In the post-Crimea international arena, the Russian-speaking populations outside of the Russian Federation have once again become a central focus of journalistic enquiries and political analysis. Loyalties and identities of Russophones in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where they are numerically the largest, and in Latvia and Estonia, where they make proportionally large share of the population, are under scrutiny. The lecture will focus on the conflictual interplay of regional security and stability strategies, Russia’s nation-building efforts and the questions of Russophone minority protection in post-Soviet space 25 years after the dissolution of USSR.
Kristina Kallas is the Director of Narva College at the University of Tartu. Her research and teaching focuses on nationalism studies, minority and fundamental rights, integration processes in multicultural societies, integration and migration policies, refugees and asylum seekers. Since 2015, she also heads the Supervisory Board of the Estonian Integration Foundation. Previously, she has been Senior Analyst at the Institute of Baltic Studies and Member of the Board for the Estonian Refugee Council.
This lecture is part of the REES Fall Series: Eastern Europe in the World.