Today at a meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with the need to develop a law on Russian nation.
“But what is definitely absolutely possible and needs to be implemented - we need to think about it directly and start working on it in practical terms - this is the law on the Russian nation,” the president said. He further explained that the law could be developed on the basis of a strategy for the development of national relations in Russia - and thus become its logical continuation.
“Our strategy, which you and I developed together, can be transformed - but we just need to work hard on this too,” Putin said. According to news agencies, Vyacheslav Mikhailov, head of the RANEPA department, initially proposed developing a law “On the Russian Nation and Management of Interethnic Relations.” The law must “absorb all innovations related to interethnic relations.”
Regarding the strategy for the development of national relations in the Russian Federation, we recall that the decree “On the Strategy of State National Policy Russian Federation for the period until 2025" was signed by the president in 2012. The document, in particular, talks about the “spiritual community of the multinational people of the Russian Federation (Russian nation)”, the need to “preserve and develop the ethnocultural diversity of the peoples of Russia” and “successful social and cultural adaptation and integration of migrants”.
Based on Putin’s words, it can be assumed that the same ideas and theses will become the “reference points” of the new law, but within the framework of this document they will receive a clearer legal design and legal status.
Let us also recall that last year the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs was created by presidential decree. One of the department’s tasks was declared to be “strengthening the unity of the multinational people of the Russian Federation (Russian nation).” And now we can definitely say that all of this is part of a single, well-thought-out strategy for the development of interethnic relations and the creation of a civil nation.
Its role in the life of the country cannot be underestimated: national unity for such a large state populated different peoples, is one of the priorities not only state development, but also national security. It can be noted that one way or another, a legally enshrined definition of a nation, its rights and status is the norm for states inhabited by various peoples who attach great importance state unity and those who value their sovereignty.
The status of a nation at the legal level was enshrined in the pre-revolutionary constitution of France, and the “American nation” is one of the defining concepts of US legislation. Great importance This issue is also discussed in China, which is also inhabited by various peoples. At the official level, the PRC actively supports the doctrine of the Chinese nation; priority attention is paid to the formation of “state consciousness” (state identity) among citizens, while simultaneously relegating the ethnic consciousness of nationalities to the background.
In addition to securing the status of a civil nation at the legislative level, at the same meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations it was proposed to hold a year of national unity in Russia. Perhaps it will be the coming year, 2017, or the next one - 2018.
“It seems to me that the event could be good. With the involvement of everyone who has gathered here today in this hall so that we can work together. You just need to choose this year,” Vladimir Putin noted.
The President believes that this event could become very important: “This could be a very big significant consolidating event that would affect almost every ethnic group, every people that lives in Russia,” he said. Putin also noted that it could play a serious educational role.
"Among other things, this could be very interesting. Unfortunately, we ourselves still do not understand everything about what country we live in, what a beautiful country. And for many people living next to their neighbors, it would be interesting to learn about ethnic groups and peoples that inhabit the country. Such things that we, unfortunately, do not encounter in everyday life, but which, of course, are the basis of the Russian multinational people and, of course, are our value,” the president believes.
Based on the results of the above, it can be noted that in Russia there is an active and conscious global process of forming a single nation, including all the peoples of Russia, with a single civil and national consciousness, with a common understanding for all citizens of what the “Russian nation” is, based on common values and principles. And enshrined at the highest legislative level.
“Spontaneously” national unification has been going on for a long time; Russian citizens felt united without any laws. However, now this process will be formalized and supported officially. Which is natural - and, of course, good.
Proposal for the creation of a Federal Law on the Russian Nation. “But what is definitely absolutely possible and should be implemented - we need to think about it directly and start working on it in practical terms - this is the law on the Russian Nation,” said Vladimir Putin, commenting on the corresponding initiative. According to him, such a law could develop into a strategy for the development of national relations in Russia. “Our strategy, which you and I developed together, needs to be transformed – but we just need to work hard on this too,” said the head of state.
