Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T00:26:31.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“Thugs with Guns”: Disaggregating “Ethnic Violence” in the Russian Federation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Richard Arnold*
Affiliation:
Muskingum University, USA, c/o Kerry Hodak, 231 E. Arcadia Avenue, Columbus, OH 43202, USA. Email: Arnold.301@polisci.osu.edu

Extract

How can one understand the phenomenon known as “ethnic violence?” Does subsuming events under the category “ethnic violence” assist our understanding or does it obscure it? Are there lessons that the form ethnic violence takes can teach us? These questions are important not only for anyone interested in the causes and prevention of ethnic violence but also for those who wish to understand group behavior more generally. I explore this question more fully through analysis of the case of the Russian Federation. Russia is a country where in recent times skinhead violence against ethnic minorities has become an important issue. According to Tarasov, Russia contains between 60,000 and 65,000 skinheads active in at least 85 different cities. These skinheads daily commit appalling acts of violence against members of ethnic minorities and human rights activists. Three instances of violence all from the year 2006 help to illustrate some of their activities.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. San Diego: Harvest Harcourt, 1970.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego: Harvest Harcourt, 1994.Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Belikov, Sergei. Britogolovoy—vse o skinheadax. Moscow: Belikov, 2002.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers, Loveman, Mara, and Stomatev, Peter. “Ethnicity as Cognition.” Theory and Society 33, no. 1 (2004): 3164.Google Scholar
Drobizheva, Leokadia. “The Role of the Intelligentsia in Developing National Consciousness among the Peoples of the USSR under Perestroika.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 14, no. 1 (1991): 8799.Google Scholar
Dugin, Aleksandr. “Fascism—Borderless and Red.”, Translated by Andreas Umland,<http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=134662&bheaders=1#134662>(accessed 7 June 2009).(accessed+7+June+2009).>Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Translated by, Carol Cosman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Fearon, James, and Laitin, Dvid. “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation.” American Political Science Review 90, no. 4 (1996): 715–35.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish—The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House, 1995.Google Scholar
Gagnon, Vladimir P. The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Goldhagen, Daniel. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Random House, 1996.Google Scholar
Hale, Henry. The Foundation of Ethnic Politics—Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and the World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Halsey, Mark, and Young, Alison. “'Our Desires are Ungovernable': Writing Graffiti in Urban Space.” Theoretical Criminology 10, no. 3 (2006): 275306.Google Scholar
Harding, Luke. “Putin's Worst Nightmare.” The Observer, 8 February 2009, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/russia-race> (accessed 14 May 2009).+(accessed+14+May+2009).>Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, and Reality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. The Deadly Ethnic Riot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Rights Watch, Human. Are You Happy to Cheat Us? (2009), <http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/02/09/are-you-happy-cheat-us-0> (accessed 14 May 2009).+(accessed+14+May+2009).>Google Scholar
Kaufman, Stuart. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936–1945 Nemesis. London: Penguin, 2000.Google Scholar
Kozhevnikova, Galina. Autumn 2006: Under the Kondopoga Banner, 4 January 2007, <http://xeno.sova-center.ru/6BA2468/6BB4208/884A3C7> (accessed 13 March 2008).+(accessed+13+March+2008).>Google Scholar
Kozhevnikova, Galina, and Verkhovsky, Alexander. Anti-Semitism in Russia January–September 2006, 14 October 2006, <http://xeno.sova-center.ru/6BA2468/6BB4254/8187A06> (accessed 16 January 2008).+(accessed+16+January+2008).>Google Scholar
