Yes, but they don’t call them French or Spanish or German. I.e. they do not use different national terms for them. Here are a few of the examples of how the sayings Dahl collected characterize Russians and distinguish them from other nationalities:

Чу! — здесь русским духом пахнет.
Русский бог велик. Русским богом да русским царем святорусская земля стои#т.
Русский народ — царелюбивый.
Земля русская вся под богом.
Велика святорусская земля, а везде солнышко.
Велика святорусская земля, а правде нигде нет места.
России и лету союза нету. Русь под снегом закоченела.
Летит гусь на святую Русь (Наполеон).
На Руси никто с голоду не умирывал.
Руси есть веселие пити, не может без него быти (Владим.
I).
Русская кость тепло любит. Пар костей не ломит.
Русский гостинец — кулага с саламатой.
Русский человек хлеб-соль водит.
Русского человека что парит (баня), то и правит (лечит).
Русский терпелив до зачина. Русский задора ждет.
Русский ни с мечом, ни с калачом не шутит.
Русский молодец — сте басурманам конец.
На пардон, на аман у русского и слова нет.
Русский человек — добрый человек (чувашский привет).
Русак умен, да задним умом. Русский назад умен.
Кабы у немца напереди, что у русского назади — с ним бы и ладов не было (ум).
Русский народ не боится креста, а боится песта.
Бей русского, часы сделает. Русский что увидит, то и сделает.
Русак не дурак: поесть захочет — скажет, присесть захочет — сядет.
Русский догадлив (сметлив, себе на уме).
На Руси не все караси — есть и ерши.
Русский человек любит авось.
Русский на авось и взрос.
Русский человек любит авось, небось да как-нибудь.
Русский крепок на трех сваях: авось, небось да как-нибудь.
Русский человек и гуллив и хвастлив.
Русский аппетит никогда (ничему) не претит.
Крестьянское горло — суконное бердо: все мнет.
В русском брюхе и долото сгниет.
Что русскому здорово, то немцу смерть.
Русский час — десять, а немецкому и конца нет.
Я русский, на манер французский, только немного погишпанистее.
Он, видно, по-русски не понимает (т. е. хоть ему какую правду в глаза говори).
Родом не немчин, а указывать горазд.
Принять кого по-русски (т. е. или прямо и грубо, или хлебосольно).

Source: http://www.slova.ru/book_page/1/166.html

This is how Dahl characterizes the “khokhol” (a pejorative for Ukrainians or “Malorossians”)

Малороссы — мазепинцы, хохлы, чубы; индюшка высидела; галушкой подавился. Индейка из одного яйца семерых хохлов высидела.
Черт с хохла голову снял да приставил ему индюшечью.
Хохол глупее вороны, а хитрее черта.
Хохлацкий цеп на все стороны бьет (хохлы молотят через руку).
Чтоб те хохлы да повыдохли! — А чтоб те москали да их повытаскали (ответ).
И по воду хохол, и по мякину хохол.
Хохол не соврет, да и правды не скажет.
Он хохол (т. е. хитер и упрям).

Actually there is a pretty simple but politically incorrect (at least in these quarters) explanation of that. I think this article sums it up best (http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nicolai__070623_russia_s_new_cyberwa.htm):

“Putin’s gentle leg pulling of a few doe-eyed western reporters, and the spontaneous reaction of thousands of Russian internet users to the outrageous assumption made by the BBC, both carry the same message (though many in the West will be loathe to hear it)–unlike their elders who were uncomfortable dealing with the outside world, today’s young Russians are not about to let insulting stereotypes about their lives and their values pass totally unchallenged. To earn their respect, one has to give it.

Until recently, Russians rarely ever saw what was said about them in the Western media. When they did, language barriers and scarcity of internet access meant they had no way to respond in a timely manner, and to set the record straight.

But now that a quarter of the population has regular internet access, they can read what is being written about their country in real time on Russian translation sites, and they are finding out, as Daniel Thorniley, Senior Vice President of the Economist Group recently put it, that it is “95 percent rubbish” (true, he was talking about business–an area where the coverage is still relatively favorable).

For the first time in history, the global reach of the internet is allowing large numbers of Russians (and others within the former Soviet Union) to talk to the West directly, rather than only through the filter provided by visiting journalists and pundits. This means the free pass given by Russians to those who write about them, something that most of us here have long taken for granted, is rapidly coming to an end. We already see the first signs of the new era in the blistering comments from outraged Russian readers that now appear regularly on the web sites of major British newspapers…”

This is the reason that university-educated Muscovites are according to polls the most disillusioned of all social groups with the West; they have concrete experience of it, unlike the rose-tinted nostalgia the middle-aged carry towards it from the days of the Cold War. One must also qualify how to define being “hostile” towards a country – for instance, the greatest level of support for getting educated in a Western university is among that same youngest demographic, which indicates that their “hostility” is a pragmatic rather than ideological/propagandistic thing.

Re-”I yield to few in my preference for the market or individual liberty, but I always thought that Fukayama’s “end of history” stuff was bilge, not least because it was based on crypto-Hegelian bilge.”

As an admirer of Hegel, I thought it was quite convincing (and not contradictory to the “clash of civilizations” thesis either). That said I do not believe modern liberal democracy and free markets are the final stage of history.

Re-”It is my understanding that historically, peasants had little national, Russian, consciousness. Their world was defined by the mir. They had some personal attachment to the Tsar, but did not identify themselves as Russians. They considered themselves part of a locality and the commune, and were attached to the land–both legally (in the days of serfdom) but more important emotionally. ”

Another strong plane of attachment, which I suspect was much stronger than Michel’s nationalities, was with the Orthodox world in general (a bit like the concept of the Muslim umma today). Making fun of Ukrainians does not imply a large degree of “separateness”, since there are plenty of examples of such within other nations. Italy would make a good example, with the northerners viewing the south as lazy and criminalized, and the southerners viewing the north as arrogant and aloof. In fact IIRC for a long time in Tsarist Russia, the “nationality” entry in internal passports was either “Orthodox”, “Jew” or “Mussulmann”.

Michel–Knew I was taking a risk by playing on somebody else’s home field’-) Actually, haven’t read Hosking, so he wasn’t the source of the information. Mainly got it from Pipes, I believe, and perhaps Figes. Also, I think, from a bio of Peter the Great. Have to leaf through some of the stuff I’ve read over the past couple of years to nail that down, but I’m sure it wasn’t Hosking.

Thanks for the education. Interested in learning more.

I do have a question though, as to whether the national identity to which you refer was as state-centric as the current nationalism seems to be. That is, was there a conscious effort to identify the narod with the state, and the state with the narod? If so, when did that begin? Have such efforts waxed and waned?