Nation, Ethnicity and Race on Russian Television Russia, one of the most ethno-culturally diverse countries in the world, provides a rich case study on how globalization and associated international trends are disrupting and causing the radical rethinking of approaches to inter-ethnic cohe- sion. The book highlights the importance of television broadcasting in shaping national discourse and the place of ethno-cultural diversity within it. It argues that television’s role here has been reinforced, rather than diminished, by the rise of new media technologies. Through an analysis of a wide range of news and other television programmes, the book shows how the covert meanings of discourse on a particular issue can diverge from the overt significance attributed to it, just as the impact of that dis- course may not conform with the original aims of the broadcasters. The book discusses the tension between the imperative to maintain security through cen- tralized government and overall national cohesion that Russia shares with other European states, and the need to remain sensitive to, and to accommodate, the needs and perspectives of ethnic minorities and labour migrants. It compares the increasingly isolationist popular ethno-nationalism in Russia, which harks back to ‘old-fashioned’ values, with the similar rise of the Tea Party in the United States and the UK Independence Party in Britain. Throughout, this extremely rich, well-argued book complicates and challenges received wisdom on Russia’s recent descent into authoritarianism. It points to a regime struggling to negotiate the dilemmas it faces, given its Soviet legacy of ethnic particularism, weak civil society, large native Muslim population and over- bearing, yet far from entirely effective, state control of the media. Stephen Hutchings is Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. Vera Tolz is Sir William Mather Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies Series Editor: Richard Sakwa, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent Editorial Committee: Roy Allison, St Antony’s College, Oxford Birgit Beumers, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, University of Aberystwyth Richard Connolly, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham Terry Cox, Department of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow Peter Duncan, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London Zoe Knox, School of History, University of Leicester Rosalind Marsh, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath David Moon, Department of History, University of York Hilary Pilkington, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester Graham Timmins, Department of Politics, University of Birmingham Stephen White, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow Founding Editorial Committee Member: George Blazyca, Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University of Paisley This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, high-quality, research- level work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social science subjects. 1 Ukraine’s Foreign and Security Policy, 1991–2000 Roman Wolczuk 2 Political Parties in the Russian Regions Derek S. Hutcheson 3 Local Communities and Post- Communist Transformation Edited by Simon Smith 4 Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe J.C. Sharman 5 Political Elites and the New Russia Anton Steen 6 Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness Sarah Hudspith 7 Performing Russia – Folk Revival and Russian Identity Laura J. 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Chitnis 17 The Legacy of Soviet Dissent Dissidents, democratisation and radical nationalism in Russia Robert Horvath 18 Russian and Soviet Film Adaptations of Literature, 1900–2001 Screening the word Edited by Stephen Hutchings and Anat Vernitski 19 Russia as a Great Power Dimensions of security under Putin Edited by Jakob Hedenskog, Vilhelm Konnander, Bertil Nygren, Ingmar Oldberg and Christer Pursiainen 20 Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940 Truth, justice and memory George Sanford 21 Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia Philip Boobbyer 22 The Limits of Russian Democratisation Emergency powers and states of emergency Alexander N. 