Who are the Russians? In many countries, emigrants from Russia are immediately called “Russians,” even if they themselves define themselves as Tatars, Chuvash, or Ossetians. But those who themselves are recorded in censuses as “Russians” live differently, they have different customs and traditions, and sometimes even religion.
Ethnographers argue whether to consider Russians a nation or an ethnic group. These terms have a lot in common. Sometimes the concept of “ethos” is also included in scientific usage. In relation to Russians, they denote that very “Russian soul” - the worldview that distinguishes a Russian person from a Western one.
Ethnicity: I am Russian!
In Soviet times, the term “ethnos” was very popular. In its most general form, an ethnos is a group of people who are united by a common origin, language, cultural and economic practices. However, "clean" ethnic groups does not happen, some signs always differ.
But for the sake of harmony in the picture, the term “ethnic group” is sometimes declared identical to the concept “people”. Thus, ethnolinguistic groups are distinguished, and within them – separate parts-peoples. For example, in Slavic group includes Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and other peoples with related Slavic languages.
Each ethnic group included in the group has common features with other ethnic groups - in rituals, folklore, history. But there is also an individual past, a specific lifestyle, a desire to draw boundaries - “we are like this, we live this way, and they live differently.” A child begins to realize his ethnicity at the age of 8-9 based on knowledge about the country, native language, and parents’ lifestyle.
A group of people becomes an ethnic group, and then a nation, when it realizes its commonality with others and at the same time its dissimilarity from them. An important role in this is played by the connection with a certain geographical territory and the emergence of the construct of the homeland in a broad sense.
Moreover, you can become a member of an ethnic group. In the process of assimilation, an emigrant can so accept the customs, traditions, and history of his new fellow citizens that he begins to call himself “Russian,” “American,” or “Finn.” This is called “changing ethnic identity.”
Ethos: the mental code of the Russian person
Speaking about interconnected ethnic processes, many scientists go further, using the concept of “ethos”. They denote the similarity of habits, morals and mentality.
A person’s appearance, his self-awareness, culture and way of life speak about belonging to a particular nationality. One of the most striking manifestations of the Russian national character is their lifestyle, which is radically different from Western norms.
Particular cultural orientation social activity and the accepted hierarchy of values of people living in Russia prove their belonging to a certain ethos. Understanding moral principles depends solely on the will of the people and is not related to the instructions of the authorities.
Before becoming a nation, you need to recognize yourself as a people
“Nation” refers to the socio-economic and cultural-political unity of people. A nation can be created by different ethnic groups or by one. People living in the same country may have different languages, lifestyles, appearance, religion, but they are united by culture, ideology, and politics.
A nation is a rational and artificially created mechanism inextricably linked with statehood. This concept arose quite late, when it was necessary to find “cementing” terms to strengthen the positions of existing states and to found new ones.
The term “people” arose much earlier than the concept of “nation”. It can be argued that it is the ethnos that forms the state, and then the state artificially develops the nation. The principles of kinship are not important for her, and this completely excludes the possibility of her organic and living development.
The Russian nation as a relic of the USSR
The desire to call oneself a nation is associated with the influence of the Soviet period, when the desire to “build” a stable culturally determined community, to which the state provided a certain service, was imposed. The popularity of the ideology was supported by the provision of territorial autonomy, language and literature, quotas for national personnel, etc.
However, the desire to achieve civil unity is associated with one serious flaw: it involuntarily nullifies everything traditional and genuine. The people who have formed their own separate state are gradually losing their self-awareness and forgetting about their ethnic identity. So it was with the Russians, national identity which were distorted by the Soviet Union.
Artificial interference in the natural processes of linguistic evolution, suppression of customs and the formation of new traditions leads to the loss of self-identification mechanisms. Sometimes the price for the forced “education” of a nation is harsh confrontation and division within the people.
Russians are an unusually numerous people, formed from the tribes of the Eastern Slavs. Today, most Russians live in the territory Russian Federation(more than eighty percent of its population). Where did the Russian nation come from?
Russians descended from the Indo-European group of peoples. If you believe archaeological data, the Slavs appeared in the first millennium BC. They are the direct ancestors of the Russians and some other peoples. Slavic tribes, or rather East Slavic tribes, gradually settled and occupied the area of modern Russia.
The Eastern Slavs are even called “Russian Slavs”. Each tribe had its own name depending on the area where they were located. But later they all united (in the twelfth century), and then gave rise to the Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians (this happened in the seventeenth century).
