Introduction
Contemporary ideologists of Russian nationalism have the difficult task of forming a complete image of the nation in the context of rapid social and technological transformations. They constantly face new challenges connected to the process of formulating national unity principles, federal policy, or the distribution of the labor market in a dynamically changing information environment. Using these challenges as possibilities, Russian national ideology acquires strong postmodern features: it leaves significant gaps in the concept, neglects the contradictions in its meaning and values, and creates paradoxical historical narrative combinations. Ideologists of contemporary Russian nationalism are forced to reinterpret accumulated phobias in a conspiratorial way in order to accommodate the diversity of contemporary nationalistic discourse, including all its conflicts, in the common doctrine. This article shows the formation of the image of the enemy in this circle of nationalists, showing how this phenomenon is reflected in the political discourse of contemporary Russia.
In this article, we show the mechanisms of the conceptualization of the Other as an inversion of the Russian nation created by contemporary Russian nationalists. We answer the question of how xenophobia acquires moral justification in works of contemporary Russian nationalists. In this respect, the relationship among the three forces—the West, internal “enemies,” and migrants—characterized by contemporary Russian nationalists as the most dangerous challenges to the Russian nation are studied. But we should keep in mind that it’s not always possible to differentiate the contexts when mentioning such similar social phenomena as Russian discourse on the migrant and minority, especially Caucasian minority, themes. But every one of these contexts performs its own specific function in the ideology of contemporary Russian nationalism, as is shown. The problem of interdependence between the processes of identifying a subject and constructing an image of the Other has a number of relatively independent scientific genealogies, the origins of which, according to Iver Neumann (Reference Neumann1999), can be found in the works of Hegel. Carl Schmitt (Reference Schmitt2007), who derived all political actions and motives from this dichotomy, absolutized the significance of the dichotomy of “us” and “them.” From his point of view, politics is possible only in the context of opposites: “Words such as state, republic, society, class, as well as sovereignty, constitutional state, absolutism, dictatorship, economic planning, neutral, or total state, and so on are incomprehensible if one does not know exactly who is to be affected, combated, refused or negated with such a term.” Thus, the situation can have a political significance only when it gets to the marking system of “us” versus “them.”
In modern social processes, many challenges gradually lose their clear links to specific political subjects. In the poststructuralist tradition with its emphasis on binary oppositions, the understanding of a continuous collective identity has been formed through the delimitation of the Other from me. The content of collective identity is determined through permanent group marking, which is situational. Political discourse potentially includes division, the means by which stereotyping and routinization of the image of the Other develops. In this situation, the image of the Other acts as the inversion of the group: “otherness doesn’t exist by itself, it exist for ‘us,’ in full compliance with the psychology of projection. It depends on our stereotypes and highlights out values and prejudices” (Sokolovskii Reference Sokolovskii2001, 67). This property is especially evident in the process of the enemification.
The concept of “contemporary Russian nationalism” requires further explanation, because the national discourse pervades all the political space of a modern state. It can be understood as the manifestation of xenophobia, racism, chauvinism, and all forms of ethnic intolerance, which are structured in the formation of odious organizations and manifested in the acts of violence, demonstrations, and aggressive and scandalous vocabulary. From the other side, Russian nationalism appears as a discourse in the form of populist rhetoric on the most pressing issues, common to every major Russian political power, especially in the time of an election campaign.
Among works that consider contemporary Russian nationalism in all the diversity of its manifestations, we note Marlene Laruelle’s (Reference Laruelle2009) monograph and a large-scale project by Pål Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud (2016). Thomas Parland (Reference Parland2005), who describes different manifestations of national discourse in contemporary Russia, systematizes it by left-right, traditional-modern, extremist-moderate criteria and draws a general line between ethnocentrists and statist nationalists. Vladimir Malakhov (2010), while focusing attention in his works on ideological questions, allocates several directions in contemporary Russian nationalism: liberals, nation-builders, and imperialists.
In our case, enemification strategies of contemporary Russian nationalism are viewed through the prism of Dmitrii Evgen’evich Galkovskii’s works. We believe that Galkovskii’s works had the greatest influence on contemporary Russian nationalists. Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2014) is a well-known writer and publicist. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University as a part-time student and then distributed literature banned in the Soviet Union. In 1987, Galkovskii wrote a novel, Beskonechnii Tupik, which was published only ten years later. In 1997, Galkovskii was awarded the Anti-Booker prize (a Russian literary award) for The Infinite Deadlock, but he refused the honor. In 1998, Galkovskii created a site called Samizdat: Dmitrii Galkovskii Virtual Server, where he published his own articles, plays, and short stories. In 2003, Galkovskii started a LiveJournal blog, covering a wide range of topics in history, culture, and politics.
To clearly understand the intellectual environment we describe, it is appropriate to address the roots of the Russian Internet community. It is taken as a given that,
if communication takes place in those parts of society that dessiminate information through technical means and are specialized in the development and maintenance of cultural models and semantic components of the social behavior, then private communication theme of a small circle could be passed to the wider range of relations and actions (Fillipov Reference Fillipov2014).