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Breyfogle, Abby Schrader and Willard Sunderland 39 Russian Legal Culture Before and After Communism Criminal justice, politics and the public sphere Frances Nethercott 40 Political and Social Thought in Post-Communist Russia Axel Kaehne 41 The Demise of the Soviet Communist Party Atsushi Ogushi 42 Russian Policy towards China and Japan The El’tsin and Putin periods Natasha Kuhrt 43 Soviet Karelia Politics, planning and terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1920–1939 Nick Baron 44 Reinventing Poland Economic and political transformation and evolving national identity Edited by Martin Myant and Terry Cox 45 The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920–24 Soviet workers and the new communist elite Simon Pirani 46 Democratisation and Gender in Contemporary Russia Suvi Salmenniemi 47 Narrating Post/Communism Colonial discourse and Europe’s borderline civilization Nataša Kova č evi ć 48 Globalization and the State in Central and Eastern Europe The politics of foreign direct investment Jan Drahokoupil 49 Local Politics and Democratisation in Russia Cameron Ross 50 The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia Peace arbitrators and the development of civil society Roxanne Easley 51 Federalism and Local Politics in Russia Edited by Cameron Ross and Adrian Campbell 52 Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union Reckoning with the communist past Edited by Lavinia Stan 53 The Post-Soviet Russian Media Conflicting signals Edited by Birgit Beumers, Stephen Hutchings and Natalia Rulyova 54 Minority Rights in Central and Eastern Europe Edited by Bernd Rechel 55 Television and Culture in Putin’s Russia Remote control Stephen Hutchings and Natalia Rulyova 56 The Making of Modern Lithuania Tomas Balkelis 57 Soviet State and Society Under Nikita Khrushchev Melanie Ilic and Jeremy Smith 58 Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944–1950 Michael Fleming 59 Democratic Elections in Poland, 1991–2007 Frances Millard 60 Critical Theory in Russia and the West Alastair Renfrew and Galin Tihanov 61 Promoting Democracy and Human Rights in Russia European organization and Russia’s socialization Sinikukka Saari 62 The Myth of the Russian Intelligentsia Old intellectuals in the new Russia Inna Kochetkova 63 Russia’s Federal Relations Putin’s reforms and management of the regions Elena A. Chebankova 64 Constitutional Bargaining in Russia, 1990–93 Institutions and uncertainty Edward Morgan-Jones 65 Building Big Business in Russia The impact of informal corporate governance practices Yuko Adachi 66 Russia and Islam State, society and radicalism Roland Dannreuther and Luke March 67 Celebrity and Glamour in Contemporary Russia Shocking chic Edited by Helena Goscilo and Vlad Strukov 68 The Socialist Alternative to Bolshevik Russia The Socialist Revolutionary Party, 1917–1939 Elizabeth White 69 Learning to Labour in Post- Soviet Russia Vocational youth in transition Charles Walker 70 Television and Presidential Power in Putin’s Russia Tina Burrett 71 Political Theory and Community Building in Post-Soviet Russia Edited by Oleg Kharkhordin and Risto Alapuro 72 Disease, Health Care and Government in Late Imperial Russia Life and death on the Volga, 1823–1914 Charlotte E. Henze 73 Khrushchev in the Kremlin Policy and government in the Soviet Union, 1953–1964 Edited by Melanie Ilic and Jeremy Smith 74 Citizens in the Making in Post-Soviet States Olena Nikolayenko 75 The Decline of Regionalism in Putin’s Russia Boundary issues J. Paul Goode 76 The Communist Youth League and the Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1917–1932 Matthias Neumann 77 Putin’s United Russia Party S. P. Roberts 78 The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours Towards a more ambitious partnership? Elena Korosteleva 79 Russia’s Identity in International Relations Images, perceptions, misperceptions Edited by Ray Taras 80 Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon Edited by Helena Goscilo 81 Russia – Democracy Versus Modernization A dilemma for Russia and for the world Edited by Vladislav Inozemtsev and Piotr Dutkiewicz 82 Putin’s Preventative Counter-Revolution Post-Soviet authoritarianism and the spectre of Velvet Revolution Robert Horvath 83 The Baltic States from the Soviet Union to the European Union Identity, discourse and power in the post-communist transition of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania Richard Mole 84 The EU–Russia Borderland New contexts for regional cooperation Edited by Heikki Eskelinen, Ilkka Liikanen and James W. Scott 85 The Economic Sources of Social Order Development in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe Richard Connolly 86 East European Diasporas, Migration and Cosmopolitanism Edited by Ulrike Ziemer and Sean P. Roberts 87 Civil Society in Putin’s Russia Elena Chebankova 88 Post-Communist Poland – Contested Pasts and Future Identities Ewa Ochman 89 Soviet Economic Management under Khrushchev The Sovnarkhoz reform Nataliya Kibita 90 Soviet Consumer Culture in the Brezhnev Era Natalya Chernyshova 91 The Transition to Democracy in Hungary Árpád Göncz and the post- communist Hungarian presidency Dae Soon Kim 92 The Politics of HIV/AIDS in Russia Ulla Pape 93 The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism The making and breaking of State Socialist society, and what followed David Lane 94 Disability in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union History, policy