation in the middle of nowhere far from their homeland. American Indians on reservations don’t enjoy anything anywhere near as pleasant as Tatarstan.

    Enlightened about minorities is a relative term. It is relative to the treatment of indigenous minorities in other countries. It is admittedly not hard to beat the reservation system in America and Australia or the worse still Bantu treatment of pygmies.

    Compare where Adygea is to the location of the former Circassia then compare where the Cherokee homeland is to where they were removed to in Oklahoma. Adygea is still within the boundaries of what once was Circassia.

    The treatment of Indians by the US government is notable for its extreme perfidy. Make a treaty, break a treaty. The Eastern Band of the Cherokee, descendants of 800 who managed to avoid being deported West, had to buy a piece of their own homeland from the US government to live on. Imagine the stunning shamelessness to demand that. At least the Circassians didn’t have to pay for the chunk of their own homeland that they received in the form of Adygea.

    Do you see my point? There’s bad which is the straightforward conquest done by the Russians then there’s the lying, cheating, oath-breaking, treaty violating, creeping ethnic cleansing that the Americans performed. The shocking perfidy and the fact that the perfidy persists that put it on a different level. Things like having the Navajo mine Uranium without warning them of the risks. Things like acknowledging the Sioux’s claim to the Black Hills as legitimate but still not giving them the Black Hills.

    So in comparison, I think the Russians come across favorably. That was my point.

  42. Новиоп – person of the “new historical society”, coined by Dmitry Galkovsky, who has many weird ideas but this is one of the better ones.

    http://haritonov.wiki/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BF

    Basically a post-sovok rootless elite who roots for multinationality, denies ethnic Russianness (“I am 1/8 Jewish, my grandmother is an Uzbek-Armenian, grandfather is half Ukrainian and quarter vacuum cleaner – who am I? A noviop!”), signals respect for culture while having only the most superficial ideas about it (Bildungsphilister).

  43. You conveniently excluded the other side of the story. You focused on the first part. I focused on the second part.

    It seemed like a case of he said, she said.

    You did the she said part.

    I did the he said part.

    You’re claiming that this Ukrainian library in Moscow is something of enormous consequence. I’m just skeptical that the Kremlin cares enough about a library to go send armed goons to attack it.

    Is their video and photos of this happening? It beggars belief that the library was that important.

    I didn’t know that this burning of the Library of Alexandria moment in history had occurred just a few years ago. Somehow the Sturmabteilung goon squad attacking the Ukrainian language library in Moscow on Putler’s orders went under my RADAR.

  44. Our interpretation is that Germans were the world’s biggest substantially divided nation (and Koreans). In 1990-92, that status passed to Russians.

    Aren’t there more Pashtuns located outside of the Pashtun homeland (Afghanistan) than there are Russians located outside of Russia?

  45. A cursory reading of existing jus sanguinis laws seems to indicate that they leave much to be desired. Even Japan makes no provision against mudsharks.

    They all feel antiquated because none of them seem to acknowledge globalism as an ideological force. None seem to have a functional definition of exclusion, or any way to punish subversion.

    Off the top of my head, Ireland is the only country that had a ballot vote on citzenship, and there are so many weaselly words in the text that it makes me want to throw-up. As far as I can tell, the vote seems to have largely been meaningless, and the text includes a grandfather clause for Nigerians on the dole, who the natives never substantiated.

    In every country in Europe, there seem to be loopholes that the Bantu can drive his spear through. A test of genetic distance is the only thing that can close them, IMO.

  46. German_reader says

    But is it Russia forcing Germany to do that? If not, why begrudge Russia (or at least some Russians)

    I don’t think I indicated that I blame Russia in any way, from my perspective Russia did everything that could have been asked for – she agreed to German reunification (obviously not a given, especially when the WW2 generation was still alive), withdrew her troops and kept to all agreements. I wouldn’t have any problem with your proposed constitutional changes either, I can understand the desire for recognition of Russians as a distinctive ethnocultural group. It’s just that imo you sometimes complain way too much from the perspective of any Western European right-winger. Russia is one of the few truly sovereign countries on earth (doesn’t get more sovereign than being able to destroy much of the planet) and at least for now its government doesn’t seem intent on flooding the country with Muslims and Africans, as much of the EU establishment clearly is. And the latter point imo is much, much more important than anything like the status of the border between Russia and Belarus (which isn’t closed like the one between the two Germanies was, let alone the two Koreas). So take the German example as a warning: Reunification can be worse than useless from a national perspective if it only means spreading post-national rot to places which otherwise might have remained unaffected.

