‘Russian World’: Interpretations of a dynamic tool of the Russian Federation's foreign policy

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the rise of sovereign states on its ruins, including an independent Russia, made the political elite of the Russian Federation reconsider the ideological platform that would clarify the place of the new Russia in international relations. In response to this need, the country's intellectual circles generated the ‘Russian World’ concept, which politicians adopted and employed as a foreign policy tool. Simple and, at first glance, relatively straightforward, the term ‘Russian World’ has not benefited from a coherent definition, as it is a dynamic and constantly expanding concept. Despite this, the specificity of the concept can be identified by analysing its evolution. The central element of the concept is the Russian language, to which another element is added, represented by the idea of the ‘Great Russian Nation’, which would encompass the three nations of the Eastern Slavs (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian). With the launch of the concept in the political arena in 2007, but especially since 2014, the ‘Russian World’ has become a frequently used term in the speeches of the Russian political elite. Gradually, the concept was permanently enshrined in the architecture of Russian foreign policy, and it was intensively promoted in the Russian Federation's new Concept of Foreign Policy, adopted in 2023.

Keywords

• russian world
• russian federation
• international
• political concept
• foreign policy