After the tribes united, the Old Russian nation was formed. The main groups of Eastern Slavs from which the Russians originated:
- Krivichi.
- Slovenia.
- Vyatichi.
- Northerners.
It is also necessary to note the Finno-Ugric tribes: Merya, Meshchera, Muroma and others. But the process of uniting the tribes was disrupted due to the invasion of the Mongols. Gradually, the Cossacks, Belarusians, and Ukrainians began to separate themselves. The Russian state was formed in the fifteenth century, from where the Russian people emerged.
Where the Russian people came from can be found out from ancient literary sources: “The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “Veles’s Book”.
Where did the word “Russian” come from?
It is not difficult to guess that the name of the people came from the word Rus', that is, from the state in which they lived. In turn, the origin of the word Rus is still controversial. There are many versions on this matter, which you can read about in the article “Theories of the origin of the name Rus”.
Initially, the word “Russian” was not used, they said Russian people. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the name “Russians” came, then “Great Russians”. But at the same time, the word “Russians” appeared here and there.
Where did the Russian land come from?
The emergence of Rus' and the state occurred as a result of the settlement of lands by Slavic tribes. Initially, these were Kyiv, Novgorod and the adjacent territories, the banks of the Dnieper and Dniester rivers. The Russian land was then called the Old Russian State, or Kievan Rus. Independent Russian principalities gradually formed (starting from the twelfth century). Then, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the Russian land was called the Russian kingdom. Since the eighteenth century - the Russian Empire.
Where did the Russian language come from?
Russian is an East Slavic language. It is very widespread in the world, and also occupies the lion's share among other Slavic languages in terms of frequency. Today the Russian language is official language in Russia. In addition, it is such in some other countries that have several languages.
And, therefore, according to Russian officials, the Russians do not need such autonomy. On the other hand, there is no de jure confirmation that Russians in Russia have the status of a state-forming people, and that Russia belongs to the Russian nation. This situation erases the Russians from the legal field, “suspending” the people in an uncertain state in which they have no sovereignty. On the other hand, any small ethnic or religious minority is allowed to organize national-cultural autonomy if this minority does not yet have a national quasi-state formation (“republic” or national autonomous region).
At the same time, the word RUSSIAN is under an unspoken ban in all Russian media. It is not used because it “has a national connotation.” But neutral words “Russians, Russian” are actively used, and these words, as a rule, are used primarily in relation to Russians. Although in theory, all citizens of Russia should be called “Russians”, regardless of nationality. For example, Russian media call Russian athletes “Russians”, and athletes from national republics “Dagestans”, “Tatars”, “Ossetians”, etc.
Historian Alexander Daniel, commenting on Yeltsin’s use of the word “Russians,” suggested that the president’s advisers were afraid of the word “Russian” because it “smacked of ethnicity.”
And in 2016, the head of the department of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vyacheslav Mikhailov, proposed creating a law “ About the Russian nation and management of interethnic relations." Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the idea and noted that such a law contributes to the creation of a strategy for the development of national relations in Russia. The purpose of this law, apparently, is to unite all the peoples of Russia into a single cultural and political community (nation). A nation is a political association of citizens based on common citizenship and language. However, the law on the “Russian nation” caused a flurry of criticism both from the state-forming Russian people, for whom such a law actually means the inevitable loss of ethnic identity, and from representatives of the non-Russian population of Russia, who said that this law would allegedly violate their rights (although , this law was created exclusively in their interests). At the same time, some “experts” did not see any threat to the Russians in this law. But they immediately began to squeal about the supposedly inevitable assimilation by Russians of 20 percent of the country’s non-Russian population, which is protected by various regional laws, which cannot be said about the Russians.
At one time, we already had a “civil nation” in the person of the “Soviet people,” which largely depersonalized the Russian people. There is an attempt at renaissance not only of Lenin and Khrushchev times, but also of the 90s. Yeltsin also liked to address his compatriots: “Russians”!
In its real embodiment, all this policy of the “Russian nation” and “tolerance” in the national question is aimed at “melting” Russians into “Russians”, while all other peoples, basically, remain themselves.
