In search of a Russian national character
Russians survived in their stories a lot of dramatic changes - it was difficult to become Christians from pagans, it was difficult to get under the Mongol yoke from free city volunteers, it was difficult to cross from Moscow to Peter the Great Russia, it was difficult to be in Lenin and Stalin’s Soviet Union instead of tsarist Russia, it was difficult to go from quiet Soviet backwaters dive into the post-Soviet whirlpools. In each of these periods, different groups of Russian people looked at the world very differently and evaluated what was happening, but at the same time, they remained Russian regardless of their social status and ideological attitudes. It is very difficult to single out “substantial” signs of “Russianness” - working well at one historical stage, for one picture of the world, they fail at another. It remains to look for those same immutable elements that preserve the integrity of the Russian picture of the world in any of its configurations.These immutable elements can be called the system of ethnic constants, and the dynamic scheme they form is a generalized cultural scenario [1]. This generalized scenario influences the formation of all scenarios of different levels that exist in a given culture, setting a specific algorithm of action in a variety of situations. Ethnic constants [2], being the formal characteristics of an action, do not prescribe what to do, but rather rigidly predetermine how this or that goal set by the people is achieved. Constants in a generalized cultural scenario are not roles, not words or actions characterizing the characters, but their disposition, location relative to each other and the nature of the interaction. If you look for some analogy to the constants, then you can recall the masks of the Comedy Del Arte, with a constant set of Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, which, however, can be launched into a variety of adventures.
Ethnic constants set the disposition at which the action is performed in the most psychologically comfortable way for the ethnos. Having no concrete content, arising in the ethnic picture of the world exclusively in a transformed form, the constants can be described only as a system of formal images. First of all, it is “the image of ourselves”, or “the image of us” - that is, a certain idea of the subject of the action about himself, his capabilities, his strengths and weaknesses, his intentions. The image of goodness is almost always associated with the image of oneself in the ethnic picture of the world, the good that a particular nation brings to itself and to the world. Then - this is the “image of the source of evil”, the obstacles or problems that need to be addressed in order to establish the desired state of affairs. After all, most often the action takes place when in the existing state of affairs something is lacking and requires replenishment or, on the contrary, withdrawal. Sometimes this image is specified in the "image of the enemy." "The image of the field of action" - sets the psychological structure of the space in which the action takes place. "The image of the mode of action" - determines the method by which the desired result is achieved. “The image of the condition of action” - forms the idea of the condition, the situation that is necessary for the action to be performed. Finally, the "image of the patron" - has an impact on the formation of ideas about the external to the "we" force, which can help in the victory over the "evil".
Ethnic constants are very well protected from “hacking”, that is, from their awareness, bringing them to the surface in their “pure” form. They manifest themselves in ethnic identity only in the form of “transfers”, transfers to certain real objects and situations with which an ethnos deals in the course of its history. It is this vacancy of constants that ensures their flexibility and vitality - after all, when one or another picture of the world of an ethnos crumbles, only its specific form is questioned, the correctness of the perfect transfer is challenged, but not the constants themselves. Therefore, it is very difficult to try to build one or another policy based on a constant, unlike the mythical “national character”, and it is possible to describe them, especially from within the ethnic system, only in the most approximate form, but it is worth trying. The fact that our examples of manifestations of ethnic constants are taken from the field of foreign policy is due to the fact that in the foreign policy area it is easier to grope the action of a people as a whole, and at the borders with other nations its distinctive features are revealed more clearly, while self-observation of internal processes on such a deep level is much more difficult.
The Russian “image of self” (we-image) exists as if in three guises, but it is always connected with the image of oneself as carriers of good. These three hypostases can be represented as follows: the keepers and cultivators of good are the peasant community, the creators of the "great construction projects" and the creators of space rockets, etc .; missionaries and enlighteners who are always ready to carry the “light of the world,” whatever it is; warriors are defenders of good, fighters against "villains" and patrons of peoples who are threatened by evil. Awareness of oneself in the form of patrons and defenders is very clear: “And the grace of God descended on Georgia. She blossomed without fear of enemies, under the shadow of friendly bayonets. " Any people in the sphere of the Russian Empire or the USSR, even the conquered people, are considered liberated. Any people on whose territory successful Russian military companies took place were also, even if it was all of Europe. It is impossible to offend Russians more than to neglect their patronage and it is impossible to discredit the idea in Russian eyes more strongly than if one imagines it as the fruit of extra-moral calculation.
