ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the crystallization of Russian ethnic identity in the late Tsarist era through the prism of ethnophobias. As a mass phenomenon, ethnophobias influenced the complex processes of ethnic self-identification inside the "multinational" empire.1 When speaking about such a complex multi-ethnic and multicultural state, one can simply say that the overwhelming majority of its peoples differed only in their religions, or in dynastic, clan, kinship, or local affiliations. In this context, one person could hold several "situational" expressions of identity simultaneously. The differentiation of the population by nationality occurred extremely slowly, and did not fully penetrate the depth of the empire. Defining ethnic identity in this situation involves understanding it not just as a sense of belonging or identification, but also as a socially organized cultural distinctiveness, as territorial boundaries, and as a mobilizing factor.
