Russia in Search of Itself

Abstract

In December 1991 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Belovezhskaia Forest Accords with the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus — an act which consigned the USSR to history. At the time it was unclear whether Russia was liberated from an imperial burden or damaged by the loss of an empire that over centuries and in various forms had been a vital component of Russian identity. Among Russia’s westernizing liberals there was a very strong sense that Russia could only successfully reform without an empire. Reformers argued that Russia needed to embrace the forces of globalization, to develop a Russian civic identity and to reject Imperialism. Such an undertaking is particularly difficult at a time of the rebirth of national identities and economic hardships within Russia. The disintegration of the USSR and the foundation of the new Russian Federation has focused the attention of Russia’s politicians, intellectuals and people on what it means to be Russian today. This raises a range of questions about who belongs to the Russian nation, where Russia’s borders should rightly lie and the nature of Russia’s relations with its neighbours. The Russians are having to simultaneously rethink their place within their own country and within the world. Internationally, Russia is the rump of a former superpower and of a multinational empire.

The title of this chapter is taken from an article by Sergei Stankevich.