In the dawn of the era of the Internet, users’ communities were limited by technical difficulties, which gave rise to an atmosphere of being “chosen.” The role of social networks was performed by guestbooks of individual web pages, among which Galkovskii’s Samizdat was one of the most popular. His blog gained recognition among the Russian nationalistic intelligentsia and regularly appears on various lists of the most popular Russian blogs. A small group of people with shared interests has formed around this guestbook. The careers of many of them as public figures started there, where they spend their time discussing politics, philosophy, and history. There was also a monthly tradition in which Galkovskii would spend a whole day answering questions from his “disciples.” Plans for future projects, such as Doctrina.ru, a National Democratic Party, and “Voprosy Natsionalisma,” were hatched there as well.
The whole community eventually moved to the popular LiveJournal format. One of the most well-known Russian journalists, Oleg Kashin (Reference Kashin2014), has called this phenomenon “nuleviki.”Footnote 1
Galkovskii (2010) sees this experience as an unsuccessful attempt at education: “I wanted to talk to people, I was in need of dialogue with a slow, but gradually rising level of communication with a positive dynamic. But it turned out to be the opposite. From the beginning, I disliked those Negro talks, and I have abandoned those Negroes in the end.” “Negro” is used there by Galkovskii as a degenerative term; “negro talks” in this context should be understood as something useless, “dirty,” bad.
In 2011, Galkovskii created “Utinoe dvizhenie,” a movement aesthetically close to the Masonic order, which brings together players in multiplayer online games. The following year, he created an international Internet project called “Tsifrovaia mashina,” which is a direct descendant of the “Utinoe dvizhenie.” The construction of the “city of gamers” in Iceland is among the projects of this movement.
Galkovskii emphasizes his nonpublic position and elitism; this is why most of his activity doesn’t go beyond the Internet. He’s fundamentally a nonpublic man, so his figure is hidden under the shadow of his followers.
Among his follwers it is possible to find a circle of writers, formed around the magazines Voprosi natsionalizma and Tetradi po konservatizmu, the online magazine Sputnik i Pogrom, the newspaper Izvestiia during the “Mezhuev”Footnote 2 period, and the online project APN (in some respects). All of these authors are united by their active usage of social networks. They are able to express their opinions on social networks without any borders, in a more accentuated way. This circle also includes representatives of the national democratic movement, who have already been noted by Laruelle (Reference Laruelle2014) and Emil Pain (Reference Pain2016). The main goal of that circle of intellectuals is the construction of a Russian national state; “Russianness” is explained culturally and ethnically, with inevitable elements of racist discourse. Our focus is on Russian nationalists with philosophical ambitions, or, as it was phrased by the youngest of them, “aristocratic” Russian nationalists. The Russian nationalism which is the focus of our attention is understood in the most concentrated and refined sense—as the creative work of intellectuals who identify themselves as “Russian nationalists.” In his classification of Russian contemporary national space, V. S. Malakhov (Reference Malakhov2014) refers to this category of public figures as the “anti-liberal wing of ethnic nationalists.”
This ideology was developed under the conceptual and ethnic influence of Galkovskii. On his blog, Konstantin Krylov, the unofficial leader of the National Democratic Party, compares Galkovskii to Nietzsche; Egor Prosvirnin, editor-in-chief of nationalistic online magazine Sputnik i Pogrom, calls Galkovskii “the first Russian philosopher” on Sputnik i Pogrom’s Twitter account. It would be more or less accurate to state that Galkovskii produces discourse which is supported and spread by others. This is especially true for the works of Prosvirnin, who deals not only with the formation of a nationalist agenda but also with its popularization. Galkovskii is a mastermind, every idea, position, opinion is checked with his works. That is why it is possible to find a lot of references to Galkovskii and his works. The latest example is after the recent death of the famous Russian 1960s poet Evgeny Evtushenko, there were some publications by contemporary Russian nationalists in which he and his work were condemned. In contrast to them, Galkovskii published an obituary where he claimed that Evtushenko was one of the few 1960s poets who loved Russian culture, especially literature. This claim caused a shock among nationalistic authors; for example, Egor Holmogorov and one of the “samizdat disciples,” asserted that “Dmitriy Evgen’evich has decided to write it just to annoy us.”
The relevance of Galkovskii is determined by the fact that, as these examples show, his words are regularly reproduced by many public figures, among whom it is possible to find some who make important political decisions.
Perfidious Albion
Russian political thought has attempted to develop cultural identity at different stages and made its definition of the West responsible for various functions including being Russia’s “sworn enemy.” In many ways, the folding of Russian nationalism was the result of the reaction to the spread of Francophilia under Catherine II (Minakov Reference Minakov2013). Anglophobia has become one of the most common and traditional forms of stereotypes of the West, historically accompanying Russo-British relations (Erofeev Reference Erofeev1982). Anglophobia became especially popular with the conservative political forces of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century (Kolonitskii Reference Kolonitskii2000).
Contemporary Russian nationalists created a well-founded theoretical basis. It has the most completed form in the concept of the history of international relations, on the basis of which Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2009) defines political reality. It is close to hegemonic theories in form and describes the succession of the world orders defined by the dominance of two opposing superpowers: hegemon and sub-hegemon. Throughout history, hegemon and sub-hegemon have constantly changed, from the Italian pentarchy to the USA. Most other countries are in direct opposition to the hegemon, thus providing support and diplomatic resources to the sub-hegemon.
