Abstract
The final chapter traces the influence of Russia’s conceptualizations of Islam, as recontextualized in the previous sections, on Russian geopolitical stances. It reveals that, in fact, Islam participates in and influences broader conceptualizations of Russia as a regional and international actor. Russia’s relations with the Muslim world and Iran, its position in the Syrian conflict, and its actions in Crimea are considered from this specific perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
Started in April 2012.
- 2.
Trenin (2014) highlights Putin’s closeness with Father Tikhon Shevkunov, an Orthodox Archimandrite (abbot) who is allegedly his confessor. Trenin notes that Putin has befriended Tikhon in the time between his second and third mandate, although the two men had reportedly already met at the end of the 1990s (Clover 2013). Apart from Tikhon’s role in Putin’s private life, he may have made him acquainted with Christian philosophy. It is useful, here, to recall the influence of a major Orthodox theologian and political thinker, Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin, on contemporary discourse on Russian identity – as discussed throughout Chapter 2 of this book.
- 3.
See Chapters 2, 3, and 6 of this book.
- 4.
Notably, in Aleksandr Prokhanov’s vision (see Chapter 2 of this book).
- 5.
Rieber identifies four “persistent conditions” that “can best be defined as geocultural”, because they refer to those elements of human activity, including “clusters of attitudes and beliefs”, that are reluctant to change and very resistant to external political pressure. (Rieber 1993: 322). Three of Rieber’s conditions: “permeable frontiers”, “multicultural state and society”, and “cultural marginality” are particularly relevant for our discourse on Russia’s Islam.
- 6.
See Chapter 2.
- 7.
Or, more appropriately, Russia’s conceptualizations of Islam as an element of its geopolitical strategy.
- 8.
See also Chapter 5 of this book.
- 9.
As discussed in Chapters 5 and 6.
- 10.
The most recent research on Soviet Orientalism is beginning to explore the interactions of Oriental studies with Soviet ideological and, in less measure, political priorities (Kemper and Kalinovsky 2015).
- 11.
In Mesbahi’s definition, such “global masternarrative” about Islam is “a narrative about the universality of the Islamic threat which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, and which was qualitatively reinforced and enriched in the post-9/11 era, primarily by the United States and its allies” (Mesbahi 2013: 2).
- 12.
See Chapter 6.
- 13.
See Chapter 4.
- 14.
This is in sharp contrast with the Soviet era, when the state leadership made the same claims, but acted ruthlessly on the country’s own Muslim population. The result of Soviet violent persecution was, among others, the creation of several underground antigovernment movements among Muslims in the USSR.
- 15.
They include, among others, the Russian direct involvement in the Middle East, its participation in international organizations such as the SCO and the OIC, the growing interest in the global Islamic economy and, of course, the countering of international threats.
- 16.
For a discussion on the broader discourse on Islam in the North Caucasus see Chapter 3 of this book.
- 17.
Originally published in Russian by the official governmental newspaper Rossiiskaia Gazeta in 2006.
- 18.
Vitalii Naumkin is the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also professor and chair at the faculty of world politics, Moscow State University, and president of the Moscow-based Center for Strategic and Political Studies. He writes extensively on the Middle East, especially on Israeli-Palestinian relations, and on geopolitical dynamics in the region.
- 19.
See Chapter 5 of this book.
- 20.
Saunders (2014a) also notes that Chechen guerrilla troops loyal to Kadyrov may well have been deployed in 2014 Crimea, against the new government in Kiev (he reports the official news that Kadyrov himself has been awarded a medal “For the Liberation of Crimea”). Indeed, Kadyrov’s social media accounts (Twitter, LiveJournal) show his close interest for the situation in Ukraine, including the Donbass, about which he supports and reinforces Russia’s anti-Western line of arguments.
- 21.
It is not here the place for a thorough analysis of the Syrian case. Therefore, I limit my discussion to the role of the “Islamic factor”.
- 22.
For example, in Crimea, see further in the chapter.
- 23.
See also Chapter 4 of this book.
- 24.
See Chapter 6.
- 25.
See also Chapter 6.
- 26.
An informative overview of the ideas professed by Dzhemal’ and some of the ultra-nationalists close to him is also offered by Laruelle (2016).
- 27.
The name refers simultaneously to the central square in Kiev (Maidan Nezalezhnosti, “Independence Square”), where protesters convened, and to the movement’s initiators’ support for the European Union.
- 28.
In February 2008, Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed its independence from Serbia. In that case, Russia had declared this decision illegal. It still does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.
- 29.
In the three Sebastopol Sketches (published in 1855), a fictional elaboration of the author’s first-hand experiences in the conflict. The tales became soon best-sellers (also praised by the tsar Aleksander II) and contributed to form Russian public opinion on the war, Crimea, and patriotism.
- 30.
A Tatar of the Ural–Volga can better understand official Turkish than the Tatar language of Crimea (personal information to the author).
- 31.
See Chapters 2–4.
- 32.
Which in itself is a loaded image, historically employed to justify the patronizing dominance of Orthodox ethnic Russians on the other peoples of the Empire. See also Chapter 2 of this book.
- 33.
The law has been under the Western screens since, under its effect, the famous anti-Putin punk rock girl group Pussy Riots have been sent to prison for illegally playing their songs in the Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2012.
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Merati, S.E. (2017). The Role of Islam in Russia’s Geopolitical Vision. In: Muslims in Putin's Russia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53520-3_7
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