Françoise Daucé

Introduction: What Does it Mean to be a Patriot?

The accession to power of Vladimir Putin in 2000 was followed by a policy of national revival that crystallised under the banner of patriotism. Several government-sponsored programmes of ‘patriotic...

Des officiers soviétiques dans la Russie en changement. Détours personnels et attachements en commun

This study of the occupational and social trajectories of a few Soviet officers since the start of their careers helps us see how the events of 1991 affected their social and professional itineraries. Biographical interviews show the complexity of the everyday situation of Soviet officers before 1991, which involved attachments of various sorts: professional, family, friends, identity…. Although these officers clearly identified political changes in 1991, changes in their careers occurred in the years preceding or following this date, whereas a longer period of time was needed to rework the aforementioned attachments. For military officers, work, politics, family or friendship were no longer synchronized, and tension arose among these aspects of their lives. Veteran organizations helped them handle individual difficulties and provided them with a place for reworking their feelings of shared attachments in relation not only to professional factors but also to friendships, which, in turn, cultivated a shared political outlook.

Patriotic Unity and Ethnic Diversity at Odds: The Example of Tatar Organisations in Moscow

The Russian Federations policy of promoting patriotism, in place since the early 2000s, raises the issue of how the countrys non-Russian ethnic groups receive this policy. To answer this question, this essay studies the reception of Russian state-promoted patriotism in the 2000s among the Tatar community in Moscow. Looking at the activities of Tatar associations (especially the Regional Tatar National-Cultural Autonomy organisation), it shows the syntheses and compromises negotiated by activists between patriotism and ethno-cultural belonging in the capital. Paradoxically, their attempts at synthesis strengthen an essentialist representation of the Tatar community, leading ultimately, on the one hand, to criticism of state nationality policy, and on the other, to the discontent of Tatar independent activists who criticised the undemocratic rules and personal domination in the Regional Tatar National—Cultural Autonomy organisation supported by state authorities. These criticisms echo the tensions in the Russian political agenda at the beginning of the 2010s.

Iabloko ou la défaite du libéralisme politique en Russie

En Russie, la defaite electorale du parti Iabloko, lors des elections legislatives de decembre 2003, ne marque pas l’echec des partisans des reformes economiques liberales mais illustre plutot les deconvenues du liberalisme politique. Sanctionne pour sa posture oppositionnelle et son absence de ressources administratives, Iabloko fait les frais de la nouvelle grammaire politique du regime russe, officiellement democratique mais non liberale et plus soucieuse d’unite que de pluralisme.