Formation Of New Nationalism Of Finno-Ugric Nations: Competition Of The Global And The Regional

Abstract

The comparative study of the processes of building the nation, political practice and ideology of national movements allows to enlarge and adjust the theories of nationalism, which have been the objects of active discussions of scholars from different countries in recent years. In this connection it is especially important to analyze the activity of ethnopolitical organizations of Finno-Ugric nations, to estimate the substance and political logic of program documents of these public unions. On the one hand, the processes which during the last one and a half decades took place in the regions, where the majority of these nations live, have a lot in common with what happens or happened in other regions of the world, where one can observe integration processes, caused by cultural, religious and ethnic similarity of nations and countries involved in these processes. But at the same time, ethnopolitical development of Finno-Ugric nations has its own specific character, because these nations are geographically isolated, they practice different religions (from Lutheranism to Paganism and Neopaganism), they are not connected by strong ties of economic relations, do not have common cultural centers and symbols. They are united only by vague linguistic affinity, however nowadays in languages of Finno-Ugric nations there remain only about two thousand words of common origin, which go back to parent language-basis. Russian regions, which are now and then called “Finno-Ugric” are located at different poles of economic well-being: from wealthy Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous region to the poorest regions – Komi-Permyak region and Mari-El republic: 80% of their budget expenditures are secured by the federal subsidies. Foreign European countries – Hungary, Estonia and Finland, where large Finno-Ugric peoples live, are also rather different. Nevertheless Finno-Ugric nations in Russia and abroad are actively integrating: since 1992 International congresses of Finno-Ugric nations have been carried out, and in the interval between them the work on the development of multilateral cultural connections is conducted by Advisory committee of Finno-Ugric nations, which tries to get the status of nongovernmental organization of U.N.O.; congresses of Finno-Ugric writers, drama festivals, TV journal “Finno-Ugric world”, and many other common cultural programs are carried out. In recent years international cultural relations have been developing most intensively and that is why the idea of “Finno-Ugric world” as a kind of common cultural space of Finno-Ugric nations, as a new wide identity is developing among humanitarian intelligentsia. This idea was born quite recently; it is an ideological construct, which was formed among national movements of Russian Finno-Ugric nations. The national movements, created or recreated in the end of the 1980-es – beginning of the 1990-es, very soon became aware of the deficit of their political resource and made efforts to expand solidarity groups, which was reflected in the creation of All-Russian and international ethnopolitical unions. It is not accidental that already at the stage of the formation of political doctrines the idea of “Finno-Ugric world” occupied one of the central places in the ideology of national movements of Finno-Ugric nations. Other ideological constructions of national movements do not have a clear conceptual form, but they constitute a set of several common key ideas, which are repeated in the program documents of all national organizations and are stated in the declarations of the Association of Finno-Ugric nations of Russia. One way or another, ethnicity is opposed to nationality in these concepts. This fact alongside with the incapability of the leaders of movements to put into practice the norms of party democracy or rejecting them resulted in the decrease of the movements’ popularity and to their prolonged crisis. Among the representatives of Russian Finno-Ugric nations the initial upsurge of national movements and national ideas at the beginning of the 1990-es stimulated growth of interest in national cultures and languages, and among a part of the youth – aspiration for self-identification with the representatives of the nations, to which their parents belong, but not with the dominant population, as it was earlier. But the usurpation of power in movements by the narrow stratum of old elite, rejection of their democratization, lack of effective work among the population and unattractive slogans forced the majority of the representatives of the title nationality of “Finno-Ugric regions” to turn away from national movements, and also depreciated the significance of Finno-Ugric identity. As early as in the second half of the 1990-es the processes of re-identification among the youth of the title nationality in Finno-Ugric regions increased dramatically, i.e. their aspiration to identification with dominant majority has become more active. The consequence of this was a considerable reduction of the number of all Finno-Ugric nations of Russia, and that fact was fixed by the census in 2002. A serious omission on the part of the leaders of national movements consisted in the fact that they could not create and put forward into mass consciousness new attractive images of their own nations, they did not advance conceptions of territorial communities and did not determine the place of title ethnos in these communities. The leaders of national movements could not secure a support of their slogans from the dominant majority, and this fact as applied to poly-ethnic regions, in which all Russian Finno-Ugric nations live, sharply limits the possibilities for political maneuver and strengthens suspicions in separatism, which are regularly expressed by conservative politicians. These suspicions are accompanied by the fact that several western followers of the conception of “Finno-Ugric world” put forward the idea about associate membership of Russian Finno-Ugric nations in European Union. Besides, political positions of national movements are weakened by their evading the discussion of the problems of federalism and not focusing public attention on the necessity of elaborating a model of federal relations, which would in full measure take into consideration the interests of regional communities and which, at the same time, would not oppose them to the interests of the country as a whole. The crisis of ideology of national movements generated among their leaders the aspiration towards interregional and especially intergovernmental collaboration, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, it forced the activists at the local level to look for a way out in actualization of the idea of local communities. The former sub-ethnic communities: Erzya and Moksha among Mordvinians, highland and grassland Mari among Mari nation, Besermians among Udmurts, Komi-izemians among Komi-Zyryanians became the basis for the construction of new ideological guiding lines. The leaders of national and cultural autonomy of coast-dwellers, created only in 2003, began to refer themselves to Finno-Ugric nations. According to the results of the population census of 2002 the leaders of local communities were winners in the competitive struggle for the so-called “national rebirth”. It is obvious that it is in the local communities that cultures as value systems are forming in a relatively independent way and local connections unite people with each other in the strongest way. That is why a lack of distinct nation-wide symbols and ideas increased dramatically the significance and relevance of local identities, which in addition may benefit not only their propagandists but also wide circles of followers, while global identities, such as “Finno-Ugric world” are exploited only by a narrow stratum of ethnic elite for their own benefit. Besides, the growth of the processes of fragmentation of national movements is connected with general processes of regionalization and movement towards post-nationalism. National movements of Russian Finno-Ugric peoples will be able to survive only on condition of strengthening the ideas of civil nationalism in their ideology and deep general democratization. But in any case the ethnopolitical processes, which are gathering strength in Finno-Ugric regions, lead to serious changes in the contents of national movements’ ideology and their political architecture.