In this interpretation, the Russian Empire is an enlightened, strong state, a part of European civilization, a sub-hegemon from 1815 to 1855 and a potential hegemon in the next century. The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War are considered to be the battles for control of Russia among Great Britain, France, and Germany. As a result of its victory, Britain received the right to control the Soviet Union, which became its cryptocolony. Cryptocolony in this context is the independent power de jure, subordinate to its metropolis de facto.
In the addition to the USSR, there are other British cryptocolonies, such as the countries of the British Commonwealth, the post-Soviet countries, China. Right now there are only three full-fledged players: the USA as the hegemon, the UK as the sub-hegemon, and France, which managed to preserve political capital and full independence, even after its defeat and German occupation, due the sophistication of its elite. The political status of all the other countries in the world ranges from “lesser ally” to “colony.”
The idea of Great Britain as the main hidden enemy of Russia is the general belief for the majority of the aforementioned circle of Russian nationalistic intellectuals. Very often this belief results in the most unexpected conspiracy theories of its adherents: for example, the idea that the British are using international sport organizations for colonial exploitation. Nikitin (Reference Nikitin2014), a columnist for Sputnik i Pogrom, associates problems in the construction of the Zenit Arena with British influence.
Great Britain acts as a natural antagonist and Russian nationalists invariably appeal to it to prove their innocence or justify this or that phenomenon. A well-known author for Voprosi natsionalizma Elena Chudinova (2010) is opposing the idea of the October revolution being the punishment for peasants situation in the Russian Empire. She appeals to the situation in Georgian Britain, claiming that the system of the British workhouses was much worse than Russian serfdom.
An interesting consequence of the conceptual Anglophobia of contemporary Russian nationalism is the search for conflicts of interest between the USA and the UK. This requires sophisticated political observation. In the article “Tentacles Begin to Move,” Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2007) comments on the Queen’s approval to expand the Commonwealth, which he sees as part of an effot to constrain US influence. Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2013a) mentions British control of the Russian media in the same context: “The British have been regulating 100% of the information for almost a century and they want to do it for 100 years in the future. The desire is so strong that even Americans treat it with understanding.”
Pavel Sviatenkov (Reference Sviatenkov2012), a political commentator for Izvestiia, constantly defends his publication’s point of view on American patronage of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The UK is interested in undermining the positions of the USA, which supports ISIS, as well as those of Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In an informal discussion on Facebook, Sviatenkov draws some cryptocolonial conclusions and states that the primary purpose of Russia’s intervention is to work for British and French interests.
Another surprising observation is a moderate and sometimes a positive assessment, made by nationalists, of the role of the main ideological opponent in the world picture of the Russian conservative mainstream—the USA.
In particular, Krylov (Reference Krylov2014a) mentions that the USA “does not bear the same responsibility for 1917 as France and England.” However, from Krylov’s point of view, the key role of the USA in Joseph Stalin’s industrialization can be assessed in different ways.
Kholmogorov’s triumphant reaction to Brexit on his Facebook page is typical in this respect. In his opinion, for the whole Russian liberal community (“all our tusovochka”) this means that liberals aren’t the masters there, but their ontological enemies, vatniks Footnote 3 and kolorads Footnote 4 from the UK Independence Party, such as Graham Phillips: “This England is for vatniks and kolorads, not for politically correct stateless people from all over the world. They thought that they would visit Steven Frey, but they came to Robin Hood.” Also, Kholmogorov notes that by “London” he means “global depersonalized London, the real, elitist capital of the world, in distinction from plebeian New York.”Footnote 5
Anglophobia not only is typical for Russian nationalists, it is quite a common phenomenon in the contemporary political discourse of Russia. Britain is defined as a traditional opponent; its image is treated with a historical perspective that adds existential lines to the opposition. Appropriate rhetoric is often accompanied by troubles in political affairs between two countries. Aleksander Zacharchenko, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed in an interview that rebels would capture not only Kyiv, but London as well: “everything evil in our Russian destiny comes from Anglo-Saxons.”
Nikita Mikhalkov—a famous film director and one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confidants—is known for his subtle sense of political conjuncture. While working on his movie, he made a discovery: “we have proved that the murder of Aleksander Gryboedov was not committed by an angry Muslim mob.Footnote 6 It was a planned political assassination, created, conceived and carried out by the British.” (Vzglyad 2016). His brother, Andrei Konchalovski, also a film director and a public figure, develops this idea. In an interview, he predicts the coming collapse of the “Anglo-Saxon” world order and claims that the “British were afraid of Russia and tried to fight with us using France, Germany, Turkey” (Bykov Reference Bykov2017).
The degree of dissemination of those ideas is seen in the speech of the teacher in the Tomsk gymnasium who spoke to students who participated in the rally against corruption on March 26, 2017 and called them “Anglo-Saxon slaves.” Numerous mentions of the UK as a source of various problems in Russia have become a part of Russian public media and folklore. They are often reduced to the well-known formula anglichanka gadit (“the English women create trouble”), which regularly becomes relevant as the situation in foreign policy changes. In contemporary culture, it has taken the form of an Internet meme; there is an article devoted to this formula in Lurkmore (2018), the popular online encyclopedia of slang recently banned by Roskomnadzor.Footnote 7
The contradictory nature of contemporary Russian nationalism identification is hidden in the fact that their anti-Western rhetoric is combined with the fundamental task of returning Russia to the European way of development. Western civilization is the principled choice of ideology of contemporary Russian nationalism. This point of view is shared by the overwhelming majority of activists of the Russian national movement. Responding to a question about the opinion of the National-Democratic Party about the West, Krylov (Reference Krylov2014b) provides an Orientalist definition of his political position: the National-Democratic project is based on a desire to become Europeans, not to have an “agreement” with them. Moreover, when Europeans “negotiate” with stinking Asiatic despotism, it is very bad, because it means the conservation of Asiatic despotism.
