ABSTRACT
The process of democratisation in the USSR and the newly independent states has turned out to be indivisible from the rapid rise of ethnic movements and inter-ethnic conflict. Thus issues related to ethnicity and nationalism have been some of the core elements of public debates on society’s current and future development before as well as after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Post-Soviet Russia is not only facing the problems of disintegrative political trends, but is also passing through an intensive quest for new forms of non-Soviet legitimisation of the state. This quest provokes discussions on this new country’s ethnopolitical configuration including basic principles concerning the relations between the state and minorities. It is not an easy task to grasp the logic of action in this process without first analysing the corresponding normative vocabulary, ways of perception and evaluation used by the political elite.