  47. Ironically, yours is the approach by Right Sector regarding Ukrainian-ness.

    From an Orthodox Jewish Right Sector member of parliament:

    https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/187217/borislav-bereza

    Right Sector is composed of people of varied nationalities, not just Ukrainians and Jews, but also Poles and Belorussians, Georgians, Chechens, we have people of every [Soviet] ethnicity represented. The question is not one of ethnicity; it is “are you a Ukrainian? Do you support Ukraine? Are you a Ukrainian patriot?” In which case, you are my brother. If you are Ukraine’s enemy, whatever nationality you might be, you and I have nothing to talk about…

    For my ideological brothers in the movement I am much more Ukrainian than an ethnic Ukrainian like [Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro] Symonenko.

  48. anonymous coward says

    Based Putler single-handedly burning Ukrainian books while cackling and punching a kitten

    But in all seriousness, the library closed because there is no demand. Ethnic Ukrainians wouldn’t be caught dead in one due to how the Kiev regime ruined the Ukrainian language, both by adulterating it with Polish shit and reputation-wise.

  49. Rattus Norwegius says

    What about the Circassians? Should they get to return enmasse, had they desired it?

  50. How to make a change that will be politically successful in the current Overton window genius? You might just as well propose forcibly placing everybody with tattoos in internment camps until their tattoos are forcibly removed.

  51. I felt no need to regurgitate your insights and only added in the parts that you left out.

    Why are you skeptical about the government’s heavy handling of the employees at this library?

    You’re probably one of those that also feels that the scores of journalists that were critical of Putler and somehow mysteriously (or not so mysteriously) died over the years were all just coincidences too. Try connecting all of the dots together better and see what you think…

  52. I agree, culture is the only thing that matters.

    BTW, from my perspective Symonenko and “Bereza” are both greedy pieces of shit. Whatever the appearances, they both belong to the party “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” I don’t care what colors they use as fig leaves, I have zero respect for either of them.

  53. another anon says

    Meanwhile, according to most reliable sources, things in Russia are not as they seem and huge changes are incoming 😉

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Piontkovsky

    https://echo.msk.ru/blog/piontkovsky_a/2574525-echo/

    https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1220722183024128001

    https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1220722191731433472

    https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1220722197871939587

    In related news, Hillary Clinton and the whole satanic pedophile NWO Illuminati Cabal are to be arrested soon.
    The storm is coming.
    Trust the plan.

    https://i.etsystatic.com/6941973/d/il/4c8821/1564599782/il_340x270.1564599782_6o1w.jpg

  54. You might just as well propose forcibly placing everybody with tattoos in internment camps until their tattoos are forcibly removed.

    I would never do this because I favor tattoos as an honest signal. It helps to know if a female is impulsive, before making her the mother of your children.

    How to make a change that will be politically successful in the current Overton window

    Your premise here is false. You don’t need to treat with crazy SJWs to institute policy; you need only to hold the reigns of power.

    I might add that there are countries like Japan that simply don’t have SJWs as a faction in power. No doubt, the public in these countries would appreciate genetic distance as a technocratic solution.

  55. AnonFromTN says

    When the Guardian was still a newspaper and had comments on most articles, I remember one commenter asking whether you’d remove a tattoo you got when you were 18 years old, and another answering that he would not, as that tattoo would remind him how dumb he was at 18.

  56. AnonFromTN says

    FYI, Ekho Moskvy and the “political analyst” Andrey Pyontkovsky have a remarkable record of being wrong 100% of the time. Unfortunately, the chances of cackling hyena being arrested are also as close to zero as makes no difference. Just saying.

  57. another anon says

    But still bigger than chances of Putin being arrested by patriotic officers avidly reading Navalny’s blog? 😉

    https://pics.me.me/qanon-guide-for-newbies-who-is-q-what-is-qs-42685005.png

  58. AnonFromTN says

    No one with real or intellectual age above 14 takes Navalny seriously. Military officers might not be particularly bright, but they aren’t that dumb.

  59. If there is one thing that I do lament, when it comes to tattoos, it is the increasing laxity in dresscode for many science presenters. (for instance, on youtube)

    I understand that people want to promote individuality, but I feel like it is such an insult to the audience, and that they really should tell the person to put on a long-sleeve shirt, or take out the nose-ring, etc.

