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'''Russian nationalism''' ({{Lang-ru|Русский национализм}}) is a form of [[nationalism]] that promotes [[Russia]]n [[cultural identity]] and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence as a [[Pan-Slavism|Pan-Slavic]] enterprise during the 19th century [[Russian Empire]], and was repressed during the early [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] rule. Russian nationalism was briefly revived through the policies of [[Joseph Stalin]] during and after the [[World War II|Second World War]], which shared many resemblances with the worldview of early [[Eurasianism|Eurasianist]] ideologues.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nugraha |first=Aryanta |date=February 2018 |title=Neo-Eurasianism in Russian Foreign Policy: Echoes from the Past or Compromise with the Future? |url=https://e-journal.unair.ac.id/JGS/article/view/7728/4577 |journal=Jurnal Global & Strategis |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=99–100 |doi=10.20473/jgs.9.1.2015.95-110 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230706065357/https://e-journal.unair.ac.id/JGS/article/view/7728/4577 |archive-date=6 July 2023 |via=Global Strategis|doi-access=free }}</ref>
The definition of Russian national identity within Russian nationalism has been characterized in different ways.
==History==
{{original research section|date=September 2024}}
[[File:Памятник Тысячелетие России в Новгороде.JPG|thumb|upright|The [[Millennium of Russia]] monument built in 1862 that celebrated one-thousand years of Russian history]]
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*[[Tsarist autocracy|Autocracy]]{{snd}}unconditional loyalty to the [[House of Romanov]] in return for [[paternalism|paternalist]] protection for all [[Social estates in the Russian Empire|social estates]].
*Nationality (''[[Narodnost]]'', has also been translated as ''national spirit'').<ref>{{cite book|last=Hutchings|first=Stephen C.|title=Russian Literary Culture in the Camera Age: The Word as Image|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|page=86}}</ref>
[[File:Russian poster WWI 060.jpg|thumb|right|Russian World War I era poster calling to buy war bonds]]
[[Pan-Slavism]] and the [[Slavophile]] movement of the 19th century, led by such figures as [[Aleksey Khomyakov]], [[Sergey Aksakov]], and [[Ivan Kireyevsky]] drew a line between Western Europe and Russia, emphasizing Russia as a dominant regional power as well as spiritual unity among Slavs in their Orthodox religion, of which the Russian autocratic regime was the ultimate expression. However, their movement was suppressed by [[Tsar Nicholas I]], a law and order royalist, who surveilled and suppressed the Slavophiles. The movement was revived in the 1870s by [[Konstantin Leontiev]] and [[Nikolay Danilevsky]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Levine |first=Louis |date=1914 |title=Pan-Slavism and European Politics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2142012 |journal=Political Science Quarterly |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=664–686 |doi=10.2307/2142012 |jstor=2142012 |issn=0032-3195}}</ref>
In the beginning of 20th century, new nationalist and rightist organizations and parties emerged in Russia, such as the [[Russian Assembly]], the [[Union of the Russian People]], the [[Black Hundreds|Union of Archangel Michael]] ("Black Hundreds") and others.
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[[File:Trotsky-Saint George allusion.png|thumb|right|Bolshevik propaganda poster from the [[Russian Civil War]] with an allusion of [[Saint George and the Dragon]] with [[Red Army]] leader [[Leon Trotsky]] as being a Saint George figure who was slaying the dragon which represented [[counter-revolution]]. The symbol of Saint George slaying the dragon was and still is a Russian national symbol.]]