and everyday life Edited by Michael Rasell and Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova 95 The Making and Breaking of Soviet Lithuania Memory and modernity in the wake of war Violeta Davoli ū té 96 Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe Tomasz Zarycki 97 Cinema, State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1917–1989 Re-visions Edited by Sanja Bahun and John Haynes 98 Ethnic Relations in Post-Soviet Russia Russians and non-Russians in the North Caucasus Andrew Foxall 99 Eastern Europe and the Challenges of Modernity, 1800–2000 Stefano Bianchini 100 Nation, Ethnicity and Race on Russian Television Mediating post-Soviet difference Stephen Hutchings and Vera Tolz 101 Russia–China Relations in the Post-Crisis International Order Marcin Kaczmarski Nation, Ethnicity and Race on Russian Television Mediating post-Soviet difference Stephen Hutchings and Vera Tolz London and New York Nation, Ethnicity and Race on Russian Television Mediating post-Soviet difference Stephen Hutchings and Vera Tolz London and New York Governance for Justice and Environmental Sustainability Lessons across natural resource sectors in sub-Saharan Africa Edited by Merle Sowman and Rachel Wynberg Governance for Justice and Environmental Sustainability Lessons across natural resource sectors in sub-Saharan Africa Edited by Merle Sowman and Rachel Wynberg ISBN: 978–0–415–52359–2 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–12088–0 (ebk) First published 2014 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Stephen Hutchings and Vera Tolz The right of Stephen Hutchings and Vera Tolz to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-85328-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-72286-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Paignton, UK Contents List of figures xiii Acknowledgements xiv Note on transliteration and translation xv Introduction: A clash of two Russias, a tale of two cities 1 1 Television and nationhood: The broader context 23 PART I Managing difference 39 2 Mapping an uncertain terrain: An overview of the corpus 41 3 Re-inventing Russia in television news commemorations of the ‘Day of National Unity’: Mediation as fracture 73 4 Ethnic conflict and television news coverage of the December 2010 Moscow riots: Managing the unexpected 97 PART II Difference at the margins 119 5 Re-working Russian diversity: The ‘marginal’ role of television fiction 121 6 Transcending marginality: Ethnicity, identity and religion on Vesti-Buriatiia 148 xii Contents PART III Difference in question 173 7 (Un)covering alterity: Television, the 2012 presidential elections and the ethnic underside of Russian political discourse 175 8 An unholy scandal: Profanity, abjection and the production of Russian-ness in the ‘punk prayer’ affair 194 9 ‘There is war on our streets...’: The ‘national question’ and migration on state-aligned television after the 2012 presidential elections 221 Conclusion: Difference in the balance 247 Bibliography 265 Index 277 Figures 2.1 Frequency and intensity of ethnicity-related news as a percentage of the overall news content 46 2.2 Frequency and intensity of ethnicity-related news by recording periods as a percentage of the overall news content: Vremia 47 2.3 Frequency and intensity of ethnicity-related news by recording periods as a percentage of the overall news content: Vesti 48 2.4 Frequency of ethnicity-related news inside and outside the Russian Federation: Vremia and Vesti 49 2.5 Intensity of ethnicity-related news inside and outside the Russian Federation: Vremia and Vesti 50 2.6 Salience of ethnicity-related news: Vremia and Vesti 51 2.7 Intensity of each category as a percentage of all ethnicity-related news: Vremia 53 2.8 Intensity of each category as a percentage of all ethnicity-related news: Vesti 53 2.9 Frequency of Russian Orthodox Church-coded stories over the total recording period: Vremia and Vesti 55 2.10 Intensity of Russian Orthodox Church-coded stories over the total recording period: Vremia and Vesti 56 2.11 Frequency of migration-coded stories inside and outside the Russian Federation over the total recording period: Vremia 61 2.12 Frequency of migration-coded stories inside and outside the Russian Federation over the total recording period: Vesti 61 6.1 Frequency of category-coded news for Vesti-Buriatiia over the total recording period (September 2010-May 2012) 154 Acknowledgements The authors of this book have benefited immensely from the support and advice of a number of institutions and individuals and we would like to express our gratitude to them. We thank the University of Manchester for guaranteeing a stimulating and supportive working environment, and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding the three-year project (2010–13) of which the book represents the primary outcome. Above all, the AHRC award (grant number AH/HO18964/1) made