Russian Identity

In the Soviet Russia, 1917-1991, the issue of Russian nationalism as part of Soviet ideology is worth to be mentioned. Russian nationalism became more direct in the years of the World War II. The Orthodox Church obtained a patriarch, strengthened its organization, and in general made a certain recovery after what have been one of the most devastating religious persecutions in World history.(ibid. : 219) In foreign policy, the Soviet Union and its East European satellites continued to confront the US and its allies. Most of the world came to be divided between the two camps. The confrontation was a most impressive and lasting demonstration of the mobilized might and hostility of the two sides. (ibid. : 221) The Soviet Union came to be divided into 15 union republics and over a hundred smaller subdivisions based on the Ethnic principle. (ibid.: 222)

II.2.2      The view of Western scholars

John O'Loughlin and Paul F. Talbot talk about Soviet Union. The end as a unified territory and the effect that this disintegration had on the geopolitical imaginations of Russian people. Russian people unlike other post-communist states, which returned to a pre-communist past for symbols of its national identity, Russia faced a crises of identity. The search for a new traditional identity has been ongoing in Russia since 1991, becoming a centerpiece of Putin strategy to resurcate state authority in the wake of Yeltsin years in the Kremlin. Russia has been questioning the national identity. Ordinary Russians sense of national identity has influenced public opinion. The collapse of the Soviet Union generated new mental maps for Russians.(Loughlin and Talbot, 2005: 26) Sparked by NATO expansion, questions of great power conflict, territorial control and influence, and national identity have once again become part of the agenda. Visions of ordinary Russians is based on aspects of identity formation that are rooted in territory. It is a map that shows Russia as a specific territory that does not include the other republics of the former Soviet Union.(ibid. : 28)

If  we  turn to Graham Smith, who said that Russia has undergone a significant shift in foreign policy since 1993, and reformulation of Russia’s foreign policy reflects a more systemic crises of national identity. The place ascribed to Russia within global affairs has become scripted as part of an explicitly geopolitical discourse based on competing representations of Russia bound up with the idea of Eurasia. Based on the notion that Russia should follow its distinctive societal and geopolitical path separately from Europe an the West, its distinctiveness as part of Eurasian civilization constituting a geopolitical bridge between Europe and Asia or simply an alternative to both. The idea of Russia becoming an equal partner of the West was rapidly inscribed in official government discourse. (Smith, 1999: 481) George Schopflin in “Identities, Politics and Post-Communism in Central Europe” says that Identity offers a rationality of its own that neither a universalistic nor a particularistic perspective satisfactorily resolves these problems.(Schopflin, 2003: 479)

II.2.3.     The view of Russian Politicians

For all this discussed previously, I can say that there was throughout a history of Russia, a struggle for Russian identity. There were many successful attempts to give Russia its own character, and its own values. It was an important thing. To turn to the identity of Russia nowadays, I will introduce you to Russian political thinking, and will introduce you to the views of Russian politicians. For example, Kazarkin, in his observation of history in conjunction to identity formation nowadays, says that:

“I would talk about how Russia has evolved in a number of spatial settings, from the great expanse of the nation as a whole, to the region, and to the home (prostranstvenno, regional’no, domashne). First, how Russia was formed (sozdavalas’) region by region: Kievan Rus, the northern forested regions, the area along the Volga and the Don, the Urals, and Siberia. During the Soviet period, research and publishing on local history (kraevedenie) was pretty much curtailed, and this tradition has to be restored as we create a new patriotic consciousness, which has to be a living thing. Religion is important, and Russian Orthodoxy definitely falls within the boundaries of this identity. Paganism was also a factor but not as the state religion of a unified Rus, so there was no such thing as “Pagan Rus’” (iazycheskaia Rus’) but the pagan beliefs of a number of tribes which varied from region to region. For the past thousand years, Orthodoxy has played a key role in the history of our state and the identity of its inhabitants. We can’t talk about Russia as being something united only by a common language–that wouldn’t be enough to make us a people. And when we talk about the Russian character, of course we have to bring in Russian literature in the broadest sense, the Russian classics. Literature can still be seen as something that holds the nation together (derzhit natsiiu), that appreciates our national identity[6].

For sure, his view on identity is alike the common existing in Russia view.  This view underlines the existing Russian state as an entity, and develops the common view on history of Russia, as well as on the main characteristics of Russian state. It distinguishes a unique Russian nature of state, which is build up in conjunction with history of Russia, and it promotes common features equal to existing values of the state. This is a general existing view on the problem. To look deeper on the topic, one should pay attention to another politician, Chubais.