[[File:Thecristisrizenoldrussiancivilwarposter.jpg|thumb|right|[[White movement|White Russian]] anti-[[Soviet Union|Soviet]] poster, {{Circa|1932}}, depicting the female personification of Russia known as [[Mother Russia]]]]
In 1917, Russia became a communist (Soviet) country. In 1922, the multi-national [[Soviet Union]] was founded (under duress from the Russian Bolshevik communists). However Russia was ''de facto'' the dominant country in area and population as well as in economy, the capital of the Soviet Union was in Russia, and its government and economy were highly centralized. Under the outlook of [[World communism|international communism]] that was especially strong at the time, [[Vladimir Lenin]] separated patriotism into what he defined as [[Proletariat|proletarian]], socialist patriotism from [[bourgeois nationalism]].<ref>''The Current digest of the Soviet press, Volume 39, Issues 1-26''. American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1987. Pp. 7.</ref> Lenin promoted the right of all nations to [[self-determination]] and the right to unity of all workers within nations, but he also condemned [[chauvinism]] and claimed there were both justified and unjustified feelings of national pride.<ref>Christopher Read. ''Lenin: a revolutionary life''. Digital Printing Edition. Oxon, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2006. Pp. 115.</ref> Lenin explicitly denounced conventional Russian nationalism as "[[Great Russian chauvinism]]", and his government sought to accommodate the country's multiple ethnic groups by creating republics and sub-republic units to provide non-Russian ethnic groups with autonomy and protection from Russian domination.<ref name=Motyl501>Motyl, 2001, page 501</ref> Lenin also sought to balance the ethnic representation of leadership of the country by promoting non-Russian officials in the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] to counter the large presence of Russians in the Party.<ref name=Motyl501 /> However, even during this early period of Soviet history, the Soviet government appealed to Russian nationalism when it needed support - especially on the Soviet borderlands in the Soviet Union's early years.<ref name=Motyl501 />
Since Russian patriotism served as a legitimizing prop of old order, Bolshevik leaders were anxious to suppress its manifestations and ensure its eventual extinction. They officially discouraged Russian nationalism and remnants of Imperial patriotism, such as the wearing of military awards received before the Civil War. Some of their followers disagreed; in non-Russian territories, Bolshevik power was often regarded as renewed Russian imperialism during 1919 to 1921. In 1922, the Soviet Union was formed with its members combined, but Russia was the largest and most populous member. After 1923, following Lenin's ideas, a policy of [[korenizatsiya]], which provided government support for non-Russian culture and languages within the non-Russian republics, was adopted.<ref name="ChulosPiirainen8">Timo Vihavainen: ''Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments?'' in [https://archive.org/details/fallofempirebirt0000unse/page/84/mode/2up Chulos & Piirainen 2000].</ref> However, this policy was not strictly enforced due to domination of Russians in Soviet Union.<ref>Law, Ian. Red racisms: racism in communist and post-communist contexts. Springer, 2016, p. 19</ref><ref name=":2">Martin, Terry Dean. ''The affirmative action empire: nations and nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939''. Cornell University Press, 2001.</ref>{{Rp|page=394|quote=The status of the Russian nationality was raised dramatically in the period from 1933 to 1938, along with the status of the RSFSR. This development threatened the foundations of the Affirmative Action Empire [...]}}<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=O'Connor |first=Kevin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=apP4-vjizsYC |title=Intellectuals and Apparatchiks: Russian Nationalism and the Gorbachev Revolution |date=2008 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0739131220 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=24|quote=While the early Bolsheviks claimed to be internationalist, committed to a worldwide revolution of the proletariat, in today's Russia basic component of communist ideology is the recognition of the Russian people's special ethnic identity and their mission to unite and lead the diverse peoples of Eurasia down a distinctly non-Western path of development. This broad appeal to Russian nationalism in its traditional{{snd}}that is, ethnic, and more overtly, imperial{{snd}}forms might at first glance seem to be antithetical to the Marxism's traditional emphasis on internationalism and Lenin's own efforts to suppress "Great Russian chauvinism"}} This domination had been formally criticized in the tsarist empire by Lenin and others as [[Great Russian chauvinism]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=8|quote=[Soviet] reasoning can be summarized [...] the nationalism of the oppressed non-Russian peoples expresses not only masked class protest, but also legitimate national grievances against the oppressive great-power chauvinism of the dominant Russian nationality. Therefore, neither nationalism nor national identity can be unequivocally condemned as reactionary.}} Thomas Winderl wrote "The USSR became in a certain sense more a [[Prison of the peoples|prison-house of nations]] than the old Empire had ever been. [...] The Russian-dominated center established an inequitable relationship with the ethnic groups it voluntarily helped to construct."