In my analysis of activist identities, I follow Brubaker and Cooper’s (2000) conceptualization of self-understanding that governs individual and collective action. I argue that the activist’s sense of who one is and their sense of their social location vis-à-vis ‘others’ governs how they are prepared to act in the group setting. (Brubaker and Cooper 2000, 17.) I suggest that Oborona activists identify with the ideals of intellectualism, dissidence, and cosmopolitanism, which form the base of their self-understanding as activists. This self-self-understanding is strengthened in movement practices and collective identification processes. The different dimensions of individual and collective identities are enmeshed and sometimes hard to distinguish.
‘Always against and No Compromises’ – Self-Identification with the Dissidents
Unfortunately, most of our generation is either apolitical or dress up in a T-shirt with the portrait of Putin and marches under the banner of the movement ‘Nashi’. (Artem)
Just like Artem, one of the founding members of Oborona who had since left the movement, many Oborona activists refer to the ‘other’ Russian youth as cynical and apolitical, while they describe the typical Oborona participant as independent and able to think critically. According to another long-time activist, Vova, a typical Oborona activist
‘likes to decide for himself, doesn’t like leaders telling him what to do, carries on rational
commonality as ‘the sharing of some common attribute’ and connectedness as ‘the relational tie that link people’ and use the concept of groupness to refer to the ‘the sense of belonging to a distinctive, bounded, solidary group’.
49
arguments, likes to participate in discussions, [and] listens to arguments not orders.’ Vova declared that a ‘real’ opposition activist does not take orders from others, but makes his own decisions based on rational thought. This mirrors Oborona activists’ identification as modern-day dissidents and dis-identification with the ‘typical Russian youth’ that is often portrayed as stereotypically apolitical.
The dissident identification manifests itself in the Oborona activists’ positive identification with dissidents in the late Soviet Union, and they draw a parallel between Soviet dissidence and their own activism. For example, many of them express admiration for National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, who was a dissident in the Soviet Union, not because of his politics but because of his courage and persistence. Inna describes her respect for Limonov by saying that ‘this man has never sold his life but is true to himself’.
She continues by explaining that there is no other opposition figure that she could respect.
Even though she identifies as a liberal, she does not talk approvingly of the people in the liberal opposition:
I have a very bad attitude towards all the current liberals, Belkov, Yashin, Melov, they are very rotten people (prognivshie liudi). They are bad (gnilye). They are evil (lukavye). They are insincere (neiskrennye). (Inna)
Inna’s exceptionally strong dislike of the leading liberals reflects the personified understanding of power, which associates certain political groups or ideologies with their leaders instead of political doctrines. The Russian public shares a similar view: the terms
‘democrat’ and ‘liberal’ are discredited in Russia because they are associated with the people responsible for the reforms and the ‘shock therapy’ of the 1990s (Martyanov 2005). Nor is Limonov admired by the public, but often associated with the ‘extremists’, as the National Bolsheviks are portrayed in public. However, Limonov’s persistence has given him an image of being the ‘true oppositionist’ among the Oborona youth. Ruslan explained his admiration:
I don’t believe that Limonov will come to power. I honestly do not want him to come to power. Once in an interview, he was asked: ‘What will happen if you come to power?’ He said: ‘I will go to the opposition’.
Other Soviet dissidents, such as Liudmila Alekseeva and Andrei Sakharov, were also raised as paragons for today’s young opposition. Furthermore, activists admire the national poet Pushkin as a revolutionary dissident and a revolutionary Decembrist10. The opposition’s demonstrations are often held at Pushkin Square, which Bushnell (1990) has documented as being popular already for dissident demonstrations during Soviet times.
Pushkin’s poetry is read as a criticism of the state, and he is sometimes cited in the performances organized by the democratic youth movements. Bergman (1992, 16) draws a correlation between Soviet dissidents and the revolutionary intelligentsia of tsarist Russia, which ‘criticized the existing political order in moral terms’ and relied on personal grievances and individual liberation. According to Bergman (1992, 20) for some
10 The Decembrist Revolt took place in December 1825 against Tsar Nicholas I.
50
dissidents ‘the intelligentsia provided a model of morally virtuous behavior and its heroism and altruism were qualities the dissidents should try to cultivate themselves’.
