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Soviet Union [USSR] Russians
The rise of Russian nationalism was another notable development
during the first years of Gorbachev's rule. Begun as a movement for
preservation and restoration of historic monuments and for a more
balanced treatment of the tsarist past, it increasingly assumed a
politically conservative character. The chauvinistic, anti-Semitic,
and xenophobic group called Pamiat (Memory) won considerable public
support among Russians and official toleration in Moscow and
Leningrad. In a more positive manifestation of Russian nationalism,
the government granted new visibility and prestige to the Russian
Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox hierarchy was given favorable
exposure in the Soviet media, and in 1988 the government sponsored
celebrations in Moscow of the millennium of the adoption of
Christianity in Kievan Rus'. The regime, in an unprecedented event,
permitted the broadcast of a televised Easter Mass celebrated by
the Russian Orthodox Church. It also handed over to the Russian
Orthodox Church some of the most important shrines and hundreds of
churches, many of which had previously belonged to Ukrainian
religious denominations.
Data as of May 1989
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