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Bekus |first=Nelly |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DiwPRpRYt2kC |title=Struggle Over Identity: The Official and the Alternative 'Belarusianness'|date=2010|publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=978-9639776685 |pages=41–50 |language=en |chapter=Nationalism and Socialism: The Soviet Case}}</ref> Various scholars focused on the nationalist features that already existed during the Leninist period.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=43|quote=Sergei Maksudov and William Taubman write that the Soviet Union rested on three main pillars{{snd}}"ideology, dictatorship and nationalism" against the three pillars of tsarist Russia{{snd}}orthodoxy, autocracy, and narodnost [national spirit], thus, giving place to nationalism as a significant premise of state ideology during the Soviet time}}{{Rp|page=48|quote=Ian Bremmer calls this matryoshka-nationalism which implies the existence of nations inside a larger nation as a specific phenomenon of soviet nationalism. It gave birth to all national movements}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Soviet Policy on Nationalities, 1920s–1930s{{snd}}Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary: The University of Chicago Library |url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/soviet-imaginary/socialism-nations/soviet-policy-nationalities-1920s-1930s/ |access-date=2022-08-31 |website=www.lib.uchicago.edu}}</ref><ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=24|quote=the merger of Marxism-Leninism and Russian nationalist-conservatism continues a trend that had been taking place in Soviet Russian communism since Stalin or even since the early 1920s.}} Korenizatsiya's multinational construction weakened during Stalin's rule. Stalin's policies established a clear shift to Russian nationalism, starting from the idea that Russians were "first among equals" in the Soviet Union, escalating through the "nationalities deportations".<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=453|quote=[Stalin] called the Russians "the most industrial, the most active, and the most Soviet of all nations in our country." [...] In a May 1933 speech in the Kremlin, Stalin again complimented the Russians as "the major nationality of the world; they first raised the flag of the soviets in opposition to the rest of the world. The Russian nation{{snd}}it is the most talented nation in the world." [...] Significantly, all these remarks were either private or addressed to limited elite audiences... since they contradicted the spirit of the Affirmative Action Empire. [...] By 1938, the Soviet government was propagating an extraordinarily crude essentialist Russian nationalism.}}<ref name=":3" /> According to scholar Jon K. Chang, the Bolsheviks "never made a clean break from Tsarist-era nationalist, populist and primordialist beliefs".<ref name=":3" />{{Rp|page=7}} Russian historian Andrei Savin stated that Stalin's policy shifted away from internationalism towards [[National Bolshevism]] in the 1930s. In a marked change from elimination of the class enemies, the nationality-based repressions declared entire ethnicities counter-revolutionary enemies, although "class dogmas" declaring targeted nationalities to be ideologically opposed to the Soviets were usually added.<ref name=":42">{{Cite journal |last=Савин |first=Андрей |title=Ethnification of Stalinism? National Operations and the NKVD Order № 00447 in a Comparative Perspective |url=https://www.academia.edu/38594214 |journal=Ethnic and Religious Minorities in Stalin's Soviet Union: New Dimensions of Research. Edited by Andrej Kotljarchuk & Olle Sundström. Stockholm |date=January 2017 |page=62 |quote=The choice of “unreliable nations” as an internal enemy and the “fifth column,” as well as the shift in the national policy of the Stalinist regime of the 1930s from internationalism to Russification and “National Bolshevism,”is generally consistent with the theory of the ethnification of Stalinism.}}</ref>
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In 1944, the Soviet Union abandoned its [[Communism|communist]] anthem [[The Internationale]] and adopted a [[State Anthem of the Soviet Union|new national anthem]] conveying a Russian-centered national pride in its first stanza, "An unbreakable union of free republics, [[Great Russia]] has sealed forever."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-06-18 |title=New National Anthem |url=https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1943-2/new-national-anthem/ |access-date=2022-08-31 |website=Seventeen Moments in Soviet History |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Anthem History |url=https://web.stanford.edu/class/slavgen194a/hymn/anthem_history.htm |access-date=2022-08-31 |website=web.stanford.edu}}</ref>