These trends are also manifest in the one of Kholmogorov’s (Reference Kholmogorov2016) latest works. He claims that Russian patriotism is historically more original than European patriotisms: “Russian national consciousness is not younger, but older than German, French, or English. It is the oldest among all contemporary nations of Europe.” From this statement, he concludes that, today, “we are on the way back to our previous mission—keeping Europe’s national origin, taking care of the fact that Europe should be a Europe of Homelands, not a thoroughfare.” Similar reasoning is found in Galkovskii’s blog posts. He states that the de-Europe-ization of American society is one of the main reasons why America will never be the superhegemon.
The “European nature” of contemporary Russian nationalism is also emphasized by the commitment to the idea of progress. In particular, Egor Prosvirnin regularly follows and comments on the latest scientific and technological achievements. The main example of that would be the word sputnik in his magazine’s title. According to Prosvirnin, sputnik is one of the few words borrowed from the Russian language by other European languages, and this fact symbolizes the triumph of Russian intellectual power. That is why it is possible to find Prosvirnin’s commentary on the latest economic, technological, and digital trends in his magazine, such as Elon Musk’s biography, the history of Bitcoin, and articles on robotic technology, artificial intelligence, among others.
Galkovskii’s concept is usually not mentioned by contemporary Russian nationalists, but it is possible to find some direct references. The reaction of Sputnik i Pogrom to Putin’s meeting with the students of Eton College is an illustrative case. On his magazine’s Facebook page, Prosvirnin writes:Footnote 8
There is a Russian writer and philosopher, D. E. Galkovskii, who develops the idea of Russia as the cryptocolony of Britain, resulting in a lot of arguments from the oligarchs in London to the fact that all Soviet and post-Soviet leaders made their first international visit to Great Britain. Of course, every self-respecting person doesn’t believe to Galkovskii, while hissing something about conspirology. Some conclusions are drawn from the fact of the meeting: it is enough for British scholars to make a call to the ‘grey cardinal of the ROC’:Footnote 9 ‘Hey, bro, boys, want to take a look at your hairy pet? Make it happen.’
It is interesting that this publication is followed by the translation of the 1843 Magazine article about Eton College (Bellaigue 2016).
The logic of the development of Russian national discourse and current political constellation implies a negative image of the West. This leads to a paradoxical situation: Russian nationalism includes Occidentalism in its discourse without abandoning Eurocentrism by using the traditional image of the “false” Europe (Neumann Reference Neumann1996). However, the main difference between this rhetoric and the imperial rhetoric of Russian statists is that Russian nationalists associate the spoiling of Europe not with the US influence (Morozov Reference Morozov2009), but with its Orientalization. In this context, negative characteristics of the East are spreading to the West and the West is becoming equal to the East. Russia, in this case, becomes the last carrier of true European qualities.
Service Minority
The institutionalization of national movements makes having an internal enemy one of the most important factors of its self-presentation. That’s the main difference between this and the initial stage of nationalism’s formation, where a key role is played by an external enemy. At the beginning of the 20th century, Vasily Rozanov (Reference Rozanov2005), one of the theoretical masterminds of Russian nationalism, wrote about the half-educated stratum of Russian society—the anti-national intelligentsia, who were located between the common folk, nationalistic by definition, and the national elite, from Slavophiles to Lev Tolstoy. Rozanov emphasized the dominance of foreigners in this stratum who were not natural to Russian people, especially Jews. Anti-Semitism has become the most common way of forming the image of an internal enemy, as shown by Shnirelman (Reference Shnirelman2012) with the “Khazarian myth.”
The category of “small nation,” suggested by Shafarevich (Reference Shafarevich2005, 17) is closely related to the idea of Jews as internal enemies. The theory of the small nation reveals the nature of an internal enemy as “those forces, whose activity throughout history (under various flags, but one algorithm) is aimed at the destruction of the nature and society.” Petukhov (Reference Petukhov2007) also made a great contribution to the expansion of the interpretation of the internal enemy definition. In his works, the “donor nation” is opposed to “savage nations,” or “parasite nations.” However, anti-Semitism was widespread in the previous generation of Russian nationalists, even in the late stages of the Soviet Union (Brudny Reference Brudny2000). From Galkovskii’s point of view, Britain began to use Russian national minorities to ensure their domination over the Russian people, or as Krylov mentioned on his Facebook page, “service minority.”Footnote 10 British activity was the main reason for a collapse of the Russian Empire: dissatisfied social, ethnic, and religious groups such as Jews, Baltic people, and old believers were used to destroy the state.
At this level of discussion, Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2012) translates the problem of international relations to the internal context: subjects of internal policy are characterized by him in clear Orientalist terminology while at the same time acquiring ethnic overtones. Russian society consists of two classes, two nations: Europeans versus Russians and Asians—noviopy.Footnote 11 Noviopy are gathered into one ethnic group on negative grounds. They are “not Russians.” For Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2012), the noviop is “the synonym for the words ‘Latino,’ ‘half-breed,’ with bandy legs and traces of smallpox on its face in a sombrero.” Replacing the Russian intelligentsia, noviopy “mix some thoughtless Russian cruelty and its monstrous brutality, initially common to the all Eastern nations.”