Dissidents referred to Decembrists and the revolutionary intelligentsia as their sources of inspiration and admiration. Oborona activists also identify with the opponents of the state of the previous generations. However, many of them do not identify with the revolutionary intelligentsia on the ideological level, but on the more abstract level of intellectualism and persistent critique of the power holders. Thus, they can be seen as continuing the revolutionary intelligentsia and dissident traditions of criticism. Articulating their identification in relation to dissident traditions also reflects Oborona’s desire for exceptionalism. In the Soviet Union, dissidents were marginalized; even if they were portrayed positively in the West, people living in the Soviet Union tended to see that, through their resistance, dissidents belonged to the authoritative discursive regime of the Soviet state that ‘ordinary’ people wanted to stay out of (Yurchak 2006, 130). This is similar to Russia’s human rights defenders and political activists of today; they are rarely known or admired in their home country, but often supported in the West.
When I asked Oborona activist Ruslan about his political paragons, he mentioned Eduard Limonov and Barack Obama, but also the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Admitting that this statement was a bit strange (stranno), he explained that even though he does not approve of Merkel’s politics, he respects her as a ‘solid’ (tverdyi) personality who stands behind her words. Many of the activists’ did not choose their paragons because of their political points of view, but because of their character and personality. This kind of personification of heroes and enemies of the opposition can be seen as continuing the Soviet dissident traditions. Hornsby (2009) argues that Soviet dissidence during the Khrushchev era was not against communism itself, but oriented more towards specific events, policies and individuals. One of the most common themes among imprisoned dissidents was the idea that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ (Kozlov 2006, cited in Hornsby 2009, 166). A diverse group of political figures from Hitler to Eisenhower became ‘quasi-hero figures’ for dissidents solely because they were seen as Khrushchev’s opponents (Hornsby 2009, 166).
Oborona activists are united against one main enemy, Vladimir Putin, and they feel solidarity with Putin’s ‘enemies’, the Russian opposition and the western leaders. The
‘cult of personality’ was often used to refer to Soviet leaders, but it has also been associated with the Putin era as well. However, Cassiday and Johnson (2010, 686) associate ‘Putin mania’ with the cultural practices of nostalgia and consumption instead of the Soviet style of monolithic propaganda campaigns. They see ‘Putiniana’ as reflecting the ‘contemporary social, political and communicative reality’ of Russia. Nevertheless, Oborona activists see the Nashi movement and other supporters of Putin as being deluded by a Soviet-style of personality cult. Activists referred to the ‘Emperor syndrome’ of the Russians, according to which people should love their tsar no matter what. In an interview, Viktor argued that most Russians think that ‘the tsar might be bad or good, but it is our tsar and we should love him.’ This alleged cult of personality is parallel to the personified hatred deployed by the political opposition. For example, Vova saw that the creation of civil society was possible only by removing the current government and especially Putin, whom he viewed as destructive to civil society because of his strong control over citizens.
51
Image 2 Pushkin Square is a common place to hold opposition’s demonstrations. In sanctioned pickets people need to enter the square through security check and metal detectors.
Image 3 Strategy-31 demonstration in May 2010.
52
Furthermore, not giving up and not making compromises are seen as important ideals of a ‘true’ oppositionist. Many Oborona members talk about their admiration of Limonov, especially in the context of the Strategy-31 project. In 2009, National Bolshevik leader Limonov started the Strategy-31 demonstrations at Triumfalnaia square to highlight the 31st article of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly (see more on Strategy-31 in chapter 6). In 2010, the democratic opposition also joined the demonstrations, and a leader of the liberal Solidarity (Solidarnost’) movement Boris Nemtsov and Liudmila Alekseeva from the Moscow-Helsinki human rights group became leading figures of the Stategy-31 movement, along with Limonov. In 2010, city officials gave Alekseeva permission to organize a demonstration but only for 800 people, which she agreed to. Limonov and many other opposition activists saw this as a compromise and giving in to the authorities and the Strategy-31 organizers split into two camps. Many Oborona members did not accept any compromise, and therefore were on Limonov’s side.
