Paul Goble
Staunton, May 17 – No one would deny there has been an upsurge in patriotism among Russians since the start of Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, but much of what the Kremlin means by this – support for the state above everything else – alienates many and won’t last even for those who say they share it, Aleksey Krasovsky says.
Indeed, the Putin regime by its approach, the filmmaker says, has discredited the very idea of patriotism for many young people and others who no longer see patriotism properly understood as natural and desirable but rather as nothing more than propaganda from the state (dailystorm.ru/vlast/patriotizm-obrazca-2022-goda-shag-k-splocheniyu-ili-napusknaya-vidimost).
For that reason, if for no other, the current upsurge in patriotism is unlikely to last; and the regime which is promoting it will find that the support it counts on won’t be there when it needs it most. As a result, some Russian analysts are questing whether it is appropriate to speak of any Russian patriotism at all.
Ilya Grashchenkov, for example, says that Russians in fact do not have any patriotism. What they have is “hyper-patriotism, a certain irrational feeling which arises for a time but rapidly dissipates. That is because there is no basis for it.” Hurrah patriots will announce they are patriotic but not be prepared to do anything other than that.
The current initiatives of the Putin regime in this regards are unlikely to change anything, both Grashchenkov and Krasovsky says, in large measure because there is no clear understanding of what patriotism really is. Instead, the regime is demanding loyalty and calling that patriotism instead.
As a result, Krasovsky concludes, Russian patriotism which already resembles “a colossus with feet of clay” will continue to appear to grow; but this growth will be both ephemeral and meaningless unless the regime learns that its understanding of patriotism is too narrow to guide policy or attract long-term support.
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