Russian people and national identity. Zhade Z.A

Especially for the Perspectives portal

Leokadia Drobizheva

Leokadiya Mikhailovna Drobizheva – chief researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the Center for the Study of Interethnic Relations, professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

A consolidating all-Russian identity is still discussed by scientists and politicians, but it also exists as a real social practice in the minds of Russian citizens. Habitual ideas of the past remain unchanged, people have not ceased to associate their ethnocultural distinctiveness with the nation, therefore, the consensus definition of “the multinational people of Russia” remains in the doctrinal space. As research shows, the basis for the dynamics of all-Russian identity is, first of all, the state and the common territory, and only then the historical past, culture, and responsibility for affairs in the country.

To the problem statement

The solidary identity of citizens is considered a condition for maintaining harmony in society and the integrity of the state. In modern conditions, when in different countries there is a growing demand for the right to decide one’s destiny, to freely choose the path of development, its importance is especially great. In Russia, a positive civic identity is especially important in connection with the loss of Soviet-era identity that people have experienced, but not forgotten, and increased foreign policy tensions.

Strengthening Russian civic identity is set as a task and one of the directions of activity in the Strategy of the state national policy for the period until 2025. The need for solidarity is recognized not only by the country's leadership, it is also a natural request of society. It is no coincidence that the 1990s, when the concepts of “Russian nation” and “civil identity” did not appear in doctrinal documents, speeches of the President of the Russian Federation, his addresses to the Federal Assembly (they appeared since 2000), more than half of the population during surveys on the all-Russian The sample was told that they feel like citizens of Russia [; ; With. 82].

In the 2000s, the Messages to the Federal Assembly of the President of the Russian Federation used the concept of “nation” in the all-Russian meaning and its derivatives. At a working meeting on issues of interethnic and interfaith relations in 2004, V. Putin directly noted: “... we have every reason to talk about the Russian people as a single nation. There is... something that unites us all. ... This is our historical and our current reality too. Representatives of the most diverse ethnic groups and religions in Russia feel themselves to be truly one people.”

In 2012, the concepts of “multinational Russian people” (Russian nation) and “civic identity” were introduced into the State National Policy Strategy for the period until 2025. Naturally, they began to be included in educational courses, appeared in school curricula, and are heard in political discourse. All-Russian identity is a formed idea, feelings, and norms of behavior.

Sociologists, political scientists, and historians in their methodology use M. Weber’s concept of “mass subjective beliefs,” “subjective faith,” and values ​​that can become the basis for the integration of society. Turning to the value-normative concept of E. Durkheim and T. Parsons, studying identities as the perception of social reality, scientists rely on the constructivist direction. It is gratifying that after Thomas Luckmann’s interview with the journal Sociology and Social Anthropology [p. 8] a simplified idea of ​​constructivism has become less common, and there is an understanding that the authors of constructivism themselves relied on the ideas of the anthropological works of K. Marx, the sociological objectivism of E. Durkheim, the understanding historical sociology of M. Weber, and the basis proposed by T. Luckmann and P. Berger synthesis “is the phenomenology of the lifeworld developed by [E.] Husserl and [A.] Schutz.” This conclusion orients us to the understanding that only those ideas that are based on the everyday “life world” of people can be successful. We proceeded from this when interpreting data from sociological surveys when studying people’s ideas about their identification with Russian citizens. It is unlikely that everyone who chanted “Russia, Russia!” during the Olympics or the World Cup read the State National Policy Strategy or even the messages of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly from the point of view of the presence of the idea of ​​Russian civic identity in them, but they felt it. Also, when our country is presented in a negative image, this causes emotional distress in the majority of Russians.

We remind you of this because the purpose of the article is to consider changes in Russian identity not only in the country as a whole, but also in the regions. It is in the regional and ethnic version of Russian identity that motivational factors have the main explanatory significance.

Understanding Russian civic identity

Scientific debates that have political and ethnopolitical implications do not stop around the understanding of Russian identity. They focus primarily on three problems: can this identity be called civil, what are the main solidary meanings in it, and does all-Russian civic identity mean a replacement for ethnic identity.

At the beginning of the post-Soviet period, when Soviet identity was being lost, there was virtually no doubt that instead of the Soviet one we would have a civil identity. The text of the 1993 Constitution contained meanings that allowed us to interpret the community in the following way, which will be reflected in the civic identity of fellow citizens. The Constitution affirmed “human rights and freedoms, civil peace and harmony,” the inviolability of Russia’s democratic foundation, and “responsibility for one’s Motherland before present and future generations.” The “bearer of sovereignty” and the only source of power in the Russian Federation, says the Constitution, is its multinational people (Article 3, paragraph 1). When the state began to actively shape Russian identity in the 2000s, liberal-minded intellectuals began to express doubts. Author of the book “Between Empire and Nation” E.A. Pain asked the question whether Russian identity can be called civil if it cannot be said that we have formed a political, civil nation. (The title of his book is also symptomatic.) The discussion continues, and it is not only in relation to our country [; ; ].

Summarizing the development of identities in the Project under the leadership of I.S. Semenenko, S.P. Peregudov wrote that the civil identity of people is manifested in their adherence to the principles and norms of the rule of law and democratic political representation, in their awareness of their civil rights and responsibilities, responsibility for affairs in society, personal freedom, recognition of the priority of public interests over narrow group ones [, p. 163]. Of course, not all people in countries considered democratic fully share and observe all the norms and values ​​of civil society. It is no coincidence that the European Social Survey (ESSI), as well as the Eurobarometer, did not use all indicators of civic identity, and their set changed. Not all citizens, but only half in each of the 28 EU states, believe that people in their countries have much in common. But in general, as researchers believe, in the foreseeable future in the West, including Europe, it is the political, state-country identity that will retain the significance of one of the most important group identities [ ; ; ].

We still have to conduct in-depth studies of the civil elements in Russian identity. But some of these elements have already been included in surveys and will be analyzed.

When preparing the State National Policy Strategy in 2012 and discussing its adjustment in 2016–2018. Representatives of the republics and active defenders of Russian identity expressed concerns about the substitution of ethnonational (ethnic) identity with Russian. A way to alleviate these concerns was to include the following formulation in the goals and priority directions of the state national policy: “strengthening the unity of the multinational people (Russian nation), preserving and supporting ethnocultural diversity.”

The question of the meanings that unite the citizens of the country into an all-Russian community, reflected in identity, was discussed in a complex manner. When discussing the implementation of the State Ethnic Policy Strategy at a meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations on October 31, 2016, it was proposed to prepare a law on the Russian nation. In this regard, an opinion was expressed about the Russian nation as the basis of the national state. It was justified by the fact that the unity of our society is based on Russian culture, Russian language and historical memory, and the state and territory, which lie at the basis of a political nation, cannot form the basis of “patriotic loyalty”. “Citizenship of the Russian Federation exists after 1991, while culture and history connect generations.”

Sometimes the argument is made that abroad everyone who comes from Russia is called Russian. Similarly, Scots or Welsh who come to us (and other countries) are called not British, but English, although officially they are British citizens. The same situation is with the Spaniards. The Basques and Catalans are called nations (representatives of the Basque and Catalan movements), but they, like the Castilians, are part of the Spanish nation.

In 2017‒2018 proposals were prepared for inclusion in the State Ethnic Policy Strategy for the period up to 2025. Among them are “the main definitions that are used in the Strategy...”, proposed by the Scientific Council on Ethnicity and Interethnic Relations under the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences and taking into account the latest theoretical and empirical developments of academic institutions .

The Russian nation is defined as “a community of free, equal citizens of the Russian Federation of various ethnic, religious, social and other affiliations, aware of their state and civil community with the Russian state, commitment to the principles and norms of the rule of law, the need to respect civil rights and obligations, the priority of public interests over group."

In accordance with this, civic consciousness (civic identity) is “a sense of belonging to their country, its people, state and society, perceived by citizens, responsibility for affairs in the country, ideas about basic values, history and modernity, solidarity in achieving common goals and interests of development society and the Russian state."

Thus, our Russian identity is multi-component; it includes state, country, civic identity, ideas about a multinational people, social, historical community. It is based on shared values, community development goals and solidarity.

Naturally, all these components are present to one degree or another when people define their Russian identity. But in all-Russian surveys and surveys in the constituent entities of the federation, among specific nationalities, they manifest themselves differently. All-Russian identity, like all other social identities, is dynamic and is influenced by events and people. According to the approaches of E. Giddens, J. Alexander, P. Sztompka, P. Bourdieu, we consider participants in interactions in various “fields”. Therefore, it is important to show general trends in the perception of Russian civic identity and the features that manifest themselves in different regions of the country, in federal subjects with different ethnic compositions of the population.

The empirical basis for the analysis is the results of all-Russian surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences for 2015–2017. , as well as the results of representative surveys in the constituent entities of the federation (Astrakhan region, Republic of Bashkortostan, Kaliningrad region, Republic of Karelia, Moscow and Moscow region, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Stavropol Territory, Republic of Tatarstan, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug) conducted in 2014-2018. Center for the Study of Interethnic Relations of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For comparisons, we also used data from VTsIOM surveys on behalf of the FADN in 2016–2017. In a number of cases, we use the results of studies conducted by scientists in the regions, stipulating the possibility of their comparability. During all-Russian and regional surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, we conducted in-depth interviews with experts, specialists, public figures, and representatives of a number of professions. Some of them are given below.

In the study we implement the approach of comparative sociology. Russian identity and the degree of association of respondents with it are compared in regions with a predominantly Russian population, as well as in republics with different levels of representation of Russians and residents of other nationalities, which give the name to the republics. The socio-cultural approach is used when comparing the Russian civil identity of Russians living primarily in their own and foreign cultural ethnic environments, as well as when comparing this identity among Russians and people of other Russian nationalities.

In understanding identity from the point of view of social psychology, we rely on E. Erikson’s ideas about the strategy of maintaining self-identification, its inclusion in social contexts, cultural values, and the significance of ideology [ Erikson]. The conclusions of J. Mead on the formation of identities in the process of intergroup interaction, G. Tajfel and J. Turner - on the importance of intergroup comparison in this process - are used. We also agree with R. Brubaker in understanding the different intensity and mass character of group identity in everyday practice [, p. 15-16].

All-Russian dimension of Russian identity

Historical psychologist B.F. Porshnev wrote: “... the subjective side of any really existing community... is constituted by a two-way or two-sided psychological phenomenon, which we designated by the expression “we” and “they”: by difference from other communities, collectives, groups of people outside and at the same time similarity in something people inside each other" [, p. 107].

An obvious subject of research in Russian identity is the extent to which in each historical period, in a specific situation, it is formed by distinguishing, comparing or even contrasting oneself with others; determining who these others (“they”) are and what causes mutual attraction and unity of “we”.

The identity of Russians in the 1990s was called a crisis not only because there was a reconnaissance of the usual pillars of internal mutual attraction, but also because of increased hostility towards “others,” which often became our former compatriots, those who left the Union. Only in the 2000s, with the strengthening of the state, getting used to its changed status, the new outline of the borders, the “culture shock” began to pass (as Petr Sztompka figuratively put it, characterizing the state of people in post-Soviet states) and elements of positive identity began to be restored.

By the mid-2010s, according to national surveys, 70–80% had Russian identity.

An indicator for measuring all-Russian civic identity was the respondents’ answers to a question asked in the form of a projective situation: “When we meet different people in life, we easily find a common language with some, we feel them as our own, while others, although they live nearby, remain strangers. Which of the following people would you personally say “that’s us” about? With whom do you feel connected often, sometimes, never?”

And then there was a list of the most widespread collective identities: “with people of your generation”; “with people of the same profession, occupation”; “with citizens of Russia”; “with the residents of your region, republic, region”; “with those who live in your city, village”; “with people of your nationality”; “with people of the same income as you”; “with people close to you in political views.”

This question was first formulated by E.I. Danilova and V.A. Yadov back in the 90s [Danilova, 2000; Yadov] and subsequently, in the same or slightly modified, but similar in content, formulation was asked in other studies of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2017, Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences), National Research University Higher School of Economics, in 2017 - in FADN-VTsIOM surveys.

From 2005 to 2018, the share of those who feel a connection with Russian citizens increased from 65% to 80–84%. According to the listed research centers, civic identity was the most dynamic, it grew by 19 percentage points, while other collective identities - ethnic, regional - by 6-7 points. The share of those who often feel a connection with Russian citizens grew especially noticeably.

Two circumstances influenced mass consciousness. The influence of the media, which constantly stimulated “us versus them” comparisons in relation to Ukraine, motivated defensive sentiments in connection with the events in Syria and the complicated relations with the United States and the European Union, was obvious. Internal associativity was stimulated by the events of the Olympics, the reunification of Crimea with Russia, and sports competitions, especially the World Cup.

The survey results make it possible to analyze Russians’ own ideas about what unites them. According to the All-Russian Monitoring Survey of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2015, people as citizens of Russia are united primarily by the state - 66% of responses; then territory – 54%; 49% named a common language; 47% - experienced historical events; 36‒47% – elements of culture – holidays, customs, traditions. This, we repeat, is data from an all-Russian survey, therefore, the majority of respondents (more than 80%) are Russians. Naturally, the language means Russian.

The choice of state and territory is easily explained, since Russian identification for a considerable part of people is a country identification. Some researchers generally study and interpret it as country-specific. This can be judged from the report of M.Yu. Urnova at the traditional annual conference of the Levada Center in 2017, which contained the results of a study by HSE scientists of the identification with the country of students from the most prestigious universities in Moscow and Princeton University in the USA. The surveys were conducted by the Southern Federal University, asking the question: “How connected do you feel with your region and country?” The responses were interpreted as evidence of a pan-Russian identity.

This interpretation is common, but there is no doubt that the identification with the state is quite clear not only from responses in mass surveys, but also from interview materials: “ They want to recognize themselves as Russians, which means they are part of the state... I don’t think there are many people in our country who would say, “I identify myself outside my state.” We want to recognize ourselves as equal citizens of the country... people in the sense of a state, territorial community" This is the opinion of a specialist working in the legal field (Moscow), but a public figure (in Moscow) expressed approximately the same opinion: “ It seems to me that most people understand the term “all-Russian civic nation” ... as citizenship. The state is the anchor of all diversity. The state provides equal rights, opportunities..." An ethnopolitical scientist who knows press materials and the results of sociological surveys believed that “ if the respondent considers himself a member of the Russian nation (realizes), he talks about himself as a participant in fellow citizenship... they believe that the state belongs to them and will show respect to them as its citizens... the name of the state also matters" A sociologist working with data from mass surveys and focus groups: “ Everyone seems to consider themselves Russians, but most of them, apart from some established stereotypes, to be honest, don’t always call themselves Russians. The civic component is first and foremost... this is the feeling of oneself as a citizen of the state».

In interviews with experts in the regions, the main leitmotif is also citizenship in the state. The state dominant in the identification matrix gives grounds to consider our Russian identity as state-civil. However, we must keep in mind that the state itself is perceived ambiguously in our country. The level of trust in the president remains reliably high, although it changes depending on events in the country, but 37-38% trust the government, and even less trust the legislative and judicial authorities - 21-29%. The civic component of identity for the country as a whole (answers about a sense of responsibility for the fate of the country) is 29‒30%.