  60. most reliable sources

    Andrey_Piontkovsky

    https://twitter.com/TatAtfender/status/1117422773029224448

  61. As a half Buryatian man that has many Kalmyk and Tuvan friends I must strongly disagree. During the Russian empire population of Buryats grew strongly, there was no discriminatory laws against Buddhism. And Tibetan Buddhism must have looked to average british and americans of 18th century as a horrible pagan religion.

  62. Tell us more how Nigerians are biologically closer to Russians than the Chinese.

  63. Leave it to Paul Goble’s Window On Eurasia to prop that.

  64. Outside Russia, it’s important (in terms of PR) for Russian patriots to get their points across with their detractors.

    Polish-Russian differences are well exhibited here (With the understanding that Russian patriots don’t always agree on everything.):

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/24012020-another-look-at-the-ww-ii-spat-involving-russia-poland-and-israel-oped/#comments

    This year’s Vad Yashem event sought to highlight the liberation of Auschwitz with combating anti-Jewish sentiment in the present. Putin went along with that unlike Duda, who wanted to cherry pick some other matters.

  65. Nationality is mainly determined by the community a child will interact with at school, or during school age.

    This is the time – among friends – where most of a child’s bodylanguage, sense of humour, concept of social normal, language and understanding of reality is developed. This also where they are shaped by the state and government.

    Also this is the community where they develop camaraderie, feeling of belonging to a group, and its customs is programmed – it happens in school, or outside school, among school friends.

    A person will always be native and comrades to the community of friends they had as children, when their mind was in its plastic stage, and foreign to other cultures.

    An immigration disaster of countries like the UK or France, is that they accepted so many foreigners, that the children of foreigners are not associated with natives (if there are too many other children of foreign origin), and instead create kinds of parallel communities- like a little Arabia or Africa inside their countries. That’s aside from the fact they are often low human capital immigrants, from third world peasants, and from very incompatible cultural or religious background (the fact immigrants in UK are also not the blonde people – that anglosaxons racially are -, is more of an aesthetic issue, and I think is only persuasive to a more superficial minority of people).

  66. Nationality – or community identity – (“American soul”, “Japanese soul”, “Russian soul”), is probably somewhat analogy to software, but one which can only be installed during the child’s youth, – and this process happens during interaction with school and society.

    Racial component – to continue with the simplistic analogies – is hardware, and one hardware can be perhaps be suitable on average for running different software, than others, and moreover, this has an influence on the kind of software/culture that was developed in different countries.

    For example, Japanese populations on average probably have a genetic predetermination to having a higher proportion of introverted personalities, and the Japanese culture seems to run better on introverted people. Possibly this is an explanation why that introverted Europeans and American youth, have an elective affinity to Japanese cultural exports. (Like a reverse of the fact European classical music exports are popular in Japan and China more than Africa or Arabia – as populations might on average inherit hardware with longer attention span, that make it easier to learn classical music).

    Features we identify as a “Japanese soul” exists in more a Platonic sense, than just as physical material, and can run on a non-Japanese hardware.

    When a Tatar girl goes to school in Japan a few years – her posture, approach to mother tongue, and even facial manner (.e.g shaking the head when finishing a sentence) become Japanese. I.e. she develops a Japanese soul.

  67. AnonFromTN says

    Let me repeat for the particularly gifted: I was not talking about biology. I was saying that culture is the key, biology/genetics is secondary.

  68. AnonFromTN says

    True. I’d just add that family plays an important role, too. When the environment at school and in the family pushes in conflicting directions, this results in conflicted personality.

    From personal history I must say that the child can get more than one “program”/identity. For the first five years I lived in Western Ukraine and spoke to other kids in the local dialect used around Lvov. Later I grew up in Lugansk, where virtually no one speaks Ukrainian. My Ukrainian was still alive and well, so much so that my Ukrainian language and literature teacher at school loved me because I was the only kid among 40+ in class who could speak proper Ukrainian without mangling it. Ukrainian literature was my source of Central Ukrainian (which is considered literary Ukrainian), while my grandparents in Donbass spoke Ukrainian-surgik mix. I can still speak Ukrainian (both literary and one of the Western dialects) better than most self-proclaimed Ukrainian patriots, certainly much better than Porky or Ze. Still, I consider Russian my mother tongue, as it was spoken in the family even when we lived near Lvov and reinforced by Russian literature.