Very characteristic, in this regard, the two most high-profile political failures of the last decades - the Afghan war and the psychological failure of market reforms. In one case, failure was predetermined by disappointment in the ideals of communism, society simply did not see the point for our soldiers to die in order to award the Afghans with “socialism” (and invent a folding version, like the one that we defend Afghans from external aggression or internal rascals, the Soviet propaganda was already incapable). In the case of reforms, they were rejected by the mass consciousness at the moment when it turned out that in this way we “adapt to the world community”, stand in the back of a long line of third world countries trying to get into the “first”. Proclaim one of the reformers the slogan of creating “the most democratic democracy” and “the market market itself” in Russia, and, perhaps, the 1990's history would look different. But by that time, a reversible, negative, negative “image of us” was already playing out: “But who are we? What do we need most of all? Country of fools and crooks. " For Americans, for example, the other side of the “image we are”, the other side of the “American dream” is recognition of its unsuitability, condemnation of America for its own ideals do not correspond, then for Russians, activating a negative image leads to complete self-denial, to deny yourself as a people on existence as a people, to "nihilism." Chaadaev, summing up his thoughts in two words - “we are insignificant”, showed himself to be a Russian thinker.
The field of action is a space without borders and obstacles. Climate and harsh living conditions did not restrain popular colonization, such as, for example, in tsarist times — the development of Siberia and Central Asia, where economic practices were unfamiliar to the Russians, and in Soviet times — the development of Tselina - almost the same colonization. What kind of space seems to be "potentially Russian" is determined by the cultural theme that currently dominates. This space, in principle, can cover the whole world, as it was in Soviet times. Recall - "he left the hut, went to war, to give the land in Grenada to the peasants ...". This is not a song about an abstract “world revolution”, here the starting point of the action is a hut, and then — along the steppes of Ukraine, all the way to Grenada and further “to the paths of distant planets” ...
This space without borders and obstacles, however, has a heterogeneous, hierarchical value structure. The space is “empty”; it’s for the Russians, above all, the space of colonization, filling these voids with themselves, but the space filled with other peoples is assessed depending on the possibilities of patronizing them. There are vectors of greatest attraction, like in the last century the Balkans - Constantinople - Palestine. There are also places that are of particular importance in the framework of the currently dominant cultural theme - Jerusalem, Constantinople, and in Soviet times, for example, Cuba - “Cuba, my love, // Isle of Dawn, // Song fly over the planet, ringing, // Cuba, my love. " Significant are the places of settlement of peoples, which you can try to protect from anything. Places of resettlement "villains" is important only in the context of protection from them patronized nations.
Let us recall the “matryoshka” geopolitical hierarchy of the mature Soviet Union, which was built precisely according to the “degrees of protection” of certain regions. Russia and "fifteen republics - fifteen sisters" is the center of space (in it, however, there is also the highest degree of protection - Moscow), in this center there is a certain ambivalence - on the one hand it is the Soviet Union, for which Russia is only the center, the main advocate On the other hand, this is all Russia, respectively, and the space is now unified, then ranked, depending on the context. The next zone, the “socialist community”, is no longer Russia, but the highest, privileged category of clients. Then there are countries of “socialist choice,” like Angola, Mozambique or Nicaragua, in relation to which there are no formal obligations, but there are moral obligations. And finally, peace-loving and democratic countries, like India and others like it, are also defendants, but no longer in debt, but in friendship. This spatial structure is not closed, has no closed contours, because something can be “screwed” to each of the component levels and the circle of defendants can expand at any time (remember that the last “defendants” appeared in the USSR in more than ten years before his fall).
Accordingly, the condition of action is the protection of oneself and all of his many wards — patronage. Any war is interpreted as defensive, any foreign policy action is “forced self-defense”, any action on foreign territory is “liberation” or “help”. The idea of "international duty" is much older than the late Soviet doctrine - let us recall the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78, interpreted by the "educated society" as an aid to "brothers Slavs" and the common people as an intercession for the "Greek" (that is, the Orthodox in general , not the Slavs) from the "rebellious" Turk against him. The condition of action is the awareness of oneself as a powerful and most right (just) force. “Strength in Truth” - such is the setting passing from the ancient proverb to the newest “brother”, Danila Bagrov (the idea of “brotherly help”, through for both famous films, in the context described by us, the brotherhood is explained by itself, is a privileged position for patronage) . On the contrary, the blocking of this condition, as it happened in Afghanistan and in the “first Chechen one”, automatically deprives Russians of their capacity, they are lost, because the basis for the action is lost.
