Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

The fifth conception of the Russian nation is civic, embracing the citizens of the Russian Federation. Tolz points out that Yeltsin, Putin, and some of their ministers, while in theory committed to this civic definition of the Russian nation, have in practice on many occasions implicitly extended it to ethnic Russians and “Russian-speaking populations” residing in the former Soviet republics, only a few of whom are citizens of the Russian Federation. As scholar of Russia Charles Ziegler notes, the term “compatriot” generally refers to culturally Russified peoples and to ethnic Russians living in the fourteen independent states of the former Soviet Union.³⁴

In his New Year’s address to the Russian nation in January of 1994, Yeltsin specifically appealed to Russian speakers in the near abroad (rather than solely to Russian citizens), saying: “Dear compatriots! You are inseparable from us and we are inseparable from you. We were and we will be together. On the basis of law and solidarity, we defend and will defend your and our common interests. In the New Year, 1994, we will do this with greater energy and greater resoluteness.”³⁵ Yeltsin repeated a similar statement later that year in his annual address to the Federal Assembly. Though in general Yeltsin failed to consistently back up his rhetoric with action, this demonstrated both how a new concept of compatriots had emerged and the fact that the notion of a civic state was still very novel in Russia in the 1990s. Instead, the definition of Russianness emphasized language and culture.³⁶ Certainly, the official dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left many ethnic Russians and Russian speakers outside the border of the Russian Federation—a population still often looking to Moscow rather than the capitals of their respective post-Soviet states for guidance. However, Moscow’s response to this dilemma and potential opportunity would take nearly two decades to fully formulate and would be articulated in some twenty documents released from 1994 to 2014 (see Tables 1 and 2 for a list of the main compatriot policies under Yeltsin and Putin).

THE YELTSIN ERA: EARLY COMPATRIOT POLICIES

In the early 1990s, Russian foreign policy was still in its infancy and thus it took some time for Moscow to start formally conceptualizing compatriots and formulating official compatriot policies.³⁷ Under Yeltsin’s presidency six important policies would eventually emerge that related to Russian compatriots (see Table 1). The delay from 1991 to 1994 in addressing the burning problem of millions of Russian compatriots left outside the borders of Russia was due in part to Russia’s domestic political difficulties of the early 1990s.³⁸ In addition, poor economic conditions prevented implementation of policies to assist the compatriots and reinforced the belief that potential migration of Russians to the motherland would only be an economic burden that all hoped to avoid.³⁹ While Yeltsin’s seeming desire for ethnic Russians and Russian speakers to integrate in their “host” countries could be seen as a sign that Russia was ready to support the sovereignty of the newly independent republics, the facts on the ground soon demonstrated that compatriots could be a means of influence.