Фронтирная идентичность населения приграничных регионов восточнославянских государств

Abstract

The paper is to study the frontier identities of population of the border regions of the Eastern Slavic states. The key theoretical and methodological approaches are the concept of “frontier”, the theory of intercultural communication and the theory of liminality. The purpose of the paper is a scientific and theoretical understanding of the identity of the frontier, which is being formed in the space of the border regions of the East Slavic states. The author emphasizes that against the background of the frontier, which causes active cross-border transcultural communication, there are noticeable variations in ethnocultural manifestations. An analysis of the geopolitical preferences of the population made it possible to conclude that the fronts were dynamic. Basing on the analysis of results of domestic and foreign studies, the paper consistently examines peculiarities of the belonging of the frontier of Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and Russia. The results of the author's sociological research illustrate the similarity with an alternative set of the population of the border regions of Russia and Ukraine. This allowed for concluding about the main trends in the transformation of the civilizational frontier on the surface of the Eastern Slavic states — namely that the social civilizational front is not actually a “foothold” for achieving high results and rapprochement of the Eastern Slavic states, but the frequency is likely to correspond to the standard of disunity once accepted in the socio-cultural space. As the paper points out despite the transformation of civilizational fronts traditional socio-cultural space of the border regions is the main one for the assembly of the unities of the Eastern Slavic states. The author also specifies the necessity of developing a common symbolism, formulating design and defining socio-cultural codes to support the cultural community.