In addition, the president supported the idea of holding a Year of Unity of the Russian Nation. “It seems to me that a good event could be with the involvement of everyone who has gathered here today in this room so that we can work together. You just need to choose a year. We already have some plans for the year, we need to ensure that some events do not overlap with others. This could be a very big significant, consolidating event that would affect almost every ethnic group, every people living in Russia,” the Russian leader said.
Putin complained that not everyone still understands what a beautiful country they live in, so for many it would be interesting to get to know the peoples and ethnic groups inhabiting Russia. The full transcript of the meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations can be found.
The author of the idea to create federal law about the Russian nation, who expressed this initiative, V. Putin became the head of the department Russian Academy National Economy and Civil Service (RANEPA), former Minister of Nationalities Affairs Vyacheslav Mikhailov. He also proposed the name of the law - “On the Russian nation and the management of interethnic relations.” Later, in an interview with TASS, he told the details of his initiative.
According to Mikhailov, the law on the Russian nation and management of interethnic relations will allow top level consolidate the concept of the Russian nation as a “political fellow citizen” and determine the goal of the state’s development. Mikhailov pointed out that in the Constitution of the Russian Federation the concept of “multinational people of the Russian Federation” is not deciphered; everyone interprets it in their own way. “Some believe that this is a civil nation, others that it is a nation of nations, a multi-ethnic people,” he explained. “At the same time, the State National Policy Strategy for the period until 2025, approved in 2012, already includes such a concept as the Russian nation.” According to Mikhailov, the disadvantage of the strategy is that it is limited by time frames. “I believe that we need to move from strategy to the law on the Russian nation,” Mikhailov said, pointing out that the legislation different countries there is a concept of a nation, “for example, British, American, French.”
The scientist believes that the law will mark a “national line.” “This is a decoding of the concept of “Russian nation” not only as a “civil nation”, but also as special kind civilization. When we say “Russian nation,” this means co-citizenship in a country with clearly defined borders.” According to Mikhailov, the concept of “Russian nation” “does not have any ethnic basis, it is purely political co-citizenship.” "The Russian nation in in this case is a union of all citizens. We connect the civil, political nation with ethnic communities,” he believes.
Expert assessments
Nikolay Starikov:
“Based on the information that was announced in the media on October 31, it is still difficult to talk about the meaning that will be included in the law on the Russian nation. The name is quite broad, so we need to wait for this law to be filled with some meaning. But before we receive this information, some time will pass. Therefore, now I would like to outline my vision of this problem.
At the moment, it is obvious that the severity of interethnic relations has largely subsided - thanks to the situation of unprecedented external pressure on the Russian Federation, economic sanctions, attempts to be drawn into war, which every citizen of Russia feels, regardless of his nationality. As soon as we feel that we are being attacked, we unite. It is very good that we in no way lost this feeling, this opportunity, this ability to unite the citizens of our state after the collapse of the Soviet Union and along the path of so-called reforms. This is the first.
Second. In order to understand how we can develop our state, we must ask ourselves the question: how did it develop? For anyone who studies with an open mind historical facts, it is obvious that Russia is a free union of Eurasian peoples that has developed around the Russian people. It is the three components of this definition that are important: a free union; Eurasian peoples; around the Russian people. This means that the Russian people, of course, are the state-forming people in the Russian Federation. But at the same time, the uniqueness of our state association lies in the fact that not a single non-Russian people (nationality) included in Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, was never subjected to any extermination or attempts to deprive it of its national identity. This is a rich mosaic, where each of the parts is equally valuable, and together they make up the palette that is the value of the Russian world. This means that a “nationality” column should appear in the passports of Russian citizens. Even in our Constitution it is written that our people are multinational. This corresponds to what you and I know even without the Constitution. But you and I cannot write and cannot read a person’s nationality in a citizen’s passport. This happened in the Soviet Union. There is nothing to be ashamed of here. To those who say that we have interethnic marriages and it will be difficult for someone to determine their nationality, I would like to say that I have not seen a single person who does not know his nationality, even if his parents belong to two different ethnic groups .