It is more difficult to explain the low identifiers for the historical past and culture in all-Russian surveys. The easiest way to associate such identification is with the fact that people live in the present and not in the past, especially young people. Longing for the past, as interpreted by socio-political psychologists, is evidence of trouble in public sentiment. But this is only a partial explanation.

Yu.V. Latov, in an article published in the journal Polis, made a number of interesting observations regarding assessments of our past. Following G. Kertman, he notes that, unlike the 80-90s, when the focus of public attention was the assessment of the events of the time of I. Stalin, in the last 10-15 years “memory wars” have been going on around the events of the last years of the USSR , more clearly focused in the mass consciousness as “Brezhnev times”. Historians and political scientists interpret them as times of “stagnation,” and in the assessments of ordinary people, the characteristics of life at that time “have the features of almost a “lost paradise”” in comparison with the times of V.V. Putin. But if Soviet people in the 80s “were informed that they would live in private apartments, that shortages in stores would disappear, that the majority would have the opportunity to go on vacation abroad at least once every few years, that even children would have pocket telephones, then this would be perceived as another promise of “communism.” The transformation of historical memory is determined by the mythologization of both the distant and recent past, associated with the political interests of the elites (E. Smith, V. Shnirelman). This makes not only our future unpredictable, but also our past. “The Unpredictable Past” - that’s what academician Yu.A. called his book. Polyakov, whose life spanned both Soviet times and a considerable part of the post-Soviet period.

There are also objective reasons for different perceptions of historical events - not only age, but also socio-economic, material, social status. The materials of sociological research show that nostalgia for the past largely reflects the protest moods of low-income and elderly people. An assessment of the historical past can not only unite, but also divide. Therefore, the low indicators of the historical past as the foundation of Russian identity in the perception of our citizens are quite understandable. Studying the dynamics of this indicator is advisable both from the point of view of characterizing public sentiment and from the point of view of forming historical memory, if the analysis is carried out on the basis of objective events and reliable facts and their assessments.

It is not so easy to interpret respondents' answers about culture as a unifying factor. Culture is understood in different meanings not only by scientists from different fields of knowledge, but also by wide circles of the population. For some, these are norms of behavior, for others - art, literature, for others - traditions, monuments of historical heritage. Political scientists can afford to say: “We are united by culture,” but what they mean will be understood differently by everyone. To clarify this undeniable component of identification with a community, sociologists must pose questions in such a way that they are understood unambiguously. Therefore, based on pilot (experimental) surveys, specific elements of culture were identified: public holidays, symbols (flags, anthem, coat of arms, monuments, etc.), folk traditions.

The undisclosed concept of culture as a solidarizing identifier gains more supporters in surveys (in the given interval 37‒47%), when this concept is disclosed there are fewer supporters. During free, semi-structured interviews, respondents found different justifications for their difficulties. One of them is the politicized perception of culture: “Nuriev... they want to erect monuments to him, but he left us and left his achievements there.”(representative of a Russian cultural organization in Ufa). “They erect a monument to Yermolov, then they destroy it, then they restore it. For the Russians, of course, he is a victorious general, but for the Circassians?(specialist teacher in Krasnodar). Another difficulty is the socio-demographic diversity of perception of cultural events and phenomena: “What culture unites us? It’s hard to say - they’re the only ones over there in suits with butterflies on the “What? Where? When?”, and I only have a tracksuit.”(representative of a public association in Kaliningrad). “Victory Day is a holiday for all of us, most of us, of course. But grandmother, mother - they worry, even cry sometimes, but for us, young people, it’s just a holiday, a walk, songs, even if we sing, what kind? Cheerful, victorious." “Culture of the past? Yes, of course, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky - this unites, but only those who know literature and music.”(master's student in sociology, Moscow).

Expert journalist (Moscow): “ The mass “we” is being built in combination with history... Language is also an extremely important thing... Yes, of course, Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, the Bolshoi Theater. This is a cultural layer that unites. It’s sad when people try to formulate why they are a community; too often they say: “Yes, we are not them.” And further: “... these are the bad ones, those are the bad ones.” Alas... Our greatness is measured in kilotons of nuclear energy, the number of bayonets. But there is culture, it is the only thing that is essential».

As we can see, behind the final figures of mass surveys there are many diverse, albeit often stereotypical, opinions. By analyzing both data, we are looking for explanations for the complex manifestations in the mass consciousness of integrating ideas and values ​​that are important for society.

Having data from comparable all-Russian surveys and surveys in the regions, we will now show how ideas about Russian identity differ in regions with different ethnic compositions.

Regional and ethnic uniqueness in all-Russian identification

Naturally, all-Russian data on the identification of respondents with other Russian citizens and data in different regions and federal subjects differ.

In the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, according to the European Social Survey (ESI), identification with Russian citizens was recorded across the country among 64% of the population, and by region it ranged from 70% in the Central and 67% in the Volga federal districts to 52‒54 % in Siberia [p. 22].

Studies that would record all-Russian and comparable representative regional data (for all regions) on identification with Russian citizens have not yet been conducted. All-Russian surveys, covering even more than 4 thousand respondents, do not provide representative data for the subjects of the federation. Therefore, to represent situations in the regions, we use data from those regional surveys that asked comparable questions. According to all-Russian surveys by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Monitoring of the Economic Situation and Health of the Population (RLMS-HSE), the prevalence of Russian identity in 2013-2015. in general reached 75–80%, and the proportion of people with an associative, actual identity of this kind (who answered that they often feel a connection with Russian citizens) was 26–31%.

In assessing all-Russian integration, public attention usually attracts more attention to the republics. We will specifically look at those republics where in the 1990s there were elements of deviations in legislation and manifestations of national movements. Representative surveys conducted in 2012 and 2015 in Sakha (Yakutia) showed that civic identity in this republic was no lower than all-Russian indicators (in some years even slightly higher) - 80-83%; in Bashkortostan in 2012, up to 90% of respondents chose the answer “we are citizens of Russia”, in 2017 – slightly more than 80%; in Tatarstan, 86% reported a feeling of connection with Russian citizens in 2015, and 80% in 2018.

According to the estimates of our colleagues, presented in the fall of 2018 at a conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of ethnosociology in Kazan, representative regional studies in Mordovia and Chuvashia recorded Russian civic identity no lower than all-Russian data.

In the south of Russia, in Kabardino-Balkaria, in one way or another, they associated themselves with Russian citizens in 2015–2016. up to 60%; in Adygea – 71%.

In 2018, we conducted a representative survey in one of the most economically prosperous regions with a dominant Russian population, but a high influx of migrants - the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Ugra. Regional identity is very common here, but Russian identity also makes up 90%. Meanwhile, in the Stavropol Territory, the corresponding data barely reached the all-Russian [p. 22]. Let us note that in terms of residents’ feeling of a strong connection with other citizens of Russia, the indicators of the republics did not differ much from the national average. And when they differed, it was often even for the better. In Sakha (Yakutia), strong connections were spoken of more often by 9–14 percentage points (in 2012, 2015), in Tatarstan - by almost 17 percentage points (in 2018 - 46.7%), than in Russia as a whole. (thirty%).

Thus, it is not separatist sentiments in the past, but the current socio-economic and socio-political situation in the regions that determines people’s sense of connection with the greater Motherland, the citizens of the country. In Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, there was a slight decrease in the share of those who feel a connection with Russian identity in 2017–2018. influenced by the situation related to prosecutorial inspections in schools and the abolition of compulsory study of the state languages ​​of the republics. In Sakha (Yakutia), Russianness is associated with the implementation by the federal center of northern deliveries, construction or cancellation of construction of previously planned facilities (bridges, railway networks, etc.). Russian identity in these republics, which noticeably exceeded all-Russian indicators, approached the all-Russian level.

Where socio-economic difficulties are superimposed on interethnic contradictions, the unsettlement of which the local population sees as a shortcoming of the federal center (as, for example, in Kabardino-Balkaria), the sense of connection with the all-Russian community decreases.

Where Russian civic identity really differs in the republics is in the strength of solidarity features. As already mentioned, according to all-Russian data, the strongest attribute was the state (66% of responses). In the republics, this characteristic dominates even more: in Sakha (Yakutia) - 75% of responses, in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan - 80‒81%. Moreover, among the Bashkirs, Tatars, and Yakuts, the dominance of this integrating factor is more noticeable than among Russians in the republics.

In the republics, the common territory is somewhat more often cited as a sign of solidarity – 57‒58% (compared to 54% in the Russian Federation). In most republics, up to 95% of the population or more know the Russian language well, but it is mentioned as a unifying feature, as well as culture, much less often than the state and territory. In Bashkortostan, for example, it was named by 24-26% of Bashkirs and Tatars. In Sakha (Yakutia) there are a quarter of Yakuts and 30% Russians.

Language, history, culture are the main solidarizers in the ethnic identity of peoples. But in the all-Russian identity in the republics, “wars of historical memory” leave an imprint on the prevalence of these characteristics as unifying ones. Among the Yakuts, no more than a quarter of those surveyed named them, and among the Bashkirs and Tatars in the republics - no more than a third. During free interviews, our respondents found an explanation for this. A journalist working on ethnopolitical topics said: “ Even among the Russian majority, sometimes people think that by being Russian they want to make them unified. But this is a horror story. Representatives of other nationalities have a pronounced feeling that they are Russians. I communicate with them, I see this. They are proud of it. But they also have their own culture, their own history of each people. Which of this is included in all-Russian history - everyone has their own idea about this. Of course, there is something uniting in culture - state holidays, Pushkin - “our everything”" A social activist from Ufa found it difficult to single out something from Bashkir culture that could unite all nationalities in Russia: “ Every nation considers some of its cultural figures to be great, but only of their own culture. Although they understand that for others they will not be like that at all. And what then unites us in culture - love for Rachmaninov or Mozart, Beethoven - but they are world classics».

An expert culturologist (Kazan) argued that “ During the Soviet period, our general culture included a constructed galaxy of figures - Khachaturian, Gamzatov, Aitmatov were added to the Russian greats, they created a bouquet that was even included in school curricula. Now there is no such thing. Maybe it’s good that they don’t impose it, but it’s also bad, we even lose old baggage, sometimes devalue it, but don’t accumulate new things, although there is television, radio, and the Internet." Specialist in the field of interethnic relations (Moscow): “ I think that the Russian nation must be raised on the common history of all the peoples of the Russian Federation, common goals and objectives and joint victories, holidays, including national ones. This is a matter... for many years.” Public figure (Karelia): “The need to belong to something big, unifying must appear... This feeling of some kind of cultural and historical community, roots, traditions... Both Russians and all people of other Russian nations need to think about this... There is a lot of controversy, you just need to be able to negotiate».

The difficulty of forming a common unifying history and culture is naturally understood by both specialists and the authorities. It is no coincidence that it was so difficult to create school and university history textbooks. There are debates and some movement in this area, but in the cultural sphere, apart from language, there is noticeably less progress in the conscious formation of ideas about the development of cultural heritage. Cultural monuments are being restored, concerts and exhibitions are held in memory of outstanding cultural figures, but only festive culture is voiced as unifying.

A common civic feature is responsibility for affairs in the country. In the republics where representative surveys were conducted, it was mentioned no less often than in all-Russian surveys, and in Sakha (Yakutia) even more often (50% or more). Moreover, the Sakha-Yakuts and Russians are in solidarity in these feelings. There are practically no differences in this identifier between Tatars and Russians in Tatarstan (34%, 38%, respectively), and between Bashkirs and Russians in Bashkortostan (36% and 34%, respectively).

Due to the limited ability to present within the framework of the article all the subjects related to the regional characteristics of identities, we did not dwell on the uniqueness of the hierarchy of Russian regional and local identities in the subjects of the federation. Let us only note that with all their diversity, the main trend in the 2000s was aimed at compatibility.

Strong regional identity, whether in the Kaliningrad region, Sakha (Yakutia) or Tatarstan, was primarily the result of the activities of regional elites and was presented through a sense of the significance of a given space for the country. In Kaliningrad we were often told: “We are the face of Russia for the West”; in Kazan: “We are a fairly rapidly developing region of Russia”; in Khanty-Mansiysk: “We are the energy base of the country’s security.” Of course, maintaining a balance between Russian and regional symbols is not an easy task and requires constant attention and study.

Some conclusions

A consolidating all-Russian identity is still discussed by scientists and politicians, but it also exists as a real social practice in the minds of Russian citizens.

The usual ideas of the past remain unchanged, people have not ceased to associate their ethnocultural distinctiveness with the nation, therefore, in the doctrinal space there remains a consensus definition of “the multinational people of Russia (Russian nation)”, that is, the term “nation” has a double meaning here.

An equally important problem is on what basis Russian identity is formed. Ethnocultural identity is based on language, culture, and historical past. As the results of representative surveys show, Russian civic identity is based primarily on ideas about the state and territorial community. Historical memory and culture are less often associated with all-Russian identity due to the critical understanding of the Soviet and pre-Soviet past and the historical ideas of each people, not all of which are conceptualized as all-Russian.

Due to the high importance of the state as the basis of loyalty of Russians, government authorities have a high responsibility for maintaining trust between citizens and the authorities, ensuring justice and welfare in society.

In the last two years, the formation of Russian identity has become especially obvious through comparisons of “we” and external “they” in a negative content (Ukraine, USA, European Union). In such a situation, in order to maintain at least a normal balance, it will be especially important to fill the image of “we” with positive content. It is obvious that sports victories alone, which support the emotional component of identity, are not enough. Maintaining a positive balance requires efforts from both the state and civil society. At the same time, even theoretically clear questions must be implemented in practice, taking into account what is possible in modern conditions.

Notes:

1. In the Address to the Federal Assembly of the President of the Russian Federation in 2000, the concept of “nation” and its derivatives was used seven times, in 2007 - 18 times [Address to the Federal Assembly 2012: 2018].

2. Adjustment of the State Nationality Policy Strategy was entrusted to the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs (FADN). Subjects of the federation and scientific institutions made proposals to the draft document. It was discussed in the Committee on Nationalities of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, at meetings of the working group of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation on national relations.

3. Project “Dynamics of social transformation of modern Russia in the socio-economic and ethno-confessional context” (directed by academician M.K. Gorshkov). The author of this article is responsible for the section on ethnicity and identities. Sample – 4000 observation units in 19 regions of the Russian Federation.

4. Project “Resource of interethnic harmony in the consolidation of Russian society: general and special in regional diversity” (directed by L.M. Drobizheva). In each federal subject, the sample included 1000–1200 observation units. Sampling is territorial, three-stage, random, probabilistic. The method of collecting information is individual interviews at the place of residence.

5. Data from the RLMS - Monitoring the Economic Situation and Health of the Population of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE); Monitoring surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director. Gorshkov M.K. 2015-2016

6. Data from monitoring surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences for 2017.

7. The assessment was based on 27 characteristics entered into the questionnaire in the study “Dynamics of social transformations in modern Russia in socio-economic, political, socio-cultural and ethno-religious contexts”, 7th wave, 2017, led by. M.K. Gorshkov. A survey of 2,605 working respondents aged 18 years and older, residents of all types of settlements and territorial-economic regions of the Russian Federation.

Identity: Personality, society, politics. Encyclopedic edition. Rep. ed. I.S. Semenenko. M. 2017.

Interview with Professor Thomas Luckman // Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 2002. T. V. No. 4. P. 5-14.

Calhoun K. Nationalism. M. 2006.

Kertman G. The Brezhnev era – in the haze of the present // Social reality. 2007. No. 2. pp. 5-22.

