The present research considers the opposition movement in Russia in the 2010s. Russia’s protest movement represents an example of a grassroots movement which emerged through the initiative of its citizens. The focus of the analysis falls on the strategies of mobilisation that succeeded in mobilising an important wave of the rallies in 2011-2013, and the following protest actions principally taken by Alexei Navalny. The processes of self-identification and mobilisation within the protest will be explored through the prism of populist rhetoric. This work argues that populism is a specific kind of anti-elite discourse in the name of the people that consists in giving voice to vocal minorities. The use of populist discourse by the activists of this movement attempted to find an inclusive language which would frame diverse grievances of the protesters and unite people from different social backgrounds. Russia’s protest movement primarily represents a movement for social justice that has increased the civil participation in the governance of public space. Using semantic analysis of texts and documents that have been produced by the entrepreneurs of the protest, this research points to the changing rhetoric within the development of the movement and to its implication on the political sphere of the county.
