ABSTRACT
After twenty years of independence, at least two generations of youth in the North Caucasus have been brought up without Soviet ideals and propaganda. They have grown up in a region with an uncertain future and unclear identity, neither ordinary ‘citizens of Russia’ nor members of a ‘Caliphate of the Caucasus’. In this context it is of considerable interest and importance how youth in the region identify themselves, what sort of sense of group identity they have and how this relates to the rossiiski 1 identity, an ideal of civic nationalism proposed by President Putin as appropriate for the people of the Russian Federation (Putin 2012) as a state with a multicultural, poly-confessional population and a long history of coexistence in the Eurasian region (Tishkov 2009: 78–81). The future of the nation and region is closely related to the vision of youth of their own place in society, their sense of community and national belonging. This identity is formed in the face of headwinds of suspicion and distrust from other parts of the Russian Federation. At present the image of the North Caucasus in Russia is one of terrorism, separatism and Caucasian nationalism. The regular monitoring of public opinion shows longstanding negative attitudes in Russian society to the situation in the region, with more than 60 per cent of respondents agreeing that the situation there is conflict-ridden and the danger will not diminish in the future (Levada Centre 2012). Even the envoy for the N Caucasus Khloponin has expressed similar suspicions, commenting that ‘youth, and particularly students, are the future high-skilled professional elite of the region, but unfortunately many students groups exist that not only disseminate extremist literature but take part in bandit groups’ (Khloponin 2012).