Latov Yu.V. Paradoxes of modern Russians' perception of Russia during the times of L.I. Brezhnev, B.N. Yeltsin and V.V. Putin // Polis. Political studies. 2018. No. 5. pp. 116-133.

National policy in Russia: the possibility of implementing foreign experience: monograph / rep. ed. SOUTH. Volkov. M. 2016.

“Do the people of Russia and the Russian people need a law “on the Russian nation”” // Program “What to do?”. TV channel "Culture". 12/12/2016. (Speech by M.V. Remizov). – URL: tvkultura.ru/video/show/brand_id/20917/episode_id/1433092/video_id/1550848/viewtype/picture/ (date of access: 09/27/2018).

Pain E.A. Between empire and nation. The modernist project and its traditionalist alternative in the national politics of Russia. - M.: New publishing house, 2004.

Porshnev B.F. Social psychology and history. Ed. 2. M. 1979.

Message of the President of the Russian Federation dated April 26, 2007 // Official website of the President of Russia. – URL: kremlin. ru / acts / bank /25522 (date of access: 07/01/2018).

Address to the Federal Assembly // Official website of the President of Russia. 07/08/2000. – URL: kremlin. ru / events / president /

Primoratz I. Patriotism // Zalta E.N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2015.

Schatz R.T., Staub E., Lavine H. On the Varieties of National Attachment: Blind versus Constructive Patriotism // Political Psychology. Vol. 20. 1999. P. 151-174.

Standard Eurobarometer. Public Opinion in the European Union. Spring 2017. – URL: ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/79565 (date of access: 09.27.2018).

Weber M. Economy and Society. N.Y. 1968. V.1. 389 p.

Westle. B. Identity, Social and Political // Badie B. (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Political Science - Thousand Oaks. (CA). 2011. P. 1131-1142. – URL: site.ebrary.com/id/10582147p (date of access: 09/27/2018).

What is an ethnic group, a people? What is a nation? What is their value? Who are the Russians, and who is considered Russian? On what basis can a person be considered to belong to one or another ethnic group, one or another nation? Many activists of the Russian national movement, from personal experience in their propaganda and agitation work, know that a significant number of their listeners and potential supporters, perceiving the generally reasonable ideological guidelines of the nationalists, ask similar questions.

What is an ethnic group, a people? What is a nation? What is their value? Who are the Russians, and who is considered Russian? On what basis can a person be considered to belong to one or another ethnic group, one or another nation?

Many activists of the Russian national movement, from personal experience in their propaganda and agitation work, know that a significant number of their listeners and potential supporters, perceiving the generally reasonable ideological guidelines of the nationalists, ask similar questions. This happens especially often among students, the intelligentsia, and among residents of large cities in Russia. These questions are serious, as it seems to many national patriots, the future and prospects of the Russian Movement depend on the answer to them.

Our opponents of all stripes, as an argument about the harmfulness of Russian nationalism for Russia, cite the thesis about its multinationality, which is why the national (in the ethnic sense) ambitions of Russians should inevitably lead to the collapse of the country and to a civil war following the example of Yugoslavia and some republics of the former USSR. At the same time, gentlemen internationalists brush aside, and sometimes simply do not want to notice, the fact that historically Russia developed as a Russian state, and in the modern Russian Federation, 8/10 of its population are Russians. For some reason this doesn’t make sense. Why? “This is according to the passport. In fact, there are almost no purely Russians left. “Russians are not one nation, but a fusion of peoples,” answer our opponents, from specific separatists to liberals, from communists and to some “statist patriots.” “Our” bankers and President Nazarbayev tried to deliver such a Jesuitical blow to Russian self-awareness during the presidential election campaign, declaring that 40% of Russian citizens are children from mixed marriages.

Unfortunately, many, very many Russians, especially those who do not have an “impeccable” pedigree or have close friends with “not quite Russian genealogy,” are inclined to succumb to this blatantly illiterate demagoguery arising from the lack of basic knowledge about the essence nation and people. Cosmopolitans often say that “all nations are mixed up,” that nationalism is an animal ideology (remember Okudzhava), which divides people according to the structure of their skulls, eye color and hair structure. They cite the example of the Third Reich with its ideology of Nordic anatomical qualities as a mystical value. Indeed, what other than fear and disgust can the average Russian (and even more so non-Russian!) man in the street feel towards nationalism, having accepted these arguments? But here a very simple substitution of the concept of “nation” with the concept of “biological population”, the concept of “nationalism” with the concept of “xenophobia” is carried out. Thus, in the minds of many of our compatriots, a myth is created about the absence of Russians as an ethno-nation or about the limitation of its settlement to the territory of Central Russia, as well as the need to automatically recognize the aggressiveness of any attempts to build Russia as a national Russian state.

Well, the arguments of the Russophobes are understandable. How can nationalists respond to them?

Initially, man was created as a being who lived “not by bread alone,” but, above all, by spirit. The Creator prepared from above for everyone their own path, endowed everyone with talents in different ways, giving the human race the right and duty of self-knowledge and self-improvement. That is why the vulgar-utilitarian ideals of leveling individuality and consumer egalitarianism are obviously flawed. But also flawed and blasphemous are the ideas of erasing national boundaries, merging ethnic communities into a homogeneous, faceless, anational mass - “Europeans”, “Earthlings”, etc. For, having created nature as variegated and diverse, God created humanity in the same way, in which he created many peoples - each with its own culture, psyche, and spirit. Created for human development, because A person can develop only in a society where they speak a certain language, profess certain values, sing songs and compose tales and legends about their fate, and whose members have similar character traits necessary for organizing life in certain natural conditions.

A natural community - an ethnos - is united by spiritual kinship (cultural and mental) and welded together by ethnic solidarity into a single organism. This is how nations are formed - conciliar personalities, vessels of the spirit from the Spirit. Just as every person is unique, so is a nation that has its own destiny, its own soul, its own path.

The Russian thinker I.A. Ilyin said this superbly:

“There is a law of human nature and culture, by virtue of which everything great can be said by a person or a people only in its own way, and everything brilliant will be born in the bosom of national experience, spirit and way of life.

By denationalizing, a person loses access to the deepest wells of the spirit and the sacred fires of life; for these wells and fires are always national: in them lie and live entire centuries of national labor, suffering, struggle, contemplation, prayer and thought. For the Romans, exile was designated by the words: “prohibition of water and fire.” And indeed, a person who has lost access to the spiritual water and the spiritual fire of his people becomes a rootless outcast, a groundless and fruitless wanderer along other people’s spiritual roads, a depersonalized internationalist.”

This is what a people is from these positions - a community in which a person can spiritually take root and develop. Specifically for us, this is the Russian people, a people that we understand as a community of people united by the Russian language (it also expresses our soul), culture, self-awareness, which are characterized by traits of Russian character and mentality, and which are united by the common historical fate of the past, present and future generations of Russian people. So, gentlemen, ethnonihilists, for us, who consider nationality to be a great spiritual value, Russianness is not just an anatomical feature, but our history, our faith, our heroes and saints, our books and songs, our character, our spirit - that is, an integral part of our personality. And those for whom all this is theirs, family, those who cannot imagine their nature without all this, are Russians.

Regarding the supposedly established diversity of the Russian people, I would like to remind you that almost all nations were formed by a mixture of different bloods and tribes, and in the future, depending on historical conditions, some were subjected to racial miscegenation to a greater extent, others to a lesser extent. Konstantin Leontyev argued that “all great nations are of very mixed blood.”

So, the people after God are one of the highest spiritual values ​​on earth. Not only the Russian people, but also any other. We Russians love ours more and are responsible for its fate. Moreover, there is someone to take care of other peoples. This worldview is nationalism.

Why not patriotism, but rather nationalism? Because patriotism is love for the Motherland, the country in which you live. A wonderful feeling, it coincides with nationalism in mono-ethnic countries, where only one people lives in their own country, on their own land. In this case, love for the country and for this people are one and the same. This was the case in Kievan Rus and the Muscovite State. But now the situation is somewhat different.

Yes, we are patriots, we love Russia. However, Russia is a country where Russians, although they constitute the absolute majority, live together with 30 million representatives of more than 100 peoples and nationalities - large and small, indigenous and newcomers. Each of them has their own identity, their true and imaginary interests, most of them defend these interests, moreover, consistently and openly. Therefore, naked patriotism as the idea of ​​co-citizenship without connection with nationalism for Russians turns out to be obviously losing in the conditions of competition with dozens of ethnic groups within Russia. The last decades of Soviet power and the current inter-time have convincingly proven this. The facts are well known. This means that without nationalism, without consolidation on an ethnic basis, Russians in Russia will either have no place left at all or will remain, but not at all what befits the people who created the Russian State with their sweat and blood. And without Russians there will be no strong, united, independent Russia. Therefore, we are precisely nationalists, Russian nationalists and Russian patriots. We are for Russian unity.

It is clear that a people is a natural cultural and historical unit. But on what basis is it formed? How does nationality develop, by what criteria is it determined? What predetermines participation in the spirit of the people and their destiny? It is necessary to try, at least in general terms, to give unambiguous answers to these questions in order to decide once and for all: who and on what basis can be considered Russian from an ethnic point of view?

On the issue of ethnic identity, one can roughly distinguish the following approaches: anthropological, sociological, cultural and psychological.

The anthropological (racial) approach or anthropological materialism is that a person’s nationality is genetically predetermined. At the same time, by the way, most “racists” do not deny the spirit of the nation and spiritual kinship; they simply believe that the spirit is derived from “blood and flesh.” This opinion became widespread in Germany, becoming dominant under the rule of the National Socialists. Hitler himself devoted a significant part of his book Mein Kampf to this problem. He wrote: “A nationality, or, better said, a race is determined not by a common language, but by a common blood. The true strength or weakness of people is determined by the degree of purity of blood alone... Insufficient homogeneity of blood inevitably leads to insufficient unity of the entire life of a given people; all changes in the sphere of the spiritual and creative forces of the nation are only derivatives of changes in the field of racial life.”

Recently, the anthropological approach has become dominant among the Russian “extreme right”. Their position was expressed by V. Demin in the newspaper “Zemshchina” No. 101: “They say that purity of blood is not the most important thing, but the main thing is faith, which will save everyone. Undoubtedly, our faith and the spirit of the nation are higher. However, ask yourself in whom the faith is stronger, more consistent, in the one with pure blood, or in the one in which a bulldog is mixed with a rhinoceros... Only blood still unites us, preserving in the genes the call of our ancestors, the memory of glory and the greatness of our family. What is blood memory? How to explain it? Is it possible to destroy it? While maintaining the purity of the blood, it is impossible to destroy what is contained in it. It contains our culture, our faith, our heroic freedom-loving character, our love, and our anger. That's what blood is! That is why, until it becomes clouded, until it dissolves in other blood, until it mixes with foreign blood, memory is preserved, which means there is hope to remember everything, and again become a great and powerful people of the earth.”

In addition to the “extreme right,” whose opinions are very rarely scientifically substantiated, adherents of the anthropological approach are such famous theorists and figures as Nikolai Lysenko and Anatoly Ivanov. In his article “The Contours of a National Empire,” the leader of the NRPR defined the people as “a vast community of human individuals with a single type of national mentality, which is realized as an integral complex of behavioral reactions, which in turn are a natural visible manifestation of a single genetic fund (code).” A. Ivanov has a similar position: “Each anthropological type is a special mental makeup. Each language is a special way of thinking. These components make up national identity, the very spirit that develops on the basis of the flesh, and does not descend “from heaven in the form of a dove.”

However, the founder of the school was not Hitler, but the famous French social psychologist and biologist G. Lebon. He wrote: “Psychological characteristics are reproduced by heredity with accuracy and consistency. This aggregate constitutes what is rightly called the national character. Their totality forms an average type, which makes it possible to define a people. A thousand Frenchmen, a thousand Englishmen, a thousand Chinese, taken at random, must, of course, differ from each other; however, due to the heredity of their race, they have common properties on the basis of which it is possible to recreate the ideal type of a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Chinese.”

So, the motivation is clear: the spirit of a nation is derived from its genetic code, because Each formed ethnic group has its own race (population). The psyche (soul) is a product of the activity of the human nervous system and is inherited genetically. Therefore, nationality is directly dependent on race.

At first glance, everything is quite logical and convincing. But let's look at this problem in more detail. Indeed, at the end of the 20th century, when such sciences as genetics, eugenics, anatomy, and anthropology exist, only a deaf-blind person can ignore the influence of the genetic factor and heredity on the formation of the human personality. But it would also be absurd to go to the other extreme, elevating the set of chromosomes to an absolute.

What exactly is inherited genetically? I don’t mean abstract reasoning about the “voice of blood” (we’ll talk about it in detail later), but scientifically based axioms or hypotheses. The morphology of parents and immediate ancestors is inherited: physiological constitution, strength or weakness of the body, including many diseases, racial appearance of parents and ancestors. Racial (natural-biological) characteristics. Are they necessary when determining ethnicity?

The pride and son of the Russian people, A.S. Pushkin, as is known, did not possess a native Russian racial appearance. If we look at his portrait by the artist O. Kiprensky, we will see that from his Ethiopian great-grandfather he inherited not only curly hair, but also many facial features and darker skin than most Russians. Did the one whom Gogol called “the most national Russian poet” become less Russian?

And another wonderful Russian poet - Zhukovsky, whose not typical Russian appearance is explained by his maternal Turkish blood? Or is the deeply Russian philosopher Roerich a man of northern blood? And in general, how serious can talk about the racial purity of the people be today? The Scandinavian peoples or the mountaineers of the North Caucasus, who for centuries have lived separately from the passions of continental Europe, through which a great many ethnic forms have passed over two millennia, can also talk about it somehow. There is a special conversation about Russia altogether. Ethnographers and anthropologists have still not come to a common conclusion about who the Russians are - Slavs, Celts, Finno-Ugric people, or a combination of all of the above.

“Racists” sometimes point to the British and Germans, who are famous for their homogeneity. But let’s not forget that today’s Germans are descendants not only of the ancient Germans, but also of dozens of Slavic tribes assimilated by them - Abodrites, Lutichs, Lipons, Hevels, Prussians, Ukrs, Pomorians, Sorbs and many others. And the English are the end result of the ethnogenesis of the Celts, Germans, Romans and Normans. And is it final? Highland Scots, Welsh and Protestant Irish, largely assimilated into English culture, today actively participate in English ethnogenesis. So, racial miscegenation (with racially and culturally compatible peoples) of an established ethnic group within 5-15% of the total number of marriages within a given population does not harm it at all, provided there is a strong national identity.

Anthropologists know that sometimes a mixed marriage can produce and raise, for example, a Turk with a predominance of maternal Slavic traits. Will this make him stop being a Turk? This concerns external anthropological signs. But the following are also inherited: temperament, individual character traits (or rather their inclinations), talents and abilities.

Psychology knows four main types of temperament and their various combinations and combinations. In any population there are representatives of each of them. But the fact remains: each nation is also characterized by the predominance of one type. We say “temperamental Italians” and mean that most Italians are characterized by a choleric temperament. In relation to representatives of the small northern race, we use the expression “Nordic self-possessed,” meaning the phlegmatic temperament characteristic of the majority of Swedes, Norwegians, etc. The Russian temperament, in my opinion, is a mixture of sanguine and melancholic. (I’ll emphasize once again: all this does not mean at all that there are no phlegmatic Italians, choleric Swedes or Russians.)

