"Rossianin"

Mon Sep 2 00:04:53 UTC 2002

1 Sept 02

Dear colleagues,
I have to agree with Serguei Glebov here.  The "russkii"/"rossiiskii"
distinction is a chronic problem.  The first refers to ethnos, the second
to citizenship.  But only ideally.  As Valerii Tishkov observes, members of
an ethnos often want to be regarded as a nationality and to have a nation
(in the civic sense) for themselves.  This is nationalism.  Russian
nationalists have managed to get a civic nation for
themselves.  Carpatho-Rusyns and Kurds have not.  When ethnic Russians
(russkie) want their imperiia or their federatsiia to be referred to as
"russkaia" rather than "rossiiskaia," they are being nationalistic, e.g.:
"Rossiia dlia russkikh."  Hostility to non-russkie is implied in Russian
nationalism, and is expressed in the form of racism (not so common) or in
the form of assimilationism (much more common - e.g., Jews being baptized
into the Orthodox Church in the late imperial period, Tatars having their
names russified, etc.).  In assimilationism members of the ethnic group
which seeks assimilation are sometimes complicitous in Russian nationalism.

Another issue: "blood."  Not only is there no such thing as a "rossiianin"
"by blood," there is also no such thing as a "russkii" "by blood."  To
assert that one is an ethnic Russian "by blood" is to assume that there is
a Russian race.  There is no Russian race because there are no races in
humans generally.  Racism is both morally and biologically unfounded.

To put it another way.  "Blood" or "race" is a metaphor for genetic
distinction.  But human genes have clinal rather than racial distribution
(unlike some non-human organisms).  So, there is no such thing as a gene
(or genes) for Russianness.

I explore these and related issues in RUSSIAN NATIONALISM FROM AN
INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE: IMAGINING RUSSIA (Edwin Mellen Press, 2000).

Cheers to all,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

At 11:44 AM 8/31/2002 +0400, you wrote:
>It is hardly a sign of "westernization" since definition of citizenship by
>"blood" or ethnicity is absolutely not exclusively "eastern" invention. Such
>definition of citizenship is still the law of the Bundesrepublik. Does
>"German" refer to ethnic Germans or all citizens of the Bundesrepublik? I
>wonder what would an average German say should a Turkish gastarbeiter be
>called "German"?  And the French example of civic nationhood is also filled
>with ethnic connotations of Frenchness. In general, the Hans Kohn
>distinction between good civic western nationalism and bad ethnic eastern
>nationalism has long gone from nationalism studies as naive and schematic.
>
>On the other hand, "Russian" as "russkii"
>  was used periodically to designate state and citizenship (e.g. manifestos -
>"vsem russkim liudiam, bez razlichia ikh ver, iazykov i natsional'nostei)
>
>The problem of russkii-rossiiskii is the problem of the growing national
>consciousness of Russians within the imperial state that often presented
>itself as a Russian national state. Correspondingly, the name of the
>empire - Rossiiskaia - differed from the name of the ethnos - russkie. The
>Soviet period did not make things any clearer, because USSR was a
>supranational formation that was often taken to be a Russian national state.
>
>Serguei Glebov
>
>
>  actually a step towards westernization. It is all because
> > "nationality" in Russian and in most Western languages means different
> > things. In France (as elsewhere in Europe or in the US) anyone with a
> > French passport is French, regardless of his/her ethnic origins.
> > Consequently the French president addresses the nation by saying "Cheres
> > Francaises et chers Francais" or something like that (I am deliberately
>not
> > using US as an example because everyone knows what an ethinc hodge-podge
> > the US is, and there is no such thing as an "ethnic American").
> >
> > So instead of saying "dorogie grazhdane Rossijskoj federacii" which is
>also
> > an innovation (there were only "zakony Rossijskoj federacii", I believe;
>in
> > other words, "Rossijskaja federacija" had a very limited use prior to the
> > break up) "Rossijane" was reintroduced as a unifying name. Thus the split
> > between the blood and the citizenship has occurred and the new term
> > reflected a new state.
> >
> > "Russian" means strictly the blood, and Nickolas II was only 1/256 Russian
> > by that measure and resented by many because of that. Meantime one of his
> > daughters refused to marry a Romanian saying that she is Russian and
> > doesn't want to live abroad (and she was already 1/512 Russian by blood).
> >
> > For many Russians, someone named Isabelle Ivanov (or Ivanoff) not speaking
> > a word of Russian and not knowing much about the culture, being the third
> > or fourth generation born in France, would be Russian, but for French she
> > is French.
> >
> > I believe this reflects the Eurasian element in Russian culture, since it
> > is a more Eastern approach to one's identity. I was told that in Arab
>world
> > answering the question "Where are you from?" one actually speaks of the
> > father, not oneself. For example, a man born and raised in Jordan told me
> > that a proper answer for him is "I am from Jerusalem." because his father
> > is from Jerusalem.
> >
> > Alina
> >
> > _____________
> > Alina Israeli
> > LFS, American University
> > 4400 Mass. Ave. NW
> > Washington, DC 20016
> >
> > phone:  (202) 885-2387
> > fax:    (202) 885-1076
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
> >   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
> >                   http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                   http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
Professor of Russian
Director, Russian Program
University of California
One Shields Ave.
Davis, CA 95616 USA
530-752-4999
darancourlaferriere at ucdavis.edu

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                  http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------