Highly intensive global cultural dialogue and informational exchange is also taking place between metropolises and the diaspora across the world amplifying their mutual attraction and interest in each other. Ideas of historical, cultural, and civilizational unity, communicated from the metropolis to the diaspora in the media and on the Internet, art, scientific publications exert significant influence on the public opinion of compatriots in communities abroad by actively engaging them in the international diplomatic and cultural dialogue.
Russia in the early 21st century lays special emphasis on the shaping historical consciousness based on traditional and social values, in particular as a factor of consolidation of the Russian society. It addresses challenges of modernization transit in the context of dramatically increasing global financial, economic, and political competition. In this context, the engagement between Russia and the world of Russian compatriots abroad provides ample opportunities and at the same time contradictions and challenges. They arise from the complex structure and heterogeneity of the Russian community abroad with three main segments: Russian-speaking diasporas of the post-Soviet states (the near abroad); several waves of Russian military, political, and economic emigration in the 1920-1980s and their ancestors (the far abroad). There are also migrants of the 20–21st century from Russia and other territories of the former USSR living in different countries and regions across the world. Formally, the last group is part of the Far Abroad community, but it has some significant social and moral differences from the “old” emigration.
The cooperation with compatriots abroad in the last quarter of a century (from the 1980-1990s) was the most fruitful and intense in terms of shaping the national historical consciousness of the Russians. This experience can be seen as a qualitatively important and unique in the Russian history, when a diaspora that existed in almost complete isolation from the metropolis for several decades has given its historical Motherland a huge cultural heritage filling some considerable gaps in the social, political, intellectual, spiritual, and artistic development of the country.
In the 20th century, Russia went through a tragedy of ideological and informational split with its compatriots abroad. It was based inter alia on fundamentally different vision of the national history and cultural traditions. In the USSR, this resulted in a decisive elimination of many names, events, and facts from the scientific and educational environment that did not ht into the official doctrine of “the history of the USSR in the pre-Soviet period” as well as in totally negative views on the Russian emigration and hushing up its contribution to the global culture. On the contrary, the Russian community abroad developed a cult of the pre-Revolutionary period and underestimated the achievements of the Soviet era in many areas, including economy, science, and culture. Nevertheless, from the very start, the Russian emigre community had an idea for renewing the common historical path and reuniting the divided flows of the “river of time” that embraced the history of Russia in its entirety. The events of the Great Patriotic War have shifted significantly the community’s perception of the post-revolutionary emigration. For many people, patriotism, and love for their homeland lost its retrospectivity and vagueness no longer concerning the old or the imaginary new Russia, but an actual country with its advantages and disadvantages. The Soviet authorities also became more tolerant to the representatives of the post-revolutionary emigration, but the development of the opposition movement among the Soviet intelligentsia, which increasingly took the form of political and religious emigration; the ideological support of the opposition from abroad during the Cold War era became a major new watershed dividing the Soviet Union and Russian community abroad. According to the official Soviet doctrine, their relations could not even be close to the system of “metropolis – diaspora”. The Russia abroad in the 20th century was almost completely excluded from the overall picture of the national history and culture.
In the 1990s-2000s, an intensive multidimensional dialogue between the state, the society of the Russian Federation and the world of foreign compatriots outside the former USSR ensured the restoration of the unity of cultural and historical tradition and the de-ideologization of their images. Gradually, information gaps were filled, and mental contradictions were largely smoothed out, which was facilitated by extensive contacts between Russians and communities of Russian emigrants and their descendants on a personal and public level. Hundreds of scientific publications, articles, numerous publishing and museum projects, ample information on the media convincingly testify to the fact that the legacy of the Russian emigration of the 1920 – mid-1980s has become an organic part of the Russian science and culture. Thus, many values and meanings (from deep inborn knowledge of traditions of the pre-revolutionary era to creative achievements of outstanding Russian intelligentsia in the late 20th century) became a starting point for shaping modern scientific knowledge, education, art, various public initiatives.
The current modernization of the Russian Federation and the search for possible directions of its further historical development are largely related to the adoption of traditional cultural values of the Russia abroad, based on centuries-old cultural foundations. At the same time, a new vision of Russia and Russian history, including a keener and more objective view of the Soviet era and the social and cultural life in the USSR, has emerged in the Russian community abroad.
In the 1990s, the emergence of Russian-speaking communities and their socially and politically difficult life in the young states of the former Soviet republics created a completely new model of relations between the metropolis and the diaspora in the Russian history. This time Russia acted as a focal point for Russian compatriots living in “new foreign countries,” and later, after overcoming its own social and economic problems and regaining international influence, Russia became a champion of their civil rights and cultural and linguistic identity. Migration flows from the CIS and the Baltic States to Russia in the 1990s included a significant number of Russian-speaking migrants who left the territories of the young post-Soviet states due to social and political instability and changing legal status of the Russian language. The adoption of the languages of the title peoples as State languages has become a major challenge for administrative staff, teachers, and higher education teachers, especially the older generation. In addition, the Russian-speaking population was subjected to moral pressure, and, in a number of countries, to direct threats from radical nationalists with the tacit support of some local elites. The result of this process was the exodus of a mass of diploma holders and qualified workers to Russia and the West resulting in smaller number and lower quality of Russian-speaking communities in the near abroad.[14] Later, the young generation of foreign compatriots in the post-Soviet space for the most part chose the integration into the societies of their countries, but many also sought to preserve family traditions, the Russian language. They educated their children in the spirit of the Russian culture, thus being involved in the social life of their diasporas and Russian cultural policy centers abroad. At the same time, the most socially active representatives of Russian compatriots in the CIS countries (entrepreneurs, students, artists) joined the Russian-speaking communities in Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Israel, and Australia. In the 2000s, the majority of institutional structures of the Russian community abroad outside the post-Soviet space were small Russian societies and clubs in large cities, regions or states in different countries based on the principle of association of fellow-countrymen or knowledge of the Russian language. As a rule, they were united in associations within the country. The founder and most active participants were mainly first or second-generation emigrants or citizens of the Russian Federation (as well as of other post-Soviet states) permanently residing abroad. Such associations were most common in those regions of the world where the number of Russian compatriots had increased significantly in recent years, for example in Italy, Spain, Greece, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Germany, Norway, China, etc. By this time, the 20th century emigrants and their descendants had been strongly assimilated and dissociated with the exception of communities of Russian compatriots in France and the USA. They were the largest centers of Russian emigration, which preserved the system of traditional diaspora structures (military historical societies, Russian schools and youth organizations, church parishes, publishing houses, bookstores, etc.). A key aspect of the institutional development of the modern Russian community abroad was the