Russian identity after the fall of the USSR

Although there are political and economic explanations of the new wave of Russia’s civil activity after the 4 December 2011 parliamentary elections, we want to concentrate in this chapter on socio-cultural factors such as the evolution of identities after the fall of the USSR. The Soviet political system was largely based on the mobilization around the external and internal “enemy” images. The latter were often supported by security issues and to a large extent by xenophobia and nationalism. With the evolution of Russian identity after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War myths, missionary zeal, scapegoating and security narratives do not always meet the demands of the new generation of Russians whose identities have become more “transnational.”