Galkovskii sees the internal enemy of the Russian people as an ethnic group that consists of the “middle and low strata of society, from the embryo nations, cut nations.” The very combination of different cultural elements in these nations doesn’t matter; the main point is that they are not Russian: “There is no difference between Chechen, Jew, or Kyrgyz. This state belongs to them, and the essence of it is that this is not Russia.” According to Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2011), these “Soviet troops,” the main purpose of whom is to ensure the independence of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries and evacuate their capital and families from Russia, are directly related to the conception of the cryptocolonial dependence of Russia. Neo-Eurasians are trying to include all the cultural diversity of the post-Soviet space in their definition of Russian-ness. In the past few years, the imperial potential of the neo-Eurasian concept came especially into demand by the Russian state. The leader of neo-Eurasianism, Aleksander Dugin, has turned from a marginal philosopher and politician into a professor at Moscow State University (though he was fired from this position in 2014) and confidant of President Putin.
The concept of “confrontation” is the clearest way to characterize the relationships between contemporary Russian nationalists and neo-Eurasians. The fight over attempts to expand the definitions of Russian-ness, Soviet-ness, multinationality, and Eurasian-ness has become the base of this contemporary Russian nationalist group’s ideology. This concept, which appeared in the mid-1980s, is based on the reminiscences of the nationalism of the early 20th century. For example, Rozanov (one of the brightest figures in the nationalist movement of the Russian Empire) acts as a lyrical hero’s alter-ego in Galkovskii’s novel, Infinity Deadlock. Krylov, on his Facebook page, reflects on the origin of these ideas: “the old man Zinoviev, when he was sane, proposed a good reduction for ‘homo Sovieticus:’ ‘homosos’ [homo sucker]. It seems like he felt something that was later explained by DEG [Dmitrii Evgenievich Galkovskii].”Footnote 12
This connection between internal and external enemies is clearly manifested in the satirical tirade by Kholmogorov (Reference Kholmogorov2015): “dear God, please, make me British. Impossible? Well, then at least make me serve directly to the Englishman, not to the Caucasian, who is appointed by a Jew, who is appointed by a Georgian, who is appointed by a German, who is appointed by an American, who is appointed by an Englishman.” The cultural space of contemporary Russia is homogenized by nationalists, and social and political relations are reduced to the interaction between two timeless subjects: the Russian and the not-Russian. This allows their goals to be quite clearly articulated. On his Facebook page, Krylov statesFootnote 13 :
“Russian culture” (or culture for Russians, created by different “Zarifullins”Footnote 14 ) that believes in the “unity and brotherhood of the nations” (or, “Russians should give everything to the non-Russians”) should be destroyed. And we will do it. We will return to the real Russian culture, the white people culture. Actually, it should also be cleaned from the unity and brotherhood of the nations, as disrespectful to the Russian nation—because that is what grew in the XVII century and is still in bloom.
It is possible to trace three lines of reasoning (rhetorical strategies) that formed the image of the internal enemy: historical, theoretical, and ethnic.
The historical line is expressed in the statement that national minorities created the contemporary anti-Russian political regime, the successor of the Soviet state. In the historical narrative, formed by contemporary Russian nationalists, a key role in the destruction of the Russian empire is played by national minorities. An anonymous author (2010) of Voprosi natsionalizma notes that at the time of the October Revolution and the Civil War, the goals and objectives of the Bolsheviks were anti-Russian, their management was Jewish, and their driving force was anti-Russian. From his point of view, different non-Russian powers (Jews, Latvians, Hungarians, Chinese, Poles, Finns) helped the Bolsheviks in the turning points of the Civil War.
It’s interesting to note that the origins of Russian subordination to foreigners are derived from the pre-October period. This situation allows contemporary Russian nationalists to use the rhetoric of “internal colonialism.” For example, a famous Russian author, Sergei Sergeev (Reference Sergeev2012), in reference to the ideas of a well-known Russian conservative of the second half of the 19th century, on the national state writes: “meanwhile, Russia is dominated by the system that seeks to highlight ethnic minorities, help and develop folk elements that are inorganic for Russian people, and finally elevate them above the Russian nationality in this artificial separation.”
The second rhetorical line is expressed in the attack on modern state concepts of unity of the rossiiskaia nation. The formation of an image of the internal enemy could be a reaction to the polycultural ideology of contemporary Russia. Contemporary Russian nationalists criticize the key documents, which are determining state national policy—the Constitution and the Concept of State National Policy, which was updated in 2012. In the Russian Constitution, there is a definition of the multinational people of the Russian Federation, which, together with the word rossiianin, is actively attacked by contemporary Russian nationalists. Words such as Soviet, novyop, multinational, and cosmopolit, are used as synonyms of rossiianin.
Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2006a) is also able to see the contradiction in the wording of this statement: a designation of “we” is personified by “multinational people,” “united by a common fate,” hence the conclusion that the rights to have a motherland and national culture were stolen from Russians. This idea is supported by his disciples, nationalistic authors, and journalists, such as Sevastyanov (Reference Sevastianov2012a; Reference Sevastianov2012b) and Sviatenkov (Reference Sviatenkov2012), and the common belief is that the main purpose of the Russian Constitution is to “make Russian people fit the Rossiianian measurements” (Beliaev Reference Beliaev2013). Another example: in the short manifesto, “Why Am I a Russian Nationalist?” which was published in Sputnik i Pogrom in the fall of 2016, Prosvirnin (Reference Prosvirnin2016) marks the internal enemy, using the term multinational 14 times. Anthropologist Valery Tishkov, who was at the forefront of the state policy, focused on the formation of a civic “Rossiiskaia” nation, and was regularly and violently attacked by Russian nationalists. Attacks on his methodology of social constructivism are especially popular: “and then Tishkovians would come,” Krylov (Reference Krylov2010) notes ironically, “and say that there are no Russians at all, because Tishkov cancelled the nation.”
While the first, historical, and the second, theoretical, rhetorical lines are somewhat soft, the third, most aggressive rhetorical line in the formation of the interior enemy’s image is attempts to discredit specific ethnic groups. The central place as the internal enemy is given to Caucasians. Caucasians gradually took the place of the Jews in the ideology of contemporary nationalism. This is reflected in the general public mood of Russians, where a decline of anti-Semitism is noticable (Laruelle Reference Laruelle2009). As noted by Viktor Shnirelman (Reference Schnirelman2011), anti-Semitic activity manifested itself mostly in symbolic actions, but Caucasophobia entails discrimination, harassment, and physical violence.
In this regard, the resonant statement of the deputy chairman of the Duma, and one of the key Kremlin propagandists, and leading columnist of First Channel in the past, Petr Tolstoi, who made some assumptions about the role of the Jews during the attack on the Russian Orthodox Church after the October Revolution, was met with some new discoveries. Prosvirnin mentioned on his Facebook page “you shouldn’t belittle the deeds of Baltic states, Caucasus, and China. Yes, comrade Bronstein [Trotsky] did well, but comrades Dzerjinskii, Dzhugashvili, Lazis, and others worked with all their might.”
In this regard, it can be assumed that the image of Jews as a combination of external enemy (in the form of a global conspiracy) and internal enemy shifted in the discourse of contemporary nationalists into the image of an external (primarily British) enemy and main internal enemy—the Caucasians. In regard to the latter, aggression isn’t limited to symbolic means, and could come to include direct violence.
From this point of view, Caucasians are the main representatives of the British colonial administration. Krylov, for example, gives this description of Chechens on his blog: “they are built as a centaur: a wild furry body with an English head sewn to it.”Footnote 15 Similar qualities are given to the Georgians by Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2006b): “We should give a hand to Georgians in Russia. First of all, bring the spoiled English caste of Asia to its senses.”
Krylov (Reference Krylov2005a) refers to the issue of Akhmad Zakaev, who was accused of many serious crimes in Russia, while reflecting on the two-faced strategy of London. He uses a short historical story as an argument: “if we look at history, we can learn a lot about English-Chechen relations. The fact that the Great Britain is extremely popular among Chechens because of a certain prophecy, according to which the Chechens would be saved by the British, is just the tip of the iceberg. Another fact is that there were British oil companies carelessly allowed to work in Chechnya by the Tsarist government.”
The relationship with Caucasian nations reaches the existential scale for contemporary Russian nationalism. According to it, the very existence of Russian everyday culture is put into question (Nemenskii Reference Nemenskii2010). The obvious importance of the problem connected to the relations with Caucasians is hidden in the fact that it resonates with the population. Its mobilizing capacity is appreciated by Russian nationalists. “Dear guests from the Northern Caucasus! Your role in the development of Russian self-consciousness cannot be overstated!”—this is the beginning of one of the articles in Sputnik i Pogrom (Zhuchkovskii 2012). Nationalists’ views of the West as an enemy coincide with the official government position on the issue, but their anti-Caucasian rhetoric clearly contradicts it. In general, this part of the ideology of contemporary Russian nationalism comprises a confrontation with the government, making it impossible to include a nationalistic representative in the governmental structure and thereby maintaining control and repression of them.
“In Anticipation of the Horde”
The mobilizing potential of migrantophobia makes it an integral feature of political discourse. Nationalistic populism always includes discussion of immigration problems, especially during election campaigns. The widespread hostility toward migrants in Russian society is confirmed by numerous sociological surveys (Mukomel Reference Mukomel2005). According to Schnirelman (Reference Schnirelman2011), migrantophobic discourse is formed in two dimensions: (1) economic and social, as a problem of reducing the cost of labor and the export of capital, and (2) cultural, as a threat to national identity.
In both cases, the whole spectrum of political powers is involved. This issue is able to unite such opposite traditionalists as neo-Eurasianist Dugin and nationalist Sevastyianov. A significant contribution to the production of migrantophobic discourse is made by the representatives of Russian bureaucracy. Russian migrantophobia was expressed in the Movement against Illegal Immigration, which, according to Laruelle (Reference Laruelle2009), played an important role in the consolidation of a broad range of extra-parliamentary political forces.
