Citizenship: Constitutional and Legal Reception Nuances of State Construction

Abstract

Constitutional changes in the modern Russian state have so significantly affected the issues of citizenship that inspired the author to study its previous constitutional and legislative transformations in the geopolitical cross-section of the USSR – RSFSR – Russia over the past thirty years on the five most illustrative aspects, such as the change: formalized definitions of citizenship, the right to citizenship, the catalog and content of the principles of citizenship, the position of the state regarding patronage and protection of citizens abroad, as well as dual citizenship in order to disclose citizenship as an indicator of changes in domestic state policy. It is concluded that the new challenges of Russia's state-building and threats to its national sovereignty and security have clearly affected and continue to affect the constitutional and legal regulation of Russian citizenship. It is clarified that the updated text of the Constitution of Russia has established an additional hypostasis of foreign citizenship, namely the status of an entrance qualification for access to public service of all branches and levels. It is emphasized that the constitutional and legal meanings of Russian citizenship can be revealed under the influence of current trends in state-building, which is not only incredibly interesting, but also productive in scientific and practical terms.