Development of a Common Russian Identity as the Basis for a Single Civil Nation, Given the Multicultural Academic Environment in North-Caucasus

Abstract

The task of shaping a civil nation, requires the support of the University pedagogic community, to develop innovative technologies that would allow for an educational effect on young people’s personalities, taking into account the specificity of the three sides of their identity – Russian (civil and civilizational), ethnic (ethnicconfessional), and regional. In the traditional North Caucasian societies where the family network and the religion make up for the personality basics that will be maintained through life, the ethnic (ethnic-confessional) identity presents a crucial factor for socialization. The level of the regional identity – a second part of the civil identity – reveals different degrees of development in different parts of Russia. In the North Caucasus many Russians, including ethnic Russians, as well members of Diasporas identify themselves as North Caucasians regardless of their specific ethnic and confessional group. From here we could state that, the regional factor of the civil identity, along with the ethnic-confessional “profile” is an important condition for shaping a common Russian identity. A contemporary variant of the Russian identity does not act as a fully valid integrating origin for developing a common Russian identity. The multicultural Russian society needs a deeper level of integration involving not just supra-ethnic and supra-confessional nature of the respective identity, but also socio-cultural unity based on common values. Such unity may only be due to civilizational identity that implies a deep penetration into the area of national cultures, into the system of vitally important values that lie within the “responsibility zone” of the ethnic and the confessional identities.

Keywords: Shaping common Russian identity, single civil nation, multicultural academic area, ethnic-confessional identity, regional identity, civilizational identity, educational activity

Introduction

When applied to the Northern Caucasus Federal District, the idea of Russia as a civil nation with a

unique thousand-year old civilization resource, fits perfectly with the typical North Caucasian socio-

cultural mentality.

Problem statement

The socio-cultural mentality of the Northern Caucasus is a mentality, which is patriotic, state-

oriented, sticking to the spirit of collectivism.

Research questions

The task of raising newer generations of the national intellectuals in all the peoples of the Caucasus,

shaping a new type of management elites, requires the pedagogic community of Universities to develop

respective humanitarian and social technologies that would allow forecasting the effect that education.

Purpose of the study

Education would have on youngsters in view of the three sides in their identity – ethnic-

confessional, regional, and Russian (civil and civilizational) self-identification.

Research methods

In the traditional North Caucasiansocieties where the family network and the religion make up the

personality basics that will be maintained through life, the ethnic (ethnic-confessional) identity presents

a crucial factor for socialization. Sociological research projects carried out by a group of scientists from

the North-Caucasus Federal University and from the Southern Research Center of the Russian

Academy of Sciences (held within 2009-2014), focusing on determining an “identification matrix” for

the North-Caucasus society, show that the Russian civil identity in the youth of the region is stable, but

not as meaningful as the ethnic and the confessional identities.

Findings

83.6% of the respondents referred to the ethnic identity as to “very important” or “important”, while

55.9% of the respondents mentioned this profile of the identity as “very important”, which is

significantly above the value attached to the civil identity (35.2%). Even though the civil and the ethnic

identities are not mutually exclusive and are part of the same “identity portfolio” for a Russian person

nowadays, they still act in the North Caucasus as competing factors. This increases the value of

shaping nothing else but a common Russian identity.

Confessional belonging is also extremely important for the peoples of the North Caucasus (67.4%

noted that this is “very important” while another 23.5% referred to it as “important”, with a total rate

reaching 90.9%). The data obtained reveal tightly interconnected ethnic and confessional identities in

the North Caucasus (under the conditions of religious Renaissance!), as well as it shows some

emerging complicated and rather stable ethnic-confessional identity profiles, which are important to

take into account when working with young people in terms of developing strategies for shaping their

common Russian identity.

Another feature specific of the North-Caucasian society is the huge impact that family has on self-

identification. The values instilled through the family are some kind of parameters for shaping one’s

own world view. Family, in many aspects, lays the basic algorithms for the life strategies and behavior

stereotypes, which young people will implement afterwards.

Table 1 offers a view on the data obtained from polls conducted among Russian student community

from the Universities of the North-Caucasus Federal District, and the outcomes prove the family’s

great impact on self-identification.

The students were offered the following question: “Which of the following groups do you refer to

when saying WE ARE… ?”. The options for the answer included: CITIZENS OF RUSSIA; MYSELF

AND MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY; PEOPLE BELONGING TO MY ETHNIC GROUP;

RESIDENTS OF MY TOWN / VILLAGE; PEOPLE OF MY RELIGION / CONFESSION; PEOPLE

FOLLOWING THE SAME TRADITIONS & CUSTOMS; MY FRIENDS AT WORK /

UNIVERSITY FELLOWS.

Several options were allowed to be selected by one respondent. Table 1 offers the data that confirm

the meaning that the family has for self-identification of young people, and which is far ahead of the

civil identity. Identity can be found in the table below.

The specific features of the ethnic (ethnic-confessional) identity, which develop through the family

institution are among the top important conditions for shaping the Russian civil and civilizational

identities in the North-Caucasus Federal District.

The importance of maintaining the connection between ethnic-religious and civil profiles of the

identify, was stressed in the speech delivered by Vladimir Putin at the Session of the Second

International Club VALDAI (September, 19, 2013; Novgorod Province):

else but of the civil identity based on common values, patriotic awareness, civil responsibility and

solidarity, respect for law, involvement in the life of the motherland with no loss of the ethnic and

religious roots – this is the important condition to maintain the unity in our country”.