Migrantophobia doesn’t lose to Caucasophobia in its mobilization qualities. These two categories of social consciousness are often considered as one. That’s why they play the same role in nationalist discourse. For example, immigrants are considered to be a “fifth column”Footnote 16 in LDPR campaign brochures (Tishkov Reference Tishkov2012). However, the functions of migrant workers from Central Asia are completely different from the functions of Caucasians in the contemporary Russian nationalist’s concept of an enemy. Caucasians, as well as other representatives of national minorities in the Russian Federation, are seen as members of the colonial administration, put there to ensure the dominance of the West over Russia. Migrants are an instrument which is used to conduct the policy of the degradation of Russian people. Changes to the ethnic composition in Russian cities as a result of migration from Central Asia are seen as a direct manifestation of the process of “Asiatization” of Russia.
Aggressive and scandalous vocabulary, typical in the discussions of these issues helps generate feelings of anxiety and fear of assimilation and loss of identity. A striking example is a lengthy essay by Kholmogorov (Reference Kholmogorov2011a), entitled “In Anticipation of the Horde.” The author claims “the Russian capital has become a non-Russian city, a new ‘Sarai.’ It’s impossible to walk down the street three hundred meters without meeting a group of visitors from Central Asia.”
Derogatory, demonizing terms are used to describe the migrants: “without any morality, except kishlak morality,”Footnote 17 “they don’t have any work ethic, any art, any obedience; the only thing they have is large amounts of them, groups, which are gradually turning into crowds.” Such rhetoric allows nationalists to complete their main task to create an atmosphere of danger and the feeling of psychological discomfort, frustration, and deprivation: “they are in the crowds without faces, without names or purposes; they wait for a person with a strong will, who will forge them and lead to an assault on our cities” (Kholmogorov Reference Kholmogorov2011a). Similar expressions are found in the aforementioned manifesto of Prosvirnin (Reference Prosvirnin2016): “I can see a muddy stream of Asian migrants which would overwhelm our cities and turn them into cloaca.”
Securitization of the immigration problem is typical for Krylov (Reference Fillipov2005b): “Closed migrant communities are not integrating into the Russian society; there are economic, cultural, linguistic, and religious barriers between citizens of Russia and migrants.” Under these conditions, workers become the victims not only of criminal structures, but also of radical Islamic propaganda, which threatens the security of the country. Migration creates obstacles for successful European integration, which is also important from the nationalist’s point of view: “without control, migration undermines any Russian attempts to integrate into Europe. European authorities fear the influx of migrants; that’s why they block the visa-free regime between the EU and Russia. This situation threatens the European choice of our country.” According to Krylov, migration is the root of every problem in Russia. It is impossible to have successful development without solving the migration problem: “Russians have their own problems. But we can’t solve them, because we have to solve other’s problems. There are strangers on our necks, and while we do nothing with it, we can’t make our lives better” (2005b).
A new wave of discussion of these problems was raised by the conflict in Biriulevo. Prosvirnin (Reference Prosvirnin2013), in his emotional text, which became popular on the Russian Internet, described the visa-free regime with Central Asian countries as a threat to the security of Russian people. He addresses the liberals: “that’s because you hate everything Russian. You know it, I know it. I see right through you, you dirty multinational bastards, who wish only evil on my dear Russian nation. Do it, come up with a hundred, two hundred reasons why shouldn’t we introduce a visa regime. Do not hesitate.”
The possibility of losing national identity caused by the influx of migrants is the reason for an existential fear. Using the officials’ statements about the necessity of additional manpower, Russian nationalists draw conclusions about the substitution of Russia with a new, “migrant Russia:” “Imagine, what would happen when the number of migrants increases significantly. Are you scared? I am.” This was written in the article, “Migrants Have Taken Over a Third of Moscow; Soon They Will Take Over Half of Russia” (Gladilin Reference Gladilin2012).
Similar threats are described by Beliaev (Reference Beliaev2012) regarding the call of the chairman of the Russian public movement of Tajik labor migrants, Karoman Sharipov. Sharipov offers to abandon the concept of “Russian” in favor of “Rossiianin,” what is seen as a requirement to make a room for migrants. Beliaev is sure that “they want Russian people to become extinct; they want our name to become forgotten forever.” As a response, the author clearly alludes to the necessity of deportations.
Demographic policy is also interpreted in the context of the migration issue. According to Kholmogorov (Reference Kholmogorov2011b), the state’s call to “give birth” should be understood as an attempt to provide Russia with cheap labor power, which would be forced to sell itself for a next to nothing. Kholmogorov is intimidated by the threat of the “horde,” “Tumens,” “kishlak youth.” The main idea developed by Kholmogorov is that Russians should give birth only after winning the fight against the “invasion of migrants.”
Krylov (cited in Ivanov Reference Ivanov2013) depicts the image of the migrant’s Russia more specifically: “Russia will cease to be a European country. Russia will be Asian. In a certain sense, it will be appropriate for the nature of our government. After all, our government is very similar to primitive Asiatic despotism. Contemporary Asian countries are modernizing rapidly, and Russia will be the last Asian state on the planet.” Purposeful Asiatization by migration policy is a tool of the West, through which the degradation of the Russian nation is implemented. Eduard Popov (Reference Popov2012) is sure of who benefits from this process. In his article, “Liberals’ Migration Policy Is Aimed at the Substitution of the Russian Local Population by Migrants,” published on the website of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, he states that on the one hand, this situation is the “atavism of the Soviet national policy,” which is personified by Ramzan Abdulatipov. On the other hand, this is the “Western theory of multiculturalism,” associated with Tishkov. The author reminds his readers that Tishkov was accused of beding a “CIA spy.” That the machinations of both “internal” and “external” enemies of the Russian nation are attempts to carry out a deliberate policy of Russian national degradation is obvious to the author.
