Russian Nationalism

Struve is describing the function of a purposefully employed nationalism used as a means of deflecting attention from the contradictions and minor tensions of the Tsarist system after the October Manifesto was enacted. Struve saw clearly the weakness and artificial character of the officially sponsored nationalism of Russia's period of constitution. He believed that Russian nationalism had yet to reach its full potential, and possibly could never be a viable political movement.17

Russification, Anti-Semitism, Xenophobia

Anti-Semitism was a variety of frustrated Slavophilism, according to Hosking, which was conceived out of the awareness on the part of Russians of the ways in which Russia had signally failed to fulfil her nationhood potential.18 Anti-Semitism produced a kind of mass nationalist politics in the form of pogroms against the Jews, the worst of which swept through Russia between 1903 and 1906. The Kishinev pogrom in 1903 was a massive slaughter of Russian Jews, more violent than any seen during the 1880s. At this time official complicity in anti-Semitic crimes was at is most unequivocal and its most stark, with the Tsar himself in favour of the Union of Russian People's formation, and his order that it be publicly subsidised. In a sense, as Hosking notes, official anti-Semitism was a grotesque attempt to induce Russians to show solidarity with the imperial government from which they were largely alienated, and to mobilise ordinary people at a disordered and bewildering time.19

The Jews were also blamed for the behaviour of the Tsar during the October crisis which led to the October Manifesto. One provincial newspaper editor, Pikhno, made such a claim and together with fellow reactionaries organised groups of brutal, bigoted men into Black Hundreds. Their programme, Lincoln reports, was a narrow vision of Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality, which they used to justify their hatred for all non-Russians, especially the Jews.20 As Halecki observes, the outside world did not realise the importance of the nationalities problem in Russia before the 1905 Revolution.21 Until that crisis and the simultaneous defeats in the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian empire appeared so powerful that the minority nationalities' dissatisfaction did not seem overly serious. However, from 1911 onwards a number of government officials and reactionary politicians began talking of the need to "clear Russia of Jews, to clear it consistently, without hesitation", and one deputy of the Duma publicly denounced the Jews as "a criminal race", insisting that their suppression was "never in contradiction with the ideals of sound statesmanship." 22 The reactionary press, delighted by the opportunity to proclaim its anti-Semitic hatred, equated Jews with vermin and parasites. The Union of the Russian People insisted that "Kikes are dangerous to the life of mankind in the same measure as wolves, scorpions, reptiles, poisonous spiders, and similar creatures which are destroyed because they are deadly for human beings . . . Kikes must be placed under such conditions that they will gradually die out." 23

The period before and after the October Manifesto of 1905 saw a mellowing of official policy towards non-Russian nationalities, although it proved to be no more than a brief interruption of the general trend in the empire's nationalities policy. Concessions were directed at the nationalities in an attempt to win over various opposition groups. After the new electoral law of June 1907 even this hesitant readiness to grant concessions waned and made way for an increasingly aggressive official nationalism, with a return to the policy of restrictions against non-Great-Russian groups. There was a conviction among large sections of the bureaucracy that the 1905 Revolution was the work of non-Russians.

'Russian' interests were artificially propped up and political stability ensured by more informal means also. In those areas of the empire where Russians were in the minority, and where they deemed themselves locked into a perpetual conflict with non-Russians, Russian nationalist groups were formed to fight for 'the supremacy of the Russians' and the 'supremacy of the Orthodox Church': they saw this as the only way to protect 'Russian' interests.24 These nationalist groups were formed in part as a reaction to the national awakening of other peoples in the area. As Löwe observes, there is a great deal of irony in the fact that in many regions of the empire national differences were still so underdeveloped and weak that for practical purposes, a Russian could not be defined by the language spoken or parental nationality.25 In most legislation the defining criterion for being Russian was membership of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Attempts at Russification strengthened resistance and self-assertiveness not only among the historic nations, such as the Poles, but also amongst those nationalities who had developed a strong national consciousness, such as the Finns. The virulence of official anti-Semitism is explained in part by the weakness of Russian nationalism.

It was in Poland that the Russian authorities first abandoned their previous policy of co-operation with the local elites - nobles were exiled and their estates confiscated in an attempt to weaken the landlords, who were the bearers of the nationalist ideal in Poland. Any remnants of Poland's separate identity were abolished with Polish officials mostly being replaced by Russian ones, and the imposition of the Russian language for official business purposes. The University of Warsaw became wholly Russian and Polish schools, including those at primary level, taught everything except the Polish language in Russian. Resistance to this Russification took three forms.

The Polish Socialist Party favoured complete secession and national independence from Russia with the leader, Josef Pilsudski, seeking financial help from the Japanese in 1904 for his planned uprising. On the other hand, the Social Democrat Party of Poland and Lithuania under Rosa Luxemburg, believed Poland should remain within the Russian empire as part of the international proletarian state it would become following the anticipated socialist revolution. A third political party, the National Democrats - who were led by Roman Dmowski - preferred Poland to stay within the existing empire, but wanted an end to discriminatory laws and he wanted political autonomy.