Under this condition, the method of action is “service,” “service,” that is, what appears to be Russian in fulfilling some kind of moral duty to the highest good. At the same time, however, in this service there is no element of “stoicism”, the element of self-coercion is very weak - the logic of this constant is well conveyed by the lines of Denis Davydov: “I love bloody battle, I was born for the service of the tsarist ...”. “Service” is rather a pleasure, or rather, something that pleases and corresponds to the aspirations of Russians and is considered a service. Let us say the impetuous impulse of peasant colonization, which on the external level was a typical flight from the state, to the peasants themselves seemed to be the administration of the tsarist service, some mysterious "tsarist works" for which the people call Russian people for new lands. In this case, the action-as-service can be organized into a whole chain of provocative actions. So, on the one hand, the Russians may well embroider someone into the most audacious adventure in order to save, protect and serve later. In other words, an artificially created situation is comfortable for the actions of the Russians, and then the action unfolds. On the other hand, through the mechanisms of service, or assistance, in the eyes of the Russians, actions that are unpleasant and difficult — whether it is “sovereign”, military service, or something of the same kind — are legitimized. But there is always a threat to be deceived - one or another objectionable service may not be recognized, recognized as a “deception”.
The image of the enemy in Russian is situational, it is determined not by some inherent characteristics of the enemy, but through the statement of opposition to the Russians. The enemy is the one from which to defend, or, to an even greater extent, the one from whom it is necessary to protect. Sometimes, at the same time, the defendants turn out to be their own people, whom the state protects, for example, from the “corrupting influence of the West” and the “internal enemy”. However, there is one feature of the “image of the enemy”, which is not immediately and not always probed, but quite clearly - this is, so to speak, “competitive messianism”, a claim to the presentation of goodness to a greater degree, and more goodness than the Russians. The bearer of such a claim immediately falls in the Russian cosmos to the position of "antichrist" - be it Napoleon, Hitler or anyone else. Russians sometimes appear to be ready to cross themselves into “alien faith”, but to put them within the framework of this faith on the position of second-class people means guaranteed and active hostility.
The image of the patron can be conveyed by the capacious Pushkin metaphor - the “Russian God”, the very God who “will not betray”. Through this image is transmitted confidence in benevolence, the complementarity of the universe in relation to the Russians. Russians do not have to be “against the whole world,” because just the “world” usually turns out to be for them. For comparison, in the picture of the world of Finns, the universe, nature is a formidable opponent, with which Finn fights and wins, curbing and cultivating the chaos of nature. Russian nature replays. In the famous ethnopsychological essay V.O. Kliuchevskiy, this moment is noted very precisely: the nature of Russia often laughs at the most cautious calculations of Great Russia: the wayward climate and soil deceive its most modest expectations, and, getting used to these deceptions, the calculating Great Russian loves sometimes, headlong, to choose the most hopeless and uncalculated decision, opposing the whim of nature with the whim of his own courage. This tendency to tease happiness, to play good luck is the Great Russian "maybe." However, the condition of patronage is action. With inaction, patronage is absent. When there is no need to act, it is better to lie on the stove, you will be more safe. In the process of action, a certain turning point comes (activation of the image of the patron), when the Russians begin to “go the map”.
Losing by trifles (and even not trifles), the Russians are sure that in the “big game” they will not remain in the loser anyway. This is a very important clarification to the entire description of the deep foundations of “Russian action”. It may seem hopelessly altruistic, devoid of orientation to pragmatic benefits. “Russians don’t need anything, they only want to sacrifice themselves,” said the German philosopher Walter Schubart. But Russians are more likely to create such an impression in others (the images of the “shirt of a guy” or “the victim of injustice” are most often used by Russians as an “image of themselves for others”).