Although Khrushchev had risen up during Stalinism, his speech ''[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]]'' and [[de-Stalinization]] signified a retreat from official anti-Semitism and Great Russian Chauvinism. Most, though not all nationalities deported by Stalin were allowed to return during Khrushchev, and the Soviet Union to a degree, resumed a policy of cultivating local national developments.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=46|quote=Russian Cultural Nationalism After Stalin}} Among the nationalities not allowed to return were Koreans<ref name=":5" /> and [[Crimean Tatars]].<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|page=162}} The Kremlin during Khrushchev, generally favoring Russification overall, would attempt several variations of nationalities policy, favoring ''korenizatsiya'' (indigenization) in Central Asia without extending privileges to Russians. In Latvia however, regional communist elites tried to reinstate local ''korenizatsiya'' 1957-1959, but Khrushchev cracked down on these efforts, exiling [[Eduards Berklavs]], and extended privileges to Russians in Latvia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Commercio |first=Michele E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wx1fXSsAWzIC&pg=PA46 |title=Russian Minority Politics in Post-Soviet Latvia and Kyrgyzstan: The Transformative Power of Informal Networks |date=2011-06-06 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-0470-4 |pages=42–43, 46 |language=en}}</ref> Nonetheless, during Khrushchev's relatively more tolerant administration, Russian nationalism emerged as a slightly oppositional phenomenon within the Soviet elites. [[Alexander Shelepin]], a Communist Party hardliner and KGB chairman, called for a return to Stalinism and policies more in line with Russian cultural nationalism, as did conservative writers like [[Sergey Vikulov]]. The [[Komsomol]] leadership also hosted several prominent nationalists such as [[Sergei Pavlovich Pavlov]], an ally of Shelepin, while the [[Molodaya Gvardiya (publisher)|Molodaya Gvardiya]] published numerous neo-Stalinist and nationalist works.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=|pages=52–53}} Russian assumed the ''[[de jure]]'' status as the official national language in 1990.<ref>{{cite web|script-title=ru:ЗАКОН СССР ОТ 24 April 1990 О ЯЗЫКАХ НАРОДОВ СССР |publisher=[[Government of the Soviet Union]] |date=24 April 1990 |url=http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm|trans-title=Law of the USSR from 24 April 1990 on languages of the USSR |access-date=24 October 2010 |language=ru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508201331/http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm |archive-date=8 May 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia became the successor state.
===Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union===
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[[File:Церемония вручения государственных наград РФ 21 May 2015 37.jpg|thumb|[[Vladimir Putin]] and [[Vladimir Zhirinovsky]] are both considered Russian nationalists.]]
[[File:A rally in support of Novorossiya in Moscow on June 11, 2014 (19).jpg|thumb|A rally in support of [[Novorossiya (confederation)|Novorossiya]] in Moscow on 11 June 2014]]
The Kremlin conducted a campaign against radical nationalists in the 2010s, and as a result, many of them are currently imprisoned, according to a Russian political scientist and a senior visiting fellow at the [[George Washington University]] Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies [[Maria Lipman]].<ref name="ny22lipman">{{cite magazine |last1=Chotiner |first1=Isaac |title=Putin Has a Patriotism Problem |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/putins-patriotism-problem |magazine=The New Yorker |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220608111058/https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/putins-patriotism-problem |archive-date=8 June 2022 |date=8 June 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> At the same time, [[Eurasianism]] has emerged as the dominant nationalist narrative in [[Putinist Russia]].{{cn|date=September 2024}} In a poll conducted by [[Levada Center]] in 2021, 64% of Russian citizens identify Russia as a non-European country; while only 29% regarded Russia to be part of Europe.<ref>{{Cite web |date=22 March 2021 |title=Russia and Europe |url=https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/03/22/russia-and-europe/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230501190456/https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/03/22/russia-and-europe/ |archive-date=1 May 2023 |website=Levada Center}}</ref>
[[Sociology|Sociologist]] Marcel Van Herpen wrote that [[United Russia]] increasingly relied on Russian nationalism for support following the [[Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present)|2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Van Herpen |first=Marcel H. |year= 2014 |title=Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |pages=116–117 |isbn=978-1442231375}}</ref> Nationalist political party [[Rodina (political party)|Rodina]] cultivated ties with [[Euroscepticism|Eurosceptic]], far-right and [[Far-left politics|far-left]] political movements, supporting them financially and inviting them to [[Eurasianism|Eurasian]] conferences in Crimea and Saint Petersburg.<ref name="BF150322">{{cite web | url=https://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/europes-far-right-comes-to-russia-in-search-of-shared-values | title=Racists, Neo-Nazis, Far Right Flock to Russia for Joint Conference | publisher=BuzzFeed | date=2015-03-22 | access-date=2015-03-23 | author=Max Seddon}}</ref>
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[[File:Обращение Президента Российской Федерации 2022-02-24.webm|thumb|Putin's [[On conducting a special military operation|address to the nation]] on 24 February 2022.<ref name=ukrblo>{{cite news |title=Full text: Putin's declaration of war on Ukraine |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-putin-s-declaration-of-war-on-ukraine |publisher=[[The Spectator]] |date=24 February 2022}}</ref> Minutes after Putin's announcement, the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]] began.]]
