NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION PROBLEMS IN NOWDAYS RUSSIA:
POST-ORTHODOXY CHALLENGES
Silantieva M.V. 1
1 Professor, Doctor of Philosophy, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University), international
member of Serbian Academy of Pedagogy
Russia
Abstract
Cultural-philosophical and ethics and theological problems connected with the peculiarity of contemporary
development stage of Russian nation are considered in the article. The paradox of the Russians’ conscience are
marked out, that is preferable identification and self-identification programs’ social -psychological dependence on
refined stereotypes of the past – along with the aspiration to realize reforms impossible without social reforms.
Historical and social-economic roots of the given paradox should be considered in the context of the development of
“anthropological religiousness” phenomenon. The last one represents the mass conscience’s response to
“withdrawal” of the state from the field of fundamental social tasks solution and, at the same time, to impossibility of
their solution without activation of Russian citizens’ civic conscience.
Keywords: Program of national and cultural identity, post-Orthodox, religious indoctrination, the politicization of
religion, anthropology religion, tradition and innovation in modern Russian culture.
Philosophy
The relevance of studying social phenomena related to identification and self-identification of the Russian
citizens has been proved by the current events that reflect the acuteness of the national issues the country is facing
due to home migration and immigration. The recent conflict in Biruliovo – one of the commuter belts in Moscow - is a
case in point. The conflict in October 2013 broke out between nationalists (including the people who didn’t belong to
any political movements) and migrants who came from the Caucasus and Central Asian republics and confirmed the
data on the high potential for conflicts in ethnic, religious and international relations at large provided by the religious
analysts [1,9] who have been detecting such potential in different regions of Russia, including Moscow, for several
years. It is the Russian Orthodox Church - the largest civic organization and the most influential confession in Russia
- that has been trying to take these processes under control. The importance of the Orthodox religion has been
recently demonstrated by the mile-long lines of the congregation at various religious events, for instance, when the
belt of the Blessed Virgin Mary was displayed in 2012 in Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour or at ‘The Orthodox
Russia. The Romanovs’ exhibition in November 2013 in the Moscow city centre, which drew an impressive number of
visitors.
The methodology of the research is based on combining philosophical analysis (studying the nature,
meaning and development of these processes) and the core principles of religious science as well as the philosophy
of culture. The success of the assumptions made in the paper relies on the use of qualitative, rather than quantitative
research methods, as opposed to the classical approach applied in most Russian religious science institutions. It is
worth mentioning, that there is a great number of papers based on authorized quantitative research methods,
especially in psychology and sociolinguistics [8,6]. However, they have two major disadvantages. The first one is the
high cost of conducting the surveys and analyzing the data, which results in lack of surveillance and control. Hence,
analysts base their works on outdated reports. Another disadvantage of quantitative analysis is the vagueness of
concepts which make up the basis for surveys and rankings. As a result, the interpretation of results depends on the
subjective position of each individual doing the research more than it should do. For instance, ‘being religious’ and
‘belonging to a certain confession’ are measured differently by different researchers: those who study confessions as
such, take into account the maximum number of respondents, including all those who answered they were the
followers of a certain religion; in contrast, independent experts make their conclusions based on how regularly each
respondent takes part in the church service, which cuts the number in the report by half or third.
In this case, qualitative methods of research, involving the approach based on philosophy, allow to make the
basic notions clear and precise and to narrow their application to a definite field. This aids to measure the inaccuracy
of quantitative methods and make the analysis of the data more relevant.
The paper of Y.Y. Sinelina [11] is a good example of such study. It analyses the concept of the so called
‘latent religiosity’, which is connected with an absolutely different phenomenon – the ‘isolation of religion’ [3]. The
figures she obtained demonstrated that there is a number of people who claim to be Orthodox Christians but fail to
prove this by answering test questions. On the other hand, the figures revealed a large group of respondents who do
not declare their belonging to Orthodox Church, but share its values, even those which belong specifically to the
religious cult. Within the framework of classical religious sociology, the problem of identification and self-identification
SIlantieva M.V., 2013
is hard to solve. The only key to doing it is disambiguating the concepts by means of philosophy and continuing to
study them with reference to possible behavior of people that reflects the changes in the religious environment.
It goes without saying, that the non-traditional approach of the study calls for theoretical basis, including
exemplification (the method neglected by the classical approach and called ‘the exemplarism mistake’); the
biographical method; case study; life history method; interviewing; participant observation, etc.
