Thirteen years ago, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin struggled to build a viable democracy against a post-Soviet backdrop of political instability and ideological ambiguity. While he could call for elections and appoint various ministers, it was more difficult to establish an ideology for both government officials and the voting public to ensure democracy thrived. In an attempt to fill the ideological void, Yeltsin appointed a committee to define Russian national identity in 1994. In the words of famed Russian expert Nicholas Riasanovsky: "[T]heir first task -- admirably academic -- was to gather everything that has been written and said on their subject. Even individual journals and newspapers offered prizes for the best definition of Russianness. As the saying goes, all that would be funny, if it were not so sad." Unsurprisingly, Yeltsin's efforts to define an official Russian national identity largely failed, which is why it seems so odd that United Russia, the party of current Russian President Vladimir Putin, summoned a similar committee together on Feb. 3 of this year.
Putin’s Criticisms of Extreme Russian Nationalism are Politically Motivated