Therefore, in my opinion, the legislative initiative that was announced yesterday is an attempt at a new level to begin to designate in terms, to fill with meaning the same concept as the “multinational Soviet people” once was. It is wrong to say that the Soviet people did not exist. The Great Victory of 1945 was achieved precisely by the great Soviet people.
The overwhelming majority of Soviet people lived together and did not even think about national problems. We were forced to think about this after 1991, when a number of small nations were instilled with the idea of their suppression by the Russians, and many Russians began to acutely feel the infringement of their national identity. In the USSR, all this was overcome. But it is completely unclear on what ideological basis - if in modern Russia there is no announced project for the future - are they going to build a new unity of ethnic groups in the Russian Federation?
After all, the state project, the civilizational project, is built by a community of people called the people. And in order for this nation to take shape, there must be a certain base - a commonality of views, culture, ideology. Today we see attempts to build this state project, stimulate development, and fill the Russian World project with a certain meaning. And the complexity of this process lies precisely in the fact that there is no ideological basis. The ideas that Russia should bring to the world have not yet been formulated.
Let's remember our own experience, The Russian Empire was an Orthodox empire that brought certain ideas to the surrounding space. And she carried them quite successfully - just look at geographical map. The Soviet Union also had a super idea that it brought to the surrounding space. But the ideas that Russia should bring to the world today have not been fully formulated. Because ideas market economy, liberal dogmas, human rights, which in no way correlate with the responsibilities of the same person, are absolutely secondary to the same ideas that we, unfortunately, learned from our American and all sorts of other partners.
Therefore, in Astrakhan the correct direction is indicated, but the wheels have not yet been attached to our state car, without which it is very difficult for it to move further. You can, of course, carry it in your arms, but such a path of movement in metaphysical space cannot be distant and successful. That’s why I said that we must now wait, giving the authors of the idea that was expressed yesterday the opportunity to present to society a little more than the name of the bill in question. Because it can be breakthrough, new and truly lay the foundation of the civilizational idea that our state will bring to the world. But, unfortunately, there is a possibility that this may not happen.
Couldn’t the message from Russia to the rest of the world be precisely our unique Eurasian ability to live without suppressing, the ability to live in the world in the most different ethnic groups and even races - that which unites and Soviet experience, and imperial experience, and medieval, and pre-Christian experience? The ability to live in peace has a name. This is justice. It is justice that has always been inscribed on the banners of Russia. And we must return her name to our modern banners. By the way, this is precisely why Russia is so popular in the world today, our national leader’s rating is so high, because the actions that Russia takes in the foreign policy arena are just. We are on the side of justice. We stand for the preservation of international legislation, for its observance, for the impossibility of the strong arbitrarily robbing, destroying, and bombing the weak. All this causes a serious response in the world, because the lack of justice there is acutely felt. Probably, Russia’s highest mission is to convey the idea of justice to the whole world.
When we act in the way that God’s providence originally laid down in the meaning of existence Russian state, then everything works out great for us, we develop. As soon as we try to play other people's games by other people's rules, we enter a difficult period in our history. I think every effort should be made to fill this new law the act of giving has a meaning necessary for the development of the state. We must also remember not only Russian experience, which is certainly rich, but also global. Let's remember how states developed and how they fell into decline.
