Emigration to the internet: “Samizdat” and the genesis of contemporary Russian nationalism

Abstract

During the mid-1990s the Pro-European concept of the Russian nation was formed in the post-Soviet ideological space, contrary to the prevailing traditionalist, soil-based forms of Russian nationalism, mainly focused on the search for a “special way”. The former is based on the values of democracy and individualism while the main emphasis of the ideology is the leadership of intellectuals in political life. This article studies the genesis of aforementioned trend in contemporary Russian nationalism in the context of two historical circumstances: the ideological and social status of post-Soviet intellectuals and the Russian-language Internet at the stage of transition to social networks. A key element of the transition period is the emergence of mass online communication, anticipating the beginning of social networks era. Combination of elitism and emphasis on the text were combined with increasing popularity and anonymity, where all these qualities were embodied in guest books. Thus, we will try to show how the communicative environment of the early Runet was arranged and how it influenced rhetorical strategies, styles of public behavior and ideology of contemporary Russian nationalists. As an example in our work, we will consider Dmitry Galkovsky’s Internet resource “Samizdat”, which was functioning in the late 1990s.