Since around 2014, the Putin regime has adopted Russian nationalism and great-power chauvinism as its main policy.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Simpson |first1=Jeffrey |title=The return of Great Russian chauvinism |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-return-of-great-russian-chauvinism/article17298477/ |work=The Globe and Mail |date=5 March 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=26 February 2022 |title=Putin's Anti-Bolshevik Fantasies Could Be His Downfall|url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/02/putin-anti-bolshevik-tsarist-mythic-history-ukraine|author-last=Kessler|author-first=Mario|access-date=11 March 2022 |work=Jacobin}}</ref> In July 2021, Putin published an essay titled ''[[On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians]]'', in which he states that Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians should be in one [[All-Russian nation]] as a part of the [[Russian world]] and are "one people" whom "forces that have always sought to undermine our unity" wanted to "divide and rule".<ref>{{cite web |last = Putin |first = Vladimir |author-link = Vladimir Putin |date = 12 July 2021 |title = Article by Vladimir Putin 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians' |url = http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220125053520/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 |archive-date = 25 January 2022 |website = The Kremlin |publisher = [[Government of Russia]]. }}</ref>
In 2020 [[Constitution of Russia|Russian Constitution]] went through a significant reform which, among other changes, added a notion of Russians being "state-forming nation" of the Russian Federation, gaining a dominating role over other ethnic groups.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Prina |first=Federica |date=2024-02-05 |title=Russia’s Minority Institutions, Ethnic Boundaries, and Social-Humanitarian Work: A Case of Collective Responsibility? |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10758216.2024.2304247#abstract |journal=Problems of Post-Communism |doi=10.1080/10758216.2024.2304247}}</ref>
In [[Address concerning the events in Ukraine|a speech on 21 February 2022]], following the escalation in the [[2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis]],<ref>{{cite web |date=2022-02-21 |title=Putin orders troops into eastern Ukraine on 'peacekeeping duties' |website=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/ukraine-putin-decide-recognition-breakaway-states-today |archive-date=2022-02-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220223175613/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/ukraine-putin-decide-recognition-breakaway-states-today |url-status=live}}</ref> Putin made a number of claims about Ukrainian and Soviet history, including stating that modern Ukraine was created by the [[Bolsheviks]] in 1917 as part of a communist [[National delimitation in the Soviet Union|appeasement of nationalism]] of ethnic minorities in the former [[Russian Empire]], specifically blaming [[Vladimir Lenin]] for "detaching Ukraine from Russia".<ref>{{cite web|last=Gotev |first=Georgi |url=https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/putins-world-selected-quotes-from-a-disturbing-speech/ |title=Putin's world: Selected quotes from a disturbing speech – |publisher=Euractiv.com |date= 22 February 2022}}</ref> Putin spoke of the "historic, strategic mistakes" that were made when in 1991 the USSR "granted sovereignty" to other [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet republics]] on "historically Russian land" and called the entire episode "truly fatal".<ref>{{cite news |last1=JOFFRE |first1=TZVI |title=Russian parliament questions Lithuania's independence with new bill |url=https://www.jpost.com/international/article-709046 |date=9 June 2022}}</ref> He described Ukraine as being turned into the "anti-Russia" by the West.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=What the West Will Never Understand About Putin's Ukraine Obsession |url=https://time.com/6140996/putin-ukraine-threats/ |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=22 January 2022}}</ref>