It is important to point out that in dealing with the current issue of national and cultural identification in
Russia, religion is assumed as an ideology while religious identification is seen as cultural identification by educators
and mass media. Consequently, social conflicts concerning economic or political aspects of migration turn into ethnic
and religious conflicts.
Educational programmes adopted on the national scale for such subjects as The basics of Orthodox culture
(or other religious culture, depending on the region), Secular ethics, Religious studies – with the state overtly
supporting the Orthodox element in school programmes rather than any other – lead to imams coming to teach at
schools in regions with high density of Muslim population. At the same time, notwithstanding the loopholes in the
assessment system, families in most big cities accepted the project of teaching Secular ethics at schools, even
though no good textbooks have been written yet (The state suggested that such textbooks be published within a
term, which is a short time. Consequently, the leading scholars refused to participate in the project). Secondly,
‘secular’ ethics as such was, for some reason, set in opposition to religious ethics, which is equally important for the
culture and, in fact, is by no means the inverse of secular ethics. Obviously, the developers of the new basic project
used the concept of moral autonomy characteristic of the orthodox church militant. The radicals take this for atheistic
ideas similar to those of Immanuel Kant or the main characters of M.A. Bulgakov’s famous Master and Margarita
novel. Hence, ‘Secular ethics’ is rethought as a set of rules, which appears for some reason to be mandatory for a
‘worldly’ person as opposed to a ‘religious’ person ( with the implication of atheism), a set of rules similar to the
former communist code. The mentioned analogy demonstrates how Russian Orthodox Church Patriarchate
educational institutions see ‘secular ethics’. Having supposedly initiated this project, they revealed traces of secular
education that they received during the stagnation period and that is ingrained in their minds as a categorical
framework which filters all information they receive.
The given example demonstrates how the axiomatics of consciousness works on the national scale given
that the people do not analyse the information they receive and judge it based on common stereotypes. This
axiomatics is closely entwined with the legacy of the Soviet period, even when representatives of the surveyed group
are pursuing the aims of strengthening the position of the Orthodox Church, which makes their judgment remain
within the framework of popular understanding of religion.
I would venture a guess that the wide-scale ‘revival’ of religious culture in modern Russia is, in fact, the
‘mass religion’ outburst, which, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with religion as such. Being a means of uniting the
nation (due to the lack of earlier means, which became extinct with the fall of the Soviet Union), the ‘revival of religion’
is concerned with a number of pre-set parameters. These parameters have been studied in modern cognitive science
and anthropology [4] and have clearly reflected the striving for perfection and the dream of going beyond oneself
inherent in human nature as a basis for the behaviour pattern formation, as this is not determined by instincts, and
thus can be changed.
The life principles of modern Russians make a controversial combination of ideas such as idealizing the
past, which is characteristic of ‘collective conscience’ (Heidegger’s Das Man) no matter what national and other
identification the person has, and the wish for a ‘better life’ that is impossible without modernizing the economy, as
well as reforms in the whole socio-political sphere, which cause the clash of values and occasional ethnic conflicts
interpreted by many Russian analysts as cultural conflicts. This idealization ‘justifies’ the return of Orthodox culture
as a basis for national culture, without taking into consideration the major upheavals of the 19 th and 20th centuries.
Is the notion of ‘Orthodox culture’ controversial in itself? Or does it have the potential for avoiding conflicts?
The answer is to be found in the works of the 20 th century philosophers. In particular, those by the rev. George
Florovsky, an outstanding scholar who worked in the fields of philosophy, religion and ethics. Being a man of brilliant
education, the rev. George Florovsky is known to have developed and proved his own theory on the path of Christian
culture. He was one of the first cultural figures to be exiled after the revolution of 1917. The philosopher first found
refuge in Europe, then moved to the USA. His articles which invoked public reaction - Religion and Culture,
Christianity and Civilization [12,13] point out the fact that the ‘successful’ Christianity model is limited to the ideas of
ascetism rather than attempts at changing the world; at the same time it is attractive to any Christian who has
common sense, as the ascetism in this case is not equal to masochism.
With values being confused as a result of non-reflective use and Orthodox values being imposed on the
nation, the given ideology project looks similar to the ideology practices of the Soviet period [5], with ‘double
standards’, hypocrisy and wickedness involved. Nevertheless, the project meets the needs of the masses which have
the concept of ‘anthropological religion’ as a substitute for means of fighting poverty, social differences, and the
dramatic decline in the psychological comfort of the citizens as a result of inferiority complex caused by the persistent
lack of social demand for ‘human capital’ [7].
