Introduction

Abstract

The prevailing media image of Russian nationalism is that of a powerful and repugnant force, an overbearing imperial regime borne aloft by virulent chauvinism and inflamed by anti-Semitism. Yet the events of the past decade should have taught us that the situation is much more complicated. While their empire declined and fell, Russians in the ‘colonies’ have, with the partial exception of Moldavia, not been parading in the streets with weapons, like the French pieds noirs at the exit from Algeria, they have not been gun-running and forming secret armies like the pre-First World War Ulster Unionists. Russian troops and weapons sent in from outside, for example in Abkhazia or Chechnia, have not always been welcomed by local Russians. On the contrary, they have mostly been voting for the sovereignty of their non-Russian homelands and settling down to become loyal citizens of what used to be their own dependencies.