Russian Politics Today Stability and Fragility

This chapter will discuss how race resonates in Russia, paying special attention to the current developments in racial politics. Contemporary racial politics in Russia is ambivalent and complex. Russian citizenship does not depend on racial or ethnic belonging but on civic loyalty. Nevertheless, despite all the calls for a civil Russian nation, we witness the growing importance of racial discourse, promoting an ethnoracial understanding of Russianness. This chapter examines racialization processes in Russia against the backdrop of a conservative turn in Vladimir Putin’s politics. It shows that deeply rooted legacies of racial thinking and practices continue to inform current conceptions of identity in the post-Soviet space. It then argues that racial issues in Russia should be regarded neither as something extreme and abnormal, nor as a disease infecting only certain political figures and subcultures. It is the racialization of mainstream political discourse in Russia – whether it be left, right, or liberal – that encourages the practices of race and the formation of racial identity, leading to new forms of racial governance. Racialization coexists uneasily with the official policy of antifascism. This dualism characterizes post-Soviet racial public discourse and policy leading to uncertainty about Russian identity and to tensions in Russian politics.