Russia, The Usa And Europe: Globalization Challenges

Abstract

The article considers the issue of the influence of globalization on political and cultural world processes. Special attention is paid to the USA and Russia. It is noted that globalization has generated a process of self-identification, the preservation of national pride. We emphasize that the Slavic cultural-historical type is opposed to the German-Romance type in its mentality. An important factor in Russia's identity is its choice of the Byzantine Christianity. Travelogues play a great role in patriotic education. The process of globalization has escalated one of the most important cultural issues. Globalization, started after the collapse of the Soviet Union and US-controlled, was meant to be a transition to a unipolar world in which all countries would accept the "American way of life." After the USSR was eliminated from the world arena, the United States believed that the whole world would follow them. The United States stood in opposition to the Muslim world, China and, finally, Western Europe. At first, Russia went following America. But the leaders of the United States did not want to see in Russia a full-fledged equal partner. Russia had lost the “cold war”, so that there was no need to regard with it as a loser. The leaders of the United States maintained the illusion of the equal alliance in the new liberal leadership of the country. As a result, we has concluded that the task of globalization is to create a constructive dialogue at the world stage, both political and cultures dialogue.

Keywords: RussiaUSAglobalizationnational identitytravelog

Introduction

In the process of globalization the world becomes very compact. This means that events happened at one end of the world are invariably mirror at the other. For example, the coup d'état attempt in Venezuela triggered a reaction all over the world, not only in the United States, which is located nearby, but also in distant Russia.

Globalization has sparked a process of self-identification, of saving self-respect, national pride, the desire not to dissolve in the general stream. This trend has adversely affected the United States. American ideologists believed that the whole world would accept their rules of the game, accept the "American way of life", and would obey the "great guru" in everything. However, Europe has taken the second step: following the introduction of the common European currency, it attempted to create its own army. Efforts to dictate new trading relations to the whole world met with China’s disagreement, and Europe itself, opposing losing bargains with the United States to the detriment of its own interests, unwillingness to buy shale gas and Europe’s striving to continue building the South Stream (Signorielli & Shanahan, 2019).

Slavic cultural-historical type or civilization in its mentality, its way of life, its religion, its national identification, its identity is opposed to the Germanic and Romance type. Russia belongs to Europe in its geographical location and contradicts Europe in all other basic features. It is appropriate to call Russia as the North, as the great Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov did. It is equally true to call the United States of America as the New World. Russia and the United States belong to the third typological model: neither the West and nor the East. Nevertheless, in the 20th century, America had increasingly lost its unique features and, as it approached Europe, it increasingly acquired European features.

Problem Statement

Globalization is causing serious social and cultural transformations in Russia, and first of all , it changes lifestyle. The Soviet Union was a relatively closed country. The problems occurring in the world, in Europe and the USA in particular, did not affect the population of Russia, primarily the youth. At the present time, young people in Russia are experiencing the same problems as young people in other countries: drugs, difficulties on a job search, financial problems, etc.

Research Questions

We refer to the main issues the clarifying of the globalization influence to Russia and its interaction with other countries. Globalization has caused not only a sense of unity, but striving to isolate itself from others, the desire to save its national essence. For example, the UK left the euro area, Catalonia tried to separate from Spain. There was a necessity to create a reasonable balance between the unity of world powers and the preservation of their national and cultural uniqueness (Swedlow, 2011).

It is a mistake to think that the process of spreading out in their “national apartments” will not affect the United States. Meanwhile, Alaska, California, and Texas are thinking of severance. Will the American people share the destiny of the "Soviet people"? Indeed, nationalism easily turns into racism. American society is proud that the United States became a “melting pot”, where a united American nation “was smelt”. It was the name of the play by I. Zangville (Israel Zangwill “Melting Pot”, 1908). But over the time, this thesis turned into a myth. An American writer, Heller (1978), ridiculed it in the novel “Something Happened”: “Some melting pot. If all of us in this vast, fabulous land of ours could come together and take time to exchange a few words with our neighbors and fellow countrymen, those words would be Bastard! Wop! Nigger! Whitey! Kike! Spic! ” (Heller, 1978). No wonder the Americans say that their country has long been transformed from a "melting pot" into a "dish with salad", where every ethnic group lives according to its own laws and customs. After all, this is the title of the article in “An illustrated history of the USA” - “Melting pot or a salad bowl” (O’Callaghan, 2007).