As Viktor explains, the main idea of the radical opposition is its non-systemic character (vnesistemnost’):
Even though the organization is democratic, it does not cooperate with the Kremlin, which is part of the system. Because the main thing that distinguishes radical opposition is its non-systemic character (vnesistemnost’). You shouldn’t have any contact with the regime;
you shouldn’t cooperate in any form… And we speak out a lot against it (protiv). It is a very strong characteristic of Oborona. (Viktor)
However, Viktor also identified Oborona’s ‘always against’ attitude as a problem of the ‘non-systemic’ opposition. For Anna, who participated in Oborona for only for a few months, this negative approach was the main reason for leaving the group. She said that she would rather participate in demonstrations for (za) good things, such as for democratic freedoms and free media. However, most of the activists shared and practiced this ‘always against’ ideal. Dissenting and being against all of the government’s actions characterize what is perceived to be a ‘true oppositionist’ in the group. This is also manifested in the movement’s repertoire of action, which is centered on organizing protests against Vladimir Putin. This shared ‘enemy’ blurs the ideological boundaries of various groups, and thus liberally dispositioned Oborona activists can also represent the National Bolshevik Limonov as their paragon and participate in demonstrations organized by nationalist groups.
Furthermore, Oborona engages with the dissident written tradition. Reproduction and dissemination of forbidden texts, samizdat’, started to circulate in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and dissenting through written texts has been an important tradition of Soviet dissidents. Volkov has described samizdat’ literature as ‘one of the main reservoirs of intellectual opposition’ in the Soviet Union (Volkov 2008, cited in Hornsby 2009, 176). In contemporary Russia, the Internet has become an important forum for oppositional activism and an important tool for mobilization (Lonkila 2012). However, activists also associate this contemporary platform with Soviet dissident traditions:
So, for example, it is such a curious situation that basically all of the opposition leaders are present in the LiveJournal: Kasparov, Limonov, Nikita Belykh, [who is] the governor. In
53
general, all the well-known experts and public figures are there because it is that kind of intelligentsia’s underground subculture (andergroundnaia subkul’tura intelligentskaia). If before they gathered in kitchens, now there is a more interesting way of engaging in dialogue (sposob obshcheniia). It simultaneously combines kitchen and samizdat’… Now under the censorship conditions, blogs play the role of the samizdat’, which we use actively. (Maksim)
Activists often refer to censorship and repression in contemporary Russia as being as bad as in the Soviet Union, and they identify with the written dissident activism under a repressive government. They see a continuation from the kitchen talk of the Soviet Union and the samizdat’ to the Internet forums and blogs of today because the political opposition has no access to the mainstream media and its public. Also Sergei Kovalev, who was known as a Soviet era dissident, has made the same association by arguing that the samizdat’ was the ‘Internet-for-the-poor’ (Oushakine 2001).
Image 4 Oborona has been actively participating in various social media sites, such as VKontakte and Facebook.
Activists’ use of the Internet can be seen as a way of creating a subaltern counter-public, which Nancy Fraser (1990, 67) defines as ‘parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs’. As previously in the Soviet Union’s kitchens, today’s Internet forums create a space where marginalized groups aim to re-create themselves as an alternative public and to challenge the dominant views and norms of the ruling social groups (see also Warner 2002, 80). Internet creates an arena that the activists use to challenge the categorization of the opposition as the ‘western spies’ and instead portray themselves as dissidents fighting the repressive state. Furthermore, the Internet is the only available forum for the opposition to challenge the government’s hegemony over public discussion on civil society and democracy (see more on this struggle in chapter 5). However, the Internet also created a space for critique inside the movement. Some topics that were not raised as
54
issues in the official movement meetings created heated discussions on the email-lists. As I show in section 4.4, in the group meetings, older activists and movement leaders silenced many discussions on topics that were seen as threatening to the group unity. However, this control did not always reach the Internet and oftentimes email-lists created a space for inner critique of the group too.
Intelligentsia Identification and Cosmopolitanism
Besides the identification as dissidents, Oborona participants identify with the Russian intelligentsia or are identified as part of the rising middle class and are categorized as such by others.
Anna: Probably they [participants in the movement]11 are somewhere in the middle class (srednii klass) because the absolutely poor – they simply don’t have that kind of interest, and the rich have different interests.
The participants do not usually talk about class this frankly, but rather more implicitly in a way that is embedded in their self-understanding. They describe their fellow Oborontsy as students or recent graduates with higher education. According to Ruslan, one thing differentiating Oborona activists from other youth groups, such as Nashi or the nationalists, is that they are better ‘supplied’:
And probably also the composition of the participants is a bit different. That is, if you compare it to, let’s say, the Nazis [natsisti, refers to the nationalistic groups] or Nashi12… I think there are more students from respected (kotiruemykh) universities. And I think most of them are better-off (luche obespecheny) than, let’s say, the Nazis, or the Nashi. So, higher education and somehow better income of the parents [differentiates them from other youth activists], probably.
