ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses whether Western European concepts of integration are relevant for other countries in Europe, outside Western and European Union (EU) academia. It points out that integration of immigrants became an important public issue in Europe in the 1980s, with the permanent settlement of postcolonial foreign migrants as well as 'guest workers': bearers of other languages/dialects, ethnicities and cultures. Mass immigration to Russia, which began in the 1990s after the break-up of the Soviet Union into fifteen independent states, might also be seen as postcolonial, but the profound difference is that most immigrants from neighbouring states into the then newly-fledged Russian Federation (RF) belonged to one of two groups. Currently, in the official Russian political discourse, a high level of anti-immigration public attitudes persists and is often used by the elite to justify a utilitarian immigration model.
