Marlène Laruelle

The three colors of Novorossiya, or the Russian nationalist mythmaking of the Ukrainian crisis

While the annexation of Crimea boosted Putins popularity at home, the Donbas insurgency shattered the domestic ideological status quo. The Kremlins position appeared somehow hesitant, fostering the resentment of Russian nationalist circles that were hoping for a second annexation. In this article, I explore the term Novorossiya as a live mythmaking process orchestrated by different Russian nationalist circles to justify the Donbas insurgency. The powerful pull of Novorossiya rests on its dual meaning in announcing the birth of a New Russia geographically and metaphorically. It is both a promised land to be added to Russia and an anticipation of Russias own transformation. As such, Novorossiya provides for an exceptional convergence of three underlying ideological paradigms – “red” (Soviet), “white” (Orthodox), and “brown” (Fascist). The Novorossiya storyline validates a new kind of geopolitical adventurism and blurs the boundaries, both territorial and imaginary, of the Russian state.

Russia as a “Divided Nation,” from Compatriots to Crimea: A Contribution to the Discussion on Nationalism and Foreign Policy

The assumption that Russia’s foreign policy is “nationalist,” advanced as the main explanation to understand the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, needs to be questioned. First it is almost impossible to identify a “nationalist school” that would have shaped Russia’s foreign policy decisions. Only one nationalist storyline has gone from being marginal in the early 1990s to becoming part of state policy in the 2000s, namely that of compatriots, under the argument of “Russia as a divided nation.” This is the only case where we can trace the influence of a nationalist group with clearly identifiable figures and lobbying structures; however, the nationalist content has been neutralized in the process of cooptation by state organs. This article argues that even in the context of the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, which has partly changed previously established interactions between nationalism and Russia’s foreign policy, Russia may use a nationalist post hoc explanation but does not advance a nationalist agenda.

Globalizing Central Asia : Geopolitics and the Challenges of Economic Development

This collection of the correspondence of Mao Zedong during the period 1956 to 1957 explores the question of legitimatizing the leadership of the CCP, the pace of the socialist transformation of Chinas economy, and the issue of the divergence of ideological opinion over the strategy of revolution.

Larger, Higher, Farther North … Geographical Metanarratives of the Nation in Russia

A noted specialist on nationalism and identity issues in Russia and Central Asia reviews three of the main geographical metanarratives circulating in contemporary Russia. These are teleological master ideas that seek to explain Russias essence and place in the world as a function of its territorial size and location. All of them argue that a specific element gives Russia its uniqueness among nations: Russias territory is larger than other countries in the world and forms a specific continent (Eurasianism); Russia is going higher in the universe (Cosmism); and Russia is going farther north (Arctism). The author proceeds to discuss each metanarrative in turn before outlining their similarities in the concluding section of the paper. These similarities include the shared backgrounds of their leading proponents, their basis in public resentment over perceived slights and injustices of the past, and a conviction that Russias size and location promise a brighter future. More broadly, she argues that each metanarrative combines conspiracy theories, occult experiences of modernity, and a willingness to transcend political realities.

The Discipline of Culturology: A New ‘Ready-Made Thought’ for Russia

‘Culturology’ is an integral, often compulsory, part of Russian university courses; the discipline has largely replaced chairs in Marxist-Leninism and dialectical materialism, and bookshops are full of texts on the subject. This article is based on analysis of more than ten university textbooks recommended to first-year students. Marlène Laruelle examines why culturology has become so important, the place claimed for it within the human sciences, and what it means for changing Russian ideas of identity and nation.

Alexei Navalny and challenges in reconciling “nationalism” and “liberalism”

This article examines the challenges and complexities in the efforts by political activist Alexei Navalny to reconcile “nationalist” and “liberal” modes of thinking in the current Russian environment. After deciphering three major axes of Navalnys narratives on the national question, the author then discusses the social and political context within which the national-democratic (Natsdem) movement was forged. Natsdems, who are simultaneously pro-European and democratic but also xenophobic, and who target an audience among the urban middle classes, reflect a fundamental shift in Russian society. The last part of the article discusses the paradoxes of Navalnys trajectory, in which a failed theoretical articulation between “nationalism,” “democracy,” and “liberalism” nonetheless has translated into a political success.