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====Neopaganism and the Aryan myth====
{{Main|Slavic Native Faith}}
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the [[Aryan race|Aryan myth]] has gained publicity in Russia. Numerous series of collections of works by popularizers of the Aryan idea are published (''Secrets of the Russian Land'', ''The True History of the Russian People'', etc.). They are available in Russian bookstores and municipal and university libraries. These works are not marginal: they have a circulation of tens of thousands of copies (or millions, for example, for books by [[Alexander Asov]]), their content is involved in the formation of the worldview basis of a stratum of the population regarding ancient history.{{cn|date=September 2024}}
Authors who develop the Aryan theme are often employees of new amateur academies and geopolitical institutions. Only a small number of them have a history degree. Most of them were educated in the field of technology and exact sciences.<ref name=Laruelle2010>{{cite web |first=Marlène |last=Laruelle |author-link=Marlène Laruelle |title=Арийский миф — русский взгляд / Перевод с французского Дмитрия Баюка. 25.03.2010 |url=https://www.vokrugsveta.ru/telegraph/theory/1125/ |publisher=[[Vokrug sveta]] |date=2010}}</ref>
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The "Aryan" idea in the version of Slavic neo-paganism (the origin of the Slavs from the "Aryans" from [[Hyperborea]] or Central Asia, also called the "race of white gods"; the connection of the Slavs with India; ancient pre-Christian Slavic "runic" books; origin from the "Slavic-Aryans" of the ancient civilizations; the neo-pagan symbol "[[Kolovrat (symbol)|Kolovrat]]" as an ancient Slavic symbol; a variant of the alien origin of the "Aryan-Hyperboreans") was popularized in the "documentary" programs of the [[REN TV]] television network, including broadcasts by Igor Prokopenko and Oleg Shishkin.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Andrey |last=Beskov |title=Реминисценции восточнославянского язычества в современной российской культуре (статья третья) |journal=Colloquium Heptaplomeres |date=2017 |issue=4 |url=https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/reministsentsii-vostochnoslavyanskogo-yazychestva-v-sovremennoy-rossiyskoy-kulture-statya-tretya |pages=7–19|issn=2312-1696}}</ref>
In a number of areas of Russian nationalism, the "Aryan" idea is used to justify the right to the territory of modern Russia or the former Soviet Union, which is declared to be the habitat of the ancient "Slavo-Aryans". In a number of post-Soviet countries, "Aryanism" is cultivated by neo-pagan movements that are not satisfied with the real history of their peoples. The pre-Christian past is idealized, allowing one to present one's ancestors as a great victorious people. The choice falls on paganism, since, according to these ideologists, it is endowed with an "Aryan heroic principle" and is not burdened by Christian morality, calling for mercy and ignoring the idea of the priority of "blood and soil".{{cn|date=September 2024}}
Christianity is seen by neo-pagans as a hindrance to a successful "racial struggle". The rejection of Christianity and the return to the "ethnic religion", the "faith of the ancestors", according to neo-pagans, will help overcome the split of the nation and return to it the lost moral "Aryan" values that can lead it out of the crisis. Neo-pagans call for a return to the "Aryan worldview" in the name of public health, which is being destroyed by modern civilization. Within this discourse, the slogans of the [[Conservative Revolution]] of the 1920s are once again becoming popular. Declaring themselves "Aryans", the radicals seek to fight for the "salvation of the white race", which results in attacks on "migrants" and other representatives of non-[[titular nation]]alities.<ref name=Schnirelmann2015>{{cite book |last= Schnirelmann |first= Victor |author-link= Victor Schnirelmann |date= 2015 |title= Aryan myth in the modern world |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Aa8qCwAAQBAJ |publisher= New literary review |isbn=9785444804223 |language=ru}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=April 2023}}
