On the Evolution of the Conceptual Foundations of Russian Ethno-National Policy

On the eve of the update in 2025 of the “Strategy of State National Policy”, a discussion is unfolding in Russia about the existing and future conceptual foundations of such a policy. This discussion largely determines this article. In it, the author critically analyzes the stereotypical ideas about the national politics of Soviet and post-Soviet times that emerged in the process of this discussion. For example, about stability in the era of L. Brezhnev, a stereotype that does not take into account the rise of two varieties of nationalism in the 1960–1980s; about the “parade of sovereignties in the era of Soviet Perestroika: about multiculturalism as the supposedly official doctrine of Russian politics in the 1990s. The article analyzes the prospects for establishing a new concept of interculturalism in Russia. In this regard, the materials of a sociological study conducted by scientific teams led by the author of this article in 2018 in Rostov-on-Don are presented.