You don’t have to look far for examples; you can remember Byzantium. When in the Eastern Roman Empire everyone was Roman, when there was a superidea of Orthodoxy, the state developed, grew stronger and not only remained afloat, but existed perfectly for many centuries, unlike the destroyed Western Roman Empire. As soon as interethnic conflicts began, as soon as the Romans began to divide within themselves into Greeks, Armenians, Italics, Syrians, Jews, Slavs, and so on, the state was destroyed, and this had a rather sad effect on almost all the peoples that were part of the then Eastern Roman Empire . We see exactly the same thing in the example of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. As soon as division into national enclaves began, the state collapsed, weakened and disintegrated. Here we can debate for a long time what came first: first the collapse of the state, and then a surge of nationalist sentiments, or vice versa, but for me personally it is obvious that if the historical community “Soviet people” had been as strong in 1985 as in 1945 -m, the state could not disintegrate. Therefore, first they attack ethnic unity, then the destruction of the state inevitably begins.
To summarize, I want to say that the authors of the idea of creating a law on the Russian nation understand what happened to Soviet Union. And that is why they are trying today to create a new community, which, of course, exists, but is not yet fully expressed in the senses that are required today. Therefore, we must make every effort to ensure that these meanings appear, and then under our state car we will be able to attach the wheels necessary for its movement forward.”
The law “On the unity of the Russian nation and the management of interethnic relations”, which is currently being developed, will be renamed, writes Kommersant. This decision was made by the working group preparing the concept of the bill due to “society’s unwillingness to accept the idea of a single nation.”
The document may be called “On the Fundamentals of State National Policy.” “It’s calmer this way. It turned out that society is not very prepared to perceive such a concept as a single nation uniting all nationalities. Considering that the president also proposed translating the strategy of state national policy into the language of law, we decided to change its name,” explained the head of the working group, former Minister of Nationalities Affairs, academician.
The bill, according to him, will spell out the conceptual apparatus, the mechanism for delimiting powers between the federal, regional and local authorities, a system for monitoring ethno-confessional relations in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, state policy towards small and indigenous peoples, and the principles of ethnological examination of bills. He noted that a special section will most likely be devoted to the Russian nation.
The working group will present the new concept in a month.
Another former minister of nationalities said that the working group is still studying the proposals of experts. One of the working options for the name of the bill, he noted, is “On the fundamentals of state national policy in the Russian Federation.” The main thing, in his opinion, is “to consolidate once again at the legislative level the ideas of the state national policy strategy that have entered real life.”
In December 2016, the first deputy chairman of the Committee on Education and Science destroyed the mental unity of Russia. As an example, he cited the Far East, where distinguished students are sent not to Moscow, but to Seoul ( South Korea). “It’s already a mentality that they don’t live in Russia,” he noted.
On November 3, the Duma Committee on Nationalities began to develop the concept of a law on the Russian nation, the creation of which was initiated by the President of Russia. The head of state suggested that the basis for the law could be a strategy for the development of national relations in Russia.
In October Putin unity of the people key condition to preserve the statehood and independence of Russia, as well as the existence of the country as “a single and native home for all the peoples who inhabit it.”
According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, about 200 different nationalities live in Russia, with almost 80 percent of citizens being Russian.
The idea of adopting a new law has drawn sharp criticism
The law “on the Russian nation”, which does not yet exist even in the draft, has caused such sharp criticism that it has already been decided to rename it. This reaction is by no means accidental, since the bill affects the foundations of the country’s national-state structure and reveals the deep layers of historical and ethnic self-awareness that the authorities for a long time preferred not to touch.
At a meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations in Astrakhan on October 31 last year, Vyacheslav Mikhailov, head of the department of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, proposed developing such a law. In an interview with TASS, he explained that the purpose of adopting the new law is “to consolidate at the highest level the concept of the Russian nation as “political fellow-citizenship” and determine the goal of the state’s development.” The impetus for the development of the bill was the absence of the concept of “Russian nation” in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, where the term “multinational people” is used, for which there is no single interpretation. At the same time, the “Strategy of State National Policy until 2025” contains such a concept, but the validity period of this document is limited, while the law will be in force permanently.
“When we say ‘Russian nation’, this is co-citizenship in a country with clearly defined borders,” he believes. At the same time, the concept of a nation in the law will be purely political and does not provide for any ethnic content.
