Research
Demography of Russians: 25 Years of ‘Putinwave’
When looking at the constitution of Russia, it seems that it constitutes a multiethnic federation where the largest ethnicity does not have a majority, at best approaching the Soviet result of being half of the total population. And just like the Soviet Union ended with breakaway states, some people project the same future for the Russian Federation. The reason why the largest Soviet republic, which later became the Russian Federation, was called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is that ethnic Russians have constituted more than a standard definition of supermajority, having more than 80% of the total population identifying themselves with the Russian ethnicity. The fact that number decreased in next censuses can only indicate that the Russian Federation is far from being a nationalist state, as Russians as an ethnicity currently face paramount issues regarding diaspora/emigration, population decline due to a combination of heightened mortality and reducing fertility (which is a result of a current war initiated by Putin), and an unrestricted migration that is comparable in absolute terms to the United States. To give an overview, the article will explain why ethnic Russians remain the only potential entity for a change in Russia and what issues concern them.
When analysing Russia and its people, they often start by ignoring one detail. While in other languages, there is no separation between Russians as an ethnicity and citizens of Russia, as both are generally described with one term, the difference is notable when spoken in Russian. Russian as an ethnicity is represented by the common term ‘Russkiy,’ while the general citizen of Russia who does not necessarily have a Russian ethnic background is called ‘Rossiyanin.’ Creating a term acknowledging a difference would be a significant step in increasing the accuracy of analysis, far from when everything was called Russia, be it the Russian Tsardom, Russian Empire, or even the Soviet Union that did not have Russia or anything Russia-related in its name. It will be a reminder that being Russian as an ethnicity does not mean being part of the government and fully accepting it, especially since it is not a democracy. They are just the largest ethnic group in the territory of the Russian Federation.