In many areas of [[Slavic Native Faith|Slavic neo-paganism (rodnovery)]], Slavs or Russians are credited with historical and cultural or [[racial hierarchy|racial superiority]] over other peoples. This ideology includes Russian messianism, with the Russian people being considered the only force capable of resisting world evil and leading the rest of the world.<ref name=Schnirelmann2015/>{{Page needed|date=April 2023}} The "Aryan" idea sets before Russia the task of building an analogue of the "[[Fourth Reich]]", a new "Aryan" empire on a global scale.<ref name=Laruelle2010/> The Russian Aryan myth rejects any territorial disputes, since the Russian people are depicted as absolutely autochthonous throughout Eurasia.{{cn|date=September 2024}}
Less common is the model of an ethno-national state associated with the [[Separatism in Russia|separatism of certain Russian regions]]. The fragmentation of Russia into several Russian national states, [[White ethnostate|devoid of ethnic minorities]], is supposed. In both cases, it is believed that the cohesion of society in the new state should be built on a single "[[Slavic Native Faith|native faith]]".<ref name=Schnirelmann2015/>{{Page needed|date=April 2023}}
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[[File:New Horizons International Conference 04 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Eurasianism|Eurasianist]] ideologue [[Aleksandr Dugin]] is regarded as the most influential Russian nationalist theoretician of the 21st century.]]
[[File:Russia Day in Mirny, Sakha Republic 20.JPG|thumb|[[Russia Day]] celebrations in [[Mirny, Sakha Republic]], 12 June 2014]]
The issue of Russian nationalism with regard to Russia's relationship with its ethnic minorities has been extensively studied since the rapid expansion of Russia from the 16th century onward.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.iwm.at/transit-online/contemporary-russian-nationalism-between-east-and-west/|title = Contemporary Russian Nationalism between East and West | IWM Website}}</ref>
The [[Russo-Kazan Wars|Russian conquest of Muslim Kazan]] is considered the first event which transformed Russia from a nearly homogenous nation into a multi-ethnic society.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/561883/summary|doi = 10.1353/kri.2014.0050|title = Muscovy's Conquest of Kazan|year = 2014|last1 = Davies|first1 = Brian L.|journal = Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History|volume = 15|issue = 4|pages = 873–883|s2cid = 159827537}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/kazan-search-recipe-for-its-melting-pot|title=Kazan: In Search of a Recipe for Its Melting Pot | Wilson Center}}</ref> Over the years and from the territorial base which it gained in Kazan, Russia managed to conquer [[Siberia]] and [[Manchuria]] and it also expanded into the [[Caucasus]]. At one point, Russia managed to annex a large territory of [[Eastern Europe]], [[Finland]], [[Central Asia]], [[Mongolia]] and, on other occasions, it encroached into Turkish, Chinese, Afghan and Iranian territories. Various ethnic minorities have become increasingly viral and integrated into mainstream Russian society, and as a result, they have created a mixing picture of racial relationships in the modern Russian nationalist mindset. The work of understanding different ethnic minorities in relation to the Russian state can be traced back to the work of [[Philip Johan von Strahlenberg]], a Swedish prisoner of war who settled in Tsarist Russia and became a geographer.