Regarding national character, probably no one doubts that it exists. Rational, hardworking and vain Germans, proud and warlike Chechens, patient and enduring Chinese, cunning and calculating Jews. One can, of course, make all this dependent on the existing social structure and political system, but isn’t it the people themselves, with their character and mentality, who create it? Another thing is that every nation has its own destiny, its own history. And under the influence of historical conditions, to which it is necessary to somehow adapt, each ethnic group developed its own character and mentality. Honesty and deceit, frankness and hypocrisy, hard work and laziness, courage and cowardice, maximalism and pragmatism, kindness and cruelty - all this and much more is character. All these qualities are inherent in any people, but some to a greater extent, others to a lesser extent. This is the specificity, which is why we say that each nation has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Science, and simply the life experience of many of us, suggests that a certain hereditary predisposition to these qualities exists. But who would dare to assert that all this is predetermined by genes, that the will of a person is powerless under the influence of upbringing, environment and through self-development to overcome bad heredity, or to create a scoundrel in spite of a high-quality breed?

Although character, including national character, is largely inherited genetically, but, which is already a common place for modern psychology, it is also formed under the influence of the environment: family, relatives, fellow tribesmen, countrymen, compatriots. Mentality (way of thinking and its categories) is formed primarily and mainly under the influence of the environment. And Russians who grew up and permanently reside in the Baltic states have a significantly different mentality from the mentality of Russians in Great Russia, and Russian Germans differ in mentality from their German fellow tribesmen almost more than Turkish immigrants.

The argument that culture, language, faith, and historical memory are transmitted genetically through the “call of the ancestors” does not stand up to criticism at all. For some reason, they were not passed on to the Hollywood actor of Russian origin M. Douglas, but to V. Dahl, a German by blood, the Russian spirit was passed on in its purely national form. How will the “racist” gentlemen explain this? Or the fact that our history knows of some Russian mestizos (I. Ilyin) who are a hundred times more Russian in spirit and self-awareness than other Judases of purely Russian origin, “who tore off the heads of churches and glorified the Red Tsar,” ready to joyfully betray Russia as a sacrifice to ideals world revolution. I wonder if the Russophobe Bukharin would tear off the bandages from his wounds, wanting to bleed to death, as did the Russian patriot of Georgian origin Bagration, who learned about the surrender of Moscow to the French?

If the spirit always depends on blood, understood as genes, then, logically, the purer the blood, the more national the spirit. It turns out not always. Blok, Fonvizin, Suvorov, Dostoevsky, Lermontov, Ilyin and many others are proof of this. True, it is possible to prohibit mentioning them all, just as Hitler banned the works of Heinrich Heine - one of the best German lyrical and patriotic poets - for his non-Aryan origin. But it seems that it would be simpler and more correct to admit that the essence is not in the genes. Genes are a temperament by which one can only tentatively judge a person’s nationality; in part, national character is an essential element of ethnic identity, also largely derived from the environment; these are talents and abilities, which, even within the same ethnic group, can vary depending on social and regional conditions, but which are still partly an element of the mental makeup of the people.

So, genes are the appearance and approximately 50% of a person’s mental make-up. Language, historical memory, cultural identity, national mentality and self-awareness do not depend on chromosomes. This means that, in total, the race factor does not play a determining role in determining nationality. That is why the racist approach to defining nationality should be considered untenable.

N.S. Trubetskoy also thought so: “German racism is based on anthropological materialism, on the conviction that human will is not free, that all human actions are ultimately determined by his bodily characteristics, which are inherited, and that through systematic crossing one can choose the type of a person, especially favorable to a given anthropological unit called a people.

Eurasianism (the author is not a follower of this teaching - V.S.), which rejects economic materialism, does not see any reason to accept anthropological materialism, which is philosophically much less substantiated than economic one. In matters of culture, which constitutes the area of ​​free, purposeful creativity of the human will, the word should belong not to anthropology, but to the sciences of the spirit - psychology and sociology.”

I consider the approach criticized by N.S. Trubetskoy to be harmful, due to the fact that it can negatively affect the process of Russian national formation. After all, although the absolute majority of Russians are bound by a common national origin, we should not forget that during the years of Soviet internationalism the Russian race (especially the Russian intelligentsia and residents of large cities) underwent intense miscegenation. Of course, not 40%, but after all, 15% of Russians were born from mixed marriages and are half-breeds. This means that about 20-30% of Russians have non-Russian ancestors in the second generation - among their grandparents.

By the way, these numbers are not mathematically accurate - statistics suffer from subjectivity. But in any case, the percentage of tribally mixed Russians is above average among the Russian intelligentsia - this multimillion-strong layer of intellectual workers - the support of the future truly Great Russia and the main reserve of progressive Russian nationalists. Therefore, to fight for the idea of ​​a pure Russian race means to bury the possibility of developing full-fledged Russian nationalism.

The sociological approach is almost the exact opposite of the anthropological one; it arose in France as a result of the activities of the Enlightenment and the realities of the bourgeois revolution. The idea of ​​a nation in France arose as a synonym for democracy and patriotism, as the idea of ​​popular sovereignty and a single, indivisible republic. Therefore, the nation itself was understood as co-citizenship - a community of people united by a common political destiny and interests, responsibility for the fate of their country.

The French thinker Ernest Renan in 1882 formulated what, in his opinion, unites people into a nation:

"First. Shared memory of what we went through together. General achievements. General suffering. General guilt.

Second. General forgetfulness. The disappearance from memory of that which could once again disunite or even divide the nation, for example, the memory of past injustice, past (local) conflict, past civil war.

Third. A strongly expressed will to have a common future, common goals, common dreams and views.”

At this point, Renan gives his famous definition: “The life of a nation is a daily plebiscite.”

Thus, nationality is determined through citizenship and patriotism. The famous contemporary Russian artist I. Glazunov has the same opinion, claiming that “a Russian is one who loves Russia.”

It is difficult to argue anything against this approach in essence. Indeed, it is a common destiny, self-awareness, responsibility that makes a nation out of a people. Without this, as B. Mussolini said, there is no nation, but there are “only human crowds, susceptible to any decay to which history may subject them.” But still, a nation, as a primarily political community, is born from a people (ethnic group). And it is ethno-political nations that demonstrate the greatest unity and efficiency, while purely political nations, consisting of different peoples, are constantly shaken by internal strife: linguistic and racial (Americans, Canadians, Belgians, Indians, etc.).

Both a Kalmyk and a Yakut can love Russia, while remaining a representative of their ethnic group.

Or here’s another example - the head of the cadet faction in the pre-revolutionary Duma, Mr. Vinaver. Such an active guardian of the good of Russia, a patriot and a democrat! So what do you think? In parallel, Mr. Vinaver heads the informal Jewish government of Palestine and lobbies the interests of Russian Jews in Russian politics.

Can a Tatar who loves his people be a sincere Russian patriot? Yes, at least I have seen such reasonable nationals. A Tatar by nationality and a Russian by civic outlook - such a person, being a statesman on an all-Russian scale, can consistently defend Russian state interests, but at the same time, in the sphere of interethnic relations within Russia, he will most likely, secretly or openly, proceed from the interests of the Tatar ethnic group. We, Russian nationalists, have our own position on this matter.

We have to admit that the sociological interpretation of the nation is impeccable in mono-ethnic countries (as is “non-nationalistic” patriotism). In countries with a multi-ethnic composition of the population, it does not work in isolation from other ethnic factors. It also does not work in modern France, flooded with “the French by the grace of the seal of arms” - Arab migrants who perfectly preserve their ethnicity with the help of Islam and cultural autonomy.

The cultural school defines a people as a cultural community united by language and culture (both spiritual - religion, literature, songs, etc., and material - everyday life). By the spirit of a nation, the school understands precisely its spirituality.

P. Struve wrote that “a nation is always based on a cultural community in the past, present and future, a common cultural heritage, common cultural work, common cultural aspirations.” F.M. Dostoevsky said that a non-Orthodox person cannot be Russian, which in fact identified Russianness with Orthodoxy. And indeed, for a long time in Rus' it was the approach that prevailed, based on which every person of the Orthodox faith living in Russia and speaking Russian was considered Russian.

In the twentieth century, when Russian Orthodoxy was destroyed, such a cultural-confessional approach became impossible. Today, most cultural scientists understand cultural identity in a broad sense: as spiritual and material, intellectual and grassroots, folk culture.

In big Russian politics in general, almost no attention is paid to Russian topics, and therefore the opinion on this matter of General Lebed, who devoted an entire article to the problem of national statehood, identity and empire, “The Decline of the Empire or the Revival of Russia,” is interesting. In it, he (or someone for him) wrote: “In Russia, identifying a pure race is a hopeless task! The reasonable, state, pragmatic approach is simple: whoever speaks and thinks in Russian, who considers himself part of our country, for whom our norms of behavior, thinking, and culture are natural - he is Russian.”

For any thinking person it is clear as two times two that the inner content of a people is its culture and spirituality. It is culture that reveals to humanity the true face of peoples. It is through the development of their spiritual potential that nations imprint themselves in History. Mussolini directly declared this: “For us, a nation is first of all a spirit. A nation is great when it realizes the power of its spirit.”

Without spiritual culture, a tribe can exist, but not a people. And as K. Leontyev said, “to love tribe for tribe is a stretch and a lie.” The nationality is distinguished by the presence of folklore grassroots culture, but the absence of a highly intellectual system of language, writing, literature, historiosophy, philosophy, etc. All this is inherent only to the people, whose culture consists, as it were, of two floors: the lower - folklore, and the upper - the product of the creativity of the intellectual elite of the people. These floors are one whole called “national culture”.

At the level of cultural identity, the “friend or foe” archetype is formed, based on language affiliation and behavioral stereotypes. It is on this basis that we can say about a person that he is “truly Russian”, “real French”, “real Pole”.

Spirit is the main value of a people; belonging to it is determined by spirit. However, is it only culture and spirituality that constitute the spirit of a nation? What about the psyche (soul)? We can say that a mental type is realized in culture. So be it. What about a person’s national identity? Undoubtedly, it is an integral and necessary part of the spirit of the nation. But it happens that it (self-awareness) does not coincide with a person’s cultural identity.

Consider the following example.

How do we perceive a person of Russian origin, language, culture who renounces his national name? No, not under the pressure of threats or circumstances, but voluntarily, out of eccentricity or political convictions (cosmopolitanism). We will perceive him as an eccentric, a mankurt, a cosmopolitan, but still we will internally treat him as a fellow tribesman, a Russian, betraying his nationality. And I think he himself understands that he is Russian.

And if he is Russian by language, culture, Orthodox by religion, but Pole or Latvian by blood (origin), he will confidently say that he is Pole or Latvian. I'm almost sure that regardless of cultural identity, we will understand and accept this choice. Whether the Poles themselves will accept it is another matter. But Jews or Armenians, for example, would accept it. Of course, without knowledge of the native language, history, culture for real Jews or Armenians, he would be a Jew or a second-class Armenian, but still he would be one of his own.

Dzhokhar Dudayev barely knew the Chechen language and culture at all; he lived most of his life in Russia, was married to a Russian, but in Ichkeria he is perceived as one hundred percent Chechen. When the Zionist movement began, many of its leaders and activists did not know the Jewish language and were emancipated Jews, which did not interfere with the Zionist consolidation and was corrected over time.

Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Germans (before the first unification of Germany), despite the loss or erosion of cultural identity due to dispersion or division, were able to preserve their ethnicity. And while maintaining a sense of ethnicity, there is always the possibility of reviving the nation. But how is an ethnic group preserved when culture is lost or degraded?

Let's turn to the psychological school.

In his work “Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth,” L.N. Gumilyov wrote: “There is not a single real sign for determining an ethnic group... Language, origin, customs, material culture, ideology are sometimes defining moments, and sometimes not. We can take out of the brackets only one thing - the recognition by each individual: “We are such and such, and everyone else is different.”

That is, the self-awareness of the people and its members are the defining moments of ethnic identity. But they are already derived from other identification factors. It is clear why in Russia, when determining nationality, priority was given to the factors of faith, culture, language, and in Germany, the Arab world, and among Jews and Armenians, blood kinship was given. Just by the 19th century. Russians were a single nation with a single national language and culture, they were united by one church and power, but at the same time they were heterogeneous in the tribal sense. At that time there was no unified Germany, but there were many sovereign German states; some Germans professed Catholicism, and some Lutheranism; Most Germans spoke languages ​​and dialects that were very different from each other, just as the culture of these states was different. What should be taken as the basis for the consolidation of an ethnic group? Language, faith, patriotism? But the faith is different, and the Germans still had to create a single country and a single language. The situation was also the same (for some worse, for some better) among Arabs, Armenians and Jews. How can they survive in these conditions, on what basis do they consider themselves Germans, Jews, etc.? Based on the “blood myth” - i.e. on the awareness of a real (as among Jews and Armenians) or imaginary (as among Germans and Arabs) community of national origin and the relatedness of the members of this community to each other.

It was not for nothing that I wrote “the blood myth”, because... I am inclined to consider “kinship by blood”, “voice of blood” to be primarily psychological moments.

Most normal people extremely value family feelings: mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, grandparents, uncles and aunts are usually considered the people closest to a person. Is it because a purely biological gene unites them? Often external similarity as a result of heredity actually cements kinship. However, I am sure that this is not the main thing. A mother can love her child because she “carried and gave birth to him, did not sleep at night, rocking her child to sleep, raised him, fed him, cherished him,” but at the same time not even suspect that... her natural son in the maternity hospital was mistakenly confused with that , whom she considers her son (as you know, this happens).

Does this change anything? If all parties remain in the dark, absolutely nothing; If the forgery is discovered, probably yes. So, this means that the myth is still important. Often children do not want to know anything about their natural parents, but they dote on their adopted parents, perceiving them as the dearest of their family. So it's a myth again.

Myth doesn't mean bad. Not at all. People are endowed with a biological need for procreation and a mental need that follows from it - for related feelings. For a person, on the one hand, is afraid of loneliness, on the other, needs solitude. The best option is to have a circle of close people: relatives, friends, among whom a person feels loved and protected. After all, it is known that a person’s relatives can also be persons who are genetically completely foreign to him (father-in-law, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, etc.), psychologically related, based on the “myth of kinship.” Engels argued that the idea of ​​consanguinity developed from relationships around private property and its inheritance. Whether this is true or not, it is obvious that in addition to the biological aspect, the psychological aspect plays a significant role here.

In most cases, the voice of the blood of the people is not a biological substance, derived from chromosomes, but a mental substance, derived from the need for rootedness and sometimes from love for immediate ancestors. Italian Fascist leader, saying that “race is a feeling, not a reality; 95% of feeling,” meant, of course, precisely the “voice of blood.” Apparently, O. Spengler had the same thing in mind when he argued that man has a race and does not belong to it.

Nevertheless, consanguinity serves as one of the essential elements of ethnic identification: when it is the most important and when it is secondary. “Blood” is extremely important for ethnic groups that are weakened culturally and politically. Then the ethnos grabs onto tribal identification, endogamy (tribal nationalism in the sphere of marital and sexual relations), which allows it to preserve a sense of ethnos, the remnants of national culture and tribal solidarity.

