In discussions on Russian nationalism ‘after Crimea’ it is widely held that the authorities have hijacked the nationalist agenda, that Russian nationalism has migrated from the Russian March to the offices of the Kremlin ideologues, in short, that Russian nationalism has ceased to be an oppositional phenomenon and become political mainstream. I argue that the picture might not be that simple.

An adequate assessment of the situation requires analysis along at least four dimensions. We need, first, to assess the objectives and actions of Russia's political leadership (and that is not a unified political entity); second, to analyse popular and (presumably) influential ideological texts reflecting this alleged shift as well as texts that do not support it; third, to study the mood of the masses through the lens of sociological surveys; and finally, to assess the actions and situation of the groups and organisations that can collectively be labelled as the ‘nationalist movement’. Such a complex analysis is impossible in one article – indeed, hardly possible for a single author. Here I concentrate on the last of the above-mentioned dimensions: a review of nationalist activities at the grassroots – while also taking into account the whole spectrum of relations between the nationalists and the powers-that-be.

Decline of the traditional nationalist movement

The Russian nationalist movement is diverse, but since the beginning of the new century it has been dominated by organisations and groups whose activists (but not necessarily leaders) have come either from the Nazi-skinhead environment or directly from the ranks of successive radical youth groups that depart only marginally from neo-Nazi ideals. The leader and symbol of this dominant part of the nationalist movement was Aleksandr Belov's Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, DPNI). This was accompanied on the flanks by smaller national democratic groups (we will return to these below) and by openly neo-Nazi groups and organisations, like Dmitrii Demushkin's Slavic Union (Slavianskii soiuz). If the old nationalists of the 1990s wanted to remain relevant, they too could not do without these same activists, as shown by the infusion of new members into Sergei Baburin's Russian All-People's Union (Rossiiskii obshchenarodnyi soiuz, ROS).