  69. This is the time – among friends – where most of a child’s bodylanguage, sense of humour, concept of social normal, language and understanding of reality is developed. This also where they are shaped by the state and government. Also this is the community where they develop camaraderie, feeling of belonging to a group, and its customs is programmed – it happens in school, or outside school, among school friends. A person will always be native and comrades to the community of friends they had as children, when their mind was in its plastic stage, and foreign to other cultures… For the first five years I lived in Western Ukraine and spoke to other kids in the local dialect used around Lvov.

    Probably, amongst most normal people. But then there’s you, who somehow became janissared:

    Still, I consider Russian my mother tongue, as it was spoken in the family even when we lived near Lvov and reinforced by Russian literature.

    Just another mixed-up Ukrainian kid who underwent the steady process of Russification, I imagine even more intense as you went trough the University and even later during your doctoral program. A good thing that the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, otherwise Russification would have had an even more disastrous effect on the integrity of the Ukrainian culture.

  70. AnonFromTN says

    What’s the point of discussing anything with a person who calls black white and vice versa?

    I was telling about forced Ukrainization in Donbass, where in the USSR Ukrainian language and literature were obligatory subjects in school, even though for the local population it was essentially foreign. I was the only student among 40+ kids in my class who knew the language because I was born in the West, where it was actually spoken. The person sees the opposite: Russification, which did not exist.

    Typical of someone brainwashed to the point of having no brain left.

  71. I know people from Donbas, the local villages at one time were all Ukrainian speaking (similar to the Kharkiv region). The Russian language expanded with industrialization, especially in the cities. Donbas was actually an amalgamation of many different ethnicities that was molded into the “Caldron of World Socialism” as the future prototype of the future communist movement where the Russian language was to dominate, and only helps to explain your quirky form of “homo-sovieticus”. By your own words, you should have been more open to the Ukrainian idea and Ukrainian language, but your never were and never will be. Uncle Joe and his friends succeeded in making you into a thoroughly russifed Ukrainian. And now you live in hillbilly country in the US trying to cope. I feel so sorry for you! 🙂

  72. AnonFromTN says

    I am not writing this for Ukies, they are hopeless. I am writing this for honest people who read this thread.

    Do not draw any conclusions about Ukrainian culture based on what you hear from Ukies. Only an ignorant Ukie can believe that Shevchenko created literary Ukrainian language, which was in fact flourishing in 1798 in Kotlyarevsky’s Eneyida, long before Shevchenko was even born in 1814. In fact, habitual drunk, second-rate poet, and third-rate writer (FYI, he wrote his prose in Russian) Shevchenko was promoted by the Bolsheviks for his anti-tsar stance. Ukies know just as little about Ukrainian culture as their hero Bandera, sadistic misfit with outsized ego, even bigger inferiority complex, and propensity for treason (his life path, from anti-Polish insurgent, to Hitler collaborator, to British intelligence asset, tells it all).

    Ukrainian literature does not have a Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky, or Shakespeare, or Faulkner. Yet it has a lot, from brilliant humor of Kotlyarevsky’s poem Eneyida or his plays Natalka Poltavka (Natalka from Poltava) and Moskal-Charivnyk (The Muscovite-Sorcerer), to pent-up peasant anger of Panas Myrny, to dark humor of Nechuy-Levytsky, to incisive prose of Ivan Franko, to softer writings of Lesya Ukrainka, to poignant short stories of Vasyl Stefanyk, to deeply touching WWII poetry of Andriy Malyshko, and much more.

    Most importantly, Ukrainian literature is deeply humanistic, totally incompatible with rabid nationalism of Banderites. Ukies, like their idol Bandera, defame Ukraine, its literature, its very language, replacing the best Ukraine has to offer with cannibalistic tribalism of deranged cavemen.

    Do not confuse Ukies with Ukrainians: Ukrainians are humans (imperfect like all humans), whereas Ukies are scum, the dregs of the nation.

  73. Felix Keverich says

    We still have “Jewish Autonomous Oblast” in the Far East. Jews never lived there and never will, but the place has its own government-funded ethnocracy and budget money is allocated to studying Yuddish language.

    I would start by eliminating this JAO, Karelia, various Finno-Ugric entities, and then proceed with Sakha and Tatarstan, depending on how much resistance we’ll face. North-Caucasian Bantustans should be ruled by the military under special emergency law.