With the revival of this ethnos as a nation, consanguinity can either fade into the background, as we see among modern Germans, or remain one of the main elements of ethnicity, along with language, as among Georgians. In the first case, with a reasonable migration and national policy, effective assimilation of foreigners is possible, in the second, the ethnic group strictly protects its borders, cementing the spiritual community of its members through blood kinship. After all, among other things, national origin gives a person a compelling reason to connect with fate, the roots of the people, the opportunity to say: “my ancestors did this and that; our ancestors with sweat and blood...” Nevertheless, in this case, at the level of the psyche of the person himself, there will, as a rule, be more sincerity in the spoken words (for every rule there is an exception) than in similar statements of an assimilating foreigner who is not connected with the people by family roots. Therefore, the community of national origin cements the unity of the destiny of the people, the connection of its generations.

Probably because of this, the Libyan pan-Arabist M. Gaddafi wrote in his “Green Book”: “... the historical basis for the formation of any nation remains a community of origin and a community of destiny...”. The leader of the Jammaheria clearly did not mean genes, but the fact that a common destiny follows from a common origin, for in other chapters of his work he pointed out that “over time, the differences between members of the tribe related by blood and those who joined the tribe, disappear, and the tribe becomes a single social and ethnic entity.” But it is still worth emphasizing that by joining we do not mean any integration of an individual into a community, but only one based on marriage with its representatives.

The fact of origin, as is known, is fixed by the surname and patronymic - each nation has its own way. For example, among Jews, consanguinity is determined by the maternal line (although in Russia they also use the paternal line) - i.e. A Jew by blood is considered to be someone born from a Jewish mother. For most Eurasian peoples, including Russians, consanguinity is determined through the paternal line. True, since the times of ancient Rome there has been an exception: if the paternity of the child is uncertain or the child is illegitimate, he follows the status of the mother.

Let me make a reservation once again: although, as a rule, in established communities, ethnic origin serves as the basis for belonging to a people, it in itself, in isolation from self-awareness, psyche and culture, cannot clearly be considered an element that determines nationality. “Blood” has meaning insofar as it manifests itself, leads to the awakening of the “voice of blood” - i.e. national identity. But this same self-awareness can sometimes develop apart from it, on the basis of cultural identity, spirituality, derived from the environment. True, origin predetermines the environment - family, circle of relatives and friends, but not always. Pushkin said about the poet of German origin Fonvizin that he was a “Russian of the Per-Russians,” history (not only Russian) knows many cases of natural assimilation of foreigners, but also knows that the requirements for such assimilation were appropriate - to break spiritual ties with their natural ethnic environment and to be “Russians from pere-Russians” (Germans from pere-Germans, Jews from pere-Jews, etc.) in spirit and self-awareness.

Let's summarize some results. Ethnicity (nationality, people) is a natural community of like-minded people with a common culture, language, and similar mental make-up, united into a single whole by the ethnic self-awareness of its members. This community in spirit follows from: community of origin (real or imaginary), unity of environment (territorial or diaspora) and, partly, the factor of race.

A people as an ethnic community becomes a nation - an ethno-political community, when its members become aware of the historical unity of their destiny, responsibility for it and the unity of national interests. A nation is unthinkable without nationalism - the politically active activity of the people to protect and defend their interests. Therefore, a nation is characterized by the presence of a state, national autonomy, a diaspora or a national political movement, in a word, a political structure of self-organization of the people. In relation to Russians... The Russian people originated in the 11th-12th centuries. and since then he has come a long way towards finding his own identity. During this journey, the literary Russian language and a full-fledged, great Russian national culture were formed. Also, through the tribal symbiosis of the Eastern Slavs and the Finno-Ugric, as well as contacts with the Baltic and Altai-Ural ethnic groups, the Russian race and the Russian mental makeup were formed in general terms: temperament, character and mentality. All this happened and continues to happen on the territory of the Russian ethnic area called “Russia”, where, in addition to the Russians, many other ethnic groups live, one way or another interacting with the sovereign people.

Based on this and all of the above, in the author’s opinion, the following person can be considered ethnic Russian:

1) Speaking and thinking in Russian.

2) Russian in culture.

3) Russian by blood or subjected to assimilation due to birth and long-term residence (most of his life) on the territory of Russia as its citizen, consanguinity with Russians, etc.

The problems of Russian national identity sharply worsened in connection with the collapse of the USSR and in subsequent years in connection with the search of the Russian people for their place in the new Russia, their path in the world. In order to find their worthy place in the family of peoples of the world and Russia, Russians are trying to realize their Self, their Path, their Mission. And in order to engage in self-awareness of the Self, it is necessary to “look” into your recent past, say, several centuries, to understand the dynamics of your development. And this process of self-deepening into the Self of the people, the Self of culture, the Self of Russian society has begun. Thus, at the XVIII World Russian People's Council, the “Declaration of Russian Identity” was adopted, which defined some frameworks and directions for the search for Russian national identity. The “Declaration of Russian Identity” prompted many prominent representatives of the Russian people to discuss this sore issue for the Russian nation. In the reverse perspective, the Russian people can find many answers to the pressing issue of Russian national identity, many solutions to the challenges of today.

The path of finding oneself through turning “inward” is also indicated in another source of Russian thought: “Russian Doctrine”. In this interesting document, the authors try to answer current issues on the Russian agenda and outline the main directions of the Russian revival (in economics, politics, art, education, science, state building, etc.). The “Russian Doctrine” contains a methodology for achieving Russian national identity. Thus, the document notes: “The revival and new ascent of Russian civilization will not begin without a “return to oneself.” You need to look for your own, organic. You have to go from your own self. And only then will we (Russia) be recognized as a full-fledged player when we stop focusing on this idea of ​​​​the need for recognition. Moreover, it is precisely in our otherness, dissimilarity from others, that is, in our civilizational independence, that is the key to our possible acquisitions and success along the paths of History.” The above and other documents indicate that the process of awareness of Russian identity is underway, but it is slow, intermittent, sometimes with great tension and disruptions. The process of Russians acquiring national identity evokes not only support, but also severe opposition from some part of society, oriented toward Western values ​​and idols. The fact that the process is underway is evidenced by discussions not only in the patriotic and Russian national press, but also in moderate publications, individual programs on central television, and other media. For example, a discussion entitled “What do the Russians want?” in the Literary Gazette.

Previously, officials were afraid of the “Russian question” like fire. Now a lot has changed: a number of government officials speak openly about the Russian path, Russian consciousness and Russian culture. The question of national identity was posed especially deeply by V.V. Putin. Speaking on September 19, 2013 at a meeting of the Valdai international discussion club in the Novgorod region, V.V. Putin linked the acquisition of national identity with the formation of a national idea. He noted: “There is a need for historical creativity, a synthesis of the best national experience and ideas, an understanding of our cultural, spiritual, political traditions from different points of view with the understanding that this is not a frozen something given forever, but a living organism. Only then will our identity be based on a solid foundation, will be directed to the future, not to the past.”

Understanding one’s national identity is closely related to deepening one’s Russianness. Understanding your Self is impossible without turning to the Self of the people, the Self of Russian culture, the Self of Russian society, the Self of the Russian state. The authors of the monograph “Russians” are right. The ABC of Russian national self-awareness,” talking about the following: “To be Russian, you need to recognize yourself as Russian. This is a clear watershed. Over several centuries of living together in Russia, many people in their culture and language have ceased to differ from Russians. But they retained the identity and name of their people and consider themselves, for example, Chuvash or Mordvins. This is not only their right, it is worthy of respect, since ethnic diversity with a common cultural core is a great value, although it complicates many social relations.” The peculiarity of Russian identity is that representatives of other nations can recognize themselves as Russian, feel comfortable in Russian culture, and build the Russian world. Many representatives of other ethnic groups have long been no different from ethnic Russians in many mental characteristics. They are quite deeply integrated into the Russian world and feel comfortable in Russian statehood and society.

Basic values act as the basis of national identity. What values ​​are basic at the present stage for the Russian people? This question was raised at the XV World Russian People's Council, which adopted the document: “Basic values ​​are the basis of national identity.” This important source for Russian national consciousness names the basic values: faith, justice, peace, freedom, unity, morality, dignity, honesty, patriotism, solidarity, mercy, family, cultures and national traditions, the good of man, hard work, self-restraint and sacrifice. The formation of these basic values ​​among the younger generation and their cultivation in society is the most important pedagogical and social task. This task should unite everyone: social scientists, politicians, ideologists, and government officials. All social institutions, public organizations, and the media should be involved in the formation of a positive attitude towards these basic values. Otherwise, the Russian people will remain a people without solidarity, not knowing where to go, what to do and why. The problem of basic values ​​should be raised more acutely and resolved at all levels of government, society, culture and business.

Currently, many basic values ​​in the Russian consciousness are blurred. The Russian consciousness is not deeply enough aware of their significance for the moral health and spiritual development of the Russian nation. Moreover, in the era of civilizational shifts, when it is necessary to unite the nation around basic values, dangerous trends continue to develop, leading to the degradation of culture, the loss of family values, and the dehumanization of people.

Knowledge of the Russian language and protection of the Russian language. The “Declaration of Russian Identity” adopted at the XVIII World Russian People's Council on November 11, 2014 notes the role of the Russian language in the formation of Russian identity. So the declaration says: “In the Russian tradition, the most important criterion of nationality was the national language (the word “language” itself is an ancient synonym for the word “nationality”). Knowledge of the Russian language is mandatory for every Russian.”

In recent years, pressure has been increasing on the Russian language to change the genetic code of Russian culture. The Russian language is becoming clogged with slang and foreign words. In connection with economic reforms, many words from the English language spoken by modern business have been incorporated into the Russian language. Although there are many words in the Russian language that could successfully replace linguistic borrowings. In the Russian language, some “scientists” are trying to legalize some slang words.

Belonging to the Orthodox faith is the most important element of Russian cultural and national identity. Difficult processes are unfolding in the spiritual sphere. Life in the Church is in full swing, Orthodox churches are being reconstructed and restored, religious books and magazines are printed in large quantities, Orthodox music, book and film festivals are held. In the last decade, works of famous and forgotten Russian philosophers have been published in large editions: N.A. Berdyaeva, A.S. Khomyakova, N.O. Lossky, S.N. Trubetskoy, N.I. Ilyina, S.N. Bulgakova, S.L. Franka, V.V. Zenkovsky, G.P. Fedotova, A.F. Loseva, B.P. Vysheslavtseva, L.N. Gumeleva, I.V. Kirievsky, K.S. Aksakova, K.N. Leontyeva, V.V. Rozanov and many others. All this speaks of the revival of Russian culture, of the deepening of Russians into their Self.

Russian culture in general, Russian literature in particular, gives us a vivid idea of ​​the national character of the Russian person. The Russian reader discovers previously unknown names of outstanding Russian writers abroad. A Russian person is finally beginning to pay attention to himself, to delve deeper into his dignity, and to focus on the main and innermost things. Political scientist, philosopher, scientist Ivan Ilyin writes: “A Russian person lives, first of all, with his heart, imagination, and only then with his will and mind,” “Russian people expect from a person, first of all, kindness, conscience, and sincerity.” It has long been known that Russian culture brings light, kindness, spirituality, conscientiousness, and sincerity of the Russian soul, that Russian culture is universal and cosmic. But over the centuries of Russophobic policies of Western countries, primarily Great Britain, and now the United States, secondly, through the efforts of the “fifth column” inside Russia, Russian culture, the Russian people, its glorious past have been slandered, distorted, denigrated so that the younger generation has to rediscover Russian culture, look anew at the great achievements of descendants in all areas of life and activity.

American political scientist S. Huntington wrote: “... cultural characteristics and differences are less susceptible to change than economic and political ones, and as a result they are more difficult to resolve or reduce to compromises. In the former Soviet Union, communists can become democrats, the rich can become poor, and the poor can become rich, but no matter how hard they want, Russians cannot become Estonians, Azerbaijanis cannot become Armenians... Religion divides people even more sharply than ethnicity. A person can be half-French or half-Arab, and even a citizen of both of these countries. It’s much more difficult to be half-Catholic or half-Muslim.” We must agree that religion really divides people more than nations and creates insurmountable obstacles to communication and dialogue. Acceptance of faith simultaneously means acceptance of Russianness, acquisition of Russian national identity. Russians and representatives of other nations, who once accepted the Orthodox faith, become staunch supporters and devotees of the Church. They become part of the Russian Orthodox Civilization, which has given the world so many examples of honest service to goodness, truth, peace, knowledge and justice.

The deep connection of man with the history of Rus', is the most important element of Russian national identity. Member of the State Duma, political figure V. Aksyuchets wrote on this occasion: “Only high spiritual ideals cultivated such rare traits in the character of the people that made it possible to survive and maintain dignity in uniquely difficult historical circumstances. These features are, first of all, the universal openness and responsiveness of the Russian people, their healthy instinct for community life, their amazing survival.” A key place in the history of Russian culture, statehood and people was occupied by spirituality, associated in the pre-Christian period with pagan beliefs, and in the Christian period - in the Orthodox faith. Over the two-thousand-year history of the spread and establishment of Christianity in Rus' (from Chersonese to Kiev, then to Moscow...), the Russian peoples have absorbed humility before the authority of the Creator, accepted the Ecumenical Cross and established themselves in their mission to bring love, goodness, truth, justice, knowledge , peace and wisdom to the nations. It is no coincidence that the Russian people are called the God-bearing people, that is, those who carry God within themselves.

The most important Russian characteristic is solidarity with the fate of the Russian people. In the Address of the Discussion Club of the World Russian People's Council to the thinking people of Russia, “We believe in ourselves, our people, our civilization!” dated April 24, 2013, it is noted: “Solidarity differs from totalitarianism in the non-violent, conscious nature of social unity, the preservation of broad personal freedom along with the imperative of national and civilizational duty. It also presupposes broad and regular participation of citizens in government, maximizing the use of direct levers of governance (referendums, self-government of small spaces) and minimizing the level of alienation of ordinary citizens from political decision-making. The ideal of solidarity, the conciliar unity of the people and the government was not a utopian dream for our civilization, but was deeply rooted in our national history.”

Solidarity presupposes the participation of the Russian people, all its representatives, from ordinary people to leaders, in specific events governing the Russian state (elections, referendums, expressing opinions on the actions of deputies of all levels in the media, etc.), management of public associations, local governments, in companies to protect Russian interests at all meetings, rallies, in the media, support for Russians, Orthodox people around the world, etc. Solidarity is also ensured by a real desire for conciliar unity of the people, government and business. These are the three great forces on which the Russian state rests.

According to V.K. Egorova “The Russians, despite their conciliarity and collectivism (which occur, but are manifested inconsistently in everyday life, and “in fatal moments” or when, as the people say, “their backing is against the wall”), are an undignified, atomized and long-suffering people , since human life at the individual level and national life matter only before God (subconsciously, according to culture - even non-believers “stand on this”) and before the Fatherland. Life (both individual and national, people's) is protected only when there is danger. A “normal” life is built slowly, without striving for arrangement (comfort, if you like), since (subconsciously) the main life is in the other world, or its meaning, almost to a decisive extent, is in the prosperity of Russia.” This conclusion of V.K. Egorova says that state institutions, public associations, and individual representatives of the Russian elite should develop a sense of solidarity among the people. It is necessary to create conditions for the manifestation of a sense of solidarity among the people on any issue.

