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rfmcdonaldSlate has this interesting brief article on Russian identity in Kazakhstan in the post-Soviet era, and the question of Russian identification with the Kazakhstani state and nation-building process.
The situation in Kazakhstan is only one of the more dramatic cases of stranded Russophone minorities in the former Soviet Union outside of Russia. In the Caucasus--both the independent South Caucasus and the North Caucasian territories part of the Russian Federation--as well as Central Asia outside of Kazakhstan, Russophone minorities have responded by mass emigration. In Ukraine, Russophones increasingly seem to identify themselves as part of the Ukrainian nation, though the language question remains important. In Moldova, the country's division between ethnic Romanians and Russophones corresponds in part to the boundary between the Moldovan central government's territories and those of the Transdnestr microstate. In the Baltic States, Russophones seem to be moving towards a slow naturalization and political assimilation on the terms of the titular nations, with social and cultural assimilation coming more slowly, likely most readily in Lithuania, followed by Estonia, and finally by Latvia.
Apart from the Baltic States, the Soviet successor states tend to be considerably poorer than Russia, and major sources of immigrants for Russia. It's likely that Russophones, given their fluency in Russian, will be proportionately more important than non-Russophones. This is good for Russia, inasmuch as it implies some demographic factor to slow down its collapse. This may, in the long run, be bad for Russia's cultural influence in its neighbour states, if Russian cultural influence declines while the major and most dynamic communities in the post-Soviet Russian diaspora end up developing outside of the former Soviet Union. The Russophone communities in Israel and the United States come to mind--perhaps in a decade's time, comparable communities will form (if they haven't already) in Germany and Britain?
Much more on different things to come later.
The situation in Kazakhstan is only one of the more dramatic cases of stranded Russophone minorities in the former Soviet Union outside of Russia. In the Caucasus--both the independent South Caucasus and the North Caucasian territories part of the Russian Federation--as well as Central Asia outside of Kazakhstan, Russophone minorities have responded by mass emigration. In Ukraine, Russophones increasingly seem to identify themselves as part of the Ukrainian nation, though the language question remains important. In Moldova, the country's division between ethnic Romanians and Russophones corresponds in part to the boundary between the Moldovan central government's territories and those of the Transdnestr microstate. In the Baltic States, Russophones seem to be moving towards a slow naturalization and political assimilation on the terms of the titular nations, with social and cultural assimilation coming more slowly, likely most readily in Lithuania, followed by Estonia, and finally by Latvia.
Apart from the Baltic States, the Soviet successor states tend to be considerably poorer than Russia, and major sources of immigrants for Russia. It's likely that Russophones, given their fluency in Russian, will be proportionately more important than non-Russophones. This is good for Russia, inasmuch as it implies some demographic factor to slow down its collapse. This may, in the long run, be bad for Russia's cultural influence in its neighbour states, if Russian cultural influence declines while the major and most dynamic communities in the post-Soviet Russian diaspora end up developing outside of the former Soviet Union. The Russophone communities in Israel and the United States come to mind--perhaps in a decade's time, comparable communities will form (if they haven't already) in Germany and Britain?
Much more on different things to come later.