Purpose of the Study

The aim of this study is to reveal the key issues facing Russia in the process of globalization. The efforts of the United States on the way to total globalization, on fostering the “American way of life” to the world towards a unipolar world were not useless. Gradually, the whole Europe came to terms with the United States. In fact, only Russia opposed America on its way to the world domination. Therefore, all US forces were directed only on weakening this country. The process of globalization has very sharply raised the question “friend-or-foe”. Globalization supposes the upbringing of a cosmopolitan, deprived the idea of motherland. The forefront is a financial component. The Bologna process contributes to this as well.

However, the transition to the European “Bologna system” with all its drawbacks gives students one indisputable advantage – they can study at least one semester abroad, and, even graduate from a foreign university if having financial opportunity. But before going abroad to the university, it would be better to be come of age in the motherland than go abroad when are not rigid in beliefs. Consequently, a child can turn into “Ivan, not remembering his relatives” (Tikhonov, 2013).

But we have another task: to bring up patriots with a clear understanding of "insiders" and "outsiders". This cannot be done without awareness of own identity.

Research Methods

We use methods that are adequate to the objectives of the study: the method of linguistic observation, description, linguoculturological analysis. These methods allowed to draw reliable conclusions.

Findings

As a result, based on the analysis, we came to the conclusion that globalization has affected all aspects of life in Russia, that Russia faced new challenges. One of them is the problem of self-identification, the problem of saving its own “selfhood” in the face of alien forces.

Travelogues play an important role in patriotic education. They allow to feel yourself as representative of own culture and at the same time look at yourself from the outside, to learn the advantages and disadvantages of your own homeland.

“Travelogue” literally means “information about travel”. “Travel” is one of the oldest forms of literature and culture, self-knowledge of man and mankind. From the moment when people became homo sapiens they moved from one territory to another in searching for a "better life." With the development of cities and the formation of states, people strived to occupy new territories by conquering or by peaceful means, preliminary sending their reconnaissance to the adjacent territories, primarily travelers - merchants, seafarers and those who just eager to change their places. In the process of "traveling", they acquired their own national identity, learned to distinguish "their" from "alien". A literary critic and cultural scientist E.A. Stetsenko noted in her study “History written on the way” that the motive of the road is the foundation of most myths, legends and folk stories” (Stetsenko, 1999).

The "Odyssey" of the great Homer can be considered as the first pattern of the "travel". All the other types of travel essays went after Homer. They were based on creating the effect of presence - artistic documentary and fictionalized traveller’s essays, letters, stories, travel notes, etc. An American cultural scientist MacCannell (1976) considered the search for oneself, one's authenticity in another place and time, in a foreign country, history, culture as a main reason for travelling in his book “The tourist. A new theory of the leisure class”.

Travelogue is the culturological basis of the image of any state and city. It visibly embodied not only the features of the country, but also the national character of people, their life, customs and habits. Travelogue, starting from Homer, goes back to the “sentimental journey” of Sterne (1768).

The confrontation between Russia and the West began with the choice of faith by Prince Vladimir. In search of a single god, Vladimir turned to the cult of Perun first, but in the eyes of the numerous pagan ethnic groups inhabiting Russia, Perun was not more preferable to the old gods and was rejected. Thus, to strengthen the state, Vladimir had to choose one of the three world religions: Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. Almazov (2005) writes in his novel-reconstruction “Ilya the Bogatyr” that an error in the choice of religion threatened with civil war and the complete collapse of the state - more terrible than the collapse of society in Khazaria. Prince Vladimir had tried on new beliefs in Russia for several years. Judaism was rejected almost immediately, because the prince knew the sad experience of Khazaria, where the top of society, its power structures practised that particular religion, and the majority of the population were either Christians or Muslims. Western European Christianity meant absolute subjection to the Pope and the Red-Cross Knights, who considered the Slavs only as the subdued and the objects of destruction (that had already happened with Prussians), but not as their equal Christian brothers. There was left only Islam and the so-called “Greek religion” - Byzantine Christianity... Islam attracted the fierce and fearless warrior Vladimir with its belligerence and strict rules. But all the previous experience and way of life of the prince opposed the adoption of Islam. Long years of paganism had already accustomed the prince to many days of drunken feasts and repasts, as well as love affairs, but Islam demanded refusing the wine. “Greek religion” suited Vladimir and his subjects most of all. Moreover, many hermit monks had lived in caves for many years in Kiev, and more and more people became Christians every day in Kiev, they received faith from Byzantines. Therefore, the appeal to Tsargrad - Constantinople met both the requirements of the Prince himself and the prince's armed force, as well as Kievers.

