The concept of Russian identity. Vakhit Akaev

Who are Russians in the 21st century? What unites them and makes them move together in the same direction? Do they have a common future - and if so, what is it like? Identity is a concept as complex and vague as "society", "culture", "order" and others. Discussions around the definition of identity have been going on for a long time and will continue for a long time. One thing is clear: without identity analysis, we will not be able to answer any of the above questions.

These questions will be considered by leading thinkers and intellectuals at the upcoming anniversary summit of the Valdai International Discussion Club, which will be held in Russia this September. In the meantime, it's time to "pave the way" for these discussions, for which I would like to propose a few, in my opinion, important points.

First, identity is not created once and for all, it is constantly changing as part of the process of social transformations and interactions.

Secondly, today we carry a whole "portfolio of identities" that may or may not be combined with each other. One and the same person, being, say, in a remote region of Tatarstan, is associated with a resident of Kazan; when he comes to Moscow, he is a "Tatar"; in Berlin he is Russian, and in Africa he is white.

Thirdly, identity usually weakens during periods of peace and strengthens (or, on the contrary, breaks up) during periods of crises, conflicts and wars. The War of Independence created American identity, the Great Patriotic War strengthened Soviet identity, the wars in Chechnya and Ossetia provided powerful impetus for discussions about contemporary Russian identity.

Modern Russian identity includes the following dimensions: national identity, territorial identity, religious identity and, finally, ideological or political identity.

National identity

In the Soviet period, the former imperial identity was replaced by an international Soviet identity. Although the Russian Republic existed within the framework of the USSR, it did not possess the most important features and attributes of statehood.

The collapse of the USSR was one of its reasons for the awakening of the national consciousness of Russians. But, having barely been born, the new state - the Russian Federation - faced the problem: is it the legal successor and legal heir of the USSR or the Russian Empire? Or is it a completely new state? The controversy over this continues to this day.

The neo-Soviet approach regards today's Russia as a "Soviet Union without ideology" and demands the restoration of the USSR in one form or another. On the political stage, this worldview is mainly represented by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF).

Another approach sees Russia as a multinational state within its current borders and as the legal successor of the Russian Empire and the USSR. There is no need for territorial expansion today, but one's own territory, including non-Russian regions, is considered sacred and indivisible. According to this approach, Russia also has primary interests and even a mission in the territory of the former USSR. Therefore, it must, on the one hand, try to integrate this space in various ways, and on the other hand, protect the rights of its compatriots living in the new independent states. This approach is shared by most Russians and proclaimed by President Putin and the United Russia party.

The third approach claims that Russia is the state of Russians, that the imperial and Soviet past are equally tragic pages of history that need to be closed. Instead, it is desirable to reunite the lands inhabited by Russians, such as the Crimea, Northern Kazakhstan, etc. At the same time, it is better to give away part of the territories, primarily the North Caucasus and especially Chechnya.

The main challenge to the national identity of Russians today is the question of the right of immigrants from the labor-surplus republics of the North Caucasus, without losing their language and faith, to freely move to large metropolitan areas and native Russian regions. Although there are no legal obstacles to this, the process of internal migration causes great tension and leads to the strengthening of Russian nationalist sentiments, including the most extremist ones.

Territorial Aspect of Russian Identity

Over the past five centuries, this aspect has been one of the most important. The territory of the Russian Empire, and then the USSR, continuously expanded, which led to the formation of the largest state on Earth, and this feature of Russia has long been a matter of our pride. Any territorial loss is perceived very painfully, so the collapse of the USSR inflicted severe trauma on Russian self-consciousness from this point of view as well.

The war in Chechnya demonstrated Russia's readiness to uphold this value, regardless of any casualties. While the idea of ​​accepting Chechnya's secession gained popularity at some moments of defeat, it was the restoration of Russian control over the republic that underpinned Putin's unprecedented popular support in the early 2000s.

The vast majority of Russians consider the preservation of the territorial integrity and unity of Russia to be the most important element of Russian identity, the most important principle that the country should be guided by.

The third aspect of Russian identity is religious

Today, more than 80% of Russians call themselves Orthodox, and the Russian Orthodox Church has received a semi-state status and has a great influence on the policy of the authorities in areas that are significant to it. There is a Russian version of the "symphony", the Orthodox ideal of cooperation between secular and sacred authorities, high priest and emperor.

And yet, the prestige of the church over the past two years in society has been shaken. First of all, the unofficial taboo against criticizing the Russian Orthodox Church, which had existed for more than two decades, disappeared. The liberal part of society moved into open opposition to the church.

Against this background, even atheism, forgotten after the collapse of communism, is gradually returning to the scene. But much more dangerous for the ROC is the missionary activity of non-Orthodox Christian denominations, primarily Protestant ones, as well as the spread of Islam beyond its traditional habitat. Most importantly, the power of faith of newly converted Protestants and Muslims is an order of magnitude greater than that which the parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church have.

Thus, the return of post-communist Russia to Orthodoxy is of a purely superficial, ritual nature; there has been no real churching of the nation.

But an even more dangerous challenge to the Orthodox component of Russian identity is its inability to help the moral revival of Russian society, which today is dominated by disrespect for law, domestic aggression, aversion to productive work, disregard for morality, and a complete lack of mutual cooperation and solidarity.

Ideological aspect

Starting from the Middle Ages, Russian national identity was formed on the idea of ​​opposing others, primarily the West, and asserted its differences from it as positive signs.

The collapse of the USSR made us feel like an inferior, wrong country, which for a long time went "in the wrong direction" and only now is returning to the world family of "correct" peoples.

But such an inferiority complex is a heavy burden, and the Russians gladly abandoned it once the horrors of oligarchic capitalism and the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia destroyed our illusions about the "brave new world" of democracy, the market, and friendship with the West. The image of the West as a role model was completely discredited by the end of the 1990s. With the advent of Putin to the presidency, an accelerated search for an alternative model, other values, began.

At first it was the notion that after Yeltsin's departure, "Russia will rise from its knees." Then came the slogan about Russia as an "energy superpower". And, finally, the concept of "sovereign democracy" by Vladislav Surkov, which states that Russia is a democratic state, but with its own national specifics, and no one from abroad has the right to tell us what kind of democracy and how we need to build.

The solid majority believes that Russia has no natural allies, and our belonging to a European civilization does not mean that our destiny is common with Western Europe and America. The younger and more educated part of Russians still gravitates toward the European Union and even would like Russia to join it, but they are in the minority. The majority want to build a Russian democratic state in their own way and do not expect any help or advice from abroad.

The social ideal of modern Russians can be described as follows. It is an independent and influential, authoritative state in the world. It is an economically highly developed country with a decent standard of living, competitive science and industry. A multinational country where the Russian people play a special, central role, but the rights of people of all nationalities are respected and protected. It is a country with a strong central government headed by a president with broad powers. This is a country where the law triumphs, and everyone is equal before it. A country of restored justice in the relations of people with each other and with the state.

I would like to note that our social ideal lacks such values ​​as the importance of changing power on an alternative basis; the idea of ​​the opposition as the most important institution of the political system; the value of the separation of powers and, moreover, their rivalry; the idea of ​​parliament, parties and representative democracy in general; the value of minority rights and, to a large extent, human rights in general; the value of being open to a world that is seen as a source of threats rather than opportunities.

All of the above are the most important challenges to Russian identity that the country will have to answer if it wants to achieve national goals - a decent life, social justice and respect for Russia in the world.

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

What is ethnos, people? What is a nation? What is their value? Who are the Russians, and who should be considered Russian? On the basis of what can a person be considered as belonging to this or that ethnic group, this or that nation?

