From Soviet Nationalities Policy to Russia’s Foreign Policy: The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the CIS, and the Question of the Russian Communities Abroad, 1990-1993

• In Event: Late Soviet Internationalism in Practice, 1953-1993

Abstract

The article looks at the creation, structure, and activities of the RSFSR/Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in 1990-1993, before and after the end of the Soviet Union. After tracing the main events that led to the establishment of the Ministry, the work focuses on the debate and initiatives put forward to elaborate a new foreign policy towards the newly independent republics (from now on, Former Soviet Republics, FSR) both individually and as part of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Next to relations with the United States, the CIS was the most urgent priority the Yeltsin government had to deal with, as it had to build relations with the FSR from scratch.

The primary aim of the research is to look at how Soviet-Moscow-centered nationalities policies towards the Soviet republics evolved into a foreign policy towards the former imperial-Soviet space.

The paper argues that the way governmental institutions of the new Russia were ultimately built in those years reflected the difficulties in conceiving and elaborating a proper foreign policy towards the FSR and contributed to preventing its elaboration. It focuses, in particular, on the problem of dealing with ethnic Russians in the FSR and the revealing case of the institutional architecture built at the time to cope with the issue.

The article is based on unpublished archival sources from the State Archive of the Russian Federation, collections of published documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and interviews of the author with key actors of the time and experts.

Author

• Carolina de Stefano, Luiss School of Government (Italy)