Chubais says: ... Russia is experiencing a polysystemic crisis. If the most acute (samyi ostryi) crisis is economic, then the deepest crisis is over ideas and identity. We aren’t sure who we are and what our identity is, and until we can do that we won’t be able to solve any of our other problems. Some people insist that there is no crisis. Others say that the crisis arose only in 1996, when President Yeltsin announced that we needed a new national idea. A third group says that the crisis arose in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed (kogda rukhnul Sovetskii Soiuz).

I’m convinced that the crisis arose towards the end of the 19th century. Dostoevsky, Berdyaev, Solovyev and other powerful Russian thinkers. . . .wrote extensively about Russian national identity. What kind of crisis was this? And what kind of identity do we have? We can only answer this question when we take into account that we are talking about a process, a dynamic process. . . . We have to talk about what has taken place, what are the tendencies and the lines [of development].

At the end of the 19th century we had a crisis of ideas. . . . Russian identity was built around three principles, three fundamental values: Orthodoxy, imperial policies such as the expansion of the nation’s territory, and peasant collectivism (obshchinnyi kollektivizm). All three principles were unstable (shatalis’) at the end of the 19th century. The expansion of land had exhausted itself and come to an end (ischerpalo), as it reached natural limits in the south. Western expansion was pretty much finished by the end of the 18th century. Orthodoxy, like all Christianity, was in the midst of a crisis. Nietzsche wrote about this in Europe and Dostoevsky wrote about it in Russia. And with Orthodoxy in a crisis all sorts of phenomena began to appear–nihilists, terrorists, bomb-throwers (nigilisty, terroristy, bombisty, vse eti -isty), all these types who caused problems for Russia. And the third element, peasant collectivism, was also in a crisis. As a result of the Stolypin reforms the peasants were leaving the commune (obshchina), and it began to dissolve as a social structure and as a social community (obshchnost’)[7].

I would propose that Chubais is giving another view on the problem. However, in his comments, there are, for most part, interesting ideas on the topic. One should say that it´s quite a broad and problematic description of the issue, which explains crisis of ideas in a society. However, his ideas are based on history of the problem, and ideologically constructed issues are a matter of the deep and broad thinking of a politician.

Another politician in Russia, Kara-Murza, says that:  ….  what it is that makes Russia possible, what held it together?. . . . I think that there are three forms of integration that hold the community (obshchnost’, sotsium) together:

(1) As an ethnocracy (etnokratiia), where the ethnic sign has a unifying power. . . .

(2) The second way is through state service, through a vertical status hierarchy….

(3) The third principle is more contemporary. It’s a horizontal integration through the reconfiguring (obustroistvo) of territories and cultures, based on the principle of the nation-state (politicheskaia natsiia). On the one hand, it’s half-ethnic, because the nation is partly an ethnic construct. On the other hand, the nation is built to a significant degree on horizontal ties, while the imperial principle involves a vertical structure. These three principles are of course not mutually exclusive, but at any given moment, one will dominate.

Here, Kara-Murza touches upon the issue of nation-state and defines the building blocks, or its compounds of the state. To be correct in defining these principles, he is using the theory of nation-state, which also can be used in defining a political identity of Russia. Here, we face an interesting statement that integration of the community can include three main principles. I would propose that Kara-Murza explains certain trends in the nation-state formation, and proposes fruiful arguments about political structure of the state, therefore, explaining Russian state identity.

Chubais correctly names the three identity principles that, when taken together, made Russia possible before the Revolution: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. Which is the most important? Religious theoreticians, at least the liberal ones, all agree that while the wish was for the principles of Orthodoxy and Orthodox communities (pravoslavnye obshchiny) to guide the nation, in practice it is the imperial principle that has been decisive. It subordinated the church to itself, made the church part of the state (ogosudarstvil tserkov’).

The imperial principle dominated, and it was Peter who made this happen. He brought communal structures into the table of ranks, subordinating them to the interests of the empire. And I think that Chubais is right that Communist identity recreated these structures: instead of Orthodoxy there was Communism, instead of the imperial table of ranks there was the hierarchy of Party committees, and the new Soviet collectivism took a variety of forms. What I can’t say is how one can call this a violation of Russian tradition–it was a continuation of Russian (rossiiskii) tradition. These traditions were winding down, and the Bolsheviks had to use force to maintain this old imperial logic. Andropov and Stalin to an extent modeled themselves on Peter the Great. Whether they did this intentionally or not, they worked in similar ways[8].

