Formation Practices for the Russian People’s Ethno-Cultural Identity: from the Emergence of the Russian Tradition and Statehood to Modern Falsifications

Abstract

The historical approach to the formation of the origin concept for the Old Russian state and the ethno-cultural history of the Russian people allows for fervent discussions. They can be resolved by a culturological approach and the understanding of the cultureforming role of Orthodoxy as a key factor in the formation, preservation and transmission of the folk tradition through many centuries. Since the very emergence of the Russian land, the Orthodox tradition has been preserving the continuous transmission of values, worldview, and attitudes to many phenomena of the cultural life of the Russian population. However, after Peter the Great, and even more after the Soviet period marked by controlled destruction and substitution of the tradition, one can talk about the crisis of the Russian identity and the search for the living tradition and its place in contemporary life. In modern Russia, three approaches to the replication of the folk tradition can be observed. The fi rst one is conditioned by the activity of cultural institutions and dates back to the Soviet period of the Russian tradition destruction and the formation of the new Soviet people’s identity. The second one is implemented through the activity of the youth folklore movement of “practicing folklorists” who are guided by the materials of folklorist and ethnographic research and fi eld data. The third one is represented by an alternative identity formed through the practices of neo-pagan associations and the activity of organizers of holidays, festivities, and seminars who share this worldview. The latter approach is characterized by the rejection of the Christian bases and content of folk festivals that have survived till present in the research data. Maslenitsa and Kupala have always been Christian holidays and have been perceived as such among those with a Christian worldview. However, representatives of the third approach deny this, going to obvious falsifi cations and forgeries. Their worldview leads not only to the distortion of the value bases of Russian ethno-cultural tradition, but also to an anti-state ideology.