Window on Eurasia

Moscow Said to Lack Clear Definition of ‘Compatriot ’

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 30, 2006 – Despite the frequent and highly politicized use of the term “compatriot” by President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials, Moscow lacks a precise definition of just who Russia’s “compatriots” are, what their relationship to the country should be, and how the Russian government ought deal with them.

That was the conclusion of 13 leading Russian political commentators at
an open seminar conducted in Moscow last week by the Polit.ru Internet
portal. A summary of their discussion and of the reasons they offered
for this judgment has now been posted online
[http://www.polit.ru/author/2006/06/29/tez/html].

This lack of clarity, the participants said, has created a situation in which sometimes Russian “compatriots” have become “hostages” to the policies of other countries and sometimes Russia itself has become a “hostage” to people who are defined variously as ethnic Russians living abroad or in a variety of other ways.

But what makes the situation especially unfortunate for the people involved and increasingly problematic for the Russian government iself, those taking part in this discussion suggested, is that “’compatriots” become hostages when they are ‘there’ and ‘illegal migrants’ when they are ‘here.’”

Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the commentators pointed out, the Russian government began talking about “compatriots,” but it defined them in ways that were little short of absurd. Moscow set up “departments for ties with etnicheskiye Rossiyane” in this or that former Soviet republic or country.

That combination of words itself is an oxymoron, they argued, because the word “Rossiyane” is non-ethnic by definition even if the adjective “ethnic” is put in front of it. And even “those who headed these structures [for dealing with ‘compatriots’] did not understand what this term meant.”

Indeed, the discussants said, “the story of ‘ethnic Rossiyane’ recalled the situation when in the historical faculty at Moscow State University there used to be chairs for ‘The History of the USSR in the Period of Feudalism’ and ‘The History of USSR in the Period of Capitalism.’”

Logically, participants said, the term “compatriots” presupposes that “a common Fatherland unites us. But what is to be understood by this? That which existed before 1917, before 1945, or before 1991?” Given changes in borders and politics, “the patriotic tradition” of Russia has hardly been continuous over this period.

President Putin recently complicated this problem by “returning” Russian citizenship to the daughter of anti-Bolshevik White Russian General Anton Denikin, a step he took by decree rather than on the basis of “any” established procedures and as a result one whose consequences for others in similar situations is unclear.

“If we want to preserve historical and legal logic, then we need to speak about the principle of the legal continuity of Russia and about what flows from that. In that case, it is necessary to offer the right of automatic citizenship to all descedents of those who lived in the Russian Empire and also to all who lived in the Soviet Union.”

“Without legal continuity” of the state itself, the discussants concluded, “one ought not to defnitively answer the question about the existence of the Fatherland” of which Russia’s “compatriots” are a part.

But many who have talked about “compatriots” in recent years have
muddied the waters still further, discussants said. All too often, people in Moscow want to include under this rubric only ethnic Russians who live abroad while excluding members of all other ethnic groups – regardless of how any of these people see themselves.

That too creates absurdities, particiants said, in which people who
speak Russian but who have taken citizenship in other countries and who
identify with those countries rather than Russia are judged
“compatriots” worthy of Moscow’s attentions but those who do not
speak Russian and are not of ethnic Russian background are ignored.

And when the Russian government tries to intervene on the behalf of one rather than the other, it puts itself in a difficult position diplomatically with foreign governments and politically at home given the views of many current residents of the Russian Federation.

“The single possible criterion for the definition of compatriot is
self-definition.” And Moscow should work to guarantee that right rather than get involved in other matters. To do so, it will need to decide to offer automatically Russian Federation citizenship to all “citizens of the Russian Empire and the USSR” who might want it.

Such a stance will create certain problems, the discussants said, but
the experience of other countries shows that these are not insuperable.
But unless Moscow operates on the basis of legal principles in this
area rather than simply on the basis of politically useful rhetoric, it will
find itself in even deeper difficulties.

Indeed, the situation has now evolved to the point where “the key question” has become “which will take place more quickly:” Moscow deciding to offer automatic citizenship to former tsarist and Soviet citizens or other countries taking the steps needed to assimilate these people.