Mainstream Russian Nationalism and the “State-Civilization” Identity: Perspectives from Below

Blackburn, Matthew

doi:10.1017/nps.2020.8

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…This state civilization identity, built on cultural unity-understood to be without compulsory Russification or any loss of ethnic or cultural diversity-was provided by the Russian language, culture, and traditional values. This meant that "non-Russian minorities keep their unique cultures and the russkie are described as the cement holding the nation together" (Blackburn 2020).…”

Section: Church-state Interplaymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Promotion of Traditional Values through Films and Television Programmes: The Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Encyclopaedia Project (2005–2022)

Napolitano

2024

Religions

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On 26 May 2011, the Russian People’s World Council issued a document entitled The Basic Values: The Fundaments of National Unity. The document, prepared by the Synodal Department for Church–Society Cooperation, provided a catalogue of 17 traditional values whose general framework was constituted by a combination of freedom, unity, patriotism, family, and devotion. At that time, the Moscow Patriarchate considered religious faith to be the foundation of traditional values and it continues to do so. The defence and promotion of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values were also central in the Russian National Security Strategy (2015); this was the case in the updated version of this document as well, put out in July 2021. Furthermore, they have been the core of the Moscow Patriarchate’s participation in the Council of Europe and of Patriarch Kirill’s speeches about the war in Ukraine. Finally, on 9 November 2022, The Foundations Of State Policy For The Preservation Of Spiritual And Moral Values was approved. This framework permits us to understand the strict interplay between the Church and the State in the Russian Federation and to see why it is important to refer to the concept of post-secularism when talking about the role of religion in post-Soviet Russia. Proceeding from the Abstract, the present paper aims to analyse this interplay in a specific sector of visual culture: the cinema and television industries. Manuel Castells highlighted the relevance of cultural values in the age of information and the connection between the values and social mobilization that follows it. He pointed out that the Internet has become a way to render this connection predominant, inevitably leading to the development of social movements and networks that have a religious basis. This is unquestionably true; surveys conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (OJSC «VCIOM») and by Nevafilm Research confirm that a high percentage of Russians watch films not only at the cinema or on television (especially the older generations) but also on the Internet (as far as the younger generations are concerned). The importance of this market is also confirmed by the success of the cinema and TV distributor Orthodox Encyclopaedia (2005); in the words of the philosopher Sergei Kravets, who, commenting on it during an interview published in 2006 by the website Sedmits.ru, declared that the expression “orthodox cinema” can be understood as a way to express Russian culture. He asserts that “the fact that today Orthodox films have begun to appear on the central TV channels testifies that Russian film producers and viewers have apparently begun to be aware of themselves as Orthodox, to feel that they are bearers of a special Orthodox culture. [..]”. At the same time, consideration should be given to the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Minister of Culture’s condemnation of films such as Matilda or Monastery. In addition, it is important to consider that, according to a survey conducted in 2022 by the Levada Center, Russian people consider television the most reliable source of information (54%). The long-term implications of this tendency may have very important effects, not only in terms of its objectives but also in terms of the consideration that, after the beginning of the war, many Western film distributors withdrew their licenses from Russia. This paper will analyse “the effect of religion on the institutional system, the regulatory environment of the media and the public sphere” by studying the features of films and TV programs distributed by Orthodox Encyclopaedia, their relations with traditional values promoted both by the Kremlin and the Church, how these have contributed to strengthening the interplay between the Minister of Culture and the Moscow Patriarchate, and the impact this process has had on Russian society and Russia’s relations with the European and Western World in the 2005–2022 period. A list of the films and TV programs being discussed will be provided, and then statements about the project and reviews of the serials and films will be analysed. The analysis will be conducted mainly through the official sites of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin and by browsing the Integrum database.

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Section: Church-state Interplaymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Promotion of Traditional Values through Films and Television Programmes: The Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Encyclopaedia Project (2005–2022)

Napolitano

2024

Religions

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“…Примером использования качественных методов для изучения национальной идентичности русских, а также отношения населения к дискурсу о государстве-цивилизации выступает исследование М. Блэкберна (Blackburn 2021) The article discusses new approaches to the study of civilizational identities in western social science and their use in the field of Russian studies.…”

Section: анализ российской цивилизационной идентичности в работах зар...unclassified

Интерпретации Российской Цивилизационной Идентичности В Западной Социальной Науке

Масловский

2024

JSSA

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“…и на антироссийскую санкционную политику Запада после включения Крыма в состав РФ. По мнению М. Блэкберна из Уппсальского университета, начиная с 2012 г. в России в качестве официальной макрополитической идентичности воспроизводится концепция России как «государства-цивилизации», которая, по сути, отождествляет понятия «нации» и «государства» [Blackburn 2021].…”

Section: консервативно-мобилизационный дискурс идентичности и патриот...unclassified

“How Do We Arrange Russia”: The Problem of Social Harmony in the Discourse of Post-Soviet Identity

Iokhim

Laguzova

2023

Vestn. Ross. univ. družby nar., Ser. Politol.

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The collapse of the Soviet Union, the large-scale transformation of the political and social structure in the early 1990s actualized the problem of nation-building in the new Russian state. The search for a “national idea” has contributed to the fact that over the past thirty years several dominant concepts of identity have changed in the Russian official discourse: from the denial of Soviet identity and the strategy of rapprochement with Western democracies to the construction of a great-power conservative identity of the “successor state”. The central place in the discourse of Russian identity is occupied by the problem of achieving social harmony through the elaboration of attitudes to the past, the construction of political values, the definition of symbolic boundaries of the political community. This research is devoted to the comparison of ideas about social harmony articulated within the framework of key concepts of post-Soviet identity of Russia.

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Mainstream Russian Nationalism and the “State-Civilization” Identity: Perspectives from Below

Cited by 16 publications

References 32 publications

The Promotion of Traditional Values through Films and Television Programmes: The Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Encyclopaedia Project (2005–2022)

The Promotion of Traditional Values through Films and Television Programmes: The Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Encyclopaedia Project (2005–2022)

Интерпретации Российской Цивилизационной Идентичности В Западной Социальной Науке

“How Do We Arrange Russia”: The Problem of Social Harmony in the Discourse of Post-Soviet Identity

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