The level of the regional identity– a second part of the civil identity – reveals different degrees of

development in different parts of Russia. In the North Caucasus, many Russians, including ethnic

Slavic Russians, as well members of Diasporas, identify themselves as North Caucasians regardless of

their specific ethnic and confessional group, i.e. they feel themselves to be the representatives of a

region that has its own special mentality and culture.

This is why we took into account the of the civil identity as an important condition

for shaping a common Russian identity, which is no less important than the ethnic identity. Proof to the

importance of the regional

As we can see, youths in the North-Caucasus Federal District do not associate their motherland with

Russia in the vast majority of cases.

The data and some other statistics, as experts believe, show that the contemporary type of the

Russian identity does not act as a fully valid integrating origin for developing a common Russian

identity. The multicultural Russian society needs a deeper level of integration involving not just supra-

ethnic and supra-confessional nature of the respective identity yet also socio-cultural unity based on

common values.

Such unity, as we see it, may be only due to civilizational identity, which implies deep penetration

into the area of national cultures, into the system of vitally important values that lie within the

“responsibility zone” of the ethnic and the confessional identities.

The development of such a macro-identity shall be possible, only in cases where a certain

cultural dominantis selected, around which in-depth cultural and value-based integration of Russia’s

peoples may take place. As the Strategy for the State National Policy of Russia until 2025 states: “The

State of Russia developed as a unity of peoples, where the ethnic Russian people has been historically

the main core. Thanks to the uniting role of the Russian people, the long-standing inter-cultural and

inter-ethnic interaction, a unique cultural diversity, and spiritual integration of numerous people, unity

has developed now in the historical territory of Russia”.

This episode from the Strategy is extremely important for understanding those complex processes in

the ethnic-cultural sphere, which are taking place in Russia nowadays. Indeed, the Russian socio-

cultural space was initially developed as an area where many ethnic-cultural elements, as put on the

Russian ethnic nucleus, were seen not as something external and strange but as an integral part of one

socio-cultural and civilizational common unity. The ethnic-cultural diversity has always been

maintained, yet, in the history of Russia it has never been of absolute nature. The differences that were

there have never played any decisive role because thanks to the soft and sensible Russian policy, they

were naturally integrated into the commonly shared Russian civilizational fundamentals.

Here we can comfortably quote the words of Ivan Ilyin – a famous Russian philosopher, lawyer, and

writer of the early ХХ Century, who spoke of the specific nature of the Russian national identity:

to eliminate, not to suppress, not to enslave another blood, not to choke other tribes’ life but to let them

all breathe, and to have a great Motherland … to value all, to bring them all to peace, let them all pray

their own way, and work their own way, and select the best ones to build the state and the culture”.

For this reason the ethnic, cultural and religious differences in Russia’s peoples have always been

based not on ideas and practices of ethnic, cultural and religious exclusiveness, but on a common

cultural and civilizational platform, which, above all, contains the Russian culture (in its wide

meaning).

In the NCFU, we attach a lot of importance to the idea of developing the Russian civil and

civilizational identities, and we pay a lot of attention to the work in this area, which is among the

priorities in academic, educational, and scientific activities carried out by our teachers

have over 24 thousand students of 86 ethnic group coming from 52 areas of Russian Federation, and

over one thousand students representing several dozens of ethnicities from 51 foreign countries).

The feeling of patriotism, the culture of inter-ethnic and inter-confessional interactions, the culture

of the Russian verbal and written speech, the culture of social responsibility, legal culture, and other

personal features, which are socially meaningful in the North Caucasus, are developed in students not

just through their involvement in extracurricular activities. Although, first of all, in academic activities

when studying an interdisciplinary module, which includes over 110 innovative academic courses

develop by the teaching staff of the NCFU (from 48 departments); 19 courses of them are mandatory

through all training areas while the following ones are offered as optional courses at pedagogic degree

programs.

We believe that this area of our performance is of strategic importance, because these civilizational

orientation points to the contemporary younger generations, who will determine the choice that the

Russian society makes when selecting its civilizational way of development in the globalizing world,

and determine the historical destiny for Russia as a civilization-country.

And in conclusion I would like to note that on August 20, 2013

the Government of Russia adopted a special Federal Program (Decision №718-р) on

ENFORCING THE UNITY OF RUSSIAN NATION AND ETHNIC-CULTURAL PROGRESS OF

PEOPLE OF RUSSIA (for the years of 2014-2020), which clearly outlines the aims and objectives for

the public policy in this area for the nearest years, and which states that;

spirituality and ethnic culture of the people of Russia are the basis for the general Russian identity, so

enhancing the unity of the Russian nation, shaping general civil identity of Russians, ensuring dynamic

ethnic-cultural and spiritual development of the peoples of Russia, counteracting to ethnic-political

and religious-political extremism are the important factors for further sustainable development of the

country”.

Сonclusion

It is obvious that the Russian national system of education can never stay away from implementing

the Government’s policy in this area, and it is more than any other social institution should be involved

in resolving the following issues:

– developing a common Russian civil and civilizational identities relying on the regional and ethnic

identities;

– preserving and developing the languages and the cultures of the peoples residing in the Russian

Federation;

– understanding the historical, moral, and spiritual basics bringing all Russian people in a single

civilizational unity;

– enhancing the stance of Russian language, as the common national language that shapes the single

educational and cultural space, which consolidates us to a single civil nation;

– developing the awareness of the national system of values through the historical continuity

through generations;

– getting the youths prepared for living in a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, and multicultural

environment.

Successful solutions for these tasks will undoubtedly allow us to have a real impact on enforcing our

country’s national unity.

References

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