Conservative Trends in Contemporary Russian Society

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the origin, content, and prospects of the trend toward increasing conservatism in contemporary Russia that has been observed in the collective consciousness, as well as in the media and in political contexts. This trend creates the illusion that society and the government are united in a single political nation, something that has not been possible in post-Soviet Russia for over 20 years. However, this illusory reality faces new threats and challenges. These include a schism in values and civil conflict. This trend “broke” the tendency, observed in the 2000s, toward an equalization of the value field around the synthesis of conservative and liberal values and the related synthesis of the demands of the new Russian middle class. This analysis will show that there has been a reanimation of the archetypal collective consciousness manifested in values related to strengthening the state, anti-Westernism, and the “Russian world.” The attitude of society in general has become more radical than official government policy. The public mainstream stands in sharp opposition to the group of pro-Western liberals, who are oriented toward the kind of development seen in Europe, democratic values, and the free market. At the same time, these values are largely imposed by political circumstances “for show,” while the people who hold these values are rarely prepared to follow them in “real life.”