ABSTRACT
The unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union was an historical moment which changed the international order of geopolitical alliances. Dramatic transformations also led to a unipolar world from a bipolar one between rival ideological camps. The post-Cold War context for foreign policy among states, including post-Soviet Russia and EU, consisted of internal and external challenges and opportunities. New political organizations such as the Russian Federation and the EU have struggled to defi ne their identities through foreign policy strategies and initiatives. Institutions within the state, at supranational and national levels, provided the space for the exercise of agency by policymakers and regime elites. A rethinking of foreign policy consists of a reconsideration of not only the priorities of the state but also of the values to be adopted that make this state, in the self-perception of foreign-policy makers, a distinctive actor. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin, the fi rst post-Communist president of Russia, declared: ‘The Russian Soviet Federation Socialist Republic has been peacefully replaced by the Russian Federation. The state has changed its legal identity’. 1 A new discourse was introduced into Russia which refl ected the interdependent process of internal developments and external expectations. Bold questions about self-representation and its signifi cance in the community of nations were brought into the foreground. How should post-Soviet Russia present itself on the world stage? How should the identity of the new state refl ect Russia’s complex history? In the Yeltsin period, Russia’s state identity became a quandary of the country’s elite. There is a complex and diverse history based on the legacy of the former Soviet Union and Tsarist Russia with their impact on the present still felt. At the same time, there are considerable weaknesses, challenges and threats in a multitude of areas which have faced Russia for decades and have now become critical. The breakup of the Soviet Union had a tremendous impact on Russian society and caused crises on both internal and external levels. Collapse at the level of ideology, reverberating to other areas such the economy, created a vacuum for the identity of the state. Numerous debates and discussions occurred among social classes in Russian society.