One common attribute of the Oborona activists (and other civil society actors in Russia, cf. Alapuro 1993; Salmenniemi 2008) is that they have resources, i.e. different forms of capital at their disposal. Almost all of the Oborona activists had stable social positions as university students supported by their parents or jobs that allowed them to have an active lifestyle and acquire cultural capital, such as language studies and travel, which they say has shaped their liberal worldviews. Civic activism represents a space for self-realization for many, but also an opportunity to transform cultural capital, such as education and intelligentsia status, into economic resources, for example, through foreign grants that started to flow into Russia in the 1990s (Hemment 2007; Henderson 2003; McIntosh Sundstrom 2006, see also section 3.3). Furthermore, progress and civic mindedness tend
11 Anna had just joined Oborona and did not yet identify herself as a ‘member’.
12 Ruslan’s wordplay creates correlation between the terms Nashi and Nazi. Oppositional activists refer to the participants of the Nashi movement as ‘nashishti’ or the ‘Putind jugend’ creating associations with the term Natsisti (Nazis) and the Nazi youth in Germany in the 1930s.
55
to be associated symbolically with the middle class in Russian public discourse (Melin and Salmenniemi 2012).
Intellectualism is a central dimension of the activist identity of Oborona participants, and forms of cultural capital are highly valued in the movement. Many activists described themselves as coming from ‘democratic’ and ‘intelligent’ families. Their parents had enjoyed higher education and had worked in white-collar professions, such as engineering, teaching or the arts. Omel’chenko (2010) has shown that the Russian skinheads she researched often learnt their racist ideology at home. Similarly, the liberal views and political activism of Oborona activists tend to be influenced by parents and growing up in families of the intelligentsia13. Activists described their families with words such as
‘scientists’ (uchenye) and ‘intellectuals’ (intelligenty) and relations in their families with words such as ‘respect’ (uvazhenie):
LL: What three words could you use to describe your family?
Aleksandr: Uh, scientists, intellectuals, well, it's a little more than three words, politically passive.
LL: Why these words?
Aleksandr: Well, scientists – because of their education, intelligent – it is like their character, and the third – is the topic of our conversation [now], their political views:
positive neutralism (polozhitel'nyi neitralizm).
Katia: Literature [referring to her parents’ education]… Democracy, respect.
Also Ruslan refers to his family as belonging to the intelligentsia, but explained the term concerning his family more as a ‘moral position’ that he associates with the soviet times, than stemming from his parents’ professions:
The semantic field of the word intelligentsia is split into two components. First, it's the people who are engaged in intellectual work, including doctors, teachers and so on. In the Soviet Union there was still a second sense, it is the people who hold certain moral positions. (Ruslan)
Ruslan emphasized that even some people can be identified as the intelligentsia because of their profession, but they do not necessarily carry the moral position that being a part of intelligentsia entails. Kochetkova (2010, 33) describes the Russian intelligentsia as a mythical category characterized by the ideals of being intellectual, critical and reflexive with morality and creative talent. According to Michele Rivkin-Fish (2009), the intelligentsia is historically and currently an important local category. During the tsarist times, intelligentsia was used to refer to the educated groups that opposed tsarist rule and, during the Bolshevik time, to the anti-communist cultural elite. According to Rivkin-Fish
13 According to research on intergenerational transmission, parents tend to transmit their political views to their children, especially if the parents themselves are politically engaged and hold consistent political attitudes (Jennings, Stoker, and Bowers 2009).
56
(2009, footnote 6), the intelligentsia today is ‘assumed to have inherited the moral capital of their parents and grandparents’. The intelligentsia is an imagined community that shares the ideals of culturedness (kul’turnost) and moral righteousness (Rivkin-Fish 2009, 81).
Oborona activists identify with both the moral and professional dimensions of the intelligentsia.
The intelligentsia discourse is also incorporated into Oborona activists’ descriptions of their fellow Oborontsy. One of the informants described the typical Oborona participant as
‘an intellectual in glasses’ (intelligent v ochkakh). Intellectualism, conversational skills, as well as an active political position are used to differentiate the movement’s participants
‘an intellectual in glasses’ (intelligent v ochkakh). Intellectualism, conversational skills, as well as an active political position are used to differentiate the movement’s participants