Poland in 1905-6 was the most violent part of the empire - there were frequent worker strikes during 1905 objecting to the Russo-Japanese War. Russian armed forces were stationed in Poland in greater numbers than were stationed at the Japanese front.26 The expense of this clearly demonstrates the high cost of russifying a people who had a highly developed national identity and a sense of religion, culture and citizenship radically different from those of Russia.

Anti-Polish policy was associated with the government's determination to impose a Russian identity on the Ukrainians, with the Ukraine now being known officially as 'Little Russia'. In the late nineteenth century the Ukrainian national identity had become weak, with many peasants speaking variants of Ukrainian, their colloquial tongue being regarded as a farmyard dialect Russian by most Russians.27 The Ukrainian peasants had little concept of a wider national consciousness.

In 1863 the Russian Ministry of the Interior prohibited the publication of books in Ukrainian, with the Minister Valuev, stating that "there never has been a distinct Little Russian language, and there never will be one. The dialect which common people use is Russian contaminated by Polish influence.28 A further decree prohibiting the use of Ukrainian in the theatre, and the import of Ukrainian-language books from abroad was made in 1876.

In nineteenth century Russia this almost total suppression of a language was unique. It appears that for officials the national identity of Ukrainian peasants was an unusually sensitive matter. Ukrainians made up nearly 18% of the entire population of Russia, making them the second largest ethnic group in the empire. If the Ukrainians were assimilated to the Russian language and culture, Russians would then constitute a secure majority of the empire's total population, some 62% in all. On the other hand, if the Ukrainians became literate, adopting their own 'dialect' as a distinct language, then the Russians would be a minority in their own empire.

Industrialisation in late nineteenth century Ukraine changed the ethnic composition of the country since incoming workers were mainly Jewish, German, Russian or Polish which meant that industrialisation worked in favour of official national policy. The historian Drahomaniw was dismissed from his chair at Kiev University in the 1870s and went to the capital of Galicia, where he was involved in the development of Ukrainian cultural societies. These societies, which would have been intolerable inside the Russian empire, flourished in spite of the literary import ban, and allowed Galicia to become a kind of 'Ukrainian Piedmont'. Without Galicia, Ukraine would probably not have become a distinct nation during the twentieth century.

Finland's parliament met regularly from 1863, passing measures to underline her distinctive status within the Russian empire - consolidation of freedom of worship, the issue of a separate currency, the spread of education and the establishment of a Finnish army. The proponents of the Finnish language, backed by the high level of literacy amongst the peasants, at the same time gained the Emperor's support in their challenge to Swedish dominance.29

The support for the Finns on the Emperor's part was an example of the 'divide and rule' policy - by setting the Swedes and Finns against each other the empire could dominate both. In the favour of the Finns there was the fact that, unlike the Poles and their ostentatious nation-building - the Finns were restrained. It was not until the late nineteenth century that Russian publicists warned that the formation of a separate and semi-sovereign state with its own army was a dangerous situation. As a result of this warning, Nicholas II issued a manifesto to submit Finnish legislation to Russian supervision in 1899. The previous year, Governor-General Nikolai Bobrikov had been appointed. He proposed fully integrating Finland into Russia by making Finns liable for conscription into the Russian army - ending the Finnish army's separate status, abolishing the Finnish State Secretariat and by introducing the Russian language into Finnish administration offices, increasing the tuition of Russian in Finnish secondary schools. Bobrikov received carte blanche from Nicholas' manifesto and proceeded in his programme of integration, to much protest from the Finns that their constitution, which had been confirmed by Nicholas at his accession, was being violated.

The response from the Finns was first a petition signed by at least one fifth of the population, and then a Russian institution boycott. This particularly affected the army which, by 1902, had less than half the young men report for duty when called up for service. It was not long, however, before this passive resistance turned into violence, with Bobrikov being assassinated by a Finnish terrorist in July 1904.

The difficulty faced by the Russian empire in dealing with its more advanced peoples once national awareness was more widespread and reaching the masses, is demonstrated superbly by the situation in Finland. Leaving them a degree of home rule implied that they could develop in their own direction, with little regard for the needs of the empire as a whole. By and large this was the policy pursued by the Habsburg monarchy, in the Austrian half of the empire particularly, and it failed to answer the national question there. Any attempt to make Finland conform to an imperial model, however, risked arousing the national unity and resolution it aimed to prevent. By pursuing the latter policy Finland was converted into a highly conscious and disaffected nation. When the Russian empire was engaged in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-5, it was not difficult for arms to reach the Russian revolutionaries, supplied by Japan through Finland.30 As a result of Russian conciliation, Finland's constitution was hastily restored.

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(This essay has been written by Michèle Fry, 2000 and it is copyright.)

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