Russians Define Their Identity by What They Aren't Rather than by What They Are, Kolesnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 15 – Moscow journalist Andrey Kolesnikov writes that he “is a Russian” but that this self-designation “doesn’t explain anything” because it in most cases, it is defined not in a positive way according to what Russians believe themselves to be but rather by negation, according to what they are certain they are not.

            This is a reflection of the fact that “Russians still have a weak identity; one can even say an infantile one, despite constant appeals to ‘a thousand-year history’ and other terms that supposedly bind them together. But they bind them not to each other but only to the state (gazeta.ru/comments/column/kolesnikov/12752618.shtml?updated).

            When it comes to specifying who they are as a people, Russians do so in terms of their distance from Europe, Kolesnikov says. Indeed, their entire modern history has been one of seeking to become like or to distance themselves from Europe, perhaps by turning to the east, something that they threaten but have never really pursued.

            “However much Russia has tried to imitate a turn to the East,” the journalist continues, “all its culture, intellectual and material, is constructed as Western.” Talk about “a special way” which uses the Western term Sonderweg inevitably has lessened during periods of greater freedom or economic growth that has spread to the population.

            Polls show that and they also show that “it is impossible for years at a time to support one and the same high level of rallying around the flag” through the ginning up of a military threat.  At present, “the new Russian identity is attached to the political regime and the state, but Russia as a country … is a significantly broader term.”

            “The new historical community, the [non-ethnic] Russian people has been constructed artificially on the model of the Soviet people around political things; but you will not build a firm identity on such a basis. That is what the sad end of Soviet history testifies to,” Kolesnikov continues. 

But what is even more true is this: “Russian identity in recent years has been construed as negative: they don’t understand us – we have traditions and emotions, they have pragmatism” – and so on.  “All the same complex of incompleteness mixed together with a feeling of superiority, the eternal Russian ‘on the other hand.’”

This “negative identity,” the journalist suggests, may have “warmed up the besieged fortress” for a time. But it doesn’t provide the basis for collective action – and the various historical events, “victory in the Great Fatherland War, Gagarin’s flight, territorial acquisition, and the mythology of ‘natural wealth,’” don’t either.

            “Even the building of communism affected people more strongly than talk about fulfilling national projects.”

            Over the last year or so has begun “the gradual emancipation of the citizen from the sacred state. We are already great again, but we aren’t happy. The state is a symbolic construction which undoubtedly is supported by the majority of the population,” but its actuality with all its defects is hardly something people will rally around anymore.

            “I am a Russian,” Kolesnikov concludes. But “this doesn’t explain anything.” It is a hazy idea and one more of teenagers than adults.  “The young [non-ethnic] Russian nation has approached the period of its maturation.” And it is time to break away from the mythologized images of the state and figure our what the real positive content of the Russian nation is.

            Unless that happens, Russians will remain at the level of viewers of television talk shows where the stars promote “a feeling of pride for Stalinist industrialization and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,” hardly enough for the nation to act in its own name and not merely as an appendage and creation of the state.

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 15 – Moscow journalist Andrey Kolesnikov writes that he “is a Russian” but that this self-designation “doesn’t explain anything” because it in most cases, it is defined not in a positive way according to what Russians believe themselves to be but rather by negation, according to what they are certain they are not.

            This is a reflection of the fact that “Russians still have a weak identity; one can even say an infantile one, despite constant appeals to ‘a thousand-year history’ and other terms that supposedly bind them together. But they bind them not to each other but only to the state (gazeta.ru/comments/column/kolesnikov/12752618.shtml?updated).

            When it comes to specifying who they are as a people, Russians do so in terms of their distance from Europe, Kolesnikov says. Indeed, their entire modern history has been one of seeking to become like or to distance themselves from Europe, perhaps by turning to the east, something that they threaten but have never really pursued.

            “However much Russia has tried to imitate a turn to the East,” the journalist continues, “all its culture, intellectual and material, is constructed as Western.” Talk about “a special way” which uses the Western term Sonderweg inevitably has lessened during periods of greater freedom or economic growth that has spread to the population.

            Polls show that and they also show that “it is impossible for years at a time to support one and the same high level of rallying around the flag” through the ginning up of a military threat.  At present, “the new Russian identity is attached to the political regime and the state, but Russia as a country … is a significantly broader term.”

            “The new historical community, the [non-ethnic] Russian people has been constructed artificially on the model of the Soviet people around political things; but you will not build a firm identity on such a basis. That is what the sad end of Soviet history testifies to,” Kolesnikov continues. 

But what is even more true is this: “Russian identity in recent years has been construed as negative: they don’t understand us – we have traditions and emotions, they have pragmatism” – and so on.  “All the same complex of incompleteness mixed together with a feeling of superiority, the eternal Russian ‘on the other hand.’”

This “negative identity,” the journalist suggests, may have “warmed up the besieged fortress” for a time. But it doesn’t provide the basis for collective action – and the various historical events, “victory in the Great Fatherland War, Gagarin’s flight, territorial acquisition, and the mythology of ‘natural wealth,’” don’t either.

            “Even the building of communism affected people more strongly than talk about fulfilling national projects.”

            Over the last year or so has begun “the gradual emancipation of the citizen from the sacred state. We are already great again, but we aren’t happy. The state is a symbolic construction which undoubtedly is supported by the majority of the population,” but its actuality with all its defects is hardly something people will rally around anymore.

            “I am a Russian,” Kolesnikov concludes. But “this doesn’t explain anything.” It is a hazy idea and one more of teenagers than adults.  “The young [non-ethnic] Russian nation has approached the period of its maturation.” And it is time to break away from the mythologized images of the state and figure our what the real positive content of the Russian nation is.

            Unless that happens, Russians will remain at the level of viewers of television talk shows where the stars promote “a feeling of pride for Stalinist industrialization and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,” hardly enough for the nation to act in its own name and not merely as an appendage and creation of the state.