Russia as the State-Legal and Theoretical-Historical Category

Abstract

Introduction . Ensuring the legal order and fostering the legal values constitute the complex multifaceted process requiring concentration of efforts on behalf of the state, society and personality, all integrated in an overarching term "provision of national security", that is being supplementary edited in legal sciences into the category "legal provision of national security". There are no minor or insignificant problems on the way to achieving the objectives aimed at respecting the national interests, the same as not yet compiled is the list of measures considered exhaustive enough to achieve them. In the present scientific article the problems directly referring to the terminology used in the name of the state "Russia" are investigated in the state-legal and theoretical-historical sense. In addition, the issues related to the use of the state emblem, anthem and flag as official state symbols of the Russian Federation, the legal status of which is regulated by the federal legislation and the international regulatory legal acts, are addressed. The use of the above symbols in practice refers directly to such an attribute of a state as the legal sovereignty in terms of its visual and phonetic demonstration on the international arena and within the state. The attitude to the state symbols as well as the interpretation of the name of the state are the markers of the legal status of the country, its actual capacities on the world arena and attitude of its own people and foreign citizens towards Russia as a civilisational, cultural and state-legal phenomenon. Thus in order to increase the efficiency of the legal provision of the national security, it is expedient to detail the legal status of the state and the national symbols of Russia. The aim of this study is to carry out the state-legal and theoretical-historical research of the verbal and visual designation of the Russian Federation as a sovereign subject of the international law. Materials and Methods . This scientific article investigates the topical problems of the national security provision in correlation with the verbal, phonetic and neuro-linguistic designation of Russia as a sovereign subject of the international law. The legalistic, the historical-legal and the concrete-historical methods, as well as the political-legal method of juridical research have been used. Results . It has been proved that the constitutional-legal norm stating the identity of the categories "Russia" and "Russian Federation" does not have a completely identical semantic meaning at the level of scientific doctrine and the former refers to the latter as the general to the specific. The authors draw attention to the fact that the name "Russian Federation" being the name of the state formed in 1918-1991 is not the only etymological variant of denoting the Russian state. The term "Russia" is a Greek interpretation of the category "Rus", which has been specificated as "Ancient Rus" in the historical and historical-legal doctrine. Therefore the “Russkaya Pravda (Russian Truth)” is entitled to be referred to the first monuments of law, as well as the "Zakon Russkij (Russian Law)" mentioned in the treaties with Byzantium. At the same time, attention is paid to the need to toughen the measures preventing cases of incorrect or, not to mention it, offensive attitude to the name of the Russian state, as well as to the official state symbols. According to the authors, participation of the Russian Federation citizens in the status of "neutral athletes" in the international competitions, where the state symbols of foreign states are demonstrated corresponds to such cases. Depriving Russia of the sovereign right to officially demonstrate the state symbols is illegitimate and should not be permitted in any circumstances under the threat of refusal of the official representatives from participation in the events where the multinational Russian people is discriminated against. Moreover, the very participation of athletes from Russia in the "neutral status" is regarded “by default” as a consent with implementation of the illegitimate Russophobically tended measures discriminating against the state. At present, such participation is not considered to be a violation of the Russian Federation legislation, but it is obviously unethical and unpatriotic, but in future the law-makers may change the qualification of the respective "misdeed". Discussion and Conclusions. The state-legal and theoretical-historical type of problems related to understanding of the categories "Russia" and "Russian Federation" fixed in the legal consciousness have been revealed. The objective to specificate the meaning of these notions at the level of a doctrine has been fully achieved, which enables to clarify the unbiased understanding of the state genesis as well as the current level of development of the Russian statehood and the mission of the Fatherland on the international arena.