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Abstract
The article examines the social movement of ethnic minorities in defence of republican state languages in ethnic regions of the Russian Federation in the context of politics of fear. In particular, the article focuses on how the repressive context shapes this social mobilisation both in offline and online domains. The article offers a detailed description of responsive as well as pre-emptive and visible as well as covert repressions aimed at ethnic activists and explains how these repressive practices change the nature of dissent, pushing it online and thus inadvertently leading to the development of grassroots activism. It also suggests that the repressive turn in Russia started long before the poisoning of Aleksei Naval’nyi in August 2020.
Acknowledgement
The research for this article was conducted while the author was COFUND fellow at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University. Arts and Humanities Research Council, grant no: AH/N004647/1. The author would like to thank Andy Byford, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, David Stroup and Katerina Tertytchnaya for their useful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Notes
1 In 2004 the Constitutional Court of Russia acknowledged the right of ethnic republics to establish their own official languages and the right to teach them at schools on an obligatory level (see, ‘Postanovlenie Konstitutsionnogo Suda Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 16 noyabrya 2004 g. N 16-P po delu o proverke konstitutsionnosti polozhenii punkta 2 stat'i 10 Zakona Respubliki Tatarstan “O yazykakh narodov Respubliki Tatarstan”, chasti vtoroi stat'i 9 Zakona Respubliki Tatarstan “O gosudarstvennykh yazykakh Respubliki Tatarstan i drugikh yazykakh v Respublike Tatarstan”, punkta 2 stat'i 6 Zakona Respubliki Tatarstan “Ob obrazovanii” i punkta 6 stat'i 3 Zakona Rossiiskoi Federatsii “O yazykakh narodov Rossiiskoi Federatsii” v svyazi s zhaloboi grazhdanina S.I. Hapugina i zaprosami Gosudarstvennogo Soveta Respubliki Tatarstan i Verkhovnogo Suda Respubliki Tatarstan’, Rossiiskaya gazeta, 23 November 2004, available at: https://rg.ru/2004/11/23/tatar-yazyk-dok.html, accessed 4 July 2021).
2 For one example, see Smyth et al. (Citation2015) on collective identity.
3 Bashkirya, Buryatya, Chechnya, Chuvashya, Komi, Mari El, Mordovya, Tatarstan, Udmurtya and Yakutiya.
4 A list of research participants can be found in the Appendix.
5 ‘Federal'nyi zakon N 317-F3 ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v stat'i 11 i 14 Federal'nogo zakona “Ob obrazovanii v Rossiiskoi Federatsii”’, Rossiiskaya gazeta, 3 August 2018, available at: https://rg.ru/2018/08/07/317-fz-dok.html, accessed 4 July 2021.
6 Black Maria. The black police vans used to take away political prisoners during the Stalinist terror.
7 Facebook post by research participant 7.
8 Fieldwork note on communication with research participant 8; interviews with research participants 11 and 18.
9 Information sourced from interviews with research participants 1, 7 and 8; see also ‘Miting v podderzhku Bashkirskogo yazyka v Ufe sobral bolee 300 chelovek’, Kommersant’’, 16 September 2017, available at: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3413892, accessed 20 July 2021.
10 As one of the legislation amendments, part of the Yarovaya Package adopted on 21 July 2014, to the Federal Law № 280.1, ‘Publichnye prizyvy k osushchestvleniyu deistvii, napravlennykh na narushenie territorial’noi tselostnosti Rossiskoi Federatsii’.
11 See short report of dates and reasons for arrests: ‘7 chelovek osuzhdeny v Rossii za prizyvy k separatizmu’, Zona Media, 30 January 2017, available at: https://zona.media/number/2017/01/30/280.1-seven, accessed 5 July 2021.
12 For more on the Yarovaya Package, see ‘Nereal'naya bor'ba s terrorizmom’, Radio Svoboda, 22 June 2016, available at: https://www.svoboda.org/a/27811530.html, accessed 5 July 2021.
13 Federal'nyi zakon N 280.2, ‘Narushenie territorial'noi tselostnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Konsultant Plus, available at: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/248c3444a982105787a791638b78922b5a3b930c/, accessed 30 July 2021.
14 Interviews with research participants 1 and 4.
15 Interviews with research participants 2, 3 and 4.
16 Interviews with research participants 11 and 12.
17 Tatarstan Constitution, 6 November 1992, available at: http://constitution.garant.ru/region/cons_tatar/, accessed 5 July 2021.
18 Fieldwork note, 6 November 2017.
19 In this author’s experience, the usual audience for open-air concerts are young people, not middle-aged men and women.
20 Interview with the author of the channel Tatary i tatarochki; fieldwork note taken while observing the live broadcasting, Kazan, 6 November 2017.
21 WhatsApp discussion, 7–9 November 2017; fieldnotes, 7–10 November 2021.
22 WhatsApp discussion, 7–9 November 2017.
23 WhatsApp discussion, 7–9 November 2017.
24 WhatsApp discussion, 7–9 November 2017; anonymised Telegram channel on a similar issue.
25 Interviews with research participants 1, 8, 13 and 18.
26 See more detailed discussion of social media use and ethnic activism in Yusupova (Citation2021).
27 See for example, ‘Garntirovat obyazatelnoe prepodavanie natsional′nykh gosudarstvennykh yazykov sub’ektov RF’, change.org, 2017, available at: https://www.change.org/p/президент-российской-федерации-владимир-владимирович-путин-нет-закону-против-родных-языков, accessed 5 July 2021.
28 Interview with research participant 8.
29 ‘Net zakony protiv rodnykh yazykov’, change.org, 2017, available at: https://www.change.org/p/президент-российской-федерации-владимир-владимирович-путин-нет-закону-против-родных-языков, accessed 6 July 2021.
30 ‘Net zakony protiv rodnykh yazykov’, change.org, 2017, available at: https://www.change.org/p/президент-российской-федерации-владимир-владимирович-путин-нет-закону-против-родных-языков, accessed 6 July 2021.
31 See for example, ‘Sokhranite komi yazyk’, available at: https://www.change.org/p/министру-образования-науки-и-молодежной-политики-республики-коми-н-а-михальченковой-сохраните-коми-язык, accessed 28 July 2021.
32 ‘ATAJ-ASAZHAR komitety’, post on 14 June 2018, available at: https://vk.com/bashkomitet?_smt=feed%3A2&w=wall-156800459_265 accessed 28 July 2021.
33 WhatsApp chat observations, 6 November–31 December 2017.
34 Interview with research participant 2.
35 WhatsApp chat discussion, 17–19 December 2017.
36 From research participant 19’s Vkontakte profile.
37 I discuss this elsewhere in more detail: Yusupova (Citation2021).
38 Communication with a participant of Tatar Youth World Forum, fieldwork note, 18 August 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Guzel Yusupova
Guzel Yusupova, Lecturer and Senior Researcher, North-West Institute of Management, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Srednii prospect VO, 57/43, St Petersburg 199178, Russian Federation. Email: [email protected]