Here, one might say that Chubais underlines three main principles of Russian identity: Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality, giving personal views on the issue. However, in my work, I don´t define Autocracy and Nationality as main principles, that would argue with my whole work argumentation. On the other hand, Chubais is said to reflect the interests of Oligarchs in Russia. That makes his comments rather interesting from the point of view of a researcher, who is interested in many of different views on the issue.

Kara-Murza says: We’ve talked about internal identity, self-identity (samoidentichnost’) and ways in which Russia has not completely worked this out. Now we are talking about external identity (vneshniaia identichnost’), Russia on the outside (Rossiia vovne), how the country positions itself in the international sphere. The conflicting, mutually exclusive conceptions of how to describe the present situation belong to three basic groups.

(1) The first idea is that Russia is Europe, that it is genetically descended from Christian civilization, albeit in its Eastern variant, so it’s Eastern Europe. Variants of this idea see Russia as a Europe that is underdeveloped (nedorazvitaia), sick (bol’naia), failed (neudavshaiasia), or just-born-but-already-corrupted (tol’ko nachavshaiasia rozhdat’sia no uzhe isporchennaia). There is also the belief that Russia is the best Europe (luchshaia Evropa), to use an expression coined by Georgii Fedotov ..., the idea that Russia is Europe is the one that I agree with.

(2) The second idea is that Russia is Eurasia, and in this sense, a Eurasia in opposition to Europe. Lev Gumilev believed that in a certain sense the Russian and Turkic peoples complemented each other, that the Russians were simultaneously Slavic and Turkic. From this you get neo-Eurasians, the interest in Chingiz Khan as part of the Russian genetic constitution (genotip), the opposition of Eurasia and Europe. In this conception, Christianity doesn’t play much of a role. . . .

(3) The third idea is one that comes from the early Slavophiles and can be traced from there to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Russia is neither West nor East, Russia is the North, the idea of the northernness (severianstvo) of Russia. Russia is not Europe, but it also has no relationship of any kind to Asia. Russia is the North, it is Orthodox, directly in opposition to Europeanness with its Latin confession, and to Islam.

These are three powerful conceptions, existing in opposition to each other, with little in common. While there are moments in history when they were brought together by (za schet) the imperial idea, they could only be united through force (nasil’stvennym sposobom). . . . How could you harmonize these identities in a non-coercive way? I completely agree with Professor Aksiuchits that this country is Christian at its base (po genotipu), but in the 20th century there are massive problems of a culturological nature. Judging by the classic theoretical works, civilizations are formed on the basis of one religion (tsivilizatsii konstatiruiutsia bazovoi religiei), which some call the sacred vertical (sakral’nyi vertikal).

. . . Russia is a country with a dual identity (dual’naia identichnost’) in its culture, civilization, and geopolitics. In the sense of culture and civilization it is undeniably European. It is the Eastern Orthodox variant, standing in contrast, even in opposition, to Catholic Western Europe, but this is still all within the European context.

Geopolitically, we are Eurasia. This gets confused all the time. The intelligentsia likes to say that we are completely European, and whatever they can’t fit into that picture is deemed unnecessary. This is a dangerous delusion (zabluzhdenie) of the intelligentsia consciousness. The contradiction between cultural and geopolitical identities matches to a large extent the difference between the intelligentsia and the regime. . . . They want to be civilized, like Europe. I wouldn’t say we have a geopolitical mission, but we find ourselves on a geopolitical landscape. Russia has a mission to hold onto that expanse and protect it from chaos. But to expand this geopolitical idea to the cultural realm is wrong. Not only did the intelligentsia try to substitute their own idea of culture for conceptions of power, but the geopolitical imperatives, the holding on to power and land, often expanded to the idea of culture, suppressing it. That’s why the Western-oriented intelligentsia so often was cut down (vyrezalas’) during the cruel totalitarian years, both in the tsarist and Soviet eras. The search for harmony between the European cultural and Eurasian geopolitical identities is one of the most complex tasks that faces a Russia in search of unity. An analysis, a diagnosis, is the first step[9]. . . .