The intensity of emotions in the rhetoric of contemporary Russian nationalism concerning migrants has reached its apotheosis. The representation of the Russian nation as a minority by consciously exaggerating the scale of migration helps to create an atmosphere of terror. This position is particularly fruitful in terms of the fear of losing identity (Shnirelman and Komarova Reference Shnirelman and Komarova1997). The perspective of “being absorbed by Asians” is the main danger for the Russian nation in the eyes of contemporary Russian nationalists. This enemy is directly opposed to the Russian nation, face-to-face, its antagonist and the main threat to its existence.
Conclusion
The conspiratorial nature of the cryptocolonial concept explains the dominance of such discursive mechanisms as Orientalism and colonialism in contemporary Russian nationalist vocabulary. Every enemy, including the West, is Asiatized. Colonialism appears ontologically as the idea of being enslaved by the West and epistemologically in the form of “internal colonialism.” Theoretical difficulties in the articulation of the image of the nation as a cultural and political entity lead to its division into hierarchical levels, which perform specific consolidating functions. The image of the enemy, which has acquired multilevel nature, becomes the main tool of this strategy. We assume that the complexity and contradictions of a modern political entity leads to the “enemy” becoming multifaceted and multilayered; it requires major theoretical efforts to give this conceptualization of the enemy a natural and organic form that can organize the political subject.
The highest level of the image of the enemy belongs to the West. Its level is equal to the level of nationalist intellectuals. The relations between the West and Russian nationalism are traditionally problematic. On the one hand, Russia seeks to overcome Asiatization to become a European power. On the other hand, it cannot be equal to hostile Europe. Europe-ization of Russia doesn’t imply Russia’s integration into Europe. The West is the enemy, the beneficiary of Russian degradation; it has initiated the Asiatization of Russia. This theoretical contradiction is resolved by Russian nationalists in the same way as every key political issue: the contemporary West is endowed with traits of the East.
Anti-Western rhetoric, especially Anglophobia (in contrast to widespread anti-Americanism), requires major intellectual effort. It’s because the difference between so-called cryptocolonialism and traditional colonialism is hidden in the fact that the population of a cryptocolony is unaware of its colonial status, and its people consider their country to be independent. This fact is a powerful obstacle to “anticolonial liberation.” This idea comprises a gap between intellectuals and the masses, and forms the situation of internal colonialism within the discourse of contemporary Russian nationalism: the national elite, who are responsible for the tragedy of cryptocolonialism, reflect their ignorant, enslaved people. Moreover, they even emphasize their specific position, distancing themselves from popular nationalism. England is a cunning and dangerous enemy, but nationalists do not judge it, because the problem is that Russia, while being equal to England, is not able to operate with the same efficiency. This fact puts Russian nationalists in a state of resentment, and this confrontation is seen as a fight with a worthy rival from whom Russia can learn a lot.
The level below belongs to internal enemies. Their function is to mobilize national activists, those who are ready to participate in street actions and act illegally. Internal enemies are seen as collaborators, the representatives of the hated colonial administration. The rhetoric of Russian nationalism is changing dramatically at this level of discussion: the internal enemy directly opposes the Russian people, but also has a different system of values. The central place at this level is held by representatives of the North Caucasus. Aggressive Russian nationalism often shows itself in its clashes with Caucasians.
Finally, the title of third-level enemy of contemporary Russian nationalism belongs to migrants. They became a tool in the hands of the West; however, unlike internal enemies, they perform this function unconsciously. At the same time, Russian nationalists emphasize the distance between the values of Russian people and those of migrants by using racist rhetoric. Migrantophobic discourse focuses on the broad masses and includes every basic propaganda cliché. As Laruelle states: “the migrantophobia presently dominating the country has paved the way for a generation of young nationalist leaders who have little time for their predecessors’ debates over doctrine and have consciously latched onto a racism that is ‘self-evident,’ that does not require high-level ideological articulation” (2009, 51).
It is important to note in this context that Galkovskii (Reference Galkovskii2004) doesn’t participate in the production of migrantophobic discourse. In one of his remarks, there is an idea for a “program of repopulation of the central Russia by the people from Caucasus and Central Asia,” but in general he considers this question secondary. From his point of view, “Central Asia isn’t important” and the root of all problems is in Russia’s relations with Ukraine. Moreover, the West (here, Galkovskii [Reference Galkovskii2013b] cites the example of Norway) purposely uses migrantophobia as a way to keep migrants in a state of enhanced exploitation and injustice. This position exludes Galkovskii from the public political field, because migrantophobia is the power that turns nationalism into a serious political force in contemporary Russia.
In order to fit the diversity of contemporary nationalist discourse, with all its contradictions, into a general doctrine, ideologues of contemporary Russian nationalism are forced to reinterpret their accumulated phobias. A key role in the language of contemporary Russian nationalism is played by discursive mechanisms such as Orientalism, colonialism, and conspiracy theories. The ideological load is weakened from level to level in the structure of the image of the enemy of contemporary Russian nationalism. Otherwise, the emotional intensity increases: specific terminology is replaced by scandalous vocabulary, and respectable journalists are replaced by street agitators.