Laitin, David. Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Landa, Janet Tai. Trust, Ethnicity, and Identity: Beyond the New Institutional Economics of Ethnic Trading Networks, Contract Law, and Gift-Exchange. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Levada Analytical Center. Russian Public Opinion 2006: From Opinion to Understanding. Moscow: Levada Center, 2007.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael. The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Markovitz, Jonathan. Legacies of Lynching—Racial Violence and Memory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Martin, Terry D.An Affirmative Action Empire: The Soviet Union as the Highest Form of Imperialism.” In A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, edited by Ronald Suny, Grigor and Martin, Terry D. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Pain, Emil. Ethnopolitcheski Mayatnik-dinamki i mechanismi ethnopolitichesi prossessov v postsovietskoi rossii. Moscow: RAN, 2004.Google Scholar
Parfitt, Tom. “Moscow Blast ‘Targeted Asian Market Traders.’’ The Guardian, 24 August 2006, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/aug/24/russia.tomparfitt> (accessed 21 January 2007).+(accessed+21+January+2007).>Google Scholar
Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Payin, Emil. “The Disintegration of the Empire and the Fate of the ‘Imperial Minority.” In The New Russian Diaspora: Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics, edited by Shlapentokh, Vladimir, Sendich, Munir and Payin, Emil. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.Google Scholar
Petersen, Roger. Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Rolston, Bill. “Visions or Nightmares? Murals and Imagining the Future of Northern Ireland.” In Representing the Troubles—Texts and Images, 1970–2000, edited by Cliff, Brian and Walshe, Eibhear. Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Shnirelman, Viktor. “Chistilshiki Moskovskix Uliz’—Skinheadi, SMI, I Obshestesvennoi Mnenie. Moscow: Academia, 2007.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony. The Ethnic Origin of Nations. New York: Blackwell, 1986.Google Scholar
Stewart, Pamela, and Strathern, Andrew. Violence: Theory and Ethnography. London and New York: Continuum, 2002.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. The Politics of Collective Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Tishkov, Viktor. Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict in the Former Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997.Google Scholar
Tolnay, Stewart E., and Beck, E.M. A Festival of Violence—An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882–1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Triesman, Daniel. “Russia's ‘Ethnic Revival': The Separatist Activism of Regional Leaders in a Postcommunist Order.” World Politics 49, no. 2 (1997): 212–49.Google Scholar
UCSJ.Izvestiya Exposes Widespread Racist Violence in Russia.” Bigotry Monitor 2, no. 7 (2002), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Skinheads Found Guilty of Murders and Grave Desecration.” Bigotry Monitor 2, no. 49 (2002), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Citing SARS, Moscow Police Deport Chinese and Vietnamese.” Bigotry Monitor 3, no. 22 (2003), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Kaliningrad Politicians Get Antisemitic Death Threats.” Bigotry Monitor 3, no. 30 (2003), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Rampaging Skinheads Get Suspended Sentence.” Bigotry Monitor 5, no. 2 (2005), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Muslim Cemetery in Moscow Desecrated.” Bigotry Monitor 5, no. 4 (2005), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Eight Men Stabbed in Moscow Synagogue.” Bigotry Monitor 6, no. 2 (2006), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Assailant in Rostov Synagogue Goes Free.” Bigotry Monitor 6, no. 5 (2006), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Four Gypsies Killed in Two Attacks Hundreds of Miles Apart.” Bigotry Monitor 6, no. 15 (2006), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.In Krasnodar, Racists Attack Armenian.” Bigotry Monitor 6, no. 30 (2006), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
UCSJ.Four Brawlers in Kondopoga Charged with Murder.” Bigotry Monitor 6, no. 32 (2006), <http://www.ucsj.org/bigotry-monitor> (accessed September 2007).+(accessed+September+2007).>Google Scholar
Umland, Andreas. “Hegrazdanskoi obshestva v Rossii.” In Zena nenavisti—nazionalizm v Rossii I protivodeistve rasistkim prestupelniyam, edited by Verkhovsky, A. Moscow: SOVA, 2005.Google Scholar
US Open Source Center (OSC).Summary of events at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Dr. Johnson's Russia List.”, issue 146, article 38 (2007), <http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/archives.cfm>..>Google Scholar
Valentino, Benjamin A. Final Solutions: Mass Killings and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Verkhovsky, Alexander, Michailovskaya, Ekaterina, and Pribilovsky, Vladimir. Politicheskaya ksenophobia. Moscow: Panorama, 1999.Google Scholar