Russia likes to emphasize how the situation of small nations in the country is excellent. Russia has never had colonial tendencies, all nations have joined the Russians of their own free will. However, the sinners are the Western countries, which swallowed up the colonies and which still have national problems. However, those countries where there is a Russian ethnic minority persecute it.
How did this narrative come about?
While a whole range of Russian propaganda narratives date back to the czarist era, sometimes almost unchanged, this one is only slightly younger. Lenin’s statement that Czarist Russia was a prison of nations can perhaps be seen as the beginning of this.
Czarist Russia saw the right of nations to self-determination as a threat to its existence and suppressed it. The Bolsheviks, however, barely a week after coming to power, on November 15, 1917, adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia. This is the right to self-determination of the people of Russia, including the right to secede from Russia and form their own state. This was also one of the reasons why the Red government won the Civil War over the white ones.
The Soviet Union, created after the Bolshevik coup, tried to present itself in an opposite light to Czarist Russia, as a country where all nations lived together amicably. This is probably why the country, based on internationalist ideology, consisted, in a rather paradoxical way, largely of subunits formed based on nationality. Of course, the prerequisite for this was the small detail that the region, including its inhabitants, had to have been previously subordinated to Moscow. If a group of people wanted to leave, it was nationalism, which was, of course, one of the biggest crimes in an internationalist country.
Thus, in the end, the right of people to self-determination was only a tactical expedient. It was a means of destroying the old order, but the ultimate goal remained the rise to power of the working people with their vanguard, the Bolsheviks.
In reality, the Soviets applied all the familiar techniques of colonialism, from the mass resettlement of Russians to subjugated regions to the imposition of their own economic and educational system. The aim was to ‘civilize’ indigenous peoples who were ‘developmentally backward’. Indigenous peoples were allowed to practice their own culture, within certain limits, of course.
Lenin also promised an education in the native language of all nations, even at the university level. The reality was, of course, somewhat different. Except for philology or linguistics, higher education is still not available in most indigenous languages.
But still, many nations created their own written languages and alphabets at that time. At the same time, in the language of smaller indigenous nations, only mother tongue classes were held in schools, and all other subjects were taught in Russian. At the same time, teachers of Russian origin often instilled the supremacy of Russian culture and language and the inferiority of local customs. This probably had a devastating effect on the student’s interest in the culture of their ancestors.
Of course, the fact that a large part of Russia’s mineral resources are located in indigenous territories has not helped either. In addition to land use and the accompanying natural pollution, which limited the opportunities for the traditional way of life of indigenous nations, it also led to mass migration.
In reality, however, the Soviet Union was another phase of the Russian Empire. As Stalin said at a reception in honour of the Red Army leadership in 1945, the Russian nation “is the most outstanding nation of all the nations of the Soviet Union.”
Russia has adopted a similar approach by now. If in the 1990s, the minority nations in their areas achieved at least nominally equal status for their language with Russian and the obligation that all schoolchildren there had to learn it, by now the supremacy of the Russian language has been restored and the learning of indigenous languages has become voluntary again.
What story does it tell us?
The narrative continues in the form inherited from the Soviet Union: that everything is fine with ethnic relations in Russia. However, it is the countries that reproach Russia in this respect that stand out as having problems.
However, so much has changed compared to Soviet times, that in the propaganda at the time, at least in the early years, the czarist state was the embodiment of evil, conquering new territories and persecuting ethnic minorities, whom the new power freed from its shackles, then according to the narrative in use now, even that has not happened. According to Putin, Russia has never colonized anyone. Subjugated nations simply cooperate based on equality, and Russia simply wants to help and support others.
Other nations themselves wanted to join Russia, which often simply protected them from much crueler countries. Russia and Russian culture help to civilize other nations, it promote their development. In reality, of course, it is simply a case of justifying assimilation.
The other side of this narrative is smearing your real and imagined opponents. It is said that Western countries have pursued a completely different policy in the past and are currently pursuing a completely different policy, dealing with the persecution of national minorities, based on language, skin color, and other grounds. The language and citizenship laws of Estonia and Latvia are also cited as an example of this.
For example, Russian propagandists criticize that the Russian language does not have a special status in Estonia, as well as the transition to Estonian-language school education.
Who is it aimed at?
