Russification

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Russification (Russian: русификация, romanized: rusifikatsiya), Russianisation or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians adopt Russian culture and Russian language either voluntarily or as a result of a deliberate state policy.^[1]

Russification was at times pursued by the governments of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, either as a goal in itself or as a consequence of policies aimed at centralisation and modernisation.^[1]

The major areas of Russification are politics and culture. In politics, an element of Russification is assigning Russian nationals to lead administrative positions in national institutions. In culture, Russification primarily amounts to the hegemony of the Russian language in official business and the strong influence of the Russian language on national idioms. The shifts in demographics in favor of the ethnic Russian population are sometimes considered a form of Russification as well.

Some researchers distinguish Russification, as a process of changing one's ethnic self-label or identity from a non-Russian ethnonym to Russian, from Russianization, the spread of the Russian language, culture, and people into non-Russian cultures and regions, distinct also from Sovietization or the imposition of institutional forms established by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the territory ruled by that party.^[2] In this sense, although Russification is usually conflated across Russification, Russianization, and Russian-led Sovietization, each can be considered a distinct process. Russianization and Sovietization, for example, did not automatically lead to Russification – a change in language or self-identity of non-Russian people to being Russian. Thus, despite long exposure to the Russian language and culture, as well as to Sovietization, at the end of the Soviet era, non-Russians were on the verge of becoming a majority of the population in the Soviet Union.^[3]