To transform the Grand Duchy of Moscow into an Orthodox kingdom, the heir of Byzantium, the following steps were taken: in 1472 the niece of the last Byzantine emperor married the Moscow Grand Prince, in 1454 the Moscow Duchy took the national Byzantium emblem, the double-headed eagle, as a state emblem; in 1497 the emblem of Moscow – Saint George on the chest of the double-headed eagle was established, in 1495 the construction of the Moscow Kremlin was completed. And, finally, under Ivan the Terrible’s rule a significant event happened - the coronation in 1547. In 1589 Russia acquires its Patriarch. As a result, Moscow received all the rights to unite all Russian lands, it became a unifier of all Orthodox Slavs as well.

The attempts to unite all Orthodox Christians around Moscow were made repeatedly, but not persistently. Under Ivan the Terrible’s rule Rus barely overcame the fragmentation and boyar outlaws. In addition, the young Tsar Ivan was forced to struggle with the Kazan Khanate, warding off Islamic expansion. After the death of Ivan IV there was the time of civil disturbances, and not for consolidation of Christians. The Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon attempted again when decided to compare church for deleting conflict information. That attempt caused a split in Russian church. Another attempt had aready made under I.V. Stalin, but it also failed.

Nevertheless, in the eyes of the Slavs, and even more so in the eyes of the entire Orthodox world, Moscow has always been the center of proven faith and the focus of sovereign politics, independent from Rome, Istanbul, and later from London and Washington. These events mean that talking about the development of the Byzantine idea after the fall of Constantinople is impossible without a precise understanding that now Byzantinism has become the state ideology of Muscovy, justifying its foreign and domestic policies (Mahler, 2005).

Conclusion

The process of globalization, started after the collapse of the Soviet Union and led by the United States, supposed a transition to a unipolar world, in which all countries would accept the “American way of life”. After the USSR was eliminated from the world arena, the United States believed that the whole world would follow them. That was at the beginning. But then the American way of globalization process slowed down, and in some cases it went backwards (Wyness, 2019). The United States stood in opposition to the Muslim world, China and, finally, Western Europe, having introduced the euro into the world economy. Firstly Russia went after America. But the leaders of the United States did not want to see in Russia a full-fledged equal partner. They only pretended that Russia would stand in the number of equals. They believed that Russia lost the “cold war”, and therefore there was no need to defer to a loser. But Russia remained a nuclear power, and therefore the leaders of the United States maintained in the new-liberal government of the country the illusion of equal alliance. However, an important task of globalization is to create a constructive dialogue, both political and “dialogue of cultures”.

The dialogue can start between equal partners. Dialogue is a universal way of culture existence. Culture is a communication primarily. The dialogue of cultures is the most vivid form of culture communication and as a result of intercommunication. Culture is interlocutory in its essence. A person exists within the framework of a dialogue. It should be emphasized that dialogue occurs only in equal partnership, only then there is an interaction, and not imposing one culture to another, cross-fertilization arises. In the dialogue of cultures, each culture fulfils itself as self-important, independent. Dialogue of cultures occurs when each culture is aware of its uniqueness, identifying itself.

References

1. Almazov, B. A. (2005). Ilyaathlete. Novel reconstruction. St. Petersburg.
2. Berdyaev, N. A. (2015). Russian idea. Moscow: Azbuka Attikus.
3. Heller, J. (1978). Something Happened. New York: Dell Publ.Co. Inc.
4. MacCannell, D. (1976). The tourist. A new history of the leisure class. New York.
5. Mahler, A. M. (2005). Ecclesiastical mission of the Third Rome. Moscow: Veche.
6. O’Callaghan, B. (2007). An Illustrated History of the USA. Longman.
7. Signorielli, M. M., & Shanahan, J. (2019). The Violence Profile: Five Decades of Cultural Indicators Research. Mass Communication and Society, 22, 1.
8. Sterne, L. (1768). A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Retrieved from: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/804/804-h/804-h.htm
9. Stetsenko, E. A. (1999). Story, written on way. Moscow: IMB RAS.
10. Swedlow, B. (2011). A Cultural Theory of Politics: Cultural Theory’s Contribution to Political Science. Political Science & Politics, 44(4), 703–710.
11. Tikhonov, A. (2013). Ivan, not remembering relatives (documentary).
12. Wyness, M. (2019). Childhood, Culture and Society: In a Global Context. European Journal and Communication, 34(1).