Fact that Russia is a unique multi-ethnic state is a delusion

Vestnik Kavkaza together with Vesti FM is implementing the project ‘National Question’, trying to figure out how the problems between different nationalities are resolved in different countries and nations by different governments at different times. Today the scientific director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Tishkov, visited the hosts of the program, Vladimir Averin and Gia Saralidze.

Saralidze: We have spoken a lot in another of our programs titled 'Peoples of Russia' that we have a multinational country. Today we want to talk about the ethnic composition, how it is changing...

Averin: The national question – ethnic composition, national identity – has come to the fore in recent decades. There was a single unity called 'the Soviet people' during my Pioneer childhood, and then suddenly it became important that there are Russians, Tatars, Tuvans and Khanty people.

Tishkov: It's not the degree of patchiness of the population, the complexity of the composition or the number of different nationalities or ethnic groups that is important, but the importance attached to the issue. Russia is not the most multi-ethnic state in the world. I think that it is not even included in the top ten. There are more than 400 different ethnic groups in India. Indonesia, Nigeria and other countries still have a greater number of ethnic groups than Russia.

Saralidze: This is news to me.

Tishkov: We used to say that Spaniards live in Spain, the English live in England and 193 different peoples live in Russia, that it is a unique multi-ethnic country and there are no other such countries. This is a profound mistake.

Averin: Still, it's 193!

Tishkov: It depends how they count them.

Averin: And how do they do it?

Tishkov: First of all, by self-determination, how a man describes himself. No one checks their passports. They count during a census, which is held once every 10 years across the country. Then the entire population is registered, not just citizens, but all permanent residents who have lived at least a year in Russia.

Averin: I remember that after a recent census took place there were curious situations when some people called themselves druids or elves. When you, as a serious scientist, are involved in the study of national structure, do you count these people?

Tishkov: No one creates some other nationalities. We have quite a decent category of "other nationalities". All the elves get there. There are approximately 40-50 thousand people in this category, which were then manually counted. It's interesting for us as specialists, because they have no native code. These are issues of professional procedures. So when people ask me how many people live in Russia, I say: "Only one nation lives in Russia, it's the Russian people." But it is difficult to count the degree of its complexity. If you ask in some countries: "What is your ethnicity, I mean nationality?" they won't understand you, because racial groups or racial classification are more important than ethnic, religious or caste classifications, like in India. The concept of 'nationality' in its ethnic sense, as we have in our country and in the area of the former Soviet Union, is not a universal or global norm.

Averin: So, is nationality in the form, as we used to perceive the importance of this issue, a product of the Soviet Union?

Tishkov: The global rate of the concept of 'nationality' is citizenship. And when you fill out a visa application form, you write 'Russian Federation' in the nationality column. This, I would say, is a common norm. The practice and historical experience of Eastern Europe since the days of Austro-Marxism and the Bolsheviks have adopted the concept of nationality as synonymous with ethnicity. They can be called ethnic groups, sometimes ethnie, as in France. But the term 'nationality' in this hard ethnic characteristic is used only in Russia and the countries that were constituent parts of the USSR.

Saralidze: In Russia or the Soviet Union? Because the census in Russia didn't have a 'nationality' column, there was was just a 'religion' column.

Tishkov: Correct, and native language. There was no such term as 'nationality' in the Russian Empire during the census in 1897. It was first introduced in the first Soviet census in 1926.

Saralidze: And what was the reason? Why did the Soviet Union pay such great attention to belonging to an ethnic group?

Tishkov: The first declarations of the Soviet government were about peace, workers' rights and the rights of peoples. There was a slogan of equality of peoples as "nations, nationalities and ethnic groups." The "oppressed nation" and "dominant nation’’ were introduced, including the Russian nation. And this division, this formula of achieving equality provided support to the Bolsheviks in some way, especially on the ethnic periphery. The country was quite amorphous. This complexity became more serious after 1940 due to the increasing of areas in Central Asia, Siberia and the Volga region. One of the slogans and principles of Soviet nationalities policy was sponsoring ethnicity, supporting it through the formula of "friendship of peoples’ and internationalism. It has contradictory, but positive results. Both science and practice are now turning to what it was in the Soviet Union in terms of policy towards nationalities, minorities, nations and nationalities.