Feeling of kinship with the Russian people and culture one of the most complex components of Russian national identity. And in the process of its historical development, many representatives of other ethnic groups joined the Russian people. Thus, the “Declaration of Russian Identity” notes: “The Russian people had a complex genetic composition, including the descendants of Slavic, Finno-Ugric, Scandinavian, Baltic, Iranian and Turkic tribes. This genetic wealth has never become a threat to the national unity of the Russian people. Birth from Russian parents in most cases is the starting point for the formation of Russian identity, which, however, has never excluded the possibility of people from another national environment joining the Russian people who have adopted Russian identity, language, culture and religious traditions.” This means that the Russian people are international in their ethnic roots. Therefore, Russianness includes respect for the culture, feelings, character and temperament of all peoples living in Russia and beyond its borders.

Internationalism is the essence of Russianness. This feature of Russianness attracted oppressed peoples around the world to the Russian world. It is no coincidence that the Russian Empire was formed in the process of the voluntary entry into its composition of many neighboring peoples. These peoples sought protection in Russia from some aggressive neighbors and from the colonialist aspirations of Great Britain and France.

The identity of the Russian people is associated with the Russian state. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus', speaking at the Tyumen Forum of the World Russian People's Council on June 21, 2014, noted: “Speculations about the heterogeneity of the Russian people are a myth that has a purely political nature. On a global scale, Russians are an exceptionally integral, united nation. In terms of the degree of religious and linguistic unity, and the proximity of cultural matrices, Russians have no analogues among the major nations of the planet. The phenomenon of Russian monolithicity is explained by the fact that in our national self-awareness the connection between the individual and the state occupies an exceptional place. The ethnic identity of Russians, more than that of any other people, is associated with the identity of the state, with Russian patriotism and with loyalty to the state center.” The merging of Russian national identity with state and civil identity leads to the fact that Russians have always fought and will fight, as long as they exist as a nation, for the sovereignty of the state in all senses: in symbolism, in defense, in making state decisions in politics and economics, which is not enough for most national cultures, especially the young, developing nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Considering the phenomenon of synthesis of the national, statist and civic identity of the Russian nation, Russian culture must create attractive models and programs for its development in the future. Russia's domestic and foreign policy can be successful if it is based on the above trends in the development of Russian culture and the Russian people. This policy only strengthens the integrity and unity of the Russian people, to which its best representatives strive.

Bibliography:

1. Aksyuchets, A. “God and Fatherland - the formula of the Russian idea” / A. Aksyuchets // Moscow. – 1993. – No. 1. – P. 126
2. Egorov, V.K. Philosophy of Russian culture / V.K. Egorov. – M.: RAGS, 2006. – P. 446
3. Meeting of the international discussion club “Valdai” on September 19, 1913 / V.V. Putin // http: neus/kremlin/ru/transcripts/192443/print/ - P. 3
4. Ilyin, I.A. Against Russia / I.A. Ilyin. – M.: Voenizdat, 1991. – P. 329
5. Russian doctrine “Sergius Project” / Ed. A.B. Kobyakov and V.V. Averyanova. – M.: Yauza-press, 2008. – 864 p.
6. Russians. The ABC of Russian national identity. – M.: Generation, 2008. – 224 p.
7. Huntington, S. Clash of Civilizations? / S. Huntington // Political studies. – 1994. – No. 1. – P. 36

   RUSSIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY: THEORY ISSUES

   the article raises topical issues of the formation of Russian national identity; the main components and dynamics of Russian identity are analyzed; an attempt is made to determine the role of each component in the process of formation of Russian identity.

   Written by: Kargapolov Evgeniy Pavlovich

STATE AND LAW IN THE MODERN WORLD: PROBLEMS OF THEORY AND HISTORY

Russian identity: legal conditions for formation

VASILYEVA Liya Nikolaevna, Candidate of Legal Sciences, Leading Researcher of the Department of Constitutional Law of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation

Russian Federation, 117218, Moscow, st. Bolshaya Cheremushkinskaya, 34

The legal prerequisites for the formation of Russian identity along with ethnic identity are considered. Legislative measures to strengthen the unity of the Russian nation, preserve national identity, and revive Russian identity are explored. Guarantees are noted in the field of preservation and development of native languages, the national culture of the peoples of Russia, and the protection of the rights of national-cultural autonomies in the Russian Federation. An analysis of strategic documents and regulatory legal acts at the regional level is presented in connection with their focus on the formation of Russian civil identity, ways of legal regulation are proposed in order to form Russian civil identity, trends in the development of legislation to strengthen Russian identity are noted.

Key words: Russian civil identity, ethnic identity, interethnic relations, ethnic identity, national language, development of legislation, tolerance.

Russian Identity: Legal Conditions of Formation

L. N. Vasil"eva, PhD in law

The Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation

34, Bolshaya Cheremushkinskaya st., Moscow, 117218, Russia

Email: [email protected]

In the article the pre-conditions for the formation of the Russian identity on a legal basis along with an ethnic identity are examined. The legal measures, devoted to strengthening the process of uniting the Russian nation and restoration of the national peculiarity for the perspective revival of the Russian identity are also observed in this article. In the article the author pays special attention to the circumstances, which are in a great demand now, such as: to guarantee the essential development of the national languages, national culture of the Russian inhabitants, to protect and support the rights of the cultural autonomous territories. In the article there is also the analysis of either the strategic or of the normative documents, adopted in the regional legislative institutions, which are presented here since they are aimed at forming the Russian civil identity. Besides the above mentioned, the author determines and detects the main current trending in the legal regulation system, targeting at approaching the described goals as well. Particularly the author underlines the progressive features in the everydays development of the legal regulatory mechanisms, used for restoration and strengthening the Russian identity.

Keywords: Russian civil identity, interethnic identity, ethnic relations, ethnicity, national language, the development of legislation, tolerance.

DOI: 10.12737/7540

Challenges of the modern world, the changing geopolitical situation, the need to strengthen the unity of Russian society

became the prerequisites for the search for a national idea that unites citizens of multinational Russia. The success of this search in

In a number of cases, it depends on the unity within the most multinational people of the Russian Federation, the awareness of every citizen of Russia not only of ethnic, but also of Russian identity.

Identity as a conscious self-determination of a social subject, according to the definition of the French sociologist A. Touraine1, is determined by three main components: the need for belonging, the need for positive self-esteem and the need for security. M. N. Guboglo rightly emphasizes that identity and identification, including ethnic, require constant confirmation on the part of the bearer of ideas about the group with which he seeks to identify2.

In the research of G. U. Soldatova, the definition of ethnic identification as common ideas shared to one degree or another by members of a given ethnic group that are formed in the process of interaction with other peoples deserves attention. A significant part of these ideas is the result of awareness of common history, culture, tradition, place of origin (territory) and statehood. Common knowledge binds members of a group and serves as the basis for its differentiation from other ethnic groups3.

At the same time, different points of view are also expressed in the literature regarding the concept of “ethnicity”. Ethnographers, as a rule, use it to describe population groups that differ in their

1 See: Touraine A. Production de la societe. P., 1973. R. 360.

2 See: Guboglo M. N. Identification of identity. Ethnosociological essays. M., 2003.

3 See International Project “National

national identity, nationalism and re-

conflict management in the Russian Federation

deration", 1994-1995.

characteristics such as a common language, religion, culture. For example, P. Waldman also includes in the definition of the concept of an ethnic group such elements as history, its own institutions, and certain places of settlement. This group must also be aware of its unity. Anthropologists, in particular W. Durham, believe that the definition of ethnicity is a matter of identification with a specific cultural system, as well as a tool for its active use in order to improve one’s position in a specific social system4.

It should be noted that the concept of ethnic identity also includes the subject’s awareness of his belonging to a particular ethnic group, while the subject’s nationality may not coincide with the self-name of such an ethnic group. In jurisprudence, this is evidenced, for example, by discrepancies in the understanding of the terms “national language” and “native language”5 in their justification of the ethnicity of the native speaker. The concept of ethnic identity is closely related to the concept of “originality” traditionally used in jurisprudence in relation to legal measures to protect language, culture, traditional way of life (in some cases), religion, and the historical heritage of certain ethnic and other communities.

The international doctrine, which laid the foundations for the protection of ethnic identity in general, linguistic and cultural identity, contributed to the development of the institution of protection of ethnic identity and

4 See: Krylova N. S., Vasilyeva T. A. and others. State, law and interethnic relations in Western democracies. M., 1993. P. 13.

5 For more details, see: Vasilyeva L.N. Legislative regulation of the use of languages ​​in the Russian Federation. M., 2005. pp. 22-25.

at the national level, as well as supplementing the mechanisms for protecting identity with national measures, defined both at the constitutional level and in individual independent laws. At the same time, in national legislation, measures to preserve ethnic identity - the cornerstone of relating an individual to an ethnic group, defining ethnic identity - in most cases are aimed at protecting the rights of national minorities.

For example, one of the features of consolidating national (ethnic) identity was the consolidation of the right of persons belonging to national minorities to preserve, develop and manifest their ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious and national essence. It is precisely this right - the right to national essence - that is established by the Romanian Constitution of 1991, emphasizing that measures taken by the state to preserve, develop and exercise these rights belonging to national minorities must comply with the principles of equality and non-discrimination in relation to other Romanian citizens.

Currently, a number of interesting trends are emerging in relation to the identity of ethnic groups. Thus, new terms appear related to modern integration processes of states, for example the term “European identity”. In particular, the President of the European Parliament considers the flag of a united and constantly developing Europe “a symbol of European identity”6. The use of such a term in the political-statist understanding already creates precedents. Thus, in November 2009, the European Court of Human Rights

6 See about this: Bulletin of the European Court of Human Rights. Russian edition. 2005. No. 12.

decided that it was illegal to place crucifixes in public schools in Italy, which caused widespread public outcry.

At the same time, within the European Union, at the official level, the principle of diversity was proclaimed as an integral element of the identity of modern Europe. The conversation was primarily about languages ​​and culture in general7.

The uniqueness of the situation in the Russian Federation is that the Russian Constitution uses the term “multinational people of the Russian Federation.” According to R. M. Gibadullin, the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 contains a statist idea of ​​Russian identity in the form of the concept of “multinational people,” expressing the idea of ​​a nation as a supra-ethnic state-forming community8. At the same time, guarantees have been established at the legislative level in the field of preservation and development of native languages, the national culture of the peoples of Russia, and the protection of the rights of national and cultural autonomies.

The need to form a relatively stable community, united within a common territory by a common historical past, a certain common set of basic cultural achievements and a common awareness of belonging to a single multinational community in all manifestations of the ethnic identity of its constituent peoples of Russia, is obvious today. It seems that the emergence of such a community will become an important obstacle to the development of interethnic conflicts and the derogation of the sovereign rights of the state.

7 See: Haggman J. Multilingualism and the European Union // Europaisches Journal fur Minderheitenfragen (EJM). 4 (2010) 2. R. 191-195.

8 See: Gibadullin R. M. Post-Soviet diss. ... nations as a problem of interethnic unity in Russia // Power. 2010. No. 1. P. 74-78.

The Russian Federation has always been a unique state in its multinational nature. In our country, as V. Tishkov notes9, the concept of “Russian people” (“Russians”) was born during the times of Peter I and M.V. Lomonosov and was affirmed by outstanding figures, in particular N.M. Karamzin. In Tsarist Russia there was an idea of ​​a Russian, or “all-Russian” nation, and the words “Russian” and “Russian” were largely synonymous. For N. M. Karamzin, being a Russian meant, first of all, feeling a deep connection with the Fatherland and being a “perfect citizen.” This understanding of Russianness based on Russian culture and Orthodoxy occupied a dominant position compared to ethnic nationalism. P. B. Struve believed that “Russia is a national state” and that “by geographically expanding its core, the Russian state has turned into a state that, being multinational, at the same time has national unity”10.

During the existence of the USSR, the Soviet people were considered as a meta-ethnic community. It was fundamentally different from the existing “capitalist nations” and was the opposite of them. At the same time, “the Soviet people could not be called a nation, since within the USSR the existence of socialist nations and nationalities was affirmed as smaller entities, from which a new historical community was created”11.

10 Quoted. by: Tishkov V. A. Russian people and national identity.

11 See: Constitutional law and politics: collection. mater. Intl. scientific conf. (Faculty of Law, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomono-

It should be emphasized that the concepts of “people” and “nation” are not considered identical. Let us agree that “a nation is the political hypostasis of a people. A nation does not exist outside the state; in the modern world, the dualism of state and nation can be considered inseparable. A nation is formed by people loyal to a given state. Loyalty to the state is demonstrated through the people's exercise of their political rights and the bearing of political responsibilities. The main duty is the duty to defend one’s country, one’s state. It is the desire to defend one’s country that is the essence of national identity.”12

In our country, at the constitutional level, it is established that it is the multinational people who are the bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation. At the same time, attention is repeatedly drawn both in scientific discussions and in the media to the fact that today the task is to form a single Russian nation, Russian identity. The very concepts of “Russian” and “Russian woman”, which form the basis of the term “Russian nation”, imply not only the possession of Russian citizenship, but also a supranational cultural identity, compatible with other types of self-identification - ethnic, national, religious. In the Russian Federation, neither at the constitutional nor at the legislative levels are there any obstacles established for a person from any ethnic, national or religious community to consider himself a bearer of Russian culture, i.e., a Russian, and at the same time maintain other

12 See: Constitutional law and politics: collection. mater. Intl. scientific conf. (Faculty of Law, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, March 28-30, 2012) / rep. ed. S. A. Ava-kyan.

forms of cultural and national identity13.

Currently, a number of fundamental documents on issues of state national policy use the term “Russian civic identity.” Thus, in the Strategy of the State Ethnic Policy of the Russian Federation for the period until 202514 it is noted that the insufficiency of educational and cultural-educational measures for the formation of Russian civic identity and the cultivation of a culture of interethnic communication negatively affects the development of national, interethnic (interethnic) relations.

The federal target program “Strengthening the unity of the Russian nation and the ethnocultural development of the peoples of Russia (2014-2020)”15 also emphasizes that the development of international (interethnic) relations is influenced by the following negative factors: erosion of the traditional moral values ​​of the peoples of Russia; attempts to politicize ethnic and religious factors, including during election campaigns; insufficient measures to form Russian civil identity and civil unity, foster a culture of interethnic communication, and study the history and traditions of Russian peoples; the prevalence of negative stereotypes regarding other peoples.

In this regard, it is worth emphasizing that solving the problem of the emergence of a unified Russian nation is impossible without a fair legal assessment of the repression

13 See: Shaporeva D.S. Constitutional foundations of national cultural identification in Russia // Russian justice. 2013. No. 6.

this Soviet era in relation to a number of peoples. The said Federal Target Program notes that at present, certain consequences of Soviet national policy (for example, repressions and deportations against individual peoples, repeated changes in administrative-territorial boundaries) continue to have a negative impact on interethnic relations. Today, this problem has acquired particular relevance in connection with the admission of a number of territories to the Russian Federation. Indeed, recognition of the unfair and often far-fetched attitude towards the entire people, based on a number of individual cases, requires the adoption by the state of a set of legal and social measures to prevent manifestations of ethno-national extremism.

Even before the adoption of the current Constitution of the Russian Federation, the RSFSR Law of April 26, 1991 No. 1107-X “On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples” was adopted. However, it does not contain a comprehensive legal toolkit that would allow the rehabilitation mechanism to be applied to each illegally repressed people as effectively as possible, in accordance with its ideas about the legal nature of a social and rule-of-law state. Today, this is relevant in connection with the admission to the Russian Federation of the Republic of Crimea, where Crimean Tatars repressed during the Soviet years live.

