Russian liberal intellectuals and the articulation of the nation (the late 1980s to early 1990s)

The following thesis investigates the development of Russian liberal intellectuals' discourse on the Russian national identity and the Russian nation from the late 1980s to early 1990s. This study seeks an answer to the question as to what concepts of the nation were supported by Russian liberal intellectuals, and what was the overall legacy of this particular group for the Russian nation-building process. This work argues that Russian liberal intellectuals underwent a social identity crisis while trying to redefine their position within a century-old triangle of “intellectuals- narod (the people)-vlast'(state/power).” This crisis directly affected Russian liberal intellectuals' discourse on the nation-building process. The majority of Russian liberal intellectuals supported the primordial vision of Russia, described along ethnic and linguistic lines. A civic nationalism was supported by a fraction of intellectuals after the concepts of the narod and the vlast' were reformulated as unsuitable for the nation-construction. Nevertheless, Russian liberal intellectuals' discourse on nation helped to envision an independent Russia outside of the USSR. Russian liberal intellectuals brought liberal values such as individualism and democracy, civil liberties, and human rights into the political discourse and into the discourse on the Russian national identity. At the same time, they constructed Russianness on the contradictory notion of universalism and uniqueness, as rooted in an imperial identity with the leading role of ethnic Russians over the territory with unclear geographical, cultural, and political borders. This version of Russianness was envisioned by liberal intellectuals as closely connected to their leading role among ethnic Russians.