Saralidze: Then the national movements collapsed the Union to some extent.

Tishkov: Yes, there was a risk, it was laid down from the beginning, because even the public-administrative structure of the country was based on the ethnic principle. You all remember Russian matreshka dolls. When the Soviet Union was formed it was divided into different parts of the so-called national state formations of the Union Republics, which were considered a form of state of the largest non-Russian peoples. But the risk at the time was neutralized by the fact that there were such strong ties of the party, the service, the Pravda newspaper and many other forced ideological institutions that restrained it. The Soviet Union was not a prison of nations, but a cradle of nations, as it nurtured them. And when the necessary things that unite a large and complex state were weakened, or began to be destroyed, a collapse occurred along these borders because everything was ready there. They had their own institutions, their own academies, ministries. Languages were ​​supported, they had their own literature, intellectuals, educational institutions, writers' unions and party organizations ...

Averin: On the one hand, everything was good, but on the other hand there was a "bomb". Is it possible to assess its consequences? Maybe it was better to deliberately erase national differences and reject division? For example, remove the corresponding graph from passports. Maybe this is a step in the right direction. Everybody is a citizen of Russia and that is enough. Or is there also some kind of a "bomb"?

Tishkov: It cannot be realized. Ethnic diversity, as well as religious and social are produced by people of any communities all the time. You will never reach a point where all people are equal. They may be equal, but they cannot have equal rights. One was born healthy, another strong and handsome, and another in comparison with others. One was born to a rich family inheritance, unlike another. Therefore, even social equality is an elusive utopia. But ethnic diversity is maintained with the help of traditions from generation to generation. There is linguistic diversity, languages ​​are not disappearing, though there is a problem of small languages and their preservation, but this is the result of historical evolution. Apparently, it is important for humanity and large states, because people live in different environments, some are engaged in different business practices, others live among stones, woods, or in tundra and snow. Some pray to God, they have their own rituals and customs, others have different practices. Therefore, unification in terms of culture, language, traditions, customs and rituals will never be achieved. An attempt to unify is just unnecessary, it is superfluous. If we are all the same then we won’t be interesting for each other. Mankind is constantly reproducing its diversity as nature.

Averin: I can argue with you. You say that some live among stones, others among woods, but anyway humanity is on its way to the fact that the majority live in cities: concrete and asphalt, and there is no need to reproduce language, religious differences due to the same public transport, apartments and gadgets.

Tishkov: Even according to our estimates, we cannot say who is Russian, Georgian or Ukrainian. But I have the answer to your fundamental question. There is a concept of material culture: food, clothing, shelter, although a house in the North Caucasus and a house in the Urals or Siberia have their differences. But, in addition to the material culture, there is a sphere of spiritual culture. Today, there is a difference in material culture under the influence of global movements in the spiritual sphere. There is linguistic assimilation, voluntarily in favor of the Russian language as the dominant language and the most powerful and the most advantageous ‘breadwinner’ language. However, I cannot say that if languages ​​disappear it means that some ethnic groups also disappear. Almost nothing has disappeared in the 20th century.

Saralidze: If we speak about unification and globalization, the feedback reaction turned us to the interest of people’s nationalities and their languages.

Tishkov: A dialectic. We sometimes criticize popular culture, but it is an important layer of culture. It is also necessary. Songs, movies, music, literature create a powerful global formation. You won’t win first place at the Eurovision contest if any ethnic component is included in clothes and songs. Therefore, today ethnic culture, grassroots culture, is rising to its highest level. Kusturica would not be himself if he didn’t show the rich ethnography of Balkan and gypsy motifs in his films. So today, as a response to ethnic leveling, the impact of the global, world culture is an absolute fact. Mankind has been and will be varied and complex.

