The institute of citizenship in ensuring the unity of the multinational people of Russia: historical experience and new challenges
Keywords:
institution of citizenship, citizenship, constitution, constitutional and legal unity, multinational people of the Russian Federation, pan-Russian civic identity, internationalism, unified citizenship, state nationalities policy strategy 2025Abstract
The object of the research is the legal relations of citizenship in the context of the constitutional and legal support of the unity of the multinational people of Russia. The subject of the research is the norms of constitutional law regulating citizenship relations, doctrinal provisions, as well as the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the study is to identify how the state at various historical stages adapted the institution of citizenship to achieve the goal of ensuring the unity of the people, the formation of a common civic identity, and to determine the trends in the development of the institution of citizenship in the context of new strategic guidelines of the national policy of Russia. The methodological base of the study includes historical-legal and formal-legal analysis, a comparative method. Of particular importance is institutional analysis, which allows tracing the filling of the same legal institution with different content. The results of the study showed that in the Soviet period, the unifying factor was not formal and legal affiliation with citizenship, but commitment to a common goal (communist construction); in the post-Soviet period, such unity was facilitated by understanding the category of "multinational people" as a collection of citizens of Russia and the basis of their unity; The current stage is characterized by a transition from a formal understanding of citizenship to a factual one, where the category of "stability" of citizenship assumes central importance as a characteristic assessed through the individual's actual integration into the life of the state. It is substantiated that the Russian legal system is moving from a static understanding of citizenship as an acquired status to a dynamic one—as an ongoing process of maintaining a political and legal connection with the state, the degree of stability of which may vary depending on actual circumstances.