Russian irredentism (Russian: Русский ирредентизм), sometimes expressed by the term Greater Russia (Великая Россия), refers to territorial claims made by the Russian Federation to territories that were historically part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It seeks to politically incorporate ethnic Russians who are living in neighbouring territories that fall outside of Russia's modern-day borders. This ideology has been significantly defined by the regime of Vladimir Putin, who has governed the country since 1999.
Specifically looking at the viewpoints of post-Soviet Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Erdi Ozturk, a professor at London Metropolitan University, has commented that irredentist ideology relies upon a "distinction between civilizations by synthesizing nationalism with nostalgic visions of history, memory, and religion."[2]
History
Imperial era
From roughly the 16th century to the 20th century, the Russian Empire followed an expansionist policy.[n 1] Few of these actions had irredentist justifications, though the conquest of parts of the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus in 1877 to bring Armenian Christians under the protection of the Tsar may represent one example.[3] Russia has also had a historical interest in Constantinople (Istanbul).
Post-Soviet era
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was thought that the Russian Federation had given up on plans of territorial expansion or kin-state nationalism, despite some 25 million ethnic Russians living in neighboring countries outside Russia.[4]Stephen M. Saideman and R. William Ayres assert that Russia followed a non-irredentist policy in the 1990s despite some justifications for irredentist policies—one factor disfavoring irredentism was a focus by the ruling interest in consolidating power and the economy within the territory of Russia.[5] Furthermore, a stable policy of irredentism popular with the electorate was not found, and politicians proposing such ideas did not fare well electorally.[6] Russian nationalist politicians tended to focus on internal threats (i.e. "outsiders") rather than on the interests of Russians outside the federation.[7]
The annexation of Crimea led to a new wave of Russian nationalism, with large parts of the Russian far right movement aspiring to annex even more land from Ukraine, including the unrecognized Novorossiya.[16] Analyst Vladimir Socor proposed that Russian president Vladimir Putin's speech after the annexation of Crimea was a de facto "manifesto of Greater-Russia Irredentism".[17] After international sanctions were imposed against Russia in early 2014, within a year the "Novorossiya" project was suspended: on 1 January 2015, the founding leadership announced the project has been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project.[18][19]
On 12 July 2021, the official website for the Office of the President of Russia published an essay On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians written by Vladimir Putin in which he describes historically that "Russians and Ukrainians were one people".[20]
On 1 March 2022, images emerged in the press showing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in front of a map which appeared to show invasion plans for Moldova where Russia already has soldiers in the breakaway region of Transnistria.[26][27]
Looking at the Russian efforts as a whole, the news network Al Jazeera has quoted University of San Francisco scholar Stephen Zunes as remarking, "The level of physical devastation and casualties thus far over a relatively short period is perhaps the [worst] in recent decades which, combined with the irredentist aims of the conquest, makes Russia’s war on Ukraine particularly reprehensible in the eyes of the international community."[2]
U.S. news publication The Washington Post has stated that the Russian government could start a chain reaction of irredentist mass violence, which then "could break the international order".[47]
These annexations and irredentist aspirations were declared illegal by the UN. On 12 October 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution ES-11/4 advocating for territorial integrity of Ukraine, with 143 nations voting in favor, 5 against and 35 abstaining. It condemned the "illegal so-called referendums" and the "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia immediately reverse its decisions and withdraw its forces from Ukraine.[48]
^Tristan James Mabry; John McGarry; Margaret Moore; Brendan O'Leary (2013). Divided Nations and European Integration: National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 365. ISBN9780812244977.
^Armando Navarro (2015). Mexicano and Latino Politics and the Quest for Self-Determination: What Needs to Be Done. Lexington Books. p. 536. ISBN9780739197363.
^Joseph J. Hobbs (2016). Fundamentals of World Regional Geography. Cengage Learning. p. 183. ISBN9781305854956.
^Bocharova, Svetlana; Biryukova, Liliya (18 March 2014). "Приднестровье как Крым" [Transnistria as Crimea]. Vedomosti (in Russian). Archived from the original on 11 December 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
^Harun Karcic (March 30, 2022). "Why NATO Should Worry About the Balkans". The Economist. Retrieved March 31, 2022. The similarities between Russian and Serbian irredentism are astonishing. Back in the 1990s, Serbian nationalists parroted the claim that Bosnia historically belonged to Serbia, that we Bosniak Muslims were in fact Christian Serbs who were forcefully converted to Islam under the Ottomans, and that Bosnia—as an independent and sovereign country—would not survive without Serbian tutelage. So closely are Bosniak Muslims able to identify with Ukrainians that monetary donations have been collected and prayers held at Bosnian mosques for Ukraine's defense.
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