The Formation of the Russian National Identity: The Role of Status Insecurity and Ressentiment

Abstract

This paper is a part of a much larger study in comparative historical sociology addressing the question of the emergence and initial development of the related phenomena that may be subsumed under the umbrella term “nationalism”: national identity, national consciousness, and political collectivities based on such an identity and consciousness—nations. This larger project focuses on the five societies that were among the very first to define themselves as nations—England, the United States of America, France, Germany, and Russia—and examines the social bases of national identity, its embodiment in and perpetuation through institutional arrangements and patterns of culture, and its transformation in the process of diffusion from one culture to another.