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Identity in Crimea before annexation: A bottom-up perspective

Using the approach of everyday nationalism, this chapter examines the lived experience of Russian identity and nationalism beyond Russia’s borders using the case of Crimea. This is a region where the majority of residents have been assumed to identify as ethnically Russian and where Russian identity is typically used to explain Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula. First, the chapter examines how being Russian was articulated, experienced, negotiated, subverted, and opposed to – or combined with – being Ukrainian and/or Crimean. It then explores the evidence (or the lack of such) of support for territorial reconfiguration of Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine and Russia. The chapter argues that, prior to 2014, rather than seeing Crimea as a region of separatism, preferences for political-territorial affiliation should be recognised as constructed through a path-dependent framing where status quo and a ‘bad peace’ were preferred to a ‘good conflict’