In addition, at the state level, the formation of the unity of the Russian nation is closely related to the ethnocultural development of the peoples of Russia. The above-mentioned Federal Target Program offers two options for solving problems in the field of state national policy and ethnocultural development: the first option involves an accelerated pace of strengthening the unity of the Russian nation and

ethnocultural development, significant improvement in interethnic and ethnoconfessional relations; the second is counteracting existing negative trends, strengthening Russian civil identity, and developing ethnocultural diversity.

Thus, in the legal field of the Russian Federation there are two interrelated terms: “unity of the Russian nation”, implying the preservation of the ethnic identity of all the peoples of Russia that make up this nation, and “general civil Russian identity” as awareness of one’s belonging to the Russian nation, awareness of oneself as a Russian - a citizen of the Russian Federation. Federation. The common civil Russian identity will lead to the strengthening of the entire unity of the Russian nation (still in the formation stage), and the development of ethnocultural diversity will only strengthen the common civil identity with a new quality of a solidarizing community.

Legal regulation aimed at developing ethnocultural diversity includes a fairly wide range of issues aimed at creating harmonious interethnic relations: issues of preserving and developing national identity, forming a unified all-Russian culture, ensuring decent conditions for the socio-economic development of regions and representatives of all social strata and ethnic groups in it, countering extremism. However, such regulation is not limited solely to methods of legal regulation. A significant role here is played by the level of intercultural competence, tolerance and acceptance of a different way of understanding the world, and the standard of living of representatives of different ethnic groups. In this regard, the influence of regional legislation on the qualitative development of these areas is significant.

At the regional level, a set of measures has been developed to protect and develop Russian identity, as well as to form the identity of the community living in a particular subject of the Russian Federation. Acts of regional lawmaking often emphasize the idea that the formation and implementation of national identity, the development of the cultural potential of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation will ensure increased competitiveness, the development of creativity, innovation and social well-being, the formation of an orientation of individuals and social groups towards values ​​that ensure the successful modernization of the regional community16. At the same time, it is emphasized that regional identity should be part of the Russian national identity and be built into the system of state cultural policy17. Thus, in the Yaroslavl region, the Council for the Formation of Yaroslavl Regional Identity has been created and is functioning, which resolves issues regarding the development of common approaches to the formation of regional identity, the development of the concept of regional identity and a strategy for its promotion.

At the same time, in a significant array of regulatory legal provisions, the volume of those provisions that directly relate to the preservation of ethnic identity by Russians is somewhat minimized.

An essential point to understand in this regard is the established set of measures aimed at protecting the Russian language as the national language of the Russian people. In federal level programs, the protection of the Russian language is carried out in three areas: the state language of Russian-

16 See, for example, decree of the governor of the Vladimir region dated November 25, 2013 No. 1074.

skoy Federation; language of international communication; language of compatriots abroad18.

At the same time, regional legislation is only partly aimed at developing a system for strengthening Russian identity. A number of regional programs were aimed directly at strengthening it in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, most of which have already exhausted their resource in terms of their duration. Many of them solved this problem only indirectly.

Thus, some programs in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with a predominant settlement of Russian people contained a set of measures only for the development of the Russian language as a means of interethnic communication. As an example, we can name the Regional Target Program “Russian Language” (2007-2010) (Belgorod Region)19, as well as the Regional Target Program “Russian Language” for 2007-2010

2009" (Ivanovo region)20.

Creation of full-fledged conditions

for the development of the Russian language as the national language of the Russian people is noted in the departmental target program “Russian Language” (2007-2009) (Nizhny Novgorod Region)21 and in the Regional Target Program “Russian Language” for 2008-

2010" (Vladimir region)22. Among the tasks of the latter were the creation of full-fledged conditions for the development of the Russian language as the national language of the Russian people;

18 See, for example, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of June 20, 2011 No. 492 “On the federal target program “Russian language” for 2011-2015.”

22 Approved Law of the Vladimir region dated

propaganda of the Russian language, increasing and activating various kinds of motivation for studying the Russian national language and Russian national culture and regional studies in the Vladimir region; popularization of the Russian language as the main means of national and interethnic communication and development of interest in its history and current state on the territory of the Vladimir region. However, at the moment, these programs have exhausted their operational life.

Among the current programs, one can note the State Program of the Voronezh Region “Development of Culture and Tourism” with the subprogram “Ethnocultural Development of the Voronezh Region”23, the Comprehensive Action Plan for the implementation in 2013-2015 of the Strategy of the State National Policy of the Russian Federation for the period until 2025. , harmonization of interethnic relations, strengthening of all-Russian identity and ethnocultural development of the peoples of the Russian Federation in the Tula region24.

Also interesting is the provision on improving the current monolingual language situation and creating a language environment, on expanding the sphere of active use of the Russian language, contained in the State Program of the Republic of Tyva “Development of the Russian Language for 2014-2018”25. However, the positive resource of such programs to strengthen the status of the Russian language is clearly insufficient for a comprehensive approach to strengthening Russian identity in the regions of Russia.

One should agree with leading Russian ethnologists that the prestige of Russianness and pride in the Russian people should be affirmed not by denying Russianness, but through the affirmation of dual identity (Russian and Russian), through improving the living conditions of the regions where Russians predominantly live, through promoting their broad representation in institutions civil society and protection of their interests in public national organizations. The rooting of Russian identity as a special system of identity of the Russian people, expressed in the Russian language, Russian national (folk) culture, traditions, family values ​​and Orthodox faith, represents an additional impetus in strengthening the united Russian nation26.

The Soviet period of our history, in which the Russian people fulfilled the mission of “big brother”, the subsequent “parade of sovereignties” of the new Russia and the consolidation of the rights of “titular nations” in the republics within the Russian Federation did not in any way contribute to the formation of either Russian or Russian identity. Today, in a period of new global changes and challenges for the Russian Federation, it is necessary to form a clear ethnological, legal and civil position in these areas.

In connection with these trends in the development of legislation to strengthen Russian identity, the following can be determined:

strengthening legal protection in relation to the Russian language and national Russian culture in terms of preserving their original qualities;

economic support and social development of territories predominantly settled by Russian-

26 See: Tishkov V. About the Russian people and national identity in Russia. URL: http://valerytishkov.ru/cntnt/publicacii3/ publikacii/o_rossisko.htmL

of the people, as well as territories that are strategically important for the preservation of “Russianness” there: the Kaliningrad region, the Republic of Crimea, the Far East;

increasing the role of institutions, including national public organizations;

adoption of a comprehensive targeted program of economic and socio-cultural orientation for the revival of villages in the regions of central Russia in new economic conditions (“new Russian village”);

development of patriotic education, cultivation of patriotism and knowledge of the history of one’s country, the role of the Russian people in the heroic pages of the history of the Russian state, national heroes;

the need for a legal and general civil assessment of those tragic events in our history that affected the Russian people, Russians as repressed persons, Russian identity in general;

the need for educational and cultural-educational measures to form Russian identity, familiarization with the Old Church Slavonic language as additional education, studying the life and customs of the Slavs, nurturing a culture of modern communication within one’s national group.

It is also possible to create certain tourist ethnocenters and allocate the appropriate territory for the construction of a center for the development of Russian identity, which would incorporate cultural institutions, ethno-villages and educational institutions for the introduction and study of Russian writing, Russian folk crafts and folklore with a primary focus on its visits by students of educational institutions , including preschool departments.

However, it should be remembered that national identity, including Russian, is not so much connected with the nationality of its bearer, but

determined by the individual's identification with the nation. Therefore, strengthening the position of the Russian language abroad, as well as promoting and protecting the Russian language as the greatest civilizational value within the state, can be considered a certain legal task.

In this regard, the tasks of attracting public attention to the problems of preserving and strengthening the status of the Russian language as the spiritual basis of Russian culture and Russian mentality seem relevant; increasing the level of education and culture of Russian speech in all spheres of functioning of the Russian language; formation of motivation for interest in the Russian language and speech culture among different segments of the population; increasing the number of educational events popularizing the Russian language, literature and culture of the Russian people. Similar directions took place in some regional target programs.

We must also agree that national identity, unlike ethnic identity, presupposes the presence of a certain mental attitude, the individual’s sense of belonging to a large socio-political entity. Therefore, one should warn against popularizing the idea of ​​​​creating a “Russian state.” At the same time, the introduction into the current federal legislation of provisions aimed at

the emergence at the federal level of corresponding national-cultural autonomy as a form of national-cultural self-determination of citizens of the Russian Federation who consider themselves to be part of a certain ethnic community, in order to independently resolve issues of preserving identity, developing language, education, and national culture, is completely justified.

Let us note that the formation of a single Russian nation is possible only if each citizen understands not only his ethnicity, but also his community with fellow citizens of a single multinational country, involvement in their culture and traditions. In this sense, the creation of effective legal mechanisms aimed at the emergence of Russian identity is necessary. Understanding oneself as a Russian, a member of a large community - a single Russian nation, a bearer of Russian national identity as belonging to the Russian state - is a task for several generations. In this regard, legal measures must be taken at the legislative level, along with the existing legal tools for the protection of national and state languages, the development of folk and Russian culture, and the support of the development of regions and geopolitical interests of Russia, which already exist.

Bibliography

Haggman J. Multilingualism and the European Union // Europaisches Journal fur Minderheitenfragen (EJM). 4 (2010) 2.

Touraine A. Production de la societe. P., 1973.

Bulletin of the European Court of Human Rights. Russian edition. 2005. No. 12.

Vasilyeva L.N. Legislative regulation of the use of languages ​​in the Russian Federation. M., 2005.

Gibadullin R. M. Post-Soviet discourse of the nation as a problem of interethnic unity in Russia // Power. 2010. No. 1.

Guboglo M. N. Identification of identity. Ethnosociological essays. M., 2003.

Constitutional law and politics: collection. mater. Intl. scientific conf. (Faculty of Law, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, March 28-30, 2012) / rep. ed. S. A. Avakyan. M., 2012.

Krylova N. S., Vasilyeva T. A. et al. State, law and interethnic relations in Western democracies. M., 1993.

Tishkov V. About the Russian people and national identity in Russia. URL: http://valerytishkov.ru/cntnt/publicacii3/publikacii/o_rossisko.html.

Tishkov V. A. Russian people and national identity // Izvestia. 2014. 13 Nov. Shaporeva D.S. Constitutional foundations of national cultural identification in Russia // Russian justice. 2013. No. 6.

Mechanism of legal acculturation

SOKOLSKAYA Lyudmila Viktorovna, Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Civil Law Disciplines of the Moscow State Regional Humanitarian Institute

Russian Federation, 142611, Orekhovo-Zuevo, st. Green, 22

Legal acculturation is studied - a long-term contact of legal cultures of different societies, using, depending on historical conditions, various methods and ways of influencing each other, the necessary result of which is a change in the original cultural structures of the contacted societies, the formation of a single legal space and a common legal culture. Forms, methods, means and methods of legal acculturation are identified, the mechanism of its functioning and impact on the legal system of modern Russian society is revealed.

Key words: legal culture, legal acculturation, mechanism of legal acculturation, modernization, unification.

Mechanism of Legal Acculturation

L. V. Sokol"skaya, PhD in law

Moscow State Regional Institute of Humanities

22, Zelenaya st., Orekhovo-Zuevo, 142611, Russia

Email: [email protected]

Acculturation - this intercultural contact of various societies. When contacting legal cultures is subject to investigation legal of acculturation. The article reveals the mechanism of legal acculturation as a set of interrelated, interdependent methods, tools, techniques and factors providing intercultural contact of various societies. Parties acculturation: the society-recipient, society-donor, society-partner. In the process of legal acculturation are the following steps: identification of needs, borrowing, adaptation, perception (assimilation), result. Depending on the position of society enters into intercultural contact and acculturation distinguish legal mechanism such historical forms as reception, expansion, assimilation, integration and convergence. The author applied the historical-cultural studies approach.

Keywords: legal culture, legal acculturation, the legal mechanism of acculturation, modernization, unification.

DOI: 10.12737/7571

The deepening of the processes of legal integration in the era of globalization gives rise to the need to create and study a mechanism of legal acculturation1, which would

1 Legal acculturation is a long-term contact of legal cultures of different societies, using, depending on historical conditions, a variety of methods and ways of influencing each other, the necessary result of which is a change in the original

differed from the already known and sufficiently researched mechanisms for introducing elements of a foreign legal culture into the national legal culture (for example, the mechanism for implementing international norms

cultural structures of contacted societies, the formation of a single legal space and a common legal culture. See: Sokolskaya L.V. Interaction of legal cultures in the historical process. Orekhovo-Zuevo, 2013.

Maintaining

The process of forming Russian identity, the national identity of citizens of the Russian Federation is a key task of consolidating the multinational Russian people. This is the most important political task aimed at unifying a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional society that has a long history of formation, development and interaction of its constituent parties. Russian national identity is a higher level of identity. According to formal characteristics, it is broader than ethnic identity and has a predominantly expressed political and cultural load, which should be used to consolidate the multinational Russian people.

But this process itself is far from ambiguous, requiring serious scientific development and practical action. What is needed is a developed concept of understanding the all-Russian identity, which should be based on local, ethnic, regional, ethno-confessional ones, which do not contradict the formation of a higher level - the civil identity of Russians. Moreover, it is necessary to develop a specific mechanism for its formation, and here it is important to use the practical experience accumulated in the regions and the country as a whole.

1. Ethnic diversity of Russians

There are several approaches to the theoretical understanding of the national identity of Russians, and corresponding measures for practical implementation are proposed. Some researchers believe that achieving national identity in Russia is possible by overcoming the diversity of different identities existing in the country, giving them a common meaning associated with the political, economic and cultural integration of the Russian peoples. Others express the idea that it is necessary to ignore the ethnocultural diversity of the Russian peoples, their historical past and form a national identity according to the American model. This approach involves forming an identity by imposing it from above on the basis of articulated universal human values ​​in their liberal democratic interpretation and execution.

But Russia is a real plurality: ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity, in which each ethnic group has its own history and present. When studying this diversity, classification, systematization, and hierarchization of identities are assumed. But the core form of the diversity of identities in Russia is ethnic identity with its most important elements: language, religion, moral values, dialects, folklore, territorial attachments, tribal constants, a set of ethnic symbols, etc. All this in its entirety determines the self-awareness of one or another ethnicity, the specifics of ethnic identity.

And all this is characteristic of the peoples of Russia, united in a single state on the basis of general constitutional norms that contribute to the formation of a common national identity of all the peoples of the country. The formation of national identity involves identifying common aspects for all forms of ethnic identities that bind ethnic groups, cultures, religions, and languages. And then mastering these aspects. Russia is a historically formed state; it was not created artificially from among European immigrants, like, for example, the United States. It has a completely different cultural and historical type.

It is a state-civilization that has absorbed and united various ethnic groups and confessions within the Russian sociocultural and political space.
Historically, different concepts have been formed for understanding the path of development of Russia, as well as understanding its future. Classic concepts that comprehend the existence of the peoples of Russia in the social thought of the country are Westernism, Slavophilism and Eurasianism, they combine elements of conservatism, neoconservatism, communitarianism, and democracy.

