The paper argues that the Russian political elite has employed so-called ‘spiritual-moral values’ to construct an (illusory) sense of ontological security, presented as attainable via the promotion of sovereignty. The paper examines two aspects of the process: first, in promoting these values, the Russian political elite oscillates between a position of universalism (referring to ‘traditional values of mankind’ it seeks to promote at the international level) and cultural relativism (Russia’s exceptionalism and ‘cultural sovereignty’ vis-à-vis ‘the West’). Both positions are invoked in different contexts, and imply an instrumentalisation of values (and at times a distortion of human rights norms) that exclude alternative views, including those of national minority actors. Second, values have been linked to particular interpretations of Russian history which do not admit deviation from pre-established narratives: it engenders a form of ‘mnemonical security’ (Mälksoo 2015), or the securitisation of memory by delegitimising, or even criminalising, non-official interpretations of historical episodes. The resulting policies, while ostensibly aiming at solidifying Russia's ‘national unity’, in reality fragment society and cause the ontological insecurity of ethnic and sexual minorities.
