Peasant cuisine was compatible with variety and specialisation. Within the general tendency to adopt a pessimistic view of peasants as struggling with subsistence, the idea used to be omnipresent that peasant families had monotonous meals made essentially out of vegetables cooked in large cauldrons, with boiling being the most distinctive peasant cooking process. A more positive image can be assumed now due to a better knowledge of peasant food-processing techniques and the items involved with it. In agreement with this more optimistic view, in this chapter it will be shown that the peasants’ set of cooking items was diverse enough to give access to various techniques, which resulted in meals with varied flavours.

This provides a study of the political divergence of Russia and Ukraine since 1991. The first section analyses the concept of post-Soviet transition and the quadruple transition of democratisation, marketisation, state and nation building. Russian and Ukrainian identity in 1991 and its evolution since have determined the type of political transition both countries have experienced. We investigate the roots of the fundamental divergence in Russia and Ukraine’s political transformations. The Tsarist and Soviet legacy led to the domination of Russian imperial nationalism over democracy for most of the post-Soviet transition, leading to the building of an authoritarian political system. With constitutional changes in 2020 making Vladimir Putin de facto life president, Russia transitioned to a fascist dictatorship with domestic repression and a cult of war coupled with external military aggression against Ukraine. Ukraine’s quadruple transition produced evolutionary democratisation, and a civic nation identity grounded in the goal of joining Europe.

This chapter is focused on the ideology of Pan-Russian World (Russkij mir) as the key driver of Russian imperial nationalism; that is, the way Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin define and perceive Russia’s place and role vis-à-vis Ukraine and in international relations. The ideology of the Pan-Russian World drew on the formulation of this concept by the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian imperial nationalists in the 1990s and evolved in the 2000s when Putin moved to the nationalist right during the first critical juncture of his rule following the Georgian Rose and Ukrainian Orange Revolutions. The Pan-Russian World evolved in three main dimensions. The first was the institutionalisation of symbolic space and shaping the institutional base for the Pan-Russian World. The second was the evolution of Pan-Russian World ideology from the early 1990s to the 2022 full-scale invasion and since. The third, was a growing obsession of the ideology and institutions of the Pan-Russian World with the ‘Ukrainian question’. Combined, they provide an explanation of the ideological legitimisation of Russian imperial nationalism and military aggression towards Ukraine.

The four roots of Russia’s war against Ukraine are Imperial Nationalism, Nostalgia, Divergence and Xenophobia. Imperial Nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism fused with imperialism and revanchism. The revival and promotion of White Russian émigré ideas, writings, and ideologues, spread a denial of the existence of a Ukrainian people distinct from Russians and a belief that Ukraine was an artificial construct and puppet state of the West. Nostalgia is analysed through the religious promotion of the Great Patriotic War, personality cult of dictator Joseph Stalin and revival of Soviet era propaganda against ‘Ukrainian nationalists’ and ‘Nazis’. The Soviet regime and Russia accuse Ukrainians of being ‘Nazis’ who did not see Ukraine’s future in the USSR and who do not see Ukraine’s future in the Russian World and Eurasia. Since 1991, Russia and Ukraine have diverged in their identity and political systems. Until 2013, Ukrainian and pan-Russian identity competed in Ukraine, but from 2014, Ukrainian identity became dominant and pan-Russian identity marginalised. Since 1991, Russia and Ukraine have diverged politically into a fascist dictatorship and democracy, respectively. Xenophobia lies in the Kremlin linking ‘artificial’ Ukrainian identity being buttressed by the West. Having established military alliances with China, Iran and North Korea, Russia is seeking the destruction of the US-led unipolar world and its replacement with a multipolar world.

Messianism and imperialism permeate the schizophrenic Russian state. A lack of borders is praised as an attribute of Russia’s schizophrenic ‘state-civilisation’ identity. Russia’s schizophrenic identity is especially visible in its relationship with Ukraine and the West, where it is exhibited in an angry, xenophobic and militarily aggressive manner. Russia’s ‘state-civilisation’ is touted as superior to the West, irrespective of the fact social data disproves this claim. Russians claim they are more spiritual than the public in the Western countries, and yet Church attendance in Russia is similar to that found in the EU and half that found in Ukraine and the US. Russia’s schizophrenic messianism and imperialism should be understood in five ways. Firstly, Soviet nostalgia is combined with a schizophrenic blaming of Vladimir Lenin for cultivating an ‘artificial’ Ukrainian identity. Secondly, Russia’s fascist dictatorship accuses Ukraine of being ‘nationalist/fascist/Nazi’ while supporting the far right in Europe. Thirdly, Russian claims of Ukraine dominated by ‘nationalism/fascism/Nazism’ are not evident in their electoral unpopularity. Fourthly, Russia’s colonial history of genocide and the imperial nature of the Soviet Union are obfuscated by using Soviet anti-colonialist propaganda to fight alleged Western colonialism in the Global South and against the ‘Global Majority’. Fifthly, Russia’s superior civilisation as the guardian of true European values, which have been lost in the EU and ‘collective West’, compensates for Russian feelings of dependence, poverty and humiliation.