“The Russian nation in this case is the union of all citizens,” he explained. “We connect the civil, political nation with ethnic communities.”
How this connection should occur is not clear from the text of the interview, but judging by the plans to change the preamble of the constitution, which should read “We, the multinational people (Russian nation),” the methods will be comprehensive.
The United Russia faction in the Duma hastened to declare that the law is extremely necessary and important, as it will strengthen the national unity of the state. “The unity of the Russian nation is the basis of Russia’s internal strength,” said the first deputy leader of the faction “ United Russia» Nikolay Pankov. – We see today how in many countries nationalist organizations are reviving and beginning to dictate their policies. Intolerance for other people’s opinions is growing, and past mistakes are being repeated.” According to State Duma Vice Speaker Irina Yarovaya, “the unity of the Russian nation is the most important historical asset and advantage of Russia,” and the Russian people, “for whom faith and justice, dignity and solidarity are enduring values, defend and defend the values of peace, equal and indivisible security, dignity and integrity, national sovereignty."
Of course, strengthening national unity, especially in the context of the most acute confrontation with the West in the last thirty years, is extremely important. But the question is whether the new law will truly strengthen national unity, albeit in its political interpretation as a community of all Russian citizens, regardless of their ethnic and religious affiliation, or, on the contrary, will become a trigger for processes that will develop in the completely opposite direction direction?
The law itself, even the most ideal one, cannot strengthen national unity, since it relates to the mental-psychological, and not the legal, sphere. You cannot force people to unite around an idea if they themselves do not want to and they do not have incentives for this.
National unity is even more difficult, since it affects a whole layer of extremely sensitive issues for people related to their origin, language, faith (or lack thereof), individual and collective consciousness, which has absorbed the historical experience of previous generations.
The expert community, as well as a number of public and religious organizations optimism about the law is not shared. The idea of its adoption was met with extreme caution. The bill, in their opinion, poses a great danger to Russia, since it is capable of blowing it up from within, once again making the national issue one of the main items on the domestic political agenda.
Many experts note the essentially Soviet approach of the initiator of the adoption of the new law to national problems. If in the USSR the “Soviet people” officially existed as a supranational community, then V. Mikhailov proposes to do something similar, calling it the “Russian nation”. “The law has practically no real content,” said an associate professor at the School of Philosophy in an interview with the BBC Russian Service. High school economics Kirill Martynov, - either you give an ethnic interpretation of the Russian nation, and then it is defined as Orthodox with the priority of the Russian ethnos, or you give a civil interpretation of the Russian nation, then you return to the Constitution with its words about a multinational people and you have no room for maneuver “It cannot be said that Russian culture can have priority over other cultures, since we have a multinational people.” According to him, “nations cannot be fixed by decree from above... [The initiative] sounds absurd: it is a social contract in reverse, as if it is not the nation that creates the state, but the state that forges the nation.”
Historian and sociologist A.I. Fursov, in an interview with the Den TV channel, assessed the very idea of adopting such a law in the words of the leader of the Cadet Party P.N. Miliukov, spoken by him at the meeting State Duma November 1 (14), 1916: “Stupidity or treason?” Fursov recalled that in the USSR they had already tried to create a “new historical community” - the Soviet people, but “Sovietness” rather organically fell on the Russians, partly on the Belarusians and the Russian population of the eastern part of the Ukrainian SSR, which was never Ukraine. However, on the national periphery - in the Baltic states, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, as the events of late perestroika and the 1990s showed, there was no “Sovietness”; there it was perceived as “Russianness”. Now an attempt is being made to step on the same rake, only in a worse situation. This idea contains a time bomb, because if we're talking about about the Russian nation, then there cannot be any divisions within it, and in the “Russian nation”, in addition to the Tatars, Bashkirs and other ethnic groups, Russian subethnic groups, such as Pomors, Siberians, Cossacks, etc., may appear. In the West, the idea of a “political nation” in Europe and a “melting pot” in the United States is collapsing before our eyes, and there is no point in borrowing their negative experience from Russia.
