Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

DATE	DOCUMENT	SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
January 1993	Report on Urgent Measures for Sociocultural Cooperation between Citizens of the Russian Federation with their Compatriots Abroad	The first official document addressing the compatriot issue and containing possibly the earliest formulation and usage of the term.
11 August 1994	Presidential Decree No. 1681, Guidelines on State Policy regarding Compatriots Living Abroada	First document in the field of policies toward compatriots abroad, regardless of the failure to give a clear definition of the term “compatriot.” Document also supported the idea of dual citizenship.
31 August 1994	Resolution of the Russian Government No. 1064, List of Primary Measures to Support Compatriots Abroadb	Supplemented Presidential Decree No. 1681 (above).
8 December 1995	Declaration on Support of the Russian Diaspora and Protection of Russian Compatriotsc	First official definition of compatriots: “all the natives of the USSR and Russia and all their descendants regardless of their nationality and ethnicity, language, religion, gender, occupation and place of residence and other circumstances.”d
17 May 1996	Resolution of the Government No. 590, Action Program for Protecting Compatriots Abroade	Declared a need to create “a legal definition of the concept ‘compatriot’ and its further use in the legislation.”f Stated that Russia was ready “to assist governments of newly independent states”g in ensuring that Russians enjoyed the full range of their rights.
24 May 1999	Federal Law on the State Policy of the Russian Federation Concerning Compatriots Abroad No. 99-FZh	This document regulated relations with compatriots. The term “compatriot” was automatically applied to all persons who in the past lived in the former USSR, or their descendants (but excluding the descendants of members of titular nations of the foreign states).

^{Source: Compiled by the author.}

^Notes

^{a. Ukaz Presidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii “Ob osnovnykh napravleniyakh gosudarstvennoy politiki Rossiyskoy Federatsii v otnoshenii sootechestvennikov, prozhivayushikh za rubezhom” ot 11 avgusta 1994 g., № 1681, http://base.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc;base=EXP;n=218892.}

^{b. Postanovleniye Pravitelstva Rossiyskoy Federatsii “O merakh po podderzhke sootechestvennikov za rubezhom” ot 31 avgusta 1994 g. N 1064, http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_106359/.}