Ethnic constants form an adaptive-activity scheme responsible for the successful survival of the people, and therefore cannot by themselves act as a disadaptive factor. Obviously, such a course of action should bring certain competitive advantages to the Russians. Indeed, there are not so many in the history of peoples who would so tightly grip on their “prey” and who could use altruism as such a powerful weapon expansion (in every sense of the word). This is how the Russian colonization penetration into the Kyrgyz steppes is described in the article of the early twentieth century: "An influential Kirghiz attracts or takes two or three yards out of pity, enters the taste of earning income for a country estate, mowing or arable land with money or using work, expands it more and more until the borrowing turns into a settlement of 20-30 and more courtyards. " From such peasant colonization is extremely far from "colonialism", however, characteristically, the article is devoted to the "Kyrgyz issue". As a result, the “questionable” are not Russian at all. Russian patronage is never due to gratitude, but at the same time Russians themselves subconsciously expect that the defendant will be “obliged”, and most hostile are those who “don’t remember the good,” and therefore behaves “not in a human way”. And a very broad category of “people”, not recognizing national and cultural differences, includes those with whom it is possible to establish relations of patronage or assistance, all who can be protected and who can be helped.
***
The system of ethnic constants described by us is, as it were, a subtle, and more often invisible basis of “national behavior”. In order to somehow convey it in words, one has to resort to the language of metaphors, and speak of constants not so much in their original form as in the form already manifested with the help of transfer, that is, the transfer of unconscious attitudes to certain specific circumstances. Such a transfer allows to get a specific “play” instead of a “genre” general script.
The direction and character of the transfer of ethnic constants, the “plot” of ethnic history, is determined by the central cultural theme of the ethnos, which plays in diverse intra-ethnic variations of key symbols and sense-images of culture that make up its central zone. The American sociologist E. Shilz, who proposed the concept of a “central zone,” defines it as follows: “This is the center of the order of symbols, values and opinions that rules the society ... The central zone is actively involved in shaping the notion of the sacred in a given society, which exists even in a society that has no official religion [3]. Speaking in other languages, with the help of symbols of the central cultural zone, an ethnos performs its own self-sacralization, forms its idea as a sacred idea.
The central cultural theme is formed as a result of the successful (i.e., which enabled long-term successful adaptation) transfer of constants at the dawn of ethnic history, and then in the course of ethnic history, various intra-ethnic groups struggle for the dominance of one or another interpretation of this theme, depending on different value and ideological orientations.
The central cultural theme of the ethnos is never “abstract”, since it is preserved primarily in the framework of the “great tradition” (in the terminology of R. Redfield [4]), that is, within the framework of the “tradition of schools and temples”. As applied to the modern state of society, it is rather a tradition of universities and ideologies, and they are recorded in literature and “high culture”, religious and ideological attitudes, canons of education and upbringing, while in pre-alphabetical societies, in myth and ritual. This means that, having once acquired a certain “canonical” form, it subsequently exists as a series of modifications, revisions or restorations of this form. A special place in connection with the Russian cultural complex, which can be called the “complex of the Third Rome”, is connected with this. In this complex is given the canonical fixation of the Russian central cultural theme, as the theme of the special mission of the Russians in the eschatological, related to the end of history, perspective.
After the fixation of this complex, there can be a distribution within the culture of its interpretations — in the form of state ideology, in the form of an unofficial, old-believer view, in the form of a communist “modernization” of this messianism, or in the form of a hard, fanatical denial of this messianism, which is hardly possible in culture which is not themed by messianism. It’s not by chance that all the appeals to “go along the common path with humanity” begin with lengthy and agitated refutations of the idea of a “special path” that continually passes to the explanation of our “particularity” by our immense, incomparable backwardness.
However, the functional conflict, which is crucial for Russian history, does not take place between competing ideological groups, but between the people and the state, and it is based on a different understanding of the “mode of action”, that is, serving the Messianic ideal. Until the twentieth century, for centuries, it was a conflict between the Russian state and the Russian peasant community. The peasantry correlated "the image of us", first of all with itself, with the Russian people, and therefore it considered it necessary to carry out their ministry only in its understanding (sometimes quite deep and true). The Moscow, and then the imperial state saw the purpose of the existence of the entire Russian state organism in serving the highest ideal, for the sake of which it was ready to put everyone under arms, to turn everyone into a very shy service, and did not recognize any liberties with regard to the ministry. The peasant community, which was for itself a self-sufficient "world", was nothing more than a convenient tool for the state. Most clearly this conflict is noticeable in the mechanisms of the Russian people's colonization: the peasants flee from the state to the outskirts, thinking about themselves that this is their service to the sovereign, the state tries to restore the formal sovereignty over the peasants, and through that expands the scope of its expansion on all new and new regions. It was in this way that the colonization of the Black Sea steppes, then of Siberia, was carried out first, and later the same situation was repeated in Turkestan, etc.
