Leila Wilmers1; 1 Cornell University, United States
Discussion
Ethnic diversity features prominently in Russia’s official discourse as a defining trait of the statist Russian nation. Narratives of age-old peaceful relations between ethnicities and cross-ethnic loyalty to the Motherland are well established in Putin’s nation building efforts. At the same time, ethnic diversity is a subject of concern for Putin’s regime, because of the potential for sub-state identities to undermine loyalty to the state. The scope of ethnic particularity is increasingly centrally controlled, and the alleged harmony of the status quo relies on the suppression of dissenting voices in ethnic politics. Against this background, this paper adopts a qualitative approach to explore public engagement with discourses of diversity in Kazan, the famously multi-ethnic capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. Drawing on in-depth interviews with resident men and women of multiple generations and different ethnicities conducted in 2017-18, I focus on interpretations of discourses of Russia’s diversity and feelings stimulated by these discourses, as well as personal perceptions and experiences of diversity. The findings illustrate the usefulness and appeal of diversity discourses in individual constructions of place and belonging in Kazan. However, such discourses are also found to be a problematic basis for nation building, because it is the sense of difference they suggest that most resonates, rather than togetherness.
