‘The Identity of a Political Community Is Not Fixed—It Is Continuously Constructed and Contested’

Wang Yali

© HSE University

Wang Yali been interested in Russian language and politics since her time as an undergraduate at Peking University. After graduating with a degree in Asian and African Languages and Literatures and a second degree in International Relations, she pursued a Master’s in International Relations at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at HSE University–Moscow. She is now pursuing a PhD at the Doctoral School of Political Science, examining Russian narratives of ‘East,’ ‘West,’ and its own place among them.

In this interview, Wang Yali talks about the Russian language and its impact on her academic career, the ‘big question’ at the heart of her research, and how she handles the pressures of doctoral research.

—  Tell us about your academic journey so far.

As an undergraduate, I chose Russian as an elective course simply out of interest. My teacher, Dr Elena Markasova, has a distinctive pedagogical approach: even with complete beginners, she insists on teaching entirely in Russian. From the very beginning, we discussed ‘adult’ topics—literature, poetry, philosophy, and life—rather than focusing only on grammar and vocabulary.

I have learned Russian only from native speakers—often professional linguists and educators

While it is my third foreign language, I developed a strong linguistic intuition more quickly and became more confident in using it. By the master’s stage, I was studying alongside Russian classmates in a fully Russian-taught programme; my PhD is likewise conducted in Russian—my dissertation and publications are written in Russian.

After graduating, I spent a year in HSE’s preparatory programme. I chose HSE for two main reasons. First, it consistently maintains high academic standards: it brings together leading scholars in Russian political science and international relations, and its research agendas and methods remain in close dialogue with international scholarship. Second, I appreciate HSE’s modern, efficient, and relatively less bureaucratic academic environment—one that allows young researchers to devote more of their energy to reading, writing, and discussion.

Over time, I realised that my interests lie in Russia’s domestic political processes—especially how political actors construct meaning through language, symbols, and narratives

—What inspired you to choose your current research topic?

— My research inspiration comes from a classical ‘big question’ in Russian studies: does Russia belong to the East or the West?

After 2012, ‘pivot to the East’ became a key buzzword in Russian politics, and a natural puzzle follows: does this imply that Russia’s identity is also turning eastward?

Many scholars have tried to answer that question. Yet I have always felt that the question itself is unsatisfying, because the identity of a political community is not a fixed essence; it is a structure of meaning that is continuously constructed and contested.

There is no eternal, unchanging ‘Russian identity,’ and no eternal ‘East’ or ‘West’ that can be treated as objectively measurable attributes

What we see instead is an ongoing interpretive contest: different political actors repeatedly define and redefine who ‘we’ are and who ‘they’ are. More importantly, the imagination of the Other—the imagination of other parts of the world—is inseparable from the definition of ourselves. As Edward Said pointed out, Orientalism ‘has less to do with the Orient than it does with “our” world.’

Therefore, my dissertation focuses on Russian political elites’ discursive practices around the ‘pivot to the East’ from 2012 to 2024: how they imagine the broad ‘East/non-West,’ how they turn these spatial symbols into a ‘significant Other,’ and how, through imaging and even inventing that Other, they rewrite Russia’s macro-political identity.

Photo courtesy of Wang Yali

— How is your dissertation progressing? How do you deal with the academic load?

— I have completed the analysis of official discourse and have arrived at some very interesting conclusions. Before 2022, official narratives tended to describe non-Western spaces in a more ‘differentiating’ way—often classifying them by levels of development and quality of state governance. After 2022, the discourse shifts rapidly toward a form of ‘strategic essentialisation,’ compressing and integrating highly heterogeneous regions and states into a single overarching image: ‘the World Majority/the Global South and East.’ More importantly, whether the non-West is framed as differentiated or as collective, it plays a crucial role in Russia’s macro-identity construction: the ‘sails and winds’ that can be used in a development-oriented story; the ‘troubles’ that a responsible great power can solve; and the moral community represented by an anti-hegemonic, messianic ‘we.’

Russian official discourse has constructed a ‘collective non-West’ in order to tell a new story about ‘who we are’

In the coming months, I plan to analyse intellectual discourse and conduct a comparative study. In the Russian context, concepts such as ‘pivot to the East,’ ‘Global South,’ and ‘World Majority’ are often believed to have emerged first within expert communities and only later entered official discourse. Tracing the circulation of concepts and meanings—especially the intertextual movement and shifts in meaning throughout that circulation—helps us understand more precisely the production mechanisms of contemporary Russian identity politics.

For me, the greatest challenge comes from the nature of PhD life itself: most of the time, you are completely alone. You often have to face the rhythm of long projects and slow rewards on your own—when you feel low or lack motivation, you cannot wait for a good day; you have to learn to keep reading and writing steadily even on ordinary days. In that situation, a support system becomes essential.

In Moscow, my support system is dance (I love ballet, and there are abundant ballet classes for amateurs in Moscow), exercise, my friends, and occasionally allowing myself a short break to travel

Photo courtesy of Wang Yali

— What is your experience of the classes, seminars, professors, and fellow students at HSE?

— HSE’s programmes in international relations and political science bring together some of the top experts in the field in Russia, and they are also very willing to engage with students. The person who has influenced me most is, of course, my supervisor, Olga Malinova. She truly led me through the doorway into academic life, and also brought me into the field of symbolic politics and identity politics. In her, I see not only profound scholarly expertise and a sharp mind, but also an exceptionally strong academic ethic: even while carrying a heavy load of research, teaching, editorial, and administrative responsibilities, she still guides me in a remarkably hands-on way—down to every detail of writing, publishing, argument structure, and academic expression.

My academic supervisor was the first person to show me what a scholar’s life looks like—how to multitask, how to manage time efficiently, and what genuine professionalism means

Her insights on Russian politics, and the depth of her scholarship in symbolic politics, mean that every time I read her articles, I gain a great deal. She is both my direction and my template for the future.

In addition, I truly enjoy the seminar atmosphere at HSE. As a student, I have received sharp but invaluable feedback from colleagues, and I have also gained friendships through these discussions. As a seminar instructor, I often find that students’ engagement and critical thinking ‘raise my standard’—a form of pressure that is deeply constructive.

Prof. Olga Malinova

Yali is very talented! She not only does excellent research, but writes about it in Russian and has been published in leading Russian political science journals. I didn’t even have to correct anything in her latest paper in terms of language. She is wonderful.

— What are your future plans after completing your dissertation?

— I plan to return to China—perhaps to continue with a postdoc, perhaps to enter the job market and look for a teaching position—but my research focus will remain unchanged: Russian politics. Fyodor Tyutchev famously wrote, ‘Russia cannot be known by the mind. Russia can only be believed in,’ but the task of a political scientist is precisely not to ‘believe,’ but to try to understand.