Russian Civilization Identity: Theoretical Frame and Practical Potential

DOI 10.18522/2072-0181-2015-23-30 The key task for multiethnic, multicultural states is harmonization of interethnic and intercultural relations. Russian Federation as a multiethnic state faces challenges in the sphere of ethnic relation to the full. The essential problem of post-Soviet Russian state is the growth and strengthening of disintegrating forms of collective identity. It is ethnic and religious identities that are most strongly manifested in North Caucasus. The disintegrating potential of those identities is the result of absolutization of ethno-cultural specificity, which does not always fit into the contours of the All-Russian cultural space. For this reason, it has considerable conflict potential. The competition of civic and ethnic and religious identities, the practical absence of common civilizational platform for all the peoples of the Russian Federation converted ethnocultural diversity of the Russian Federation into a factor of conflict and an obstacle to the development and modernization of many regions of the country. In the context of social and cultural cleavages the mobilization of ethnic and religious identities becomes a dangerous threat to the integrity of the Russian state and society. The steady increase of the number of ethnic and cultural conflicts sets the task of finding new ideas for maintaining territorial integrity and interethnic peace. That’s why leading Russian politicians are turning to the idea of formation of a unique civilizational space based on Russian cultural dominance. Indeed, only such path – the path of formation of common to all peoples of Russian civilizational identity – can lead to the demobilization and depolitization of ethnic and religious identity, as well as to overcome the social and cultural cleavages in contemporary Russia.