In the idea of the “Russian nation” there is indeed a lot that reminds us of the “Soviet people”, and this similarity is by no means accidental. Suffice it to recall that the initiator of the adoption of the law, V. Mikhailov, in the past - personnel worker apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee and a specialist in the history of the CPSU. The topic of his candidate's dissertation is “The activities of party organizations in the western regions of Ukraine for the international education of the population,” and his doctoral dissertation is “The activities of the CPSU in the formation and deepening of the internationalist consciousness of the working people of the western regions of Ukraine (1939 -1981).” The idea of the “Soviet people,” which in a modernized form can be called the “Russian nation,” is from this scientific issues follows in a completely logical way. At the same time, the international education of the CPSU of the working people of the western regions of Ukraine, as we know, ended in complete collapse, and its fruits can partly be observed today in the Donbass.
The introduction of the idea of the “Russian nation” to the masses will inevitably undermine the state structure of Russia, which it inherited from the USSR.
Central Facilities Mass Information, keeping silent about the massive indignation of the Russian public about this, still could not ignore the statement of the film director, State Duma Deputy Stanislav Govorukhin, who called the word “Russian” disgusting and noted that the inhabitants of Russia for many centuries called themselves “Russians”. Film director and State Duma Deputy Vladimir Bortko and Federation Council member Alexei Pushkov spoke in the same spirit, but a little softer.
The Russian Orthodox Church also opposed the adoption of the law. The head of the synodal department for relations between the Church and society and the media, Vladimir Legoyda, speaking at a meeting of the working group, noted the unifying role of the Russian people, language and culture. In addition, the law on the “Russian nation,” in his opinion, will contradict the concept of the “Russian World,” which unites all Russians, and not just those who live in Russia.
As a result, conversations about the “Russian nation” stopped, it was decided to rename the law and call it “On the Fundamentals of State National Policy,” and the word “RUSSIANS” began to be used in the Russian media even more often than before.
Opinions.
Vladimir Putin
In 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “Russia has developed for centuries as a multinational state-civilization, held together by the Russian people, the Russian language and Russian culture, which are dear to all of us, which unite us and do not allow us to dissolve in this diverse world. For the planet, we, regardless of our ethnicity, have been and remain one people.”
Patriarch Kirill
In 2014, Patriarch Kirill stated that “the fate of the Russian people, their well-being, their integrity, the maturity of their self-awareness must be recognized as key factors in preserving the spiritual and political unity of Russia. Neglecting this today means destroying the state, planting a time bomb in it. Similar trends took place in the sphere of national politics in the 1990s, when a group of scientists and politicians postulated an artificial opposition between Russian and Russian. At that time, officials received unpublicized instructions: not to use the word “Russian” in public speeches and official documents as allegedly weakening the unity of the nation. And today, unfortunately, one can hear statements that the Russian people are heterogeneous, that their unity is a fiction, and also about the existence of new, previously unknown nations, such as, for example, “Pomeranian”, “Cossack” or “ Siberian.” Behind the attempts to eliminate the word “Russian” from use are ideas that have long proven their lifelessness in the West, where voices are increasingly heard calling for the abandonment of multiculturalism and the melting pot theory.
Publicist, editor-in-chief of the online magazine “Russian Observer” Egor Kholmogorov
Let us first of all honestly admit that there was and could not be any “Soviet people” in the ethnic and cultural sense - in the sense in which large historical nations exist - under the conditions of the very organization of the Soviet system. There are, of course, young modernist nations, such as, for example, the USA, but these are nations of migrants. Peoples Soviet Union lived in the places in which they always lived. Moreover, they had their own state formations - union republics. Culture was supported and developed in them: Uzbek, Latvian, Moldavian, Armenian... For some of these peoples, the Soviet period was a time of powerful cultural revival. It is not serious to say that peoples who are settled in their own places and still have their own quasi-statehood can merge into one nation. The original idea was absolutely absurd. As a result, it turned out that mixing and the emergence of something close to the concept of the Soviet people occurred mainly in cities due to two factors. The first is interethnic marriages. The son of an Armenian and Azerbaijani woman, taking into account some conflict between these two nations, felt more Soviet man than an Armenian or an Azerbaijani. The second factor due to which the replenishment of the Soviet people occurred was the loss of ethnic self-identification of Russians among the overwhelming majority of the country's population. Russian identity, unlike others, was not specifically supported in the USSR. Some Russians lost it and immediately began to consider themselves ideologically Soviet people.
But still, the layer of bearers of Soviet identity, which overlapped the old ethnic ones, was relatively small. It mattered among the intelligentsia and party workers, but not among the masses. It is clear that as soon as the