The Search for New Meanings Continues (Concerning the Amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation)

Abstract

Amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020 introduced many new meanings and concepts into the constitutional matter. Most of them have great ideological potential. The paper analyzes the worldview aspect of the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the political message of their adoption, methodological approaches to identifying their content.The paper highlights amendments with the greatest spiritual and moral content, such as succession, historical truth, patriotism. The author elucidates the prerequisites for their adoption, including the historical inevitability of changing the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993 and the defeat of imitative constitutionalism in the majority of post-socialist countries. It is shown that the ideological content of the amendments was used to adjust the liberal-democratic model from the standpoint of strengthening the state sovereignty. Particular attention is paid to the expansion of national identity in constitutional norms as a natural process of protection from global constitutionalism, universal democratic values, including the case study of Eastern European states. There is a worldwide crisis tendency for the market-type democracy, the search for more modern approaches to its renewal.As a conclusion, it is noted that the worldview turn towards a reassessment of the liberal democratic doctrine is contradictory and not completely clear. It can be assumed that the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation are the first step not only towards the modification of constitutional institutions, but also towards a qualitative renewal of the philosophical and legal meanings of the Russian constitutional identity.As methodological tools of scientific research, it is proposed to use the potential of the integrative function of philosophy of law and the concept of system-wide contradictions of the society. This concept allows us to critically assess the universality of the traditional values of democracy, to form their own competitive models of the constitutional structure. It aims at finding a balance between the opposites in the society, the state, at the mechanism of dialogue and proportionality in decision-making.