Abstract: Currently, the ethnic and ethnoreligious environment of Bashkiria and Kabardino-Balkaria indicate the growing influence of youth leaders. The results of field studies conducted in the two republics during the 2018-2019 demonstrate that this process is associated with generational change taking place among the Bashkir Islamic clergy and in the Circassian National Movement. The article analyzes the activity of the most successful religious leaders of Bashkiria – Ainur Birgalin and Ainur Arslanov, as well as the key Circassian youth leaders – Martin Kochesoko and Anzor Ashkhot. In the course of field research carried out in Bashkiria (2018) and Kabardino-Balkaria (2018 and 2019), the authors conducted expert interviews with the most prominent ethnic and ethnoreligious youth leaders of both republics. The conclusion is made that success of the leaders relates to the effectiveness of technologies applied for mobilization of the religiously- and ethnocentrically oriented youth. The use of Internet technologies along with other contemporary methods of group mobilization allows the youth leaders to successfully engage the existing ethnoreligious and ethnic institutions or dispute their legitimacy by forming alternative structures.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the strategic level of legitimation in the de facto states. Such aspect of legitimation of power is also important for the internationally recognized states; however, for the newly formed polities it is particularly acute. At the same time, the topic of legitimation strategies in the de facto states is yet to be examined. Based on the examples of the post-Soviet de facto states (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic), the author demonstrates how the ideology, fundamental myth, personalism (charisma), procedural mechanisms and performance are used by their governments for legitimation of the new polities.  The theoretical foundation contains the six-element legitimation model proposed by the German and Dutch scholars J. Ahrens, M. Brusis and M. Schulze Wessel. The article provides the definition of the strategic level of legitimation of power in the de facto states. The author determines the main strategies implemented by the governments of the de facto post-Soviet states: legitimation through the gradual disassociation from the parenting state; strategy of affiliation with the Russian Federation; strategy of imitating the democratic institutions; legitimation through neglecting the international recognition; through appeal to the factual status, capability to enter the relationship with other states.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the methods of foreign policy legitimation of political power in the post-Soviet de facto states. The object of this research is the foreign policy activity of the aforementioned political-territorial entities. Special attention is given to the description and analysis of the political (opening of embassies and representative establishments; creation of alternative international organizations), economic (establishment of economic ties with other countries; participation on international forums and exhibitions), as well as cultural (promotion of brand of the de facto state using the instruments of cultural diplomacy) instruments of the foreign policy legitimation. The topic at hand is insufficiently studied and of practical relevance because the political processes in the de facto states and their further institutionalization strongly affect the relations between countries within the region. The author comes to a conclusion that the presence or absence of a vast foreign diaspora produce substantial impact upon the character and scale of the foreign policy legitimation of political power in the de facto states.