The idea that Great Russian Chauvinism was consolidated with Stalin is preposterous and almost laughable if this was not a serious issue. Does not the beginning of what would become the Russian State go back at least 400 years? ---
Actually the idea of what it means to be "Russian" has changed several times and the idea even of what a "nationality" is in the Russian context has changed and is changing. I wrote an article on this recently, since I think it's a very interesting subject, Russian national identity in the post-Soviet era. Anyway it has usually been understood in a cultural and not an ethnic or "racial" context, which you would expect from such a multiethnic country in which people have been intermarrying since time immemorial. Even "full-blooded" ethnic Russians are part Slavic, part Scandinavian and part Asian (Tatar/Mongol), which is why they have those big wide eyes. Pushkin was African, and nobody says he wasn't a Russian. I am not sure that "Great Russian" is even a word in contemporary Russian. I have never heard it or seen it in print. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