National and cultural identification as well as self-identification of modern Russians is a vague notion [10], as
vague as the program of personal self-identification. The same processes are to be traced on the scale of national
identity; people are willing to rely on ‘values proven by history’, that is, values that can be interpreted by the
collective conscience without referring to the reflexive level of culture. However, such values are not relevant to the
needs of the modernization processes. Using them as a ‘new ideology’ will only lead to sharpening ethnic conflicts on
national basis disguised as ethnic conflicts on religious basis. At the same time,culture as such is not by any means
aimed at eliminating anything ‘foreign’. On the contrary, it is formed by the understanding of what belongs to it and
what is ‘foreign’ to it.
The mass ‘post-Orthodox culture’, aimed at adding ideological and political background to religion is viewed
in modern Russia as a palliative which can merely help to postpone solving urgent social issues. Solving them does
not involve abandoning Christianity or any other religions supported by the state. However, it would be more than a
short-sighted decision to rely on ‘conservative ideology’ in solving this matter, as such ideology offers Post-Christian
culture instead of the real Christian culture [6], and scarcely supports the idea of ‘self-improvement’, ‘going beyond
oneself’ in application to Christian values rather than those opposed to them. When the religious and social space are
set against the background of ideology, such projects add political context to religion, and it becomes devoid of its
genuine content. To put the essential principles of religion into practice one needs calm work for the sake of first and
foremost self-improvement, as it is of utmost importance together with welfare work rather than instead of it.
As to adding political context to religion, sadly, the consequences of such orientation are well-known. For
example, ‘religious economy’ (and policy) strategies that have been well developed and implemented in the Arab
Muslim countries, unlike those in the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea), do not provide a way out of
the state of complete poverty in which most people find themselves. Neither do they ‘promote freedom’ [2]. Will
Russia choose a plan for economic prosperity at the price of realizing that social changes are inevitable if religious
ideology is not used as a means of achieving political aims, though such strategy has directly influenced economic,
political and social aspects of life? Will the state follow the neoconservative path of development? The future will
show. However, the possible scenarios call for more attention to be paid to representatives of Russian elite, as well
as the citizens, who are sick and tired of faked innovations. Many people have on their mind the ideas that Peter the
Great tried to eradicate. There is always a hope that the genuine values will survive under pressure of imitations at all
levels. That is why the qualitative study of modern culture, including that of regions where relevant and constructive
effort is undertaken to rationalize the patterns of behavior, are seen as the most perspective means of further
research on the modern Russian citizens’ national identity, stereotypes of religious perception of the world admitted,
but by no means being the sole core of religious culture.
References
[1.] Arinin J. I. (2013). Religion as a Word and a Concept in the History of Culture. Svecha(23), 18-56
[2.] Barkovskii A.L. (2011) The Arab Countries in Search of National Development Strategy. Gosudarstvennaia sluzhba(5), 102-104
[3.] Glagolev V.S (2013) The Isolation of Religion as a Subject for a Sociological Study. Sotsiologiia religii v obshchestve pozdnego
moderna77-87
[4.] Eres'ko, M.N. (2007) The Language of Religion: Prerequisites for Cognitive Discourse. Religiovedenie (2) 98-115
[5.] Zubov A.B. (2013) Anticipationg a New Russian. Our Eternal Chioce between Ideosincrasies and Flexibility. Nezavisimaia
gazeta
[6.] Kargina I.G. (2012) The Changes in Christianity against the Background of Postmodernism . Polis 106-121
[7.] Muntian M.A (2013) National Human Capital and Russia’s Future. Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta.(3) 147-149
[8.] Petrenko V.F. (2005) The Basics of Psychosomatics, St. Petersburg, Russia
[9.] Petrosian D.I (2013) Tolerance vs Xenophobia, according to Vladimir citizens . Svecha, 51-52
[10.] Silant'eva M.V. (2012) Vague Identity as a Modern Patriotic Identity Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta(2) 173-179
[11.] Sinelina, Iu.Iu.(2013) The Dynamics of the Religiousness in Russia in 1989-2012 Sotsiologiia religii v obshchestve Pozdnego
Moderna (pamiati Iu.Iu. Sinelinoĭ): materialy Tret'eĭ Mezhdunarodnoĭ nauchnoĭ konferentsii. NIU «BelGU», 323-344
[12.] Florovskii G.V Religion and Culture, online copy at http://sites.google.com/site/lubitelkultury/Home-5-27 (26.10.2011).
[13.] Florovskii G.V (2000) Christianity and Civilization Izbrannye bogoslovskie stat'i., 218- 227