Many activists of the Russian national movement know from personal experience of their propaganda and agitation work that a significant number of their listeners and potential supporters, perceiving the generally reasonable ideological attitudes of the nationalists, ask similar questions. This happens especially often among students, intellectuals, among residents of large Russian cities. 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 of its multinationality, because of which the national (in the ethnic sense) ambitions of Russians must inevitably lead to the disintegration of the country and to civil war, following the example of Yugoslavia and some republics of the former USSR. At the same time, gentlemen internationalists brush aside, and sometimes they simply do not want to notice the fact that historically Russia has 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,” our opponents answer, from specific separatists to liberals, from communists to some “statist patriots”. Such a Jesuit blow to Russian self-consciousness during the presidential election campaign was also attempted by “our” bankers with President Nazarbayev, who declared that 40% of Russian citizens are children from mixed marriages.

Unfortunately, many, many Russians, especially those who do not have an “impeccable” pedigree or have relatives, friends with “not quite Russian genealogy”, tend to succumb to this blatantly illiterate demagogy stemming from the lack of elementary knowledge about the essence nation and people. Cosmopolitans often say that “all nations have mixed up”, that nationalism is an animal ideology (remember Okudzhava), which divides people according to the structure of 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, besides fear and disgust, can the average Russian (and even more so non-Russian!) citizen feel towards nationalism, having accepted these arguments? But here a very simple substitution of the concept of “nation” for the concept of “biological population”, the concept of “nationalism” for 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 restriction of its settlement to the territory of Central Russia, as well as the need to automatically recognize the aggressiveness of any attempts to create Russia as a national Russian state.

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

Initially, man was created as a creature living “not by bread alone”, but, and above all, by the spirit. The Creator prepared from above for each his 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 leveling 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 a motley and diverse nature, God created mankind in the same way, in which he created many peoples - each with its own culture, psyche, spirit. Created for the development of man, 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 destiny, the members of which have similar character traits necessary for organizing life in certain natural conditions.

The natural community - ethnos - is united by spiritual kinship (cultural and psychic) ​​and soldered by ethnic solidarity into a single organism. This is how peoples are formed - conciliar personalities, vessels of the spirit from the Spirit. Just as each person is unique, so is the nation, which has its own destiny, its own soul, its own path.

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

“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 ingenious is 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 to the sacred fires of life; for these wells and fires are always national: they contain and live whole centuries of national labor, suffering, struggle, contemplation, prayer and thought. For the Romans, exile was denoted by the words: "prohibition of water and fire." 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 paths, an impersonal internationalist.”

This is what the people are 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-consciousness, which are inherent in the features of the Russian character and mentality, and who are united by the common historical fate of the past, present and future generations of Russian people. So, gentlemen, ethno-nihilists, for us, who consider nationality 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 their own, native, those who cannot imagine their nature without all this, are Russians.

With regard to the alleged diversity of the Russian people, I would like to recall that almost all peoples were formed by a mixture of different bloodlines and tribes, and in the future, depending on historical conditions, some to a greater, others to a lesser extent were subjected to racial miscegenation. Konstantin Leontiev argued that "all the great nations are of very mixed blood."

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

Why not patriotism, namely 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, in 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 make up 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 his own self, his own true and imaginary interests, most of them defend these interests, moreover, consistently and openly. Therefore, bare patriotism as the idea of ​​fellow citizenship without linking to 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 period have convincingly proved this. The facts are well known. This means that without nationalism, without consolidation on an ethnic basis, there will either be no place for Russians in Russia at all, or they will remain, but by no means the kind that befits the people who created the Russian State with their sweat and blood. And without the Russians, there will be no strong, united, independent Russia. Therefore, we are precisely nationalists, Russian nationalists and Russian patriots. We are for the solidarity of Russians.

It is clear that the people are a natural cultural and historical unit. But what is it based on? How is nationality formed, by what criteria is it determined? What predetermined participation in the spirit of the people and its fate? 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?

In the issue of ethnic identity, it is conditionally possible to distinguish approaches: anthropological, sociological, cultural and psychological.

Anthropological (racial) approach or anthropological materialism is that a person's nationality is genetically predetermined. At the same time, by the way, the majority of “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: “Nationhood, or, to put it better, race, is determined not by a common language, but by a common blood. The degree of blood purity alone determines the true strength or weakness of people ... Insufficient homogeneity of blood inevitably leads to insufficient unity of the whole 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 sphere of racial life.”

Recently, the anthropological approach has become dominant among the Russian “extreme right”. Their position was expressed by V. Demin in the Zemshchina newspaper No. 101: “They say that purity of blood is not the most important thing, but the main thing is faith that will save everyone. Undoubtedly, our faith, 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 the ancestors, the memory of glory and the greatness of our family. What is blood memory? How to explain it? Can it be destroyed? While maintaining the purity of the blood, it is impossible to destroy what is in it. It contains our culture, and our faith, and our heroic freedom-loving character, and our love, and our anger. That's what blood is! That is why, until it becomes cloudy, until it dissolves in other blood, does not mix with foreign blood, memory is preserved, which means there is hope to remember everything, and again become a great and mighty people of the earth.

In addition to the “extreme right”, whose opinion is very rarely scientifically substantiated, such well-known theorists and figures as Nikolai Lysenko and Anatoly Ivanov are adherents of the anthropological approach. In his article “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 warehouse. Every language is a different way of thinking. These components make up the 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 still not Hitler, but the famous French social psychologist and biologist G. Lebon. He wrote: “Psychological features are reproduced by heredity with correctness and constancy. This aggregate constitutes what is justifiably called national character. Their totality forms the middle type, which makes it possible to define the people. A thousand Frenchmen, a thousand Englishmen, a thousand Chinese taken at random, of course, must be different 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) - a product of the human nervous system - is inherited genetically. Therefore, nationality directly depends on race.

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

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

The pride and son of the Russian people, A.S. Pushkin, as you know, did not have a primordially 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 because of this?

And another wonderful Russian poet - Zhukovsky, whose not typical Russian appearance is explained by maternal Turkish blood? Or a 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 highlanders of the North Caucasus, who for centuries have been living apart from the passions of continental Europe, through which a great many ethnic forms have passed over two millennia, can still somehow speak about it. About Russia, the conversation is generally special. Ethnographers and anthropologists have not yet come to a common conclusion about who the Russians are - Slavs, Celts, Finno-Ugric peoples, 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 the descendants of not only the ancient Germans, but also dozens of Slavic tribes assimilated by them - Abodrites, Lutiches, Lipons, Gevels, Prussians, Ukrovs, Pomeranians, Sorbs and many others. And the British 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, are today actively involved in English ethnogenesis. So, racial miscegenation (with racially and culturally compatible peoples) of a formed 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 from a mixed marriage, for example, a Turk with a predominance of maternal Slavic traits can be born and grow up. Does that make him stop being a Turk? This is with regard to external anthropological features. But also inherited: temperament, individual character traits (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 that each nation is also characterized by the predominance of one type. We say "temperamental Italians" and we mean that most Italians have a choleric temperament. In relation to representatives of the small northern race, we use the expression "Nordic seasoned", implying the phlegmatic temperament characteristic of most Swedes, Norwegians, etc. Russian temperament, in my opinion, is a mixture of sanguine and melancholic. (I emphasize once again: all this does not mean at all that there are no phlegmatic Italians, choleric Swedes or Russians.)