  74. Very effective recipe for destroying Russia from within. If CIA had any smart people left after Iraq WMD scam, they would have proposed just that.

  75. Your obsession to try an denigrate Shevchenko’s greatness really knows no bounds. I’m sure the Bolsheviks were behind the warm eulogies said over Shevchnko’s body in St. Petersburg in 1865 during his funeral, all for a “third rate writer”. You’re so full of nonsense, I’d suggest that you stick to reviewing Bar-B- Que and your dust filled testubes, Tovarishch. It was all a Bolshevik plot? :

    His funeral in St. Petersburg was attended by such literary notables as Saltykov-Shchedrin, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Leskov. Herzen published an obituary of Shevchenko, and Nekrasov contributed a poem to mark the occasion. Many of Shevchenko’s poems were later set to music by Ukranian and Russian composers including Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff.

  76. Felix Keverich says

    Well, the idea is to break political continuity with communist period and destroy the legacy of RSFSR. Russia’s ruling class, despite its frequent invocations of Imperial Russia, traces its roots to RSFSR and remains stuck in its stupid ways. This is holding Russia back.

  77. Then your suggestion is a classical case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Anyway, it is not going to happen.

  78. Felix Keverich says

    I believe that RF is an awkward construction, too absurd and dysfunctional to survive in the long-run. It is destined to change. Eliminating Soviet atavisms is one obvious direction for such change. I’m willing to consider other possibilities, but I’m not sure what counts as “the baby” here – come on, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has to go!

  79. the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has to go!

    Jewish Autonomous Oblast is an artificial construct. There are no more Jews there than in any other RF region. So, it needs to be eliminated as a non-sensical entity. However, many republics within the RF are quite natural, even though in most cases the title nation constitutes less than 50% of the population, and many people of those nations live outside of their republics. I think that nations living within RF should have cultural, in addition to territorial, autonomy. E.g., there should be the possibility of creating Tatar schools outside of Tatarstan (as more than half of Tatars lives elsewhere in the RF), and within each republic there should be schools teaching in other languages (like Russian and Bashkir in Tatarstan). However, cancelling all kinds of autonomy and denying recognition of the rights of non-Russian people within the RF would wreck the country, just like similar stupid policies wrecked Ukraine.

  80. Felix Keverich says

    Nationalism didn’t wreck the Ukraine. Geopolitics did. As a matter of fact I would call Ukraine a case study in the success of radical nationalism. Ukronazis make up a small minority of a population. However, they impose their agenda on the entire country, and face no organised resistance within the Ukraine. No new regions broke away from Ukraine as a result of last year’s language law. The country appears remarkably stable.

  81. We obviously have very different ideas what the stability of a country is. Let’s leave it at that, I have too much to do today to engage in complex discussions.

  82. Our interpretation is that Germans were the world’s biggest substantially divided nation (and Koreans). In 1990-92, that status passed to Russians.

    In terms of both percentages and even total numbers, there are more Pashtuns located outside of Afghanistan (their homeland) than there are Russians located outside of Russia, no? After all, there are more than 30 million Pashtuns living in Pakistan, no? Compare that with something like 15 million Pashtuns living in Afghanistan.

  83. Apart from serving as potential focal points for separatism,

    Well, Russia has no problem with exploiting separatism in Ukraine, and you are also open to the idea of Russia exploiting separatism in northern Kazakhstan (especially in the past, when demographics there were even more favorable to Russians), so Russia shouldn’t complain about separatist movements within its own territories. After all, the right of national self-determination should apply to both territories that want to enter Russia and territories that want to exit Russia.

    there’s a number of practical human rights related reasons to oppose these republics: Their borders don’t match ethnic realities.

    So, redraw the borders of these republics?

    Also, I certainly do have an objection to forcing the majority of the population in a republic to learn a language that they don’t want to use. However, if the majority of the population in a republic supports this or at least has no objection to this, then forcing people in this republic to learn the relevant language should be perfectly acceptable. After all, AFAIK, some US states force students to learn a particular language–such as Spanish in Texas. Granted, Spanish is much more useful than Tatar is, but nevertheless, one can live in Texas without knowing Spanish–unlike, say, living in Mexico or Argentina or Chile.

  84. Ukraine is your model of a successful country.

  85. Extensive childhood interaction with the 90%+ white Northern English community played a crucial role in my transformation into a Russian nationalist.