They reflect various versions of the Russian national idea, Russian self-identification, and national identity.
For modern Russia, which has united various peoples, cultures and confessions over a vast space, an adequate model of its development, from our point of view, is the concept of Eurasianism. Its supporters are many intellectuals from eastern countries, representatives of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Lamaism. The Eurasian essence of Russia is substantiated in sufficient detail by such domestic thinkers as F.N. Dostoevsky, N.S. Trubetskoy, P. Savitsky, L.N. Gumilev, R.G. Abdulatipov, A.G. Dugini etc.

Today, the role of Russia in Eurasian integration and the creation of the Eurasian Union is especially emphasized. This was noted more than once by N. Nazarbayev and A. Lukashenko.
And the President of the State of Kazakhstan, N. Nazarbev, is considered the author of the project for the economic integration of this state, Russia and other CIS states within the Eurasian space, the creation of a common currency and a strong political union.

V.V. Putin writes about the need to reach a higher level of integration of the CIS countries - to the Eurasian Union. We are talking about a model of a powerful supranational association as one of the poles of the modern world, playing the role of an effective “link” between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region. In his opinion, “on the basis of the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space, it is necessary to move to closer coordination of economic and monetary policies and create a full-fledged economic union”1.

Of course, such an integration policy lays the foundation for
formation of a broader form of identity – Eurasian. And her
formation is a practical task, but as noted above, theoretical
the basis for it was laid by Eurasians of the past and present. And modern
integration processes will show how adequate it will be.

2. Hierarchy of identities

Even in antiquity, the civilized Greeks considered everyone who spoke Greek to be a Hellene, and anyone who did not speak it and adhered to other customs was considered a barbarian. Today the civilized Western world does not adhere to such a tough position. But knowledge of European languages, especially English, is still a sign of civilization, orientation toward modernity, and inclusion in an open Western society. At the same time, in many European countries, due to the development of multiculturalism, excellent conditions have been created for immigrants (“barbarians”) in terms of learning the language of the host country while simultaneously studying their native languages. In Norwegian cities such as Oslo, Stavanger, Sadnes, Kalsberg, where the author of these lines has visited, children of Chechen immigrants study their native language in Norwegian schools. For this purpose, schools hire teachers of Chechen nationality who find themselves in immigration.

Meanwhile, for Russia, which has become a large country of migrants and immigrants, this experience would be useful; it should be carefully studied and applied. Studying the Russian language and literature, history and culture, the foundations of the Russian state and law is vitally important for immigrants, because this process, when thoroughly implemented, contributes to the integration of a foreign ethnic, foreign cultural element into the sociocultural space of the country. The country should pay more attention to this, because the immigration flow to Russia will not decrease. And this is shown by the modern political processes taking place in Ukraine, the changing geopolitical contours around the country, the formation of a new Ukrainian mentality and identity.

The need to study the Russian language, national history and culture today has increased significantly, which requires the implementation of appropriate practical measures. This requires thorough work from improving the quality of teaching the Russian language, history and culture in all schools of the country to the development of original, new textbooks for schoolchildren, teaching aids for teachers with appropriate information support.

At the same time, it is surprising that the Russian Ministry of Education and Science is reducing the teaching of native languages ​​in some regions of the country - republics. Such a language policy is wrong; it will certainly entail negative consequences, including ethnic indignation and discontent.

Thus, in the Chechen Republic, for example, fewer and fewer hours are allocated for studying the Chechen language. In the educational standards of schools, hours for studying the history of the region and the republic have been eliminated, and the so-called regional component has been gradually eliminated. If this is an experiment, then it is frankly unsuccessful.

The formation of federal districts and the attribution to them of various regions, territories, and republics of the country leads to the formation of a regional form of identity in the public consciousness of people. You can build the following hierarchy of identities: local (local), regional and all-Russian.

We can also propose the following combination: national, subnational and supranational forms of identities. It should also be taken into account that religion plays an important role in the formation of various types of identities, the self-awareness of a person, a group of people, and an ethnic group. Ethnic identity is a combination of different levels of identities, and these levels should be absorbed into the all-Russian identity as an awareness of citizens’ belonging to a common state, developed by patriotism.

3. Formation of Russian identity

The formation of Russian identity presupposes the presence and awareness of ethnic, group, and regional forms of identity. This process itself is multi-level and, in our opinion, it should be formed on the basis of these forms, their real consolidation. The mechanism for the formation of all-Russian identity involves movement from local, ethnic, regional forms of identities to the comprehension and consolidation of all-Russian values ​​that form the national identity of the country.

Russian identity is the bonds that hold the peoples and nations of the country in a common orbit, defining state, geopolitical identification, the destruction of which will certainly entail the collapse of the state and the formation of a number of small states with different vectors of political development. Russian identity is associated with the defense of state integrity, the formation of a national idea as the dominant one among other forms of identities.

And for the United States, the problem of forming American national identity today is acquiring very serious significance. The famous American political scientist S. Huntington writes about this in detail in his book “Who are we?” He declares a decline in Americans' awareness of their own identity and the threat of its replacement by subnational, binational and transnational forms of identities; in his book he proves the thesis that the United States is gradually turning into a Spanish-speaking country3.

Taking into account the ethnic component when forming Russian identity is mandatory, without which it will lose its support, roots, and history.
The American option of forming an identity constructed on the basis of a “melting pot of assimilation” is unacceptable for Russia. For Russia is a completely different ethno-territorial, political, cultural, multi-confessional entity. Religion, in particular Orthodoxy, Islam, Lamaism, etc., should play an important role in the formation of Russian identity.

Using the example of the United States, S. Huntington identified four main elements of American identity - ethnic, racial, cultural and political - and showed their changing significance4.

In his opinion, “it was the Anglo-Protestant culture of the settlers that had the greatest influence on the formation of American culture, the American way and American identity”5.

Do such forms of identity exist among Russians? I think so, but not as pronounced as it is in American society. Their penetration and awareness is the result of the influence of democratic culture and liberal ideology on Russians. But these values ​​did not take deep roots in Russia, although they covered approximately 10% of the population. First of all, these include the bearers of the ideas of Bolotnaya Square and all others who agree with them.

Success in the formation of Russian national identity largely depends on solid theoretical and practical activities. To do this, it is necessary to identify such values, the development of which would contribute to the unity of the multinational Russian people. At one time, while in immigration, the Russian philosopher I. Ilyin drew attention to this. He claims that the Russian people “created the rule of law for one hundred and sixty different tribes - various and diverse minorities, for centuries showing complacent flexibility and peaceful accommodation...”6

For him, the idea of ​​a homeland and a sense of patriotism are inevitable for historical development
peoples, they have national significance and cultural productivity; in addition, they are sacred, that is, sacred7.

Another deep thought of I. Ilyin: “He who speaks about the homeland understands the spiritual unity of his people”8.

The idea of ​​the motherland, love for it, patriotism are among the core components of the national identity of Russians, as well as of any people.
Each people, being part of a common state, should have ample opportunities for the development of their culture. At one time, Nikolai Trubetskoy, a linguist and founder of the theory of Eurasianism, drew attention to this. He writes: “In its national culture, each people must clearly reveal its entire individuality, moreover, in such a way that all elements of this culture are in harmony with each other, being colored in one common national tone”9.

According to N. Trubetskoy, a universal human culture that is the same for everyone is impossible. Explaining his position, he states: “Given the motley diversity of national characters and mental types, such a “universal culture” would be reduced either to the satisfaction of purely material needs while completely ignoring spiritual needs, or would impose on all peoples forms of life arising from the national character of some one ethnographic individual"10.

But such a “universal culture,” in his opinion, is the source of true happiness
I wouldn't give it to anyone.

4. Artificial construction of ethnicity is a wrong path

N. Trubetskov’s thoughts, from our point of view, turned out to be prophetic to a certain extent; they anticipated the impossibility of creating a cosmopolitan culture on the basis of which it is possible to build universal human relations, which the Bolsheviks sought at one time, and today representatives of the liberal democratic theory are also achieving, recognizing the possibility constructing ethnic groups, nations, and, in the future, a cosmopolitan community.

Despite the obvious theoretical and practical failures of the liberals, their ideas are preserved and even produced in Russian social thought.
One of the Russian authors who supports the construction of ethnic groups and nations according to the American model is V.A. Tishkov. In his publications, he proposes to “forget nations,” declares some Russian ethnic groups, for example, Chechens to be thieves and anti-Semites, reveals the mechanism for constructing Chechens “on the basis of ethnographic garbage”11, and proposes to perform a “requiem for ethnic groups”12.

In his next book “The Russian People” V.A. Tishkov makes an equally dubious assertion that “Russia has existed as a national state since the time of the late Romanovs, was such during the existence of the USSR and, without a doubt, is a national state in the community of united nations, not fundamentally different from other states”13.

Commenting on this statement, one cannot help but admit that, after all, under the Romanovs, Russia did not exist as a “national state”; it did not exist under the USSR, which represented a “union of socialist republics”, establishing completely different economic and political orders.

It is also doubtful that Russia is a “national state in the commonwealth of the United Nations.” And how does this statement correlate with the constitutional statement: “We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation...”?
Isn't Russia as a state different from France, Britain, and the USA?
Until now, all well-known Russian historians unanimously declared the striking differences between the Russian state and Western and Eastern states; now a statement is proposed about the absence of a fundamental difference between them.

It is unlikely that these ethnological “innovations” bring us closer to scientific truth, lead to cognitive positivity, provide new knowledge, or work for ethnopolitical stability in the country.
In the country, in order to achieve the unity of peoples, the consolidation of nations, it is fundamentally important to overcome the ideological and psychological stereotypes that oppose them. The frank statements made by some Russian men in power against the Caucasians cannot be called anything other than a provocation. This refers to the anti-Caucasian position of the Governor of the Krasnodar Territory A. Tkachev and State Duma Deputy V. Zhirinovsky.

Thus, in A. Tkachev presents the North Caucasians as some kind of aggressors who are destroying interethnic unity in the region. And to counteract them, he created a police force of one thousand Cossacks. Their goal is to prevent North Caucasians from entering the Krasnodar region, and to push out those who made it in, even though they are citizens of Russia14.

Many politicians in the last few years have felt the growth of nationalist sentiments in Russia and are trying to increase their ratings by opposing and pitting people against each other. An inimitable example of such a position in Russia is Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In 1992, when he visited Chechnya and met with Dzhokhar Dudayev, being well drunk, he said that there are three men in the world: Saddam Hussein, Dzhokhar Dudayev and he, Zhirinovsky. But upon returning to Moscow, he began to call on the authorities to resolve the “Chechen issue” by force. During the hostilities in 1995, he proposed solving the same issue by launching a nuclear strike on the territory of Chechnya.

In October 2013, in the TV show “Duel,” he proposed that the Russian state surround the North Caucasus with barbed wire and pass a law limiting the birth rate in Caucasian families. Zhirinovsky stated that the main problem for Russia is Moscow, the North Caucasus, Caucasians, Chechens robbing Russia. After such statements of his, marches and rallies were held in different cities of Russia with slogans: “Down with Caucasians”, “Migrants are occupiers”, “Stop feeding the Caucasus”, “Caucasians are enemies of Russia”, “Russia is not the Caucasus”, “Russia without chocks, Caucasians and Turks,” etc.

Zhirinovsky heads the opposition party in Russia, so he is free in his statements, but this freedom incites ethnic hatred. Often the manifestation of such freedom is followed by the murder of Caucasians, Asians, and foreigners on the streets of large cities of the country at the hands of fascist elements.

V.V. has a completely different position on the problems of interethnic relations. Putin, which is systematically reflected in her article “Russia: the national question.” He writes that “we are a multinational society, but a single people,” and condemns nationalism, national enmity, hatred of people of a different culture and a different faith15.

Revealing the history of the formation of complex and contradictory Russian statehood, the unity of peoples, he emphasizes the presence of common bonds and values ​​that unite them, highlights the Russian cultural dominant, and recognizes the need for a state national policy strategy based on civil patriotism. Based on this, V.V. Putin states that “any person living in our country should not forget about his faith and ethnicity”16.

To be a citizen of Russia and be proud of it, recognition of the laws of the state and the subordination of national and religious characteristics to them, taking into account these characteristics by Russian laws is the basis of patriotism, Russian national identity.
Multinationality, diversity, as V.V. repeatedly emphasizes. Putin, historically developed in Russia, is its advantage and strength. And in what way is the community, the unity of this diversity manifested? And this is deeply expressed in the thoughts of I. Ilyin, quoted in the article by V.V. Putin: “Do not eradicate, do not suppress, do not enslave the blood of others, do not strangle foreign and heterodox life, but give everyone breath and a great Motherland...

to keep everyone, to reconcile everyone, to let everyone pray in their own way, to work in their own way, and to involve the best from everywhere in state and cultural construction”17.

These remarkable words contain a mechanism for the formation of an all-Russian identity, and their modern understanding allows us to form a corresponding concept. The country has created many conditions for the formation of an all-Russian identity, which is associated with the activities of the state for the ethnocultural development of the peoples of the country, while each people works in its own way, develops in its own way, within the framework of the general state national strategy, interethnic hostility is overcome, the best representatives of peoples are involved in state, cultural , educational, scientific construction.

At the same time, there are flaws in the all-Russian policy of forming national identity: the best representatives of ethnic groups do not always get to the federal level; if they do, it is through corruption schemes; There is clanism, nepotism in the selection and placement of personnel, etc. These negative social phenomena weaken the process of strong formation of an all-Russian civic identity.

Overcoming them, selecting worthy representatives of Russian ethnic groups to work in various structures at the regional and federal levels, and developing civic consciousness will be aimed at consolidating the multinational Russian people and forming an all-Russian national identity.

Conclusion

The problems of diversity of identities, their coexistence and interaction, the path of transition of ethnic identity to a civil form of identity require thorough theoretical study, the creation of practical conditions, close monitoring of interethnic relations, and generalization of its results. This work is aimed at coordinating the efforts of theorists and practitioners. To successfully implement this task of great national importance, it seems to us that a special institution should be created.

I believe that the time is long overdue for the re-establishment of the Ministry of National Policy in Russia, which would be focused on solving a range of old and new problems associated with ethnopolitical, ethno-religious and migration problems that have become prominent in the country today. There is no doubt that events in and around Ukraine may well have a negative impact on interethnic relations in Russia.

1. Putin V.V. A new integration project for Eurasia is a future that
born today // Izvestia. – 2011. – October 3.
2. Huntington S. Who are we?: Challenges to American national identity. – M.:
2004. – P. 15.
3. Ibid. – P. 32.
4. Ibid. – P. 73.
5. Ibid. – P. 74.
6. Ilyin I.A. Why we believe in Russia: Essays. – M.: Eksmo, 2006. – P. 9.
7. Ibid. – P. 284.
8. Ibid. – P. 285.
9. Trubetskoy N. The Legacy of Genghis Khan. – M.: Eksmo, 2007. – P. 170.
10. Ibid.
11. Tishkov V.A. Society in armed conflict (ethnography of the Chechen war).
– M.: Nauka, 2001. – P. 193, pp. 412-413.
12. See: Tishkov V.A. Requiem for Ethnicity: Studies in Socio-Cultural
anthropology. – M.: Nauka, 2003.
13. Tishkov V.A. Russian people: history and meaning of national identity.
– M.: Nauka, 2013. – P. 7.
14. Akaev V. Strange statement of the governor // http://rukavkaz.ru/articles/
comments/2461/
15. Putin V.V. Russia: the national question // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. – 2013. - 22
January.
16. Ibid.
17. Quoted: Ibid.
71. November 2014 No. 11

Vainakh, No. 11, 2014