For each of the groups involved in the functional conflict, the picture of the world built by it on the basis of constants and a cultural theme seems to be the only possible and self-sufficient one. So, the peasants thought the whole "Russian Land" as a federation of self-governing peasant worlds. Everything that is good in the other groups is understood by analogy (for example, the peasants imagined the king to be the same farmer), and everything else is perceived as an outrage, apostasy, and “heresy” - from where, in fact, conflict.
For the sustainability of an ethnic system, a figure is needed which, during the conflict, is written by everyone or almost everyone as “their own”, a figure to which sovereignty over the ethnic system is attributed and to which extremely high value is attributed in itself. For pre-revolutionary Russia, it was the figure of the king, the fall of its significance, the rejection of the "king" as a universal "mediator" and the sovereign within the system transferred his role to a much more vague figure of the "people" on whose behalf no one spoke. The gradual discreditation of the idea of the “people” led to the design, most clearly to the 1990 years, the idea of “Russia” as the sovereign sovereign, and the symbolic center of all the processes taking place with the Russians.
The more abstract the image of the "sovereign", the less energetic it is, less focused on changes and any progress of society, therefore the dynamization of changes in Russia at the beginning of the XXI century led to the concretization of the image of the sovereign on the figure of President Putin. This concretization became the cause of a significant psychological upsurge - the most diverse groups began to associate their expectations and hopes for a reorganization of Russia with a particular figure of a living ruler in accordance with their picture of the world. The imperious system was largely shaped as a system of signals that can be decoded and favorably interpreted by different intra-ethnic groups depending on their picture of the world. But there is still a great threat of destabilization of the mass consciousness of Russians, the activation of the mechanisms of the intra-ethnic turmoil that was not overcome during the 20th century.
In order to understand the phenomenon of unrest, one should refer to the form in which the central cultural theme of an ethnos is accepted and understood by the majority of ethnos members who are not related to isolated intra-ethnic groups or singled out as an elite. This mass core of the ethnos, on the basis of a certain interpretation of the central cultural theme, forms its traditional consciousness, existing primarily in the forms of the “small tradition”, if we use the terminology of the same Redfield. “Small tradition” is, first of all, the tradition of the peasant community, and for the modern stage of history it is the tradition of provincial cities or large sleeping areas of the modern city. In these social structures, ethnic culture is shaped into specific behavioral patterns, customs, customs, everyday culture, and the requirements of “everyday morality” [5].
The institutionalization, the design, of the traditional consciousness, occurs through this or that “life world”, that is, the primary collective with which members of the ethnic group correlate themselves saying “we” in the narrow sense. This may be a very real collective of the peasant community, “the world,” or maybe an “imaginary” collective of a kind or family that goes back centuries, or maybe a semi-formal collective of a certain “social circle” (distribution among such social circles has become characteristic of Russian society its final urbanization, somewhere from the second half of 1960's). It is important that it is the opinion of this group that is primary in the socialization of the individual, and he orients himself to the opinion of this group deciding "what is good and what is bad."
Traditional consciousness exists as a picture of the world of the inhabitants of such "vital worlds", but these inhabitants themselves may perceive it in different ways, depending on the type of ethical consciousness inherent in them. The majority acts as the bearers of the usual traditional consciousness, taking its norms "on faith" and believing that they have a solid ideal and moral foundation. For carriers of the traditional consciousness, to act morally means to act "normally." These people constitute the stable group that maintains the stability of behavioral and ideological norms.