According to publicist Yegor Kholmogorov, the consequences of such a law will only be negative. “This will not lead to anything good,” he said in an interview with the BBC Russian Service. “It is written in our Constitution that Russia is a multinational country, where there are many nations, and among them is the Russian one, which created this state, and there are others, which, with varying degrees of voluntariness, became part of it, there are certain relationships between them: national autonomies, assimilation processes, and, unfortunately, manifestations of separatism, when Russians were killed in the 90s, and now they are being gently squeezed out of some regions .
And now the only thing on which the state can be built is that the absolute majority of residents absolute majority regions - Russians, be it the former German Kaliningrad or the once Japanese Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
In fact, it is proposed: let's put everything into one pot, declare it the Russian nation, and let's build it. But it is not clear on what basis to build it - purely logically, it must be built on a Russian basis, as on the basis of the majority of the population, and if on some kind of neutral basis, then there is a danger that the Russians will be artificially separated from their roots.”
The Russian Federation also opposed the adoption of the law. Orthodox Church. The head of the synodal department for relations between the Church and society and the media, Vladimir Legoyda, speaking at a meeting of the working group, according to Kommersant, noted the unifying role of the Russian people, language and culture. In addition, the law on the “Russian nation,” in his opinion, will contradict the concept of the “Russian World,” which unites all Russians, and not just those who live in Russia.
The national republics of the Russian Federation also reacted negatively to the law “on the Russian nation”. The head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, said that such a law “cannot exist in nature,” since the formation of nations is “an objective historical process,” and the law only regulates social relations. In return, he proposed developing “a memorandum on the Russian nation, a declaration, a comprehensive program for the development of interethnic relations,” noting that the formation of the Russian nation does not negate the identity of other peoples of the Russian Federation. Deputy of the State Council of Chuvashia Viktor Ilyin regarded the preparation of the law as an attempt to violate Article 3 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which states that “the bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation is its multinational people.” The head of the Tatarstan State Council Committee on Education, Culture, Science and National Issues, Razil Valeev, also opposed the law, saying that the legal basis for nationality policy in the Russian Federation already exists.
In fact, the national republics opposed the main idea of the law, which is the political “unification” of all the peoples of the Russian Federation within the framework of a single civil nation, regarding it as an attack on their rights and a desire to level out ethnocultural differences between the peoples of Russia.
It is noteworthy that even the state news agency RIA Novosti criticized the idea of the law. “National unity in our country, as I see it, is already being formed and will continue to be formed in a multi-stage manner,” notes its observer Mikhail Demurin, “that is, not by uniting individual representatives of the various peoples inhabiting it into some kind of non-national community (such a community would be a chimera) , but on an interethnic basis.”
An unexpected result of the discussion was a proposal to develop a law on the state-forming role of the Russian people, which is currently not reflected in the Constitution and other legal acts of the Russian Federation. Thus, a member of the commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for the harmonization of ethno-confessional relations, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, proposed “removing the division between the elite and the people and starting an open discussion in society on the main problems,” to which he includes the question of the state-forming role of the Russian people. To do this, it is proposed to adopt not one, but two laws at once - on the Russian nation and the Russian people.
“We need to start with a clear, possibly legal definition of the place of the Russian people in the structure of Russian statehood,” Yegor Kholmogorov told the Tsargrad TV channel. “When this place is determined and legally secured, then from this starting point it will be possible to move towards legislative definitions of national policy " Otherwise, “... we will come to a serious internal ethnic crisis, when damage will be done to the Russian people, while separatism will only increase on the outskirts.” A.I. also agrees with the need to legally consolidate the power-forming status of Russians. Fursov.