    Visits to diverse London later in life have largely cured me of my Anglophobia.

  86. I meant big, meaningful nations.

  87. In particular, the Russian Federation defines itself as a “multinational” state, and Russian officialese is reticent about even mentioning ethnic Russians [russkie], as opposed to the general term for Russian citizens [rossiyane]….virtually all of which, from defining Russia as a Russian national state

    For Russian nationalists this topic number 1 in importance, but it shows that the so-called “Russian nationalists” are a group of deranged fetishists.
    Let’s say Russia is declared a state of the Russian ethnic group (roughly like Israel – the state of the Jews) – this will not bring anything but problems with the Tatars, Buryats, etc . Such idiotic demands are a good test of sanity-a test that “Russian nationalists” are not able to pass.

  88. The Constitution of Bashkortostan, where Bashkirs only make up 36% of the population, proudly announces that Bashkortan is for Bashkirs:

    “Башкирский народ в XVI веке добровольно присоединился к России… реализации права башкирской нации на самоопределение” (преамбула). “Республика Башкортостан обеспечивает сохранение и защиту исторического и культурного наследия, развитие культуры башкирского народа и других народов, проживающих на территории Республики Башкортостан” (ст. 51).

    What a deranged fetishist one must be to dare suggest Russians have something similar in their own country. Just imagine what the Bashkirs would think!

  89. These arguments are extremely absurd in this case. Here are 6 republics of the upper Volga.

    http://euromaidanpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/middle-volga-idel-ural-FB.jpg

    Here is the language map of Bashkiria: red – Russian, dark green-Tatar, light green-Bashkir

    https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/acer120/36510962/499785/499785_original.png

    This is an absolutely peaceful region where different local ethnic groups live mixed up without any conflicts. What do the “Russian nationalists” want-to start ethnic conflicts there with all the accompanying “bonuses” in the form of pogroms and massacres? Or for jihadism to appear in this region? In this case, if the “Russian nationalists” explain their goals well, they may receive multimillion-dollar grants from the CIA.
    Bashkirs who make up a third of the population of Bashkiria (but together with Tatars-more than half of the population) form (according to the Soviet tradition) the local political elite-well, in order to break this system, there are elections. But to declare Russia a Russian ethnic state is idiotic. Rather, it is necessary (carefully and gradually) to change the Constitution of Bashkiria.

  90. Why do you think that Bashkirs will start pogroms and massacres if Russians are to be mentioned in the Constitution of the state where they constitute 81%+ of the population?

    Do you mean to imply that they are much less civilized than Russians (or Tatars), who have to live in a Bashkir national republic where the titular nationality constitutes just 36% of the population?

    Furthermore, if anybody does start pogroms and massacres over such an issue, do you believe that their status as part of the Russian Federation is tenable in the long-term, or desirable?

    Final question: Do you think that Zyuganov also received multi-million grants from the CIA? https://svpressa.ru/society/news/255258/

  91. Why do you think that Bashkirs will start pogroms and massacres if Russians are to be mentioned in the Constitution of the state where they constitute 81%+ of the population?

    If all actions are limited to one meaningless phrase in the Constitution (“Russia is a state of the Russian ethnic group”), then there will be no serious negative consequences. Of course, this phrase will not bring any benefit to the Russian people. For this reason, making this phrase even in this form point # 1 of the political program is useless fetishism. But “Russian nationalists” have other plans – for them, the Declaration of Russia as a state of the Russian etnos means the beginning of further actions-the forced monopoly of ethnic Russians on power everywhere, the forced introduction of Orthodoxy as the main religion everywhere, the forcible suppression of local languages everywhere, and so on. Here is an example

    https://a.radikal.ru/a04/2001/5d/28658a835693.png

    from https://acer120.livejournal.com/150315.html#comments

    What if this isn’t a recipe for disaster?

    An approximate analogue-imagine that the English nationalists would consider their main goal to be the proclamation of great Britain as the “state of the English people”, followed by the demolition of the Presbyterian Cathedral in Edinburgh, and the construction of the dominant Anglican Cathedral there (Scots should know that they live on the land of the English people!).

    Do you think that Zyuganov also received multi-million grants from the CIA? https://svpressa.ru/society/news/255258/

    I doubt the existence of grants at the moment, but the fact that Zyuganov is a harmful idiot who says absolutely crazy things is a fact