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The [[Koryo-saram]] (Koreans) have also been regarded as a model minority in Russia, and as a result, they have been encouraged to colonize sparsely-populated parts of Russia, this policy was first implemented during the Tsarist era and it continues to be implemented today, because Koreans were not hostile to Russian nationalism. Although the Korean diaspora in the Russian Far East was loyal to the Soviet Union and also underwent cultural Russification, Koreans were [[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|deported to Central Asia]] by the Soviet government (1937–1938), based on the erroneous charge that they were aligned with the Japanese. When Khrushchev allowed deported nationalities to return to their homelands, the Koreans remained restricted and they were not rehabilitated.<ref>{{Cite book|isbn=978-0824856786|title=Burnt by the Sun: The Koreans of the Russian Far East|last1=Chang|first1=Jon K.|year=2016|publisher=University of Hawaii Press }}</ref> On 26{{spaces}}April 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the [[Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic]], under its chairman [[Boris Yeltsin]], passed the law ''[[On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples]]'' with Article 2 denouncing all mass deportations as "Stalin's policy of defamation and [[genocide]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Perovic |first=Jeronim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O19gDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA320 |title=From Conquest to Deportation: The North Caucasus under Russian Rule |year=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0190934675 |language=en}}</ref>
[[Ukrainians in Russia]] have been largely integrated and the majority of them pledged loyalty over Russia, while some Ukrainians managed to occupy significant positions in Russian history. [[Bohdan Khmelnytsky]] is one of Russia's most celebrated figures who brought Ukraine to the [[Tsardom of Russia]] throughout the [[Pereyaslav Council]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Plokhy |first1=Serhii |title=The Ghosts of Pereyaslav: Russo-Ukrainian Historical Debates in the Post-Soviet Era |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |date=2001 |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=489–505 |doi=10.1080/09668130120045906 |jstor=826545 |s2cid=144594680 }}</ref> Ukrainian Prince [[Alexander Bezborodko]] was responsible for manifesting the modern diplomacies of Russia under the reign of [[Catherine the Great]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rg.ru/2019/03/19/rodina-rodichi-bezborodko.html|title = Как сын украинского писаря стал ближайшим соратником Екатерины II| date=19 March 2019 }}</ref> Soviet leaders [[Nikita Khrushchev]], [[Leonid Brezhnev]], [[Konstantin Chernenko]] and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] also had some ancestral connections to Ukraine.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/02/separatism-in-ukraine-blame-nikita-khrushchev-for-ukraine-s-newest-crisis.html|title = Blame Khrushchev for Ukraine's Newest Crisis| journal=Slate |date = 25 February 2014 | last1=Keating | first1=Joshua }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://ukrainianweek.com/History/186792 | title=How Ukrainians built Communism | the Ukrainian Week | date=3 March 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gorby.ru/en/gorbachev/biography/|title = The International foundation for socio-economic and political studies (The Gorbachev Foundation) – Mikhail Gorbachev – Biography}}</ref> In addition, Russia's biggest opposition leader, [[Alexei Navalny]], is also of paternally of Ukrainian origin as well as being a potential Russian nationalist.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.svoboda.org/a/31086696.html|title=Алексей Навальный и украинцы|newspaper=Радио Свобода |date=9 February 2021 |last1=Портников |first1=Виталий }}</ref>
[[File:Маргарита Симоньян и Владимир Путин.jpg|thumb|RT editor-in-chief [[Margarita Simonyan]], who is of [[Armenians in Russia|Armenian]] descent, spoke out against the [[2022 anti-war protests in Russia]], stating that "If you are ashamed of being Russian now, don't worry, you are not Russian."<ref>{{Cite web|date=26 February 2022|title=Russia's Anti-War Lobby Goes Online|url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/26/russias-anti-war-lobby-goes-online-a76616|last=Popov|first=Maxime|work=The Moscow Times}}</ref>]]
[[Akhmad Kadyrov]] and his son [[Ramzan Kadyrov|Ramzan]] defected to Russia during the [[Second Chechen War]], pledging loyalty to Putin while maintaining a degree of autonomy for the [[Chechen republic|Chechen Republic]], while using this opportunity for securing funds for their regime from Russian federal money.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Russell |first1=John |title=Ramzan Kadyrov: The Indigenous Key to Success in Putin's Chechenization Strategy? |journal=Nationalities Papers |date=September 2008 |volume=36 |issue=4 |pages=659–687 |doi=10.1080/00905990802230605 |s2cid=154611444 }}</ref> [[Vladislav Surkov]], who is of Chechen origin, was the chief figure who initiated the idea of Russian [[managed democracy]], in which nationalism is a part of the ideology.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Casula |first1=Philipp |title=Sovereign Democracy, Populism, and Depoliticization in Russia: Power and Discourse During Putin's First Presidency |journal=Problems of Post-Communism |date=May 2013 |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=3–15 |doi=10.2753/PPC1075-8216600301 |s2cid=152713348 |url=https://edoc.unibas.ch/71461/1/20190717094457_5d2ed1f9c0ac2.pdf }}</ref>
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