In the idea of the “Russian nation” there is indeed a lot that reminds us of the “Soviet people”, and this similarity is by no means accidental. It is enough to remember that the initiator of the adoption of the law, V. Mikhailov, was in the past a career employee of the apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee and a specialist in the history of the CPSU. The topic of his candidate’s dissertation is “The activities of party organizations in the western regions of Ukraine for the international education of the population,” and his doctoral dissertation is “The activities of the CPSU in the formation and deepening of the internationalist consciousness of the working people of the western regions of Ukraine (1939–1981).” The idea of the “Soviet people,” which in a modernized form can be called the “Russian nation,” follows from this scientific issue in a completely logical way. At the same time, the international education of the CPSU workers western regions Ukraine, as we know, ended in complete collapse, and its fruits can be partly observed today in the Donbass.
The introduction of the idea of the “Russian nation” to the masses will inevitably undermine the national-state structure of Russia, which it inherited from the USSR.
The fact is that Russians, as the main, state-forming people of the Russian Federation, actually do not have their own “ethnic” territory today. The federation includes national republics and “non-ethnic” territories and regions that bear “geographical names” (Kursk, Oryol regions, Primorsky Territory, etc.). A similar situation was in the USSR, where its “backbone” - the RSFSR - had much fewer rights than other union republics, and was the main economic donor in relation to them. Throughout the post-Soviet period, they were simply afraid to touch this situation for fear of further aggravating national relations, which in some regions were already far from calm.
It is not surprising that immediately after the “stuffing in” of the idea of a “Russian nation,” there were demands from the Russians to adopt a similar law on the Russian people, and from the national republics – not to break the existing situation and not to touch their ethnic identity.
As a result, the law, which it was decided to rename and call “On the Fundamentals of State National Policy,” may not lead to the consequences that its developers expected. At the same time, the tight knot of ethnonational and ethnoregional problems in Russia remains, and if it does not want to repeat the fate of the USSR, it will require its resolution in the future.
Especially for "Century"
The article was published as part of a project using funds state support allocated as a grant in accordance with the order of the President of the Russian Federation dated 04/05/2016 No. 68-rp and on the basis of a competition held by the National Charitable Foundation.
The Council on Interethnic Relations discussed, among other things, the development of the so-called “law on the Russian nation.” Russian President Vladimir Putin gave corresponding instructions.
The order itself sounds cautious, and this is correct, since we are talking about extremely complex matter. The assertive comments of the author of this initiative, head of the RANEPA department Vyacheslav Mikhailov, that appeared on the Internet, however, alarmed me. It is clear that since he voiced such an initiative, his personal vision of this problem should be completely clear. But he speaks as if the fact that he was appointed head of the relevant expert group automatically means that this particular vision should prevail. I don’t think that would be good for the business, and here’s why.
At one time, the famous historian, student of Lev Gumilev and simply a wise man, Vladimir Makhnach, said that one of the key mistakes of the communists in the USSR was a superficial attitude towards national politics. He consistently criticized the Soviet leadership for neglecting the enormous heritage of Russian thought in the field of national identity, and insisted on respect for the people's principles.
He considered the formula “a new multinational community - the Soviet people” to be the quintessence of amateurism in the field of science about ethnic groups, emphasizing that the correct formulation from a scientific point of view would be “a multinational (multi-ethnic) community - the Soviet nation” and it would put a lot in its place.
The Soviet nation existed at least since 1941, and with all the recognition of the greatest contribution to the victory of the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Kazakh and any other people of the USSR, it won the Great Patriotic War exactly she. It would be strange, however, to consider that it was not a socio-political, but an ethnic community.
By the 1980s, the foundations of this nation as a result external influence and internal decay turned out to be significantly undermined, and it was unable to maintain the unity of the country. In turn, the Russian people, as a community both ethnic and cultural-historical, were not endowed with the proper status and resources in the USSR to carry out the mission of “holding” on the territory of the entire country.
There were no unified political nations in any of the newly independent states. Therefore, in all of them there was a potential for interethnic conflicts. Somewhere they found an intermediate solution, somewhere they found no solution at all and, judging by a number of signs, they are unlikely to find one if the political circumstances in general in the territory former USSR will remain unchanged.