The US Silk Road: geopolitical imaginary or the repackaging of strategic interests?

Central Asia appears a highly fertile region for producing inflated imaginaries aimed at both domestic and external actors. Since the 1990s and more openly even since 2011, official Washington embraced the evocative and romantic concept of the Silk Road in formulating US policy for Central Asia. This article uses the critical geopolitics approach to understand US foreign policy assumptions and projections about post-Soviet Central Asia and its broader environment. I argue that the US version of the Silk Road can be interpreted as a geopolitical imaginary, in the same vein as Russia’s Eurasian narrative. I first situate the discussion by briefly exploring the many uses of the Silk Road allegory by external actors and Russia’s rival terminology of Eurasia. Then, I move to analyzing the birth and framing of the US Silk Road narrative, its administrative and policy locus. Finally, I investigate its elusive geopolitics, and its role as a vehicle for the US selective projection of what Central Asia is and should be.

Russia Facing China and India in Central Asia: Cooperation, Competition, and Hesitations

If Russia reacts strongly to the presence of other international actors in its former Central Asian “backyard,” this reaction, although based on objective economic competition, is mainly due to subjective perceptions related to balance of power issues. Russian global geopolitical interests have substantially changed since the end of the cold war and the Kremlin is still in the process of adjusting its perceptions of the international scene, with difficulties in identifying its long-term partners and enemies.2 Moscow is regularly concerned with the United States’ advances in Central Asia, and sometimes with those of the European Union, comments with disdain on Turkey’s presence in the 1990s and on that of the United Arab Emirates since 2000, has relatively little worry about the activities of Iran and India, and dare not take a critical position on the Chinese presence. The Sino-Russian partnership was strained compared to the good relations between Moscow and New Delhi, with the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed between the two countries in 1971 in the midst of the Sino-Soviet conflict. However, since the 1990s, Russia has played the rapprochement card with China, forging a new ally in a world set to become multi-polar. The relationship between Moscow and New Delhi has suffered from Russia’s ventures toward China, but the doubts the Russian elite harbor regarding Beijing’s ulterior motives in the Far East and Central Asia have not been erased—quite the contrary.

Why Central Asia? The Strategic Rationale of Indian and Chinese Involvement in the Region

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the rediscovery of Central Asia by the international community has placed this region in a specific intellectual context, one marked by a return of geopolitical theories and debates around the “end of history” and the “clash of civilizations.” The revival of geopolitical theory, especially Sir Halford Mackinder’s idea that one who controls the Heartland controls the world, has profoundly shaped the new frameworks applied to the post-Soviet states of Central Asia and to Afghanistan. In contrast to the geographical and economic isolation of the region, theories about the revival of the Silk Road flourished in the West and in Asia. The United States and the European Union have used them to promote the release of Central Asia from the Russian sphere of influence by opening toward the south. Turkey, Iran, Japan, South Korea, China, India, and Pakistan have made references to their historical ties with the region, beyond the years of the Iron Curtain.

Resource, state reassertion and international recognition: locating the drivers of Russia’s Arctic policy

Russia is probably the least-known actor of the Arctic, but it dominates the region geographically, conquered it historically very early on, is dependent on it for its economic development and is setting the tone on the region’s strategic sensibility. This article discusses the three main drivers that shape Russia’s Arctic policy: the search for new resources to maintain the country’s energy superpower status, the will to reassert state control over regions, territories and demographic trends, and to impose a state-funded industrial revival, and the hope for international recognition and integration into the world community. Behind the nationalist-tinged discourse, which is sometimes fairly aggressive towards the West, Russia’s goals in the Arctic region are pragmatic and domestically oriented. They deal with reasserting the state sovereignty and efficiency, developing new economic resources and reviving an industrial fabric which is globally in bad shape, integrating remote regions into the national infrastructure in an improved manner and creating a new cooperation brand towards the international community.