Averin: Does a human have a need to be different?

Tishkov: A human being has a need to identify himself in terms of ‘Who I am’. And this need, this identity, exists at the individual and collective levels. Individual is "I'm a man," "I'm an engineer," "I'm handsome," "I am strong." Collective is "I am a Russian," "I am a Chechen." Why we need it is not a simple question. It has historical roots. Our ancestors, family, the social environment in which we grew up gave us such notions. This is the culture in which we were born and grew up and which is familiar to us. It's my language. This is my culture. And I am against when I am told to learn the Estonian language and forget my native Russian, because I grew up in this culture. Therefore, it is not so easy for people to leave a particular cultural tradition if they were brought up according to it. It is important for them. It is a form of collectivism and solidarity. My compatriots are important to me, not only my colleagues in the profession, but also those who understand the language, know what I'm singing and talking about, as well as what worries me and where I come from. Such different environments and different situations are also important to me too. A person has a need to identity himself and have a sense of belonging to a particular community, a group, a tradition, culture, or a language.

Another thing is that in the modern world many people are not in one, but in several cultures at once. There is a whole layer of people whose homeland is where the closest international airport is, but it's a small part of the people of a cosmopolitan plan. There are many such professions in the world which necessitate travel to different countries. But we cannot say that they are completely without a family and without a tribe.

Saralidze: Small children don’t have a sense of belonging to Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian ethnic groups. They want to be like the other children around them. They call themselves Russian. But when they begin to grow up, other interests appear: why do I have this name and who I am...

Averin: Maybe this is essential in collective identity. The growth of one or another group that suddenly begins to feel in an adult state.

Tishkov: Identity, or national identity, has several meanings, or values, including such purely instrumental ones. Sometimes a person chooses himself, especially if he is from a mixed family. A quarter of our population consists of such people. So it turned out that we have 2 million Ukrainians fewer and the number of Russians in Ukraine is also 2 million fewer now. Although we know that at least half a million have moved. People simply preferred to be described as Russians in Russia and some of them as Ukrainians in Ukraine. Today we are drawing a line. It corresponds with international practice, in order for a person of complex origin to have the right to name not one, but two nationalities at the time of a census. We made such attempts. But inertia is very strong. Our government and the Federal State Statistics Service has understanding, but there is no determination to allow people with complex ethnic origins to indicate this complexity.

Saralidze: Then how can we consider?

Tishkov: Do you want to lay the entire population out among groups? If my mother is Russian and my father is Armenian and I know both cultures and languages, but at the same time I'm loyal and I love both one, and the other and I cannot say that I am Armenian-Russian, or Russian-Jewish. This complexity is permissible. It is real, but it was not considered in our old Soviet procedure. Why was the column "ethnicity" vulnerable? People were forced to choose according to their parents, and certainly one of their parents.

Averin: My sister is registered as Ukrainian, and I am registered as Russian. Our choice was completely conscious and linked both with our relations and parents… Once we received the following SMS: "I am Russian-Ukrainian, my wife is Russian with Jewish roots, but our son somehow feels Ukrainian roots, but he doesn’t speak the Ukrainian language. Who are we?’’

Tishkov: My viewpoint is supported by the majority of experts and corresponds to international practice. We support the fact that a person has a complex identity which is not mutually exclusive. There are many different identities, or consciousnesses. My colleague, a Professor of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, is Russian. When he travelled to Moldova he recalled that he was Gagauz and could speak the Gagauz language. You cannot take away any of his Russian identity, because he speaks Russian and knows the Russian culture. He is a patriot of Russia, the Russian language and culture. But at the same time, he is a Gagauz, and a patriot of Gagauzia.

To be continued