HOMO EUROPAEUS – East and West
Factors of identity – values, culture, religion
Vladimir Bryushinkin
(BaltCASE, Russian State Immanuel Kant University, Kaliningrad)
How is a “Russian European” possible in modern Russia?
1. The focus of BaltCASE social research group’s interest is regional identity,
in particular Kaliningrad identity, and its identifiable features, which can
have quantitative measure. However, I believe that before to speak on the
plan, questionnaire, and results of sociological inquiry we must have clear
understanding of the purposes of the inquiry, as well as of the cultural
presupposition of the possible working hypotheses. I suppose that regional
identity could be something like a project proposed by research community
to regional society. Kaliningrad region is one of the best regions of Russia
for the project because of the predominant Soviet identity of its population
from the end of Forties to the end of Eighties. The simple fact illustrating
this thesis is that there were no orthodox churches at all in the region until
late Eighties. After the breakdown of Soviet State, the crisis of identity in
the region was deeper then in other Russian regions. In that situation it is
still possible to propose to the regional community a reasonable project.
2. The geographical situation of Kaliningrad region as the Russian exclave in
the Central Europe and German past of the region suggest an idea of a
project of Russian European identity as a predominant type of regional
identity. Vladimir Kantor, the author of the extensive investigation of the
phenomenon of Russian Europeans in the XIXth century Russia, advanced
the idea in 2003. However, before formulating such purpose for the regional
community we have to make clear whether it is possible and attainable.
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3. The notion “to be European” is analyzed as it can be seen from within
Russian culture. The result of the analysis is the list of features, which
usually attributed to an European in the Russian literature and ordinary life.
The comparison with European identity as it interpreted in Europe itself
shows that the Russian view on the composition and order of the list is
slightly different from European one. The second step of the argument is
trying to understand what is to be a “non-European”. With this aim in mind,
the list of negations of the first list is compiled. Analysis of the second list
shows that it coincides substantially with the self-estimation of Russians
when they compare themselves with representatives of Western civilization.
It means that there is a possibility of the situation where Russians relate
themselves to non-European type of civilization. In that case, the notion of
“Russian European” can be inconsistent.
4. The possible empirical inconsistency of the notion “Russian European’
demands deeper analysis of the basic features of European and Russian
cultural backgrounds. It is stated usually that “individual autonomy” and
“sobornost” can be regarded as the core notions of ideal types of Western
and Russian cultures. It is easy to show that the two principles, if we take
them in their abstract form, are also inconsistent. However the deeper
analysis of the world model lying in the background of Russian life shows
that there are alternatives to the notion of “sobornost’. One of them is the
notion of “vospolnienie” (mutual compensation of the incomplete being) as
it was introduced by Vladimir Soloviev
[1]. “Vospolnienie” in
contradistinction to “Sobornost” refers to the personal relations. If we regard
“vospolnienie” as a substantive feature of Russian world model, then it can
be shown that it is compatible with “individual autonomy” as a basic
principle of European life.
5. The sociological inquires confirm the difficulties in uniting the types of
identities in the consistent whole. When residents of Kaliningrad oblast
(KO) were asked to choose only one of the alternatives: “I am local citizen”,
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“I am Kaliningrad citizen” , “I am Russian”, “I am European”, “I am
cosmopolitan”, the results of three inquires, held in 2001, 2003, 2004 and
2005, showed the permanent trend of increasing predominant Russian
identification (24,6% – 31,5% - 32,5% - 41,0%) and fluctuations in the selfestimation as Europeans (2,6% - 7,6% - 2,4% - 5,8%). It is interesting that
the cosmopolitan orientation was more stable in comparison to European
one: 2001 – 6,6%, 2003 – 6,7%, 2004 – 4,1% [2, p. 35]. However when KO
residents were asked to choose three alternatives from the list in decreasing
importance 20,6% of respondents stressed the second- or third-order
importance of “European identity” [2, p. 36-37].
6. The analysis shows that the question on the possibility of “Russian
European” in modern Russia and in particular in Kaliningrad region of
Russia is still open. The correct answer to it demands deeper theoretical and
empirical investigations.
Bibliography.
1. Bryushinkin V. The Phenomenology of Russian Soul // Voprosy filosofii
(Problems of Philosophy). 2005. N 1. P. 29-39. (In Russian)
2. Region of cooperation / Ed. By A.P. Klemeshev. 2005. Vol. 3. (In Russian)
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