In Ukraine, the negative reactions to geopolitical speech acts and suspicions about Russian government actions overlap with and confuse historical linguistic-cultural linkages with Russia but in the other settings, close security and economic ties reinforce a sense of being in the Russian world. In Ukraine, nationality (Russian versus Ukrainian) is aligned with the answers while overall, attitudes towards Russian foreign policy, level of trust in the Russian president, trust of Vladimir Putin and liking Russians are positively related to beliefs about living in the Russian world. Surveys in December 2014 in five sites on the fringes of Russia – in southeastern Ukraine and three Russian-supported de facto states (Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria) – show significant differences between the Ukrainian sample points and the other locations about whether respondents believes that they live in the Russian world. Examination of official texts from Vladimir Putin and articles from three Russian newspapers indicate complicated and multifaceted views of the significance and usage of the Russkii mir concept. Having both linguistic-cultural and geopolitical meanings, the concept of the Russian world remains controversial and outside Russia, it is often associated with Russian foreign policy actions. Though it has long historical roots, the practical definition and geopolitical framing of the term has been debated and refined in Russian political and cultural circles during the years of the Putin presidency. The concept of the Russian world (Russkii mir) re-entered geopolitical discourse after the end of the Soviet Union. Based on extensive research and dozens of interviews with Putin's close advisers, this quietly explosive story will be essential reading for anyone concerned with Russia's past century, and its future. This eye-opening analysis pieces together the evidence for Eurasianism’s place at the heart of Kremlin thinking today and explores its impact on recent events, the annexation of Crimea, the rise in Russia of anti-Western paranoia and imperialist rhetoric, as well as Putin’s sometimes perplexing political actions and ambitions. Clover traces Eurasianism’s origins in the writings of White Russian exiles in 1920s Europe, through Siberia’s Gulag archipelago in the 1950s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and up to its steady infiltration of the governing elite around Vladimir Putin. Charles Clover, award-winning journalist and former Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, here analyses the idea of “Eurasianism,” a theory of Russian national identity based on ethnicity and geography.
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