it possible for us to employ two outstanding postdoctoral researchers, Dr Sue-Ann Harding and Dr Elisabeth Schimpfoessl. They both contributed enor- mously to the research on which the book is based, establishing and managing the archive of television recordings that provided the bulk of our material, interview- ing journalists and generating the statistics that form the basis of Chapter 2. Dr Ilya Yablokov was also a key member of the project team, conducting interviews, mon- itoring developments on Dozhd’ TV and providing a wealth of vital insight and information. We are grateful to Timur Badmatsyrenov for compiling the archive of Vesti-Buriatiia news recordings which we analyse in Chapter 6. Some of the material we present has already been published in a different form and we are grateful to the journals in question for giving us their permission to adapt and develop it for the purposes of this book. A different version of Chapter 4 appeared in Slavic Review 71/4, 2012, 873–99. Elements from Chapter 5 were published in Russian Review , 72/3, 2013, 470–91, and Nationalities Papers , 41/6, 2013, 1083–99. We owe a large debt of gratitude to Peter Sowden, who commissioned our book for Routledge, and on whose professionalism, good sense and unfailing enthusi- asm we have come to rely. As always, there are a large number of colleagues and other individuals whose judicious comments and constructive criticisms have significantly enriched and strengthened the arguments we make. They include Peter Rutland, Hilary Pilkington, Richard Sakwa, Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, Ken- zie Burchell, Ellen Mickiewicz, Elena Prokhorova, Luke March, Tony Anemone, Viktor Shnirel’man, Helge Blakkisrud, Pål Kolstø, Marlene Laruelle, Vlad Stru- kov, Martin Dewhirst after Strukov and Helena Goscilo. Finally, we would like to thank our families for their unfailing support, encouragement and understand- ing throughout the project. And, as always, any flaws or weaknesses that remain are entirely our own responsibility. Note on transliteration and translation In transliterating from Russian into English, we have used the Library of Congress System throughout, except where custom has persistently favoured an alternative spelling. Unless stated otherwise, all translations from Russian are our own. Introduction A clash of two Russias, a tale of two cities Two Russias This book is ultimately concerned with the conditions and prospects for state- hood in Russia. It intervenes in the debate around that issue by providing a country-specific case study of a phenomenon whose wider import transcends state boundaries: the fate of complex multicultural policies in the age of glo- balization, and the role of the broadcast media in shaping it. Broadly speaking, this is a study of the contemporary media’s role in fostering or hindering com- munity cohesion. Specifically, the book explores Russian state-aligned televi- sion’s approaches to ethnicity, race and nationhood, contributing to our grasp of a highly topical issue – the nature and effectiveness of the tools used by the leaders of the largest transition state, still at an early stage of its formation, to forge a sense of belonging among its citizens. The book argues that the importance of both elite and popular understandings of nationhood to Russian political culture and policy-making has been seriously underestimated in the scholarly literature, and that milestone events such as the Ukraine conflict of 2014 cannot be fully understood without reference to it. For the first time in post-communist studies we attempt to bring together two theoretical strands: one addressing the nature of Soviet Russian imperialism and nation-building, and the second treating Russian television news as a consensus-management tool. To introduce the rationale for our dual focus, and to set the scene for the book, we begin in medias res : with a brief extract from a television talk show discussion, and a single, ephemeral news report. First, the talk show. Following the now infamous Pussy Riot episode in February 2012, Channel 1’s V kontekste ( In Context ) discussion programme, hosted by the leading televi- sion personality Maksim Shevchenko, featured a debate about the incident in its edition of 15 March 2012. 1 The guests included a representative of the Ortho- dox Church, Maksim Kozlov; a leader of a moderate human rights group, Ol’ga Kostina; an art critic, Marat Gel’man; and a liberal campaigner, Kseniia Sobchak. In an exchange between Kozlov – who, in raising the stakes over Orthodoxy’s supremacy in Russia, applies the same sardonic label to the women of Pussy Riot 2 Introduction as that applied earlier by Shevchenko himself – and Sobchak, who invokes the waning mantra of official multi-confessionalism, they state: Kozlov: We have two cultures. One is connected to the great Russian culture ... And there is another one, which for a long time will have these ‘maid- ens’ ( devits ) as its symbol. This is a clash of civilizations ( tsivilizatsionnyi konflikt ) between traditional Russian culture and this alluvial, film-like layer ( s etim nanosnym plenochnym sloem ). Sobchak: I think that today a conflict is taking place – here you are right. But, in my opinion ... the powers that be are advancing Orthodoxy as their core ideology in what is a multi-confessional country ... 