Like many Russian propaganda narratives, this one is directed both inside and outside the country. It tries to convince the people of Russia that although there are indeed problems in the country, everything is worse in other parts of the world. It must instil in Russians the belief that they are living in the best possible country.
In the rest of the world, the target groups are also largely divided into two, on the one hand for the Western world, on the other for the Third World. In the Western world, it is directed, on the one hand, to those who have a favorable attitude towards Russia. On the other hand, it is intended to ward off accusations about ethnic relations. The narrative is closely linked to the politics of Russian compatriots.
However, it has a specific audience outside of the Western world. Russia has often supported political forces in power in the Third World since the time of the Soviet Union. The part of the narrative about how Russia has never colonized anyone is aimed at them.
What are its goals?
The goal is to confirm that ethnic relations are in order in Russia, and that the country supports all peoples and languages. Another goal is to delegitimize one’s opponents. An important part of this is the claim that countries with a Russian minority persecute it. On the other hand, the national problems and colonial past of other countries are emphasized.
With this narrative, it is also justified why the small nations of Russia should not communicate with foreign relatives – it makes no sense, Russia has everything and it is better than anywhere else.
In the Third World, Russia tries to use this narrative to emphasize its role as a friend dating back to the time of the Soviet Union, which supported anti-Western movements there. Since Russia has never been a colonial country, it would be opposed to the Western world, which for centuries ruled the countries of the Third World as their colonies.
The reality is, of course, somewhat different. Jaak Prozes, advisor of the Fenno-Ugria Foundation, writes: “However, the national policy of the Russian Federation is like a two-headed eagle, which on the one hand wants to show how all nationalities live happily in this country, but on the other hand wants to Russify them.”
How is it going at the moment?
There are around 200 different nations in Russia. Russia includes 22 republics. In addition, there are autonomous national regions, national districts, and national villages. In theory, such units should have these nationalities in the majority, but in reality, this is not always the case.
According to the first sentence of the title of the Constitution of Russia, Russia is a multicultural country, it mentions “the people of the multi-ethnic Russian Federation.” At the same time, nearly 80 percent of Russia’s population are Russians, and their language is also the state language.
At the same time, with the amendments to the Russian constitution adopted in the summer of 2020, the Russian language once again rose to the status of the only state language – since the 1990s, the language of the local indigenous people had also been the state language in many republics that are part of Russia.
The trend towards restoring the privileged status of the Russian language started years earlier. Thus, in 2017, Putin announced (in Yoshkar-Ola, the capital of Marimland, by the way), that it is unacceptable to force students to learn a language that is not their mother language at school. By this, he meant the indigenous languages that were compulsory in schools in ethnic areas.
It wasn’t long before the State Duma passed a law in July 2018 that made learning all languages in Russia voluntary – except for Russian language. Presumably, this means a sudden decrease in learning other languages.
Harassment of minorities also occurs in other ways. For example, two months before the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples in Estonia in 2021, the Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples of Russia adopted a statement that the World Congress would not be productive for these people. Russia is said to be the leader in supporting the Finno-Ugric people and has spent a lot on it. Also, the Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the Russian Federation is said to be the main Finno-Ugric movement in the world, working well both internally and abroad. Therefore, the participation of the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia in the World Congress is not recommended, because it makes no sense.
The FSB also forbade delegates who worked in local governments or organizations receiving money from the state budget to participate in the congress – the latter includes the local press. However, for those who could not be banned directly and who did not understand the expression “not recommended” correctly, the authorities made various obstacles.
For example, in the run-up to the World Congress, the Ivangorod Municipal Library allowed delegates from the Izhorians, Votes and Mansi to gather in a space. However, a day later, they learned that the library had begun repairing the pipes and there was no place for them to gather.
With the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, the situation of small nations in Russia has become more complicated. In the case of the Finno-Ugric peoples, a phenomenon that is called self-colonization in the post-colonial discourse appears. Small nations take over the language of the conqueror and are ready to go to war for the latter. A large part of the small nations are Russian citizens and Russian patriots.
Already at a relatively early stage of the war, it became clear that ethnic minorities made up a disproportionately large part of the forces fighting in Ukraine. A directive recommending the recruitment of soldiers from smaller ethnic groups has also been leaked to the media.
The screenshots are taken from the sources used in the article.
