The Boundaries of National Identity Defined: Nationalism and Immigration Trends in Post-Soviet Russia

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation faced many challenges, including increased immigration, a search for national identity, and growing nationalist sentiment. Post-Soviet Russia grew increasingly intolerant of people arriving in the country either for a temporary stay or to settle permanently. The rate of ethnically motivated violence grew rapidly, and at the same time nationalist organizations spread throughout the country and enjoyed an increase in membership. Sixty percent of the country’s population supports nationalist slogans such as “Russia is for [ethnic] Russians.” These controversial social trends in Russian society have stirred many debates and drawn considerable academic attention.

The dissertation examines the reasons behind strong anti-immigrant attitudes and burgeoning nationalism in post-Soviet Russia. It argues that Russians’ changing perceptions of national identity, the ethnicization or Russification of this identity, and the characteristics that Russians attribute to immigrants have shaped intergroup relations and contributed to the growth in nationalist violence against immigrants. This dissertation poses two main questions that guide the research: 1) What are the mainstream public attitudes, perceptions and opinions in society about immigration to Russia, as expressed in the national print media? To be more specific, how does the host population, through public discourse on immigration, position itself vis-à-vis the immigrant population and define their relations with immigrants? 2) How is post-independence national identity understood in mainstream public discourse as reflected in the national print media?

Using theories relating to group-positioning, nationalism and social identity, this study addresses these questions and analyzes the discourse on immigration in Russia’s print media between 1992 and 2007. This provides an insight into how national identity and relations between host and immigrant populations have been defined in the Russian Federation.