However, the design, structuring and storage of traditional consciousness, its protection from degradation, belongs to carriers of the personal consciousness, that is, those for whom following the norms of ethical consciousness is not a habit, but a conscious moral choice that is perfect at a certain moment. Usually the situations of that choice are connected with what can be called “small border situations”, crisis situations in a person’s life that require independent action. It is in the “small border situation” that the connection between the personal behavior of a person and the “national character” occurs - only in such a situation can a person “act like a Russian” (in other cases, the behavior gets ethno-cultural coloring by connecting to intracultural scenarios that are not personal character). Through the actions of bearers of personal consciousness in border situations, a synthesis of an ideal understanding of the world’s picture in the “big tradition” and the specific behavioral norm in the “small tradition” is carried out, the space of behavioral norms expands and is ranked. The carrier of personal consciousness often turns out to be a “prophet in his own country” —that is, an example, an adviser, and a life instructor within the framework of his “life world”. And the concentration of carriers of personal consciousness around a particular intra-ethnic alternative, one or another interpretation of a cultural theme, usually gives it an advantage over others.
However, ethnic history is also characterized by dysfunctions of intra-ethnic conflict, in which the connection between the “upper” floor of the central theme and the “lower” floor of the traditional consciousness is lost. Traditional behavioral norms lose their ideal meaning, become “for nothing”, are supported only by habit, within the framework of quasi-traditional consciousness, while representatives of quasi-personal consciousness, for themselves, pretend to be responsible moral behavior, in fact, playing up lasting ideal justification ideological slogans. The typical figure of the carrier of such a quasi-personal consciousness, destructive to culture, is the figure of the Russian “nihilist” - sacredly confident and in responsibility, conditioned by personal choice, of his actions, and in his right to act as an advisor and teacher of life. Such dysfunction, caused by the lack of sense of traditional norms and the loss of real soil for intra-ethnic conflict, is characteristic of periods of intra-ethnic unrest.
The state of distemper is characterized, firstly, by the loss of connection between traditional consciousness and the central cultural theme, the feeling that the people have lost their “mission”, secondly, the instability and randomness of ethnic constants transfers to reality made by the ethnos, the loss of flexibility and adaptive success of the ethnos in its actions , thirdly, the suppression of the activities of carriers of personal consciousness on the part of carriers of quasi-personal consciousness, the predominance of slogans over ideal imperatives. Russia has been in a steady state of turmoil since 1905, when the peasantry lost its traditional religious orientation for the traditional consciousness. The triumph of quasi-personal slogans in 1917 gave Russian society some semblance of a new interpretation of the “messianic” central cultural theme in the new vein, and for the sake of this theme the traditional worldview was mercilessly crushed during collectivization and the urbanization that accompanied it. The system of vital worlds of the old Russian society was irrevocably destroyed.
By 1960-70 years, a new system of relations in cities took shape, which had all the possibilities of transition from a quasi-traditional to a traditional type. The ideal image of a “good Soviet person” has formed, which formed the basis of the culture of these years, still causing nostalgia for “old songs about the main thing” (that is, friendship, love, mutual aid and other important things for a good person) . However, the ideal foundations of this new “traditional culture” were extremely weak - they were not associated with communist ideology, and perhaps the most significant reference point for this culture was the Great Patriotic War, as not the “minor” border situation that predetermined the cultural image of the late Soviet man , in such essential features as radical “humanism”. Even some kind of pre-revolutionary functional conflict with the state, which became less and less ideological and more formally bureaucratic, was revived. The conflict began again to take place in the form of a game of "mouse cats" - on the one hand, "you pretend that you pay, and we pretend that we work," and on the other, work is not for money, not for fame, but for genuine enthusiasm (for example, the enthusiasm of scientific research, as in the generation of "physicists"). However, the “perestroika” ruthlessly blew up and destroyed this not yet strong society, most of its ties and rituals broke up, many of its symbols were discredited. The living space of the Soviet Union, which ideally corresponded to the image of “friends of nations” (and therefore of friends), was destroyed.
The Russians, as an ethnic system, entered a period of the most powerful identity crisis, up to the unprecedented activation of the “negative image of us”.
The formation of a people in accordance with its internal image of “we” after a period of deep unrest occurs not only due to the activity of the leaders of the people. The ability of the people to self-structure plays the most significant role. This happens when the transfers necessary for the formation of a stable picture of the world are difficult, it seems impossible to impose a generalized cultural scenario of the people on reality and thereby establish the usual disposition and power balance between the “source of good” and “source of evil”. In order to preserve its identity, an ethnos must crystallize around its ethnic constants a completely new picture of the world, unparalleled in its past and connected with it not so much through the threads of ordinary traditional succession as due to the immutability of the most generalized cultural scenario. Two ways are possible here (practically they act simultaneously, but one of them prevails in each concrete situation, and each ethnic group is more inclined to one or the other way).
