Post-Soviet identity: integration resources

Abstract

In the context of globalization, increased inter-regional competition, and acute information confrontation, the need for analysis of identity has become more relevant. Identity serves as a cognitive framework that shapes an individual’s social behavior, a coordinate system that allows individuals to adapt and creatively transform their surrounding reality, and a set of the most significant civic values such as solidarity and integration. This is particularly relevant for Russia considering its changing geopolitical position in the modern world. The authors of the article have examined the characteristics of post-Soviet identity as established in the scientific discourse. Expressions of spatial-territorial identity within the post-Soviet identity of modern Russians are analyzed based on scientific works and results of empirical research using the standard methodology of the All-Russian Research Program “Socio-Cultural Evolution of Russia and its Regions”. The authors concluded that the post-Soviet identity as a social construct possesses certain potential. Local-settlement identity prevails over the broader Russian and macro-political identity (within the scope of the article — identity among residents of the former USSR republics). About half of the respondents feel a connection with the people of their settlement. However, thirty years after the USSR’s collapse, a third of the respondents feel a connection with the residents of Russia and the former USSR republics, a third do not feel this connection, and a third are indifferent. This indicates that the All-Russian and post-Soviet space is an arena for acute ideological confrontation, with the possibility of any ideology prevailing, provided it proposes the most suitable goals, tasks, and means for the social system. To address the complex challenges facing Russia as a modern state, a new ideological project (without the prefix “post-” in the name) of spatial-territorial, national-civic identity is needed, shaping the individual as a subject of social development.