Kara-Murza reflects thoughts of intelligentsia in Russia. The question of the status of development in Russia, its position in modern world till this time was very difficult to handle. Why? Truly, Russia is a big territorial state, which is situated between Europe and Asia, besides, a big part of territory is in the North of Russia, with its ethnos and peoples. However, not looking at its big territories, big part of people is in the European part. In all historical times, politics of state was defined in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. Besides, there was a big influence of European states. All this defined the development of Russia as a civilization, oriented on Europe. That’s why,  I consider that Russia, for most part is close to Europe, and will agree with a thesis that Russia is Europe, is Eurasia. Modern development of Europe also shows that it is oriented more on Europe than on Asia.

Chubais: In determining whether Russia is Europe or Asia, a lot depends on the methodology used. If we say that the basis (osnova) of Russian (rossiiskii) identity is ethnically Russian (russkii), then we will get one type of answer. If we see religion as the foundation, then we will arrive at a different solution. As we look at geopolitical space, we’ll get a third variant. So the methodology, and what we choose as our fundamental element, are all-important. . . . This identity question is something that will be decided by society and not by the political elite, which will make a mistake if it doesn’t listen to what society wants.

On the question of determining Russia’s place in the world–as European, Asian, or Eurasian, or some other variant–the Europe/Asia dilemma is too narrowly stated and doesn’t work (ne srabatyvaet)–the result is always a state of vague disagreement. The question is broader than that and needs to be looked at less theoretically and more practically. Russia can and must feel at home (svoi) in Europe, and can come to an understanding of its position in Asia–that is what our forefathers did as they moved on from here to Alaska[10].

Chugrov: We have to find a balance. In the Russian mentality there is a sense of inner conflict and contradiction. I fully agree with those who call Russia a torn country (razorvannaia strana). If we choose to talk about identity as a subjective and dynamic category, then we have to ask people how they feel and how they want to feel in the future, what kind of life they want for Russia. More than 90% say they want it to be like it is in the West. Russians don’t want to live in a place like Iran or Pakistan, or–despite our better relations with these countries–like people in China or India.

. . . Russia is Europe in its self-consciousness, but with its own original profile. But this can give rise to serious conflict. The West, seeing itself as a model for Russia, relates to it like a sister, not as if it is a foreign element . . . but like a person acts towards a relative. And we know that you make more demands of a relative than of a stranger to whom you can smile politely–that is the basis of the criticism that the West makes of Russia. A culturally closer Russia irritates the West more than a distant China or India, and Russia ought to understand this. For decades, the West feared a nuclear attack, and this left its psychological traces. When this danger passed and the situation changed completely, first there were benevolent feelings and then disillusionment, more or less as we felt towards them. . . . The West’s fear of Russia is a legacy of the Communist past.

How should Russia act? I don’t think that Russia should choose an orientation either towards the West or towards the East. We should act in an ad hoc way in each situation, according to our national interests and the internal problems we are trying to solve. We should have close, friendly relations with the United States, but not try to please (ponravit’sia) or charm the West. If Russia acts according to this principle, I think that in a couple of decades it will once again be a great power (velikaia derzhava), and it won’t have been achieved artificially, but in a natural way[11].

However, I agree with a view of Chugrov, who sees Russia as an independent state, not oriented on interests of only West, or only East, but a state, oriented on political interests on the West, and on the East. From my view, Russia cannot be a boat which has lost its orientation, standing on one place, and trying to find its way out. In my opinion, Russia, for most part, should take a course on  the West, on contacts with the USA, and Europe. 

To conclude  this chapter, I should notice the difference in perception of Russian identity by different scholars. Western scholars write that identity of Russia is based on the years of history and historical change. This view is quite common. Truly, a state is nothing without history. All the historical events make up the basis for state formation, and significantly define state in the world politics.  For Russian scholars, identity formation is mostly a process, based on history of Russia, as well as on the internal factors, such as nation-state formation. National identity is viewed by them as a significantly most important factor is state formation, and state is seen as a permanent value which develops in time. Politicians nowadays reflect the views of Russia on Russian identity. There is an idea in Russian intelligentsia, that Russia is a part of Europe, and on the other hand, that it is an independent entity which has its own way in history of Russia, and therefore its own national identity. However, these views are a part of ideological process in the identity formation, and these values are a historically made up principles which reflect people’s minds and their common ideas. Main ideological thinking about fate of Russia started to exist from long ago. They reflected ideas about common Russian soil, Motherland, Russian soul, Russian state behavior, etc. To make an observation of these main ideologies, I will move you to the next chapter, about ideologies of Russia, and later, to a theory of civilizations, after which I will give you my own view on the problem.

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