The first way, let's call it conservative, is a modification of the ethnic culture distribution scheme, the creation of such an intra-ethnic organization that would put additional barriers between the ethnic group and the world, allowing most of its members to almost ignore the changes in the conditions of their historical existence, as if everything in the world remained old This organization is formed on the basis of a special structure of the layers of the intra-ethnic tradition. The layer of society on which the entire burden of external contacts rests creates its own version of the modification of the ethnic tradition. Because of its value system, it is unacceptable for the majority of the people, but it provides external communication. The value exchange between the layers representing various intra-ethnic traditions is practically minimal, but society, like nerve threads, is permeated by public institutions that are especially significant (being objects of transfer) in that and other modifications of the tradition (although their interpretation in the context of different variations of the ethnic picture the world may be different).
Something similar began to occur in the nineties, when the new Russian elite acted as pro-Western oriented, taking on the role of communication with the European and American worlds, presented Russia in their eyes as a country seeking to embrace Western values and a Western lifestyle. This model could be realized if the masses of Russians were not so great in the traditional consciousness. The state of unrest in which the country was thrown left no opportunity for the formation of dominants - the objects of transfer of ethnic constants common to the masses of the country and the elite of the country - and the opportunity for the popular masses to maintain a kind of former way of life.
The second way, let's call it creative, is associated with a change in the “image of us” (autotransfer) and, as a result, with the discovery of new objects of transfer. The latter require a complete change in the way of life of the ethnic group and the creation of special, perhaps very large public institutions, with the result that the transfer gradually becomes quite adequate. At the same time, the general characteristics of the “image of us”, the general ideas about the principles of collectivity, inherent in an ethnos, remain unchanged, but the content of this “we” changes. The unconscious complex that constitutes the “image of us” focuses on other than substructures of the subject of action. As soon as the “image of us” changed meaningfully (intensified) (and perhaps, in addition to this, the “image of the patron” intensified), then the “source of evil” is viewed as if on a different scale. Psychologically, its intensity decreases. The “source of danger” transfer is adjusted, takes localized forms (which is required by the process of psychological adaptation). Corresponding transfer adjustments are also being made for other ethnic constants. There is a general balancing picture of the world.
It can be assumed that this is exactly what is happening in Russia at the present time. Russians have regained the “image of us” as citizens of a world power. ” This updated self-awareness is ahead of the actual restoration of the country in such status, but self-awareness is already helping to bring reality into line with the new autotransfer. The general state of insecurity and the danger spread in the outside world, characteristic of the nineties, has disappeared, it was replaced by specific ideas about what constitutes a danger to Russia and its citizens. (And at this stage, for the dynamics of self-structuring of the ethnos, it does not matter if these ideas are true or not.) Thus, the formation of a new “image of us” led to the localization of the source of evil. And this in turn created a situation in which the positive development of the people is possible and the creation of powerful new institutions (in the case of Russia, primarily in the economic and military sphere), which reinforce the “image of us” that has been formed.
It cannot be said that at first the picture of the world is formed, and then the reality is restructured so as to correspond to it. These processes are parallel and for the overwhelming majority of members of the ethnic group are not conscious. They are preceded by a transfer, but it as such is not reflected and for a certain time may not lead to the crystallization of a new ethnic picture of the world. Thus, Russia's awareness of itself as a new world power did not occur earlier than the beginning of 2006, when it had already come a significant way in its chosen direction.
Movements aimed at the awareness of new institutions may not have a complete ideology and can be explained only by short-term needs. The world is not being re-created in accordance with the new ethnic picture of the world, but already being rebuilt on the basis of new transfers, it is recognized as adequate to the ethnic tradition. Only after that the ethnic picture of the world takes on a complete form. By this time, the Russian ethnos has not come up yet, the ideal grounds for the functioning of Russia as a world power remain unconscious. The interpretation of the central cultural theme of the ethnos, especially the set of its interpretations, which will determine the Russian functional intra-ethnic conflict, which will be the engine of the positive development of the state and its peoples, did not occur according to the result of the self-structuring of the people. Since this is a creative way of self-organization of the ethnos, the refraction of the cultural theme will be new and, perhaps, unexpected.
