The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Post-Soviet Space: Language, Politics and Identity (original) (raw)

as a unit of analysis. Surveying developments in the former Soviet Union (FSU), we propose a framework that can help to study Russian speakers and Russian-speaking identities, whilst simultaneously capturing the complexities of their diverse experiences. In order to do this, we draw upon the theoretical literature on borders and boundaries to explore contemporary identity dynamics among Russian speakers living outside of Russia. Our framework, which articulates several internal and external boundaries that align with major identity cleavages in the region, is intended to help study existing trends and to allow scholars to pay close attention to external and internal factors, while being sensitive to the intersectional, messy and liminal factors that defy such neat binary categorisation. By allowing for diversity of experience, while simultaneously capturing commonalities, our framework facilitates fruitful comparative as well as in-depth single case analysis. As such, we examine official Russian policy toward these groups of individuals, paying close attention to the articulated vision of a 'Russian World' that is culturally rather than territorially defined. This allows consideration of how the disconnect between geographic borders and potential identity boundaries impacts political and social relations in the region. By offering a variegated, non-linear perspective on Russian speakers, our framework is used to conceptualise and compare different trends within key FSU states. While this framework, and the specific case studies included in this special issue, focus on 'Russian speakers', our insights also have relevance to the study of a wide range of potentially diasporic identities, kin-state nationalisms, and minority politics in areas that experience complex intersections between 'external homelands', 'nationalising states', 'national minorities' and 'international organisations' (Smith 2002). Russian speakers as a unit of analysis Significantly, right from the establishment of the new Russian state in late 1991, there was understandably high interest in the 'new Russian diaspora' (Shlapentokh et al. 1994): the 25 million ethnic Russians who found themselves 'beached' (Laitin 1998, p. 29) by the sudden retraction of the Soviet borders, and who were now resident in fourteen newly-constituted national states outside of Russia. Early research clamoured to answer two fundamental questions, focusing on the external and internal dimensions of these groups' existence. The external question pertained to their relationship with an 'external homeland': Russia. Internally, scholars assessed the likelihood of ethnic violence in states with large 'Russian' populations, while also attempting to anticipate their future prospects for social and political integration within these states.