Putin’s xenophobia is an outgrowth of the belief of Russian imperial nationalists the West is supporting an ‘artificial’ Ukraine and Ukrainian people as a Russophobic conspiracy to divide the ‘Russian’ people and weaken Russia. The Kremlin conjures up a Ukrainian hand in practically every unpleasant event for Russia. Russia has fluctuated between seeking to catch up with the West and viewing the West xenophobically. Russia’s pursuit of good relations with the West was an aberration: Mikhail Gorbachev was preceded by Joseph Stalin and Soviet conservative leaders, while Boris Yeltsin was succeeded by imperial nationalist Vladimir Putin. For liberalisers, catching up with the West was to modernise Russia/USSR, improve its economic and military potential, and attract foreign investment, and technology. For imperial nationalists, the West is a negative ‘Other’ that has imposed alien values on the USSR/Russia, which is spiritually superior. The West and Ukraine are attacked in four ways. Firstly, Western interference in Eurasia, which has always been viewed as Russia’s exclusive sphere of influence. Secondly, Russia’s ruling siloviki are anti-Western xenophobes and possess a Soviet conspiracy mindset. Thirdly, anti-Western xenophobia is linked to a cult of war and search for internal and external enemies. Fourthly, Russian imperial nationalist obsession with Ukraine.

Fifty of the Soviet Union’s sixty-nine years were led by Joseph Stalin and conservative Communist leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The USSR experienced only three short periods of liberalisation. Stalinism holds a strong influence over Soviet history, Putin’s socialisation into Soviet life and Soviet Russian imperial nationalism. Cults of the Great Patriotic War and Stalin are closely linked. Stalin is Putin’s hero alongside Peter II and Catherine I. Stalin defeated the Nazis, extended Soviet territory and built a new Soviet empire and transformed the USSR into a superpower with nuclear weapons. The USSR was viewed as an equal with the US in a multipolar world. A cult of Stalin and lack of introspection of his and Tsarist imperial crimes have had four important ramifications. Firstly, these have facilitated the evolution of Putin’s regime from authoritarianism to a fascist dictatorship. Secondly, they have facilitated a continued disrespect for human life at home towards Russians, Chechens and other national minorities, and abroad, towards Georgians, Syrians and Ukrainians. Thirdly, these have fed a growing cult of war, foreign military interventions, messianism, territorial expansionism and belief in Russia’s natural condition is to be an empire. Fourthly, the continuation of Russian imperial innocence and perpetration of war crimes in Ukraine.

Russian imperial nationalists demand Ukrainians accept they are a Little Russian branch of the pan-Russian nation and will never accept a Ukraine independent of Russia with a right to decide its own memory politics, language, foreign and security policies. Since 1991, Russia has found it very difficult to accept an independent Ukraine. The Soviet Union included a Ukrainian republic and recognised Ukrainians as a separate people, although forever bonded with Russians. Putin reverted to the Tsarist imperial denial of the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 made imperialism and nationalism the driving forces of Russian foreign policy. During the decade between Russia’s two invasions of Ukraine, from 2014 to 2021, Russian imperial nationalism became a dominant force in Putin’s Russia, providing ideological justification for the Kremlin’s plan to destroy the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian identity.

Throughout the post-Soviet era the Kremlin grappled with two interrelated questions. Firstly, whether a Ukrainian or (Russia’s preference) a pan-Russian identity would dominate Ukraine. Secondly, whether Ukraine would be part of Europe or (the Kremlin’s preference) the Russian World and Eurasia. Between 1991 and 2013, Ukraine found itself in the ‘grey zone’ where two identities and foreign policy orientations competed, with conflict especially acute in the decade between the 2003-2004 Orange and 2013-2014 Euromaidan Revolutions. Russian imperial nationalists never accepted Ukraine could be a fully independent state. They demanded, lobbied, cajoled and aggressively pursued a Ukraine that would have a semi-sovereign relationship akin to that which exists between Russia and Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka is the kind of leader Russia sought to install in Kyiv if its ‘special military operation’ had gone as planned. The roots of Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion lie in the dominance of Ukrainian and marginalisation of pan-Russian identity from 2014. Ukrainian identity became dominant after the marginalisation of pro-Russian forces who had supported a pan-Russian identity, and through the adoption of new legislation in memory politics, language, education, and media, and the goals of NATO and EU membership and closure of Russian television and radio media broadcasting into and inside Ukraine, banning of twelve pro-Russian political parties, and the removal of Russian Orthodox canonical control over Ukraine through autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.