2 Huntington’s ‘civilizational clash’ rhetoric, along with the related – but not identical – term ‘conflict of cultures’, has, as we shall later find, been used in reference to the rise of tension between Russians and North Caucasians (as well as Central Asians). 3 It is this which provides the most obvious hint at the links between our dual concerns. For although Kozlov is referring to Russia’s ‘civi- lizational conflict’ with the deleterious western values adopted by counter-cul- tural forces like Pussy Riot, he clearly perceives Russia as a community bound together by ‘traditional Russian culture’. His view therefore has implications for inter-ethnic relations within Russia. It is this that alerts Sobchak, who identifies an unresolved tension within the Kremlin’s entire nation-building discourse: between the vision of Russia as a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional society of equal citizens and that of Russia as a national state in which Russian culture, language and Orthodoxy have primacy. On the face of it, while the Pussy Riot incident became a leitmotif for the opposition protests which followed the controversial 2011 parliamentary elec- tions and Vladimir Putin’s re-election as president in March 2012, and which seemed momentarily to mark the dramatic and unexpected birth of a ‘Russian Spring’, it appears to have little relevance to the issue of ethnic cohesion in Rus- sia. Indeed, conventional wisdom, and the weight of scholarly discourse, would have it that state television coverage of inter-ethnic relations is at most a side- show in the drama at centre stage in Russia: that which pits Vladimir Putin’s semi-authoritarian and increasingly paranoid regime against the forces for dem- ocratic change emboldened by the mobilizing potential offered by new social media platforms such as Twitter. 4 An indication of this conventional wisdom at work can be found in the contrast between the feverish excitement awakened in BBC journalists by the post-election protests in late 2011 and in 2012 – and, indeed, by precursors to those protests, including the outcry over the November 2010 re-sentencing of the dissident businessman Khodorkovskii – and the BBC’s deafening silence about the terrifying race riots which occurred in Moscow only one month after the Khodorkovskii trial. 5 Why, one might wonder, should things be otherwise? The parlous and inflam- matory state of inter-ethnic relations in Russia is arguably a secondary issue, Introduction 3 unlikely to be resolved until the primary tumour ravaging the body of Russian society is excised. Moreover, state television appears on the surface to offer the least promising tool of excision. Ever subject to the baleful influence of the Krem- lin, and seemingly run by its acolytes, it is now struggling to keep pace with the paradigm shifts in media technology and practice, particularly inasmuch as their main beneficiaries are precisely those younger, more educated, metropolitan Russians who lead the political protest movement. It is, however, precisely these assumptions that we seek to challenge. For the brief and inconsequential exchange between Kozlov and Sobchak is but one thread in a tapestry of connections, covert and overt, that tie the subject of inter-ethnic relations to that of Russia’s political future. On one hand Kozlov and Sobchak are, mutual antagonism notwithstanding, both striving to attain the common ground of a broad societal consensus which will enable them to express their dis- agreement, and which is the precondition for civil society. On the other, our analysis indicates that it is issues bearing an ethnic tinge – in particular the widespread con- cern over corruption and the abuse of power – which provide the territory over which the battle to formulate, and to claim ownership of, that common ground takes place. The central importance, and elusiveness, of the consensual idiom required for dialogic exchange, and thus for the Habermasian rational public discourse without which Russia will never achieve a stable civil society, is broached later in the V kontekste discussion. In a significant contribution, Kozlov articulates a meta-description of the course of the entire conversation. Spoken from the Orthodox position, his willingness to subject himself to a debate with those calling for broader freedoms draws both the discussion itself and the demand for democracy that his opponents advance within it inside the bounds of the consensual realm: This action was a conscious provocation ... against the slowly maturing con- sensus in our society. Against the fact that, whilst we are maximally different, we can reach agreement with one another if we gather together the founda- tions of some shared concepts. 