Patriotic fervor has reached historic highs in modern Russia, according to an independent Levada Center poll released Thursday.
National pride has shot through the roof since the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Last year, President Vladimir Putin declared patriotism as Russia’s only national idea, a notion that has carried into the country’s education system and state-run mass media.
For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, 64 percent of respondents said that Russians are a “great nation with a special place in world history.” Only 13 percent shared that sentiment in 1992, according to Levada.
Additionally, 72 percent of respondents named Russia a great power.
Levada sociologist Karina Pipiya associates the upswell of patriotism with a “post-Crimean mobilization” and a reaction against the “unjust” and “anti-Russian” position of Western countries, the Vedomosti business daily reported.
“The emotions have subsided, but the mood remains,” Vedomosti cites political scientist Alexei Makarkin as saying.
The poll was conducted between Nov. 24-28 among 1,600 residents across 48 Russian regions.
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