Self-Consciousness of Russian Society

Abstract

History testifies to the following: successful, long-term civilization projects were carried out when it was possible to find a successful combination of three identity levels: a local level (an ethnic language community), a regional level (a group of related cultures and languages that have common roots), and a global level (humanity). The key role is played by the second level, which ensures the organic mutual enrichment of national (local) cultures and through which bearers of the local ethno-linguistic community realize they are part of humanity. The actually unresolved issue of the second identity level for Russia very acutely poses the problem of the lack of formation of a stable national identity. Three variants for answering the question of the second identity level are considered: the Slavic one (Danilevskii), European one (Dostoevsky), and the Russia–Eurasia formula (classical Eurasianism). The author of this report has shown that none of the particular versions of cultural and civilizational identity in modern Russia can serve as an invariant of all-Russian identity, which raises the question of the need for gathering them (rather than bringing them to unity) based on the category of vsechelovecheskoe developed in Russian thought.