National Identity as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon

Abstract

One of the most urgent tasks facing modern nations is to ensure the national peace and unity and to form the national social, spiritual and cultural bases of society. An important role in this process is played by national identity, considered in the article as a sociocultural phenomenon. It manifests itself as a complex multi-level system of mutual influences, connected with the method of identification of a person or socio-cultural group with a higher level community, determined by historical development of the state, its national interests, collective values and culture as a whole. Therefore, national identity has two interrelated aspects – socio-cultural and civil-political. The problem of national identity requires a holistic approach, and so, it should be considered in conjunction with such phenomena as nation, ethnic group, cultural and civic values, cultural and civil identity, negative identity, national culture, and national idea. According to the author, the most promising directions in this area are believed to be the study of mutual influence of ethnic, civil and national identities, as well as the practical refraction of this theme in the development of collective identity formation me­chanisms, in the context of target objectives of the state cultural policy of Russia.