Post-Soviet Russian Nation-Building: ‘Purposefully Ambiguous’ or ‘Sufficiently Flexible’ with ‘a Russian Flavour’?

ABSTRACT This article analyses post-Soviet Russian nation building through examining the contradictions of ‘ethnic’ and ‘civic’ nation building processes. In so doing, this paper argues Shevel’s (2011) characterization of post-Soviet Russia’s nation-building as ‘purposefully ambiguous’, further discussing the legal framework of Russia’s nation building and contemporary policies of the Russian government. As a result, this article proposes to characterize post-Soviet Russian nation building as a ‘sufficiently flexible’ combination of controversial ethnic and civic nationalisms with ‘a Russian flavour’.