Developing the right formula for national unity, based on respect for the identity of all the peoples inhabiting our country, will not be easy.
Here, first of all, it is necessary to overcome the narrow understanding of nationalism, which transforms it into chauvinism and ethno-radicalism. But we must also overcome the primitively understood internationalism, whose supporters reduce the essence of this concept to a prefix, forgetting that the main meaning of any word is concentrated in the root.
Without love for your people, without respect for their traditions, there will be no love for other peoples inhabiting your country, no respect for their traditions. Accordingly, there will be no sincere love for the country as a whole, respect for the political nation as a community of citizens of one state, but children different nations. National identity and patriotism are not contradictory, but complementary phenomena.
During the existence of our country in the form of the USSR, the emphasis was on the socio-political basis of national unity. Complete denationalization, however, did not happen, and could not have happened, since ethnicity is not so much a cultural-historical and social category as a natural one.
There are, of course, among Russian citizens those who, over the past decades, under the influence of globalist ideas, have isolated themselves from their ethnicity, but they are a minority. There is always a desire in people to retain unshakable foundations of its existence, and national identity, paternal tradition is one of the most important in this regard.
So, national unity in our country, as I see it, is already being formed and will continue to be formed in many stages, that is, not by uniting individual representatives of the various peoples inhabiting it into some kind of non-national community (such a community would be a chimera), but on an interethnic basis.
All ethnic groups in our country are equal, and it would be inappropriate to talk about any special position or special privileges for one of them. At the same time, due to objective reasons Some ethnic groups have special responsibilities. Here I do not mean the desire to take on this responsibility - many can and should want to do this - but the ability to carry out this responsibility on a national scale.
In this capacity of a “core ethnic group” (the definition I took from the book by Vladimir Makhnach and Sergei Elishev “Politics. Basic Concepts”) I see the Russian people. And I stand on this position not because I am Russian myself, but simply by objectively taking in both the centuries-old history of our country and its modernity.
In saying this, I want to emphasize once again: the conversation about the “core ethnic group” is not a conversation about special rights and a special position in common system, but about special responsibilities, about cultural and historical duty, if you like.
Assessing the new initiative in the field of national policy from the point of view of the above, it the positive side I will say that the question of developing a law was not raised to the “Russian people”. As a Russian person, I would never agree with this. Russian and Russian are simply different categories; you cannot replace one with the other, just as you cannot replace the Russian language with the “Russian” language. By the way, Mikhail Lomonosov tried to do this together with Catherine II, and during the period of active imperial construction, but nothing worked out for them. The history of the long-suffering 20th century clearly shows: the less Russian there was left in a Russian, the closer we stood to the edge of the cultural and historical abyss.
In principle, it would be correct to make a new approach to improving the strategy and legislative framework state national policy.
At the same time, some comments made following the Council meeting are alarming. Among them I include, for example, the idea of “the need to close the unity of civil-political and ethnic nations” and thereby “reach the level of the European legal field,” as well as the thesis about the possibility of “managing interethnic relations.”
And, of course, as is clear from what I said above, I categorically cannot agree with the interpretation of the concept of “Russian nation” as an ethnic concept. It needs to be considered purely in the civil-political and cultural-historical planes. Otherwise, the cause of interethnic harmony in our country will be seriously damaged.
Someone may say: “Why is it that a non-specialist undertakes to evaluate such an important legislative initiative”? I will answer. I really don't have a scientific degree.
But, firstly, I have twenty-five years of service in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ten of which I was substantively involved in international and interethnic relations in the post-Soviet space, and the subsequent decade of participation in Russian domestic political life taught me a lot. And secondly, I am the future subject of this law. Not an object, I emphasize this again, but a subject. I have to live by it, I have to reap its fruits. Therefore, what he will be like for me, and for all of us, should be not indifferent.