Scenarios of inter-ethnic relations are integral parts of the generalized cultural scenario of an imperial or other multi-ethnic society. The collapse of imperial society leads to the loss of these scenarios of their adequacy.
Once such scenarios are violated, the cultural system, which does not allow for lacunae, tends to regenerate, often ugly and spilling over into direct hostility, which we observe in modern Russia. The scenario that would correspond to the system of cultural constants of the dominant people turns out to be acceptable, as well as to relate to the system of cultural constants of a multi-ethnic society as a whole, even if inevitably in different ethnic cultures they will inevitably be broken in their own way. New scenarios of interethnic relations should be relevant to the generalized cultural scenario of Russians and at the same time provide material convenient for reinterpretation by ethnic cultures living in close contact with the Russians, contributing to the consolidation of the all-Russian cultural scenario - after all, any scenario is based on a kind of interpretation and reinterpretation game that has a common mythology.
In a sense, this will happen by itself, but only in one case — in the formation of Russia as a superpower, as a specific empire that has content that should be brought to the rest of the world. Because it corresponds to the essence of the Russian people and, as history has shown, it is easily adopted by other Russian peoples.
Now this process has begun, but practically only at the foreign policy level, and is expressed rather in the form of a Russian revival. This is natural, otherwise it could not begin. It is the imperial people who should be the first to realize their power. But the emergence of Russia as a great power has practically no effect at all on the domestic level and, most importantly, it does not set people inhabiting Russia (including working in Russia) no specific goals, no tasks or super-tasks, the fulfillment of which mobilizes society.
Naturally, the path from the “energy power” to the superpower, which builds its power on intelligence-intensive technologies, which seeks to overtake developed industrial societies, is long and far from indirect. But the problem is that as long as we remain an “energy state” with poor pensioners and half-starved state employees, we will not be able to establish a system of interethnic relations. This is the specifics of Russia. It is not a matter of poverty itself, in other countries inter-ethnic relations can remain at an acceptable level of conflict and with a very modest standard of living. Yes, and we still have unique in their qualities interethnic relations during periods of economic decline. But our people need a most important task in order for the Russians to realize their leading position in the world, and for other Russian people to be comfortable to join the Russian ethnic group and feel the significance of Russia as our common country. Russia must realize its mission in the world, then other Russian peoples will be able to connect to it.
So, the Russians do not have special assimilatory abilities, when they are not in the context of imperial construction, but in the role of builders of a great power, they are born assimilators. Being in the context of the empire as such (as the peasants of the deep provinces of Russia, living side by side with representatives of other peoples of Russia), they are friendly. But outside of this context, Russians are able to be angry with strangers. Likewise, and vice versa, in the context of the empire, the peoples of Russia are friendly to the Russians, but as the imperial means of communication disintegrate, they lose their adequacy.
The loss of adequacy in relationships leads to the fact that children of different nations are brought up more and more apart, each in their own way. This complicates the processes of ethnic connection, since the divergent children's experience makes the generalized cultural scenarios of various peoples of Russia more distant from each other.
Since the question of a possible disintegration of Russia is not supported by sound reasoning, we either live well, amicably and cheerfully, engaging in common creation, or in a state of tension and poorly concealed (or even not concealed) hostility with our peoples. energy state ". And in the latter case, no programs for improving inter-ethnic relations will work. Recall that the Russian Empire did without any programs at all, on the same enthusiasm and faith in its star. Friendship of peoples will revive itself, it is still very well remembered. And conflicts will be - but, as a rule, functional, contributing to further progress.
[1] Lurie S.V. The generalized cultural scenario and the functioning of socio-cultural systems // Sociology and social anthropology. 2010. No. 2.
[2] Lurie S.V. Historical ethnology. M .: Academic project, 2005.
[3] Shils E. Center and Periphery. In: Polanyi M. (ed.), The Logic of Personal Knowledge: Essays. London: Ronthedge and Kegen Paul, 1961, p. 73.
[4] Redfield R. The Little Community. Viewpoints for the Study of a Human Whole. Uppsala and Stockholm: Almovist and Wiksells, 1955.
[5] Redfield R. The Little Community. Viewpoints for the Study of a Human Whole. Uppsala and Stockholm: Almovist and Wiksells, 1955.
Information