Osipov Igor Vyacheslavovich

The article examines the ideological origins and causes of the Ural Republic creation movement at the turn of 1980–1990. Debates unfolded in this period were stimulated the search of ways overcoming the crisis phenomena in the political system of the USSR and after its collapse — for Russia. One of the result of the discussions was the idea of dividing Russia into several parts, supported by the leaders of various social movements. Ural activists, referring to the pre-Soviet past, borrowed the symbols and rhetoric of the Ural and Siberian oblasts, which were supporting the broad regional autonomy. A key element of the ideology underlying of the Ural Republic creation movement was the idea of the need to overcome the national-territorial nature of the state structure, to proclaim the equality of the Russian Federation subjects and to move to the «territorial basis of state structure and administration».