6 The action he refers to is, of course, not an ethnic conflict, but what he and signifi- cant sections of Russian society perceived to be a provocation against traditional Russian values (the shocking ‘punk prayer’ performed in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour). What he demonstrates all too starkly is the paradox that to include and unify is necessarily to exclude and divide: a community built around shared, consensual values must possess clearly defined boundaries and, thus, rules of entry. For Slavoj Žižek, democracy’s very claim to universality is based on an original, now suppressed, ‘founding act’ of expulsion. It does not require a leap of faith to recognize that among the most clearly enunciated rules of admission and exclusion are those relating to the markers of ethnicity. Thus, Žižek goes on to trace the original act of exclusion in the past to what he terms the ‘social symp- tom’ in the present, ‘the part which, although inherent to the existing universal order, has no “proper place” within it (say, illegal immigrants)’. 7 4 Introduction Indeed, the paradox of consensus overlaps with the second way in which inter-ethnic relations insert themselves at the core of the struggle for Russia’s future: before joining that battle, it is vital to establish the identity of the state on behalf of which it is being waged. Sobchak is in no doubt that the Russia whose future she is fighting for is characterized by an inclusive multi-confessionalism (and, by extension, multi-ethnicity). Kozlov, by contrast, perceives his nation in an altogether more exclusionary manner. His ‘false’ Russia is primarily intended to invoke deleterious western influence, but his reference to traditional Russian cultural values extends to the non-Orthodox peoples of the North Caucasus. In this context, indeed, Kozlov’s divisive rhetoric is not restricted to the Orthodox Church. Aleksei Naval’nyi, the de facto figurehead of the democratic protest movement, is himself not averse to marching under such banners as ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus’ and ‘Russia for the Russians’, a contradiction to which we return in a later chapter. Somewhat inconveniently, democratic transformation and ethnic inclusivity do not always coincide; to what extent the former is dependent on the latter is a debatable point well beyond Russia, of course, but it is a debate with particularly acute consequences for that country. Nonetheless, the very fact that Kozlov and Sobchak presented their contrast- ing visions within a discussion show broadcast on Russia’s leading state tele- vision channel is indicative of a level of dialogic exchange which, although tame by western standards, belies the broadcaster’s image as a mere purveyor of Kremlin propaganda. Such licence is not often accorded to political issues on Channel 1 (though until the Ukraine crisis it was more frequent than some western commentators might imagine), and the fact that deep discord over the significance of events which bring ethnic and cultural difference into sharp relief is one of a number of exceptions brings us to the third factor linking the topic of our book to issues of civil society and Russia’s political future. For, as we shall find, the terrain of inter-ethnic difference has the capacity to blur into and contaminate adjacent, but separate, fields. This is true in the ‘positive’ sense of fostering pluralism within public discourse (the Kremlin’s own ambiva- lence over inter-ethnic cohesion policy facilitates the airing of disagreements of the sort demonstrated by the V kontekste clash). But it also has a profoundly ‘negative’ dimension, as indicated by the ethnicizing of consensus-building. The question of which of the two tendencies will eventually prevail is key to Russia’s future. It is also apparent – and the V kontekste exchange suggests as much – that television will have more of a say in determining the answer to the question than might be supposed. This, then, takes us to the core of the second challenge to percieved wisdom that we are posing. Here too there are three ways in which to interrogate the received view. First, although television is losing ground to other, freer and more flexible media in terms of its relevance to Russian civil society, it stubbornly remains the information source of choice for the majority of Rus- sians, 8 just as Putin’s presidency retains more than respectable levels of support beyond the rarefied world of the metropolitan intelligentsia. 9 Transforming Russia will be impossible without changing the outlook of the many millions of ordinary