As for the national character, probably no one has any doubts that it exists. Rational, hardworking and conceited Germans, proud and militant Chechens, patient and hardy Chinese, cunning and prudent Jews. You 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 one must somehow adapt, each ethnic group developed its own character and mentality. Honesty and deceit, frankness and hypocrisy, industriousness 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 nation, 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 dares to assert that all this is predetermined by the genes, that the human will is powerless under the influence of upbringing, environment and through self-development to overcome bad heredity, or create a scoundrel contrary to a quality breed?

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

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

If the spirit always depends on the 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, one can forbid mentioning all of them, as Hitler banned the works of H. Heine - one of the best German lyrical and patriotic poets - for his non-Aryan origin. But it seems that it would be easier and more correct to admit that the essence is not in the genes. Genes are a temperament by which one can only presumably judge a person's nationality, partly a national character is an essential element of ethnic identity, to a large extent also derived from the environment, these are talents and abilities that, 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 makeup. Language, historical memory, cultural identity, national mentality and self-consciousness do not depend on chromosomes. This means that, in total, the factor of race does not play a decisive role in determining nationality. That is why the racist approach to the definition of nationality should be regarded as untenable.

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

Eurasianism (the author is not a follower of this doctrine - V.S.), which rejects economic materialism, sees no reason to accept anthropological materialism, philosophically still much less justified than economic. In questions of culture, which is 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 vast majority of Russians are connected by a common national origin, one should not forget that during the years of Soviet internationalism the Russian race (especially the Russian intelligentsia and residents of large cities) underwent intensive 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 grandparents.

By the way, these figures are not mathematically accurate either - statistics are subjective. But in any case, the percentage of tribally mixed Russians is higher than the average among the Russian intelligentsia - this multimillion-strong layer of mental workers - the backbone of the coming 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 a full-fledged Russian nationalism.

The sociological approach is almost the complete opposite of the anthropological one; it arose in France as a result of the activities of the enlighteners and the realities of the bourgeois revolution. The idea of ​​the 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 a fellow-citizenship - a community of people united by a common political fate 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 was passed together. General achievements. General suffering. General guilt.

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

Third. A firm will to have a common future, common goals, common dreams and visions.”

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

Thus, national identity is determined through citizenship and patriotism. The well-known modern Russian artist I. Glazunov, who claims that “a Russian is the one who loves Russia”, is of the same opinion.

It is difficult to object to this approach in essence. Indeed, it is the common destiny, self-consciousness, responsibility that make a nation out of a people. Without this, as B. Mussolini said, there is no nation, but there are "only human crowds, accessible to any decomposition that history can subject them to." But still, the nation, as a predominantly political community, is born from the people (ethnos). And it is the ethno-political nations that demonstrate the greatest cohesion and viability, while purely political nations, consisting of different peoples, are constantly shaken by internal discords: 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! And 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. Tatar by nationality and Russian by civic worldview - such a person, being a statesman of an all-Russian scale, can consistently defend the Russian state interest, but at the same time, in the sphere of interethnic relations within Russia, for sure, secretly or openly, he will proceed from the interests of the Tatar ethnos. We, Russian nationalists, have our own position on this matter.

We have to state that the sociological interpretation of the nation is impeccable in mono-ethnic countries (as well as “non-nationalist” patriotism). In countries with a multi-ethnic composition of the population in isolation from other, ethnic factors, it does not work. Nor does it work in modern France, which is flooded with “the French by the grace of the official stamp” - Arab migrants who perfectly preserve their ethnicity with the help of Islam and cultural autonomy.

The culturological school defines people as a cultural community united by language, culture (both spiritual - religion, literature, songs, etc., and material - life). Under the spirit of the 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 cannot be Russian, which in fact identified Russianness with Orthodoxy. And indeed, for a long time in Russia it was precisely 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 culturologists understand cultural identity in a broad sense: as a culture of spiritual and material, intellectual and grassroots, folk.

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

For any thinking person it is clear as two times that the internal content of the 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 proclaimed this: “For us, the 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. Leontiev said, “to love a tribe for a tribe is a stretch and a lie.” The nationality is distinguished by the presence of a 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 - the essence of one whole called "national culture".

At the level of cultural identity, the archetype “friend or foe” is formed, according to belonging to the language, according to behavioral stereotypes. It is on this basis that we can say about a person that he is “truly Russian”, “a real Frenchman”, “a genuine Pole”.

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

Consider the following example.

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

And if Russian by language, culture, Orthodox by religion, but a Pole or a Latvian by blood (origin) confidently says that he is a Pole or a Latvian. I am almost sure that despite our 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. 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 his own.

Dzhokhar Dudayev almost did not know the Chechen language and culture at all, lived most of his life in Russia, was married to a Russian, but in Ichkeria is perceived as a 100% Chechen. When the Zionist movement began, many of its leaders and activists did not know the Hebrew language, were emancipated Jews, which did not prevent 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 separation, were able to preserve their ethnic group. And while maintaining a sense of ethnicity, there is always an opportunity for the revival of the nation. But how is the ethnos preserved in the event of the loss or degradation of culture?

Let's turn to psychology.

In his work “Ethnogenesis and the biosphere of the earth”, L.N. Gumilyov wrote: “There is not a single real sign for determining an ethnos ... Language, origin, customs, material culture, ideology are sometimes defining moments, and sometimes they are not. We can take out only one thing - the recognition by each individual: "We are such and such, and all others are different."

That is, the self-consciousness of the people and its members are the defining moments of ethnic identity. But they are already derived from other factors of identification. It is understandable why in Russia, when determining nationality, priority was given to factors of faith, culture, language, and in Germany, the Arab world, among Jews and Armenians - blood kinship. Just for the 19th century. Russians were a single nation with a single national language and culture, 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 united Germany, but there were many sovereign German states; part of the Germans professed Catholicism, and part of Lutheranism; most Germans spoke languages ​​and dialects 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 ethnos? Language, faith, patriotism? But the faith is different, and the Germans still had to create a single country and a single language. It was also (for some worse, for some better) the situation was with the Arabs, Armenians and Jews. How can they survive in these conditions, on what basis do they consider themselves Germans, Jews, etc.? On the basis of the “myth of blood” - i.e. on the realization of a real (as with Jews and Armenians) or imaginary (as with Germans and Arabs) commonality of national origin and the kinship of members of this community to each other.

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

Most normal people highly value family feelings: mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, grandparents, uncles and aunts are usually considered the closest people to a person. Is it because the purely biological commonality of the gene unites them? Often, external similarity as a result of heredity really strengthens kinship. However, I'm sure that's not the point. A mother can love her child, because “she carried and gave birth to him, did not sleep at night, lulling the child, raised him, nursed, cherished”, but at the same time not to 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 it change something? If all parties remain in the dark, absolutely nothing; if the forgery is discovered, probably yes. So, it means that the myth is still important. Often children do not even want to know anything about their natural parents, but do not have a soul in foster homes, perceiving them as the closest of relatives. So, again, a myth.

Myth doesn't mean bad. Not at all. People are endowed with a biological need for procreation and a psychic need arising from it - in kindred feelings. For a person, on the one hand, is afraid of loneliness, on the other, he 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 can also be relatives of persons who are genetically completely strangers to him (father-in-law, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, etc.), psychologically related, on the basis of the “myth of kinship”. Engels argued that the idea of ​​consanguinity developed out of the relationship 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 an important role here.

In most cases, the voice of the people's blood is not biological, derived from chromosomes, but mental, derived from the need for rootedness and sometimes from love for immediate ancestors, substance. Leader of the Italian Fascists, saying that “race is a feeling, not a reality; 95% feeling”, meant, of course, exactly “voice of blood”. The same, apparently, was meant by O. Spengler, who argued that a person has a race, and does not belong to it.

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

With the revival of this ethnic group as a nation, consanguinity can either fade into the background, which we observe among modern Germans, or remain one of the main elements of ethnicity along with the language, like the Georgians. In the first case, with a reasonable migration and national policy, effective assimilation of foreigners is possible, in the second, the ethnos strictly guards its borders, fastening the spiritual community of its members with blood kinship. After all, among other things, national origin gives a person a good reason for joining the 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, sincerity in the spoken words, as a rule (there is an exception for each rule), will be more than in similar statements of an assimilation foreigner who is not connected with the people by ancestral roots. Therefore, the commonality 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 common origin and common destiny remain the historical basis for the formation of any nation ...”. The leader of the Jammakheria clearly did not mean genes, but that a common fate follows from a common origin, for in other chapters of his work he pointed out that “over time, the differences between members of a tribe related by blood and those who joined the tribe, disappear, and the tribe becomes a single social and ethnic entity.” But still it is worth emphasizing that joining does not mean any integration of an individual into a community, but only based on marriage with its representatives.

The fact of origin, as you know, 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 born of a Jewish mother. For most Eurasian peoples, including Russians, consanguinity is determined by the paternal line. True, since the time of ancient Rome there was an exception: with the uncertainty of paternity or the illegitimacy of a child, he follows the status of his mother.

I will 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, apart from self-consciousness, psyche and culture, cannot definitely be considered an element that determines nationality. “Blood” matters insofar as it manifests itself, leads to the awakening of the “voice of blood” - i.e. national identity. But the same self-consciousness can sometimes develop in addition to it, on the basis of cultural identity, spirituality, derived from the environment. True, the origin predetermines the environment - the family, the circle of relatives and friends, but not always. Pushkin spoke about the poet of German origin Fonvizin that he is “a Russian from the Pere-Russians”, history (not only Russian) knows many cases of natural assimilation of foreigners, but also knows that the requirements for such assimilants were appropriate - to break spiritual ties with their natural ethnic environment and to be “Russians from Pere-Russians” (Germans from Pere-Nemtsev, Jews from Pere-Jews, etc.) in spirit and self-consciousness.

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

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, the political structure of the self-organization of the people. As applied to the Russians... The Russian people originated in the 11th-12th centuries. and has since come a long way towards finding its 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 Finno-Ugric peoples, as well as contacts with the Baltic and Altaic-Ural ethnic groups, the Russian race and the Russian mental warehouse 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 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 opinion of the author, a 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, blood ties with Russians, etc.

Especially for the portal "Perspectives"

Leokadiya Drobizheva

Drobizheva Leokadiya Mikhailovna - Chief Researcher of 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 notions of the past remain alive, people have not ceased to associate their ethno-cultural distinctiveness with the nation, therefore, in the doctrinal space, the consensus definition of “the multinational people of Russia” remains. Studies show that the basis of the dynamics of the all-Russian identity is, first of all, the state and the common territory, and only then - the historical past, culture, responsibility for affairs in the country.

To posing a problem

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 own destiny, to freely choose the path of development, its significance is especially great. In Russia, a positive civic identity is especially important in connection with the loss of Soviet-era identity experienced but not forgotten by people and increased foreign political tension.

Strengthening Russian civic identity is set as a task and one of the activities in the Strategy of the State National Policy for the period up to 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 in the 1990s, when the concepts of “Russian nation” and “civil identity” did not appear in doctrinal documents, speeches by the President of the Russian Federation, his addresses to the Federal Assembly (they appeared since 2000), more than half of the population during polls on the all-Russian the sample was answered that they feel like citizens of Russia [ ; ; With. 82].

In the 2000s, in the Addresses to the Federal Assembly of the President of the Russian Federation, the concept of "nation" in the all-Russian sense and its derivatives are used. 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 today's reality too. Representatives of the most diverse ethnic groups and religions in Russia feel like a truly united people.

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

Sociologists, political scientists, historians in their methodology use the concept of M. Weber "about mass subjective beliefs", "subjective faith", 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 an interview with Thomas Lukman in the journal Sociology and Social Anthropology [p. 8], a simplified view of constructivism became 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 of the proposed by T. Luckman and P. Berger synthesis "is the phenomenology of the life-world 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 the data of 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 Strategy of State National Policy or even the messages of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly in terms of the presence of the idea of ​​Russian civil identity in them, but they felt it. Also, when our country is presented in a negative way, it causes emotional distress in the majority of Russians.

We recall 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 value.

Understanding Russian Civil Identity

Around the understanding of Russian identity, scientific disputes do not stop, which have a political and ethno-political sound. They focus primarily on three issues: can this identity be called civil, what are the main solidarizing meanings in it, and does the all-Russian civic identity mean a replacement for ethnic identity.

At the beginning of the post-Soviet period, when the Soviet identity was being lost, there was practically no doubt that instead of the Soviet one we would have a civic identity. The text of the Constitution of 1993 contained meanings that make it possible to interpret the community as follows, 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 the democratic foundation of Russia, "responsibility for one's Motherland to present and future generations." The “bearer of sovereignty” and the only source of power in the Russian Federation, the Constitution says, is its multinational people (Article 3, paragraph 1). When the state began to actively shape the Russian identity in the 2000s, doubts began to be expressed by liberal-minded intellectuals. The author of the book "Between the Empire and the Nation" E.A. Pain asked the question whether it is possible to call the Russian identity civil, if it cannot be said that a political, civil nation has been formed in our country. (The title of his book is also symptomatic.) The discussion continues, and it goes not only in relation to our country [ ; ; ].

Summarizing the development of identities in the Project led by I.S. Semenenko, S.P. Peregudov wrote that the civic 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 obligations, responsibility for affairs in society, individual freedom, recognition of the priority of public interests over narrow group ones [ , p. 163]. Of course, not all people in countries that are considered democratic fully share and observe all the norms and values ​​of civil society. It is no coincidence that in the European Social Survey (ESSI), as well as in the Eurobarometer, not all indicators of civic identity were used, and their set changed. Not all citizens, but only half in each of the 28 EU states, believe that people in their countries have a lot in common. But in general, according to researchers, in the foreseeable future in the West, including Europe, it is precisely the political, state-country identity that will retain the significance of one of the most important group identities [ ; ; ].

In-depth studies of civic elements in Russian identity are still ahead of us. But some of these elements have already been included in surveys and will be analyzed.

In preparing the Strategy for the State National Policy in 2012 and discussing its adjustment in 2016‒2018. representatives of the republics and active defenders of Russian identity expressed fears about the substitution of ethno-national (ethnic) identity for Russia. The way to remove these fears was the inclusion in the goals and priority areas of the state national policy of the wording: "strengthening the unity of the multinational people (the Russian nation), preserving and supporting ethno-cultural diversity."

It was difficult to discuss the question of the meanings that unite the citizens of the country into an all-Russian community, reflected in identity. When discussing the implementation of the State Ethnic Policy Strategy at a meeting of the Council for 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, the Russian language and historical memory, and the state and territory, which underlie the political nation, cannot form the basis of “patriotic loyalty”. "Citizenship of the Russian Federation exists after 1991, while culture, 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 to other countries) are not called British, but English, although officially they are British citizens. The same is true for the Spaniards. Basques, 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 Strategy of the state national policy for the period until 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, who are aware of their state and civil community with the Russian state, adherence 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 (civil identity) is “a sense of belonging to their country, its people, state and society, realized 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, civil self-awareness, ideas about a multinational people, social, historical community. It is based on common values, goals for the development of society and solidarity.

Naturally, all these components are present to some extent when people define their Russian identity. But in all-Russian surveys and surveys in the subjects of the federation, among specific nationalities, they manifest themselves in different ways. The all-Russian identity, like all other social identities, is dynamic, it 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 the general trends in the perception of Russian civic identity and the features that are manifested in various regions of the country, in the subjects of the federation with different ethnic composition 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 subjects 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, KhMAO) 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 commissioned by the FADN in 2016‒2017. In a number of cases, we involve the results of studies conducted by scientists in the regions, stipulating the possibility of their comparability. In the course of all-Russian and regional surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, we took in-depth interviews with experts, specialists, public figures, and representatives of a number of professions. Some of them are listed below.

In the study, we implement the approach of comparative sociology. The Russian identity and the degree of respondents' association 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, giving the name to the republics. The socio-cultural approach is used when comparing the Russian civic identity of Russians living mainly in their own and other cultural ethnic environment, 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 the ideas of E. Erickson 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 nature of group identity in everyday practice [ , p. 15-16].

The All-Russian Dimension of Russian Identity

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

The obvious subject of research in Russian identity is how much in each historical period, in a specific situation, it is formed by distinguishing, comparing or even opposing oneself with others; determining who these others (“they”) are and due to what the mutual attraction, the rallying of the “we” takes place.

The identity of Russians in the 1990s is called a crisis, not only because there was a reconnaissance of the usual supports of internal mutual attraction, but also because of increased hostility towards the “other”, 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 borders, did the “culture shock” begin to pass (as Piotr Sztompka figuratively expressed it, characterizing the state of people in the post-Soviet states) and elements of positive identity began to be restored.

By the mid-2010s, Russian identity was, according to all-Russian polls, 70-80%.

The indicator for measuring the all-Russian civic identity was the answers of the respondents to the question, which was asked in the form of a projective situation: “When we meet different people in our lives, we easily find a common language with some, we feel them as our own, while others, although they live nearby, remain strangers. About which of the people listed below would you personally say “this is us”? With whom do you feel connected often, sometimes, never?

And then there was a listing of the most massive collective identities: “with the people of your generation”; “with people of the same profession, occupation”; "with the citizens of Russia"; “with the inhabitants of your region, republic, region”; “with those who live in your city, village”; “with people of your nationality”; “with people of the same wealth 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 1990s [Danilova, 2000; Yadov] and subsequently, in this or somewhat modified, but similar in content formulation, was asked in other studies by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2017, the 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 the surveys of the FADN‒VTsIOM.

From 2005 to 2018, the proportion of those who feel a connection with Russian citizens increased from 65% to 80‒84%. According to the research centers listed, 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 the mass consciousness. The influence of the media was obvious, which constantly stimulated “us-them” comparisons in relation to Ukraine, motivated defense sentiments in connection with the events in Syria and the complicated relations with the United States and the European Union. Internal associativity was stimulated by the events of the Olympics, the reunification of Crimea with Russia, sports competitions, especially the World Cup.

The results of the surveys provide an opportunity to analyze the ideas of the Russians themselves 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 the territory - 54%; 49% named a common language; 47% - experienced historical events; 36-47% - elements of culture - holidays, customs, traditions. This, we repeat, is the data of an all-Russian survey, therefore, the majority of those who answered (more than 80%) are Russians. Naturally, the language means Russian.

The choice of the state and territory is easily explained, since the Russian identification for a considerable part of the people is a country identification. Some researchers generally study and interpret it as a country one. 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 of students from the most prestigious universities in Moscow and Princeton University in the USA with the country. The surveys were conducted by the Southern Federal University, the question was asked: “How much do you feel connected with your region, country?” The responses were interpreted as evidence of an all-Russian identity.

Such an interpretation occurs, but identification with the state is also undoubted - quite clear not only from the answers 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 such people among us 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 sphere (Moscow), but a public figure (in Moscow) spoke in much the same way: “ It seems to me that most people understand the term "all-Russian civil nation" ... as citizenship. The state is the backbone of all diversity. The state provides equal rights, opportunities ...". An ethnopolitical scientist who knows the materials of the press 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 co-citizenship ... they believe that the state belongs to them and will show respect for them as its citizens ... the name of the state also matters". Specialist 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, are not always called. The civic component in the first place ... is the feeling of being a citizen of the state».

In interviews with experts in the regions, the main leitmotif is also citizenship in the state. The state dominance in the identification matrix gives grounds to consider our Russian identity as state-civil. However, we must bear in mind that the state itself is perceived by us ambiguously. The level of trust in the president remains significantly high, although it varies depending on the 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 in 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 connect such an identification with the fact that people live in the present, not the past, especially young people. Longing for the past, in the interpretation of 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 curious observations regarding the assessments of our past. Following G. Kertman, he notes that, in contrast to the 80‒90s, when the assessment of the events of the times of I. Stalin was in the center of public attention, in the last 10‒15 years the “memory wars” have been going around the events of the last years of the existence 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 of that time "have the features of almost a" lost paradise "" in comparison with the times of V.V. Putin. But if the Soviet people in the 1980s were “told that they would live in private apartments, that there would be no shortage in stores, 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 it 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). From this, not only the future, but also the past becomes unpredictable for us. “The Unpredictable Past” – this is how Academician Yu.A. Polyakov, whose life covered both the Soviet era and a large part of the post-Soviet period.

There are also objective grounds for different perceptions of historical events - not only age, but also socio-economic, material, social status. The materials of sociological studies show that nostalgia for the past largely reflects the protest moods of low-income and elderly people. Evaluation of the historical past can not only unite, but also separate. Therefore, the low indicators of the historical past as the foundation of Russian identity in the perception of our citizens are quite understandable. The study of the dynamics of this indicator is expedient both from the point of view of characterizing public sentiments and from the point of view of the formation of historical memory, if the analysis is based on objective events and reliable facts, their assessments.

It is not easy to interpret respondents' answers about culture as a unifying factor. Culture is understood in different meanings not only by scientists of different areas 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, everyone will understand in their own way. To elucidate this undeniable component of identification with the community, sociologists must pose questions in such a way that they are understood unambiguously. Therefore, on the basis of pilot (experimental) surveys, specific elements of culture were identified: public holidays, symbols (flags, anthem, coat of arms, monuments, etc.), folk traditions.

The unrevealed concept of culture as a solidarizing identifier in the polls is gaining more supporters (in the given range of 37–47%), when this concept is disclosed, there are fewer supporters. In the course of free, semi-structured interviews, respondents found various justifications for their difficulties. One of them is the politicized perception of culture: “Nureyev… they want to erect monuments to him, but he left us, he left his achievements there”(representative of the Russian cultural organization in Ufa). “The monument to Yermolov is erected, then it is destroyed, then restored. For the Russians, of course, he is a winning general, but for the Circassians?”(specialist teacher in Krasnodar). Another difficulty is the socio-demographic diversity of the perception of cultural events and phenomena: What culture unites us? It's hard to say - alone out in suits with butterflies on the program "What? Where? When? ”, And I only have a tracksuit ”(representative of a public association in Kaliningrad). “Victory Day for all of us, for the majority, is a holiday, of course. But grandmother, mother - they worry, sometimes they even cry, but for us, young people, it's just a holiday, a walk, songs, even if we sing, which ones? Cheerful, victorious. “Culture of the past? Yes, of course, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky - this unites, but only those who know literature, music"(master's student in sociology, Moscow).

Expert journalist (Moscow): " The mass “we” is rebuilt in combination with history… Language is also an extremely important thing… Yes, of course, this is Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, the Bolshoi Theatre. It is a cultural layer that unites. It saddens when people try to formulate why they are a community, too often they say: “Yes, we are not them.” And further: "... these are bad, those are bad." 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 you can see, behind the final figures of mass surveys there are many diverse, albeit often stereotypical, opinions. Analyzing both these and other 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 the data of comparable all-Russian surveys and surveys in the regions, we will now show how the perceptions of Russian identity differ in regions with different ethnic composition of the population.

Regional and Ethnic Identity in All-Russian Identification

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

In the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, according to the data of the European Social Survey (ESI), identification with Russian citizens was recorded in the country by 64% of the population, and by regions 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 nationwide 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 the all-Russian surveys of 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, it reached 75‒80%, and the proportion of people with an associative, actual identity of this kind (who answered that they often feel connected with Russian citizens) was 26‒31%.

In assessing the all-Russian integration, public attention is usually more attracted to the republics. We will specifically consider those republics where in the 1990s there were elements of deviations in legislation, manifestations of national movements. Representative surveys conducted in 2012 and 2015 in Sakha (Yakutia) showed that civic identity in this republic was not lower than the 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 - a little more than 80%; in Tatarstan, 86% in 2015 and 80% in 2018 said they felt connected with Russian citizens.

According to the estimates of our colleagues, presented in autumn 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 the all-Russian data.

In the South of Russia, in Kabardino-Balkaria, in one way or another, people associated themselves with the citizens of Russia 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-Yugra. Regional identity is very common here, but the Russian identity is also 90%. Meanwhile, in the Stavropol Territory, the corresponding data barely reached the all-Russian ones [p. 22]. It should be noted that in terms of residents' perception of a strong connection with the rest of the citizens of Russia, the indicators of the republics did not differ much from the average data for the country. And when they differed, it is often even for the better. In Sakha (Yakutia), a strong connection was mentioned 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 feeling of connection with the great 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 associated with prosecutorial inspections in schools, the abolition of compulsory study of the state languages ​​of the republics. In Sakha (Yakutia), Russianness is associated with the fulfillment by the federal center of the northern delivery, the construction or cancellation of the construction of previously planned facilities (bridges, railway networks, etc.). The Russian identity in these republics, which significantly exceeded the all-Russian indicators, approached the all-Russian level.

Where socio-economic difficulties are superimposed on inter-ethnic contradictions, in the unsettledness of which the local population sees a flaw in the federal center (as, for example, in Kabardino-Balkaria), the feeling of connection with the all-Russian community is reduced.

What really distinguishes Russian civic identity in the republics is in the strength of solidarizing signs. As already mentioned, according to all-Russian data, the state was the strongest feature (66% of responses). In the republics, this attribute dominates even more: in Sakha (Yakutia) - 75% of answers, in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan - 80‒81%. At the same time, among the Bashkirs, Tatars, and Yakuts, the dominant of this integrating factor is more noticeable than among Russians in the republics.

In the republics, the common territory is somewhat more often referred to as a sign of solidarity - 57‒58% (against 54% in the Russian Federation). In most republics, up to 95% of the population and more know the Russian language well, but as a unifying feature, it is called, as well as culture, noticeably less often than the state and territory. In Bashkortostan, for example, 24-26% of Bashkirs and Tatars named him. In Sakha (Yakutia) - a quarter of Yakuts and 30% of Russians.

Language, history, culture are the main solidarizers in the ethnic identity of peoples. But in the all-Russian identity in the republics, the “wars of historical memory” leave their mark on the prevalence of these signs as unifying. Among the Yakuts, no more than a quarter of the respondents named them, among the Bashkirs, Tatars in the republics - no more than a third. During free interviews, our respondents found an explanation for this. A journalist working in ethno-political topics said: “ Even among the Russian majority, sometimes people think that they want to make them unified by being Russian. But this is a horror story. Representatives of other nationalities have a pronounced feeling that they are Russians. I communicate with them, I see it. They are proud of it. But they also have their own culture, their own history of each nation. What of this is included in the 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 the Bashkir culture that could unite all nationalities in Russia: “ Each nation considers some of its cultural figures great, but it is their own culture. Although they understand that for others they will not be the same 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 “ in the Soviet period, a constructed galaxy of figures was included in our common culture - Khachaturian, Gamzatov, Aitmatov were connected to the Russian greats, they created a bouquet that was even included in school programs. 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 we devalue it, but we don’t accumulate new ones, although there is television, radio, and the Internet". Specialist in the field of interethnic relations (Moscow): “ I think that the Russian nation should 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. It’s a matter of… so many years.” Public figure (Karelia): “The need to belong to something big, unifying should appear ... This feeling of some kind of cultural and historical community, roots, traditions ... Both Russians and all people of other Russian peoples need to think about this ... There is a lot of controversy, you just need to be able to negotiate».

The complexity of forming a common unifying history and culture is naturally understood by both experts and authorities. It is no coincidence that it was so difficult to create school and university history textbooks. There are disputes and some movement in this area, but in the sphere of culture, 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 a unifying one.

A general civil sign is responsibility for affairs in the country. In the republics where representative polls were conducted, it was mentioned at least as often as in all-Russian polls, and in Sakha (Yakutia) even more often (50% or more). Moreover, the Sakha-Yakuts and Russians are in solidarity with these feelings. There are practically no differences in this identifier between Tatars and Russians in Tatarstan (34%, 38%, respectively), between Bashkirs and Russians in Bashkortostan (36% and 34%, respectively).

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

A 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 this 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 the balance of 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.

Habitual notions of the past remain alive, people have not ceased to associate their ethnic and cultural distinctiveness with the nation, therefore, in the doctrinal space, the consensus definition of “the multinational people of Russia (Russian nation)” remains, that is, the term “nation” has a double meaning here.

An equally important problem is on what basis the Russian identity is formed. Ethnocultural identity is based on language, culture, 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 the 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 perceived as all-Russian.

Due to the high importance of the state as the basis of Russians' loyalty, state authorities have a high responsibility for maintaining trust between citizens and 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 negative content (Ukraine, the USA, the 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. Obviously, sporting victories that support the emotional component of identity are not enough. Maintaining a positive balance requires the efforts of both the state and civil society. At the same time, even theoretically clear issues 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 were used seven times, in 2007 - 18 times [Message to the Federal Assembly 2012: 2018].

2. The adjustment of the State Ethnic Policy Strategy was entrusted to the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs (FADN). The subjects of the federation and scientific institutions made proposals to the draft document. It was discussed in the Committee on Nationalities Affairs 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. The project "Dynamics of the social transformation of modern Russia in the socio-economic and ethno-confessional context" (headed by academician M.K. Gorshkov). The author of this article is responsible for the section on ethnicity and identities. Sample - 4000 units of observation in 19 subjects of the Russian Federation.

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

5. Data from RLMS - National Research University Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) Monitoring the Economic Situation and Health of the Population; Monitoring surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, leader. 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 “The dynamics of social transformations in modern Russia in the socio-economic, political, socio-cultural and ethno-religious contexts”, 7th wave, 2017, hands. M.K. Gorshkov. Survey of 2,605 working respondents aged 18 years and older, residents of all types of settlements and territorial and economic regions of the Russian Federation.

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

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

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“Do the peoples of Russia and the Russian people need a law “on the Russian nation”” // Transfer “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. Modernist project and its traditionalist alternative in the national policy of Russia. - M.: New publishing house, 2004.

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

Address 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).

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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).

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The Russian (civilian) identity of a person is a free identification of himself with the Russian people, which has a significant meaning for him; feeling and awareness of involvement in the past, present and future of Russia. The presence of Russian identity implies that for a person there is no “this city”, “this country”, “this people”, but there is “my (our) city”, “my (our) country”, “my (our) people” .

The task of forming a Russian identity among schoolchildren, declared strategic in the new educational standards, implies a qualitatively new approach in content, technology and responsibility for teachers to the traditional problems of developing civic consciousness, patriotism, tolerance of schoolchildren, their command of their native language, etc. So, if a teacher in his work focuses on the formation of a Russian identity in a schoolchild, then:

– in civic education, he cannot afford to work with the concepts of “citizen”, “civil society”, “democracy”, “relations between society and the state”, “human rights” as speculative abstractions, in a purely informative style, but must work with tradition and peculiarities of the perception of these concepts in Russian culture, in relation to our historical soil and mentality;

- in the education of patriotism, the teacher does not rely on the development of a child's non-reflexive pride in "one's own" or a kind of selective pride in the country (pride only for successes and achievements), but seeks to cultivate a holistic acceptance and understanding of the past, present and future of Russia with all the failures and successes, anxieties and hopes, projects and "projects";

- the teacher works with tolerance not so much as with political correctness (a fashionable trend of the secular consumer society), but as with the practice of understanding, recognizing and accepting representatives of other cultures, historically rooted in the Russian tradition and mentality;

- shaping the historical and political consciousness of schoolchildren, the teacher immerses them in a dialogue of conservative, liberal and social democratic worldviews, which is an integral part of Russian culture as a European culture;

- teaching the Russian language takes place not only in the lessons of literature, but in any academic subject and outside the lesson, in free communication with pupils; the living Russian language becomes the universal of school life;

- the teacher is not limited to communication with pupils in a protected, friendly environment of the classroom and school, but brings them to an out-of-school social environment. Only in independent public action, action for people and on people who are not the “inner circle” and are not necessarily positively inclined towards it, does a young person really become (and not just learn how to become) a public figure, a free person, a citizen of the country.

Even this far from complete enumeration shows that the task of forming Russian identity quite reasonably claims to be a key, turning point task in current educational policy.

In modern pedagogical science, the civil (Russian) identity of a schoolchild is fruitfully considered as:

- the unity of a certain type of knowledge, values, emotional experiences and experience of activity (A.G. Asmolov, A.Ya. Danilyuk, A.M. Kondakov, V.A. Tishkov);

— a complex relationship between historical memory, civic consciousness and project consciousness (A.A. Andryushkov, Yu.V. Gromyko).

In our opinion, no less productive is consideration of civic identity from the perspective of the school identity of the child.

It is almost a truism that a child's love for the motherland begins with love for the family, school, and small motherland. It is in small communities, where people are especially close to each other, that “hidden warmth of patriotism” is born, about which L.N. Tolstoy and which best expresses a person's experience of civic identity. That is, the Russian identity of a young person is formed on the basis of family, school, identity with the territorial community.

It is obvious that the subject of special responsibility of the school is the school identity of the child. What it is? it experience and awareness child of his own involvement to school, which has a meaningful meaning for him. Why is this needed? School is the first place in a child's life where he goes beyond blood relations and relationships, begins to live among others, different people, in society. It is at school that the child turns from a family person into a social person.

What does the introduction of the concept of "child's school identity" give? In the usual role-playing reading the child at school acts as a student, boy (girl), friend, citizen, etc. . AT identification in reading, a schoolboy is “a student of his teachers”, “a friend of his classmates”, “a citizen (or inhabitant) of the school community”, “son (daughter) of his parents”, etc. That is, the perspective of identity allows you to more deeply see and understand thanks to someone or something the student feels connected (or not connected) with the school community, what or who creates in him a sense of belonging to the school. And evaluate, diagnose the quality of those places and people at school that engender involvement in the child.

Here is our vision of these places and people:

School identity allows you to see if the student connects his successes, achievements (as well as failures) with the school; whether the school is a meaningful place for him or not.

Low identity scores will indicate that the school is not significant or of little significance to the child. And even if he is objectively successful as a student, the source of this success is not in school (but, for example, in the family, tutors, out-of-school additional education, etc.).

High indicators of identity will indicate that the school occupies an important place in the life of the child, is significant for him. And even if objectively he is not very successful as a student, then his personal dignity, his self-respect stem from his school life.

Since we assumed that each of the above identities is formed at school in certain “places” (processes, activities, situations), then low scores for one or another identification position can show us the “bottlenecks” of school life, and high scores - “ points of growth. This can be the beginning of a “reset” of school life, the launch of a development process.

To date, we have the results of a study (with the help of a sociological questionnaire) of the school identity of students in grades 7-11 from 22 schools in the cities of Moscow, Perm, Kaliningrad, Tomsk. We selected schools that are considered “good” by the population and the pedagogical community; At the same time, the schools themselves believe that their educational activities are very well organized.

In order to visually illustrate some of the key trends, we will summarize the data for schools. We have established a distinction on specific aspects of school identity at the level of “experienced – not experienced”, while specifying whether it is experienced positively or negatively (it is obvious, for example, that a student can feel like the son of his parents when teachers praise him or, on the contrary, scold him, and a citizen of the class - when he manages to realize his ideas, plans in a class team, or when he is imposed on this or that assignment). We were interested not only in the very fact of experiencing as an indicator that the school in a particular aspect does not leave the child indifferent, but also in the nature of this experience. We also leveled the scatter in the values ​​of this or that indicator by school, determining the average value for 22 schools.

Here are the scores for each aspect of school identity:

Conclusions regarding the civil (Russian) identity of schoolchildren who took part in the study:

- only 42% of adolescents feel positively involved in their classroom team as "citizens", that is, people "doing something, even the simplest, that affects the life of their school class";

- even less - 24% of adolescents feel like "citizens of the school community";

- only 1 out of 10 students will leave school with a feeling of a citizen (non-philistine) of our Russian society.

Recall that this situation, which can definitely be called a situation of alienation, is fixed by us in the educational reality of the so-called "good" schools. It is easy to imagine what happens in the rest.

What's the way out? In our opinion, in a situation of alienation of children from school, a responsible educational policy can only be an "identity policy". No matter what we do at school, no matter what new projects and technologies we propose, no matter what traditions we want to preserve, we must always ask ourselves: “Does this give rise to free involvement of children in school? Will the child want to identify with it? Have we thought of everything and done everything so that he would have involvement with us? Why is it suddenly that what we have done so diligently, with such efforts, is not perceived by children? And then we will not chase novelties from pedagogy, pass off our inertia and lack of curiosity as loyalty to tradition, mindlessly follow educational fashions, rush to fulfill political and social orders, but we will work in depth, for the real development of the individual, for social inheritance and the transformation of culture.

For example, the school is faced with the social passivity of adolescents. Of course, it is possible to increase the resource of social science disciplines, to conduct a series of conversations “What does it mean to be a citizen?” or organize the work of the school parliament, but this work, at best, will provide students with useful social knowledge, form a positive attitude towards social action, but will not give the experience of independent action in society. Meanwhile, we are well aware that know about what citizenship is, even value citizenship does not mean act as a citizen to be citizen. But the technology, which involves moving from (1) a problem-value discussion of adolescents to (2) a negotiation platform for adolescents with representatives of local authorities and public structures, and further to (3) a children-adult social project demanded by the territorial community, brings adolescents into an independent public action.

Thus, the real, non-imitation formation of the Russian (civil) identity of students is possible only on the basis of their positive school identity. It is through the feeling, consciousness and experience of citizenship acquired in school life (in the affairs of the class, the school community, in the social initiatives of the school) that a young person can mature a stable understanding and vision of himself as a citizen of the country. A school with which children do not identify themselves, in which they do not feel involved, does not educate citizens, even if it declares this in its concepts and programs.

And one more important effect of “identity politics” in the field of education: it can help, if not unite, then at least not break with each other, conservatives, liberals and social democrats of Russian education. What we all, teachers, (each, of course, someone one and in our own way) are.

The destruction of great-power traditions, ideas and myths, and then the Soviet system of values, where the key point was the idea of ​​the state as the highest social value, plunged Russian society into a deep social crisis, as a result - the loss of national identity, feelings, national and socio-cultural self-identification of citizens.

Key words: self-identification, national identification, identity crisis.

After the collapse of the USSR, in all the newly formed states, it became necessary to create a new national identity. This issue was most difficult to resolve in Russia, since it was here that “Soviet” value orientations were introduced deeper than in other republics, where the key point was the idea of ​​the state as the highest social category, and citizens identified themselves with Soviet society. The demolition of the old life principles, the displacement of the former value-semantic guidelines led to a split in the spiritual world of Russian society, as a result - the loss of national identity, a sense of patriotism, national and socio-cultural identification of citizens.

The destruction of the Soviet system of values ​​plunged Russian society into a deep value and identification crisis, in which another problem arose - national consolidation. It was no longer possible to solve it within the framework of the old one; it was not solved from the standpoint of the new domestic “liberalism”, which was devoid of a program for the development of society that was positive for the mass consciousness. The inert policy of the state in the period of the 90s. in the field of social reform and the lack of new value orientations led to an increased interest of citizens in the historical past of the country, people tried to find answers to the burning questions of today in it.

There was an interest in historical literature, primarily in alternative history, and TV programs in the context of "memories of the past" began to enjoy great popularity. Unfortunately, in most cases, in such broadcasts, historical facts were interpreted in a rather free context, the arguments were not supported by arguments, many of the so-called “facts” were falsifications. Today, it has become obvious to most educated people how much damage such programs have caused to society, first of all, young people, who are hostages of screen culture, have suffered.

On the front of screen culture, “confusion and vacillation” is still observed today, false, anti-scientific information is presented as the “truth of history”, the interest of viewers, Internet users and listeners of numerous radio broadcasts is bought through the beautiful presentation of various kinds of historical falsifications, which, due to their anti-state orientation, have a destructive impact on the historical consciousness and consciousness of the national identity of citizens.

At the same time, the state has not developed a unified policy in the field of examination of such flows of information that deform historical consciousness and perception of national identity. As a result, the myth of the “ideal” times of the past was firmly entrenched in the minds of Russian citizens. Despite these problems, positive trends have emerged in Russian society in recent years. So, according to sociological surveys in modern Russian society, the mass interest of people in patriotic ideas, slogans, symbols has significantly increased, there is an increase in the patriotic self-identification of Russians.

The problem of national identity today is widely discussed in society. This is due to the fact that in the age of global changes - integration, globalization, transnational migration and global catastrophes - man-made, environmental, people began to rethink their worldview baggage, while wondering about their involvement in the history of the country, the national community and the process of its development. The Russians have a need to revise the existing concepts of social and national identity, and the need to construct new identities, which is primarily caused by instability in the world and the country - increased terrorism, transformation of political regimes, financial crises. It is obvious that in the event that the ideology and cultural and moral values ​​in society are not clearly defined, or do not meet the expectations of the main part of society, there is a gradual change in the structure of the individual's personality itself, a change in value orientations, which ultimately leads to an identification crisis.

The most clear characterization of the identity crisis was given by the outstanding psychologist Eric Erickson, who characterized it as follows: “An unpleasant psychosocial syndrome associated with mass dissatisfaction of people, which is accompanied by feelings of anxiety, fear, isolation, emptiness, loss of the ability to emotionally communicate with other people, turns into a mass pathology of identity. In a crisis, the individual is more and more detached from social communities - individualizes, and the maintenance of identity is carried out through interpersonal communication, in particular, through social networks, which allows you to maintain your "I" and build a dialogue with "We".

The way out of the crisis is possible only if the political and cultural elites reach a balance within their social groups and begin to implement new identification projects, the purpose of which is to cause changes in society and establish a balance of new values ​​based on well-formed beliefs, principles and norms. In other words, the political elite must restore the lost balance of I-We-identity in society. However, this is possible only if the authorities have not lost the trust of society, otherwise, the imposition of a new system of values ​​by the political elite can lead to a social explosion47.

In different historical epochs, the balance in this pair was constantly disturbed. The beginning of the dominance of the “I” over the “We” is recognized as the Renaissance, it was at this time that the “I” broke free and left the bonds of the “We”. This was due to several factors - the erasure of class boundaries, increased attention to the individuality of a person in literature and painting, with the expansion of the boundaries of worldview due to scientific and geographical discoveries. Centuries passed, and in developed societies, the “I” became more and more isolated from the “We”, with the intensification of the processes of integration and globalization, it lost its clear outlines and national identity (national-state we-identity). At present, in Russian society, largely due to the policy of V.V. Putin, there are qualitative changes in the content of cultural meanings, symbols and foundations of the new "capitalist" Russia, there is a return to the cultural and moral values ​​of the Soviet era.

Quite a lot has already been done in this direction - the cultural heritage is being restored - the reconstruction of historical monuments, the creation of historical museums in various cities of Russia, there are series of programs dedicated to our history, literature, culture, the Olympics have become a new victory in this direction, now Crimea is being restored before our eyes . Today in Russia, the reassessment of the cultural and historical baggage of the past continues, which expands the boundaries for the search for social identifications, new identification constructs appear based on the combination of the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods of Russian history. Such cultural constructs have a serious impact on the formation of national identity. In recent years, young people in Russia have been demonstrating their national identity more and more, while the older generation, on the contrary, is discovering the inertia of Soviet identity.

This fact can be fully explained by the fact that the older generation experienced the shock of the “lost generation” at one time - in the post-perestroika period, many were thrown out of the “ship of modernity”, their knowledge, skills, and abilities were not in demand by the new society. They look to the future with anxiety and are not inclined to trust the actions of the political elite aimed at creating a complex of new cultural and moral attitudes. People whose active period of socialization took place during the period of totalitarian political culture, having lost sight of the ideological goals and moral values ​​rigidly set by the political elite, lost their I-We-identification in the new conditions of personal freedom, openness and initiative. If such people are asked to behave “at their own discretion”, they usually experience frustration, it is difficult to make a choice, they are not taught to do so48.

In many ways, the conservatism of Russian society is associated with the peculiarities of the historical and cultural memory formed during the period of totalitarian culture. Despite a certain incompleteness and mythologization, historical and cultural memory is the constant on the basis of which the individual's behavioral models are formed. First of all, this is due to the fact that historical and cultural memory preserves in the mass consciousness assessments of past events that form a structure of values ​​that not only determine the actions and actions of people in the present and future, but also contribute to the formation of national identity.

Awareness of one's national identity is extremely important for each of us due to the fact that national identity is also a special form of group identity, thanks to which, despite the lack of physical contact, people consider themselves united together, because they speak the same language, have common cultural traditions, live in the same territory, etc. The connecting links of national identity are historical memory, cultural traditions, patriotism. The very concept of “national identity” is an “invention” of modernity, its political significance is associated with maintaining the feeling of “being at home”, creating a sense of purposefulness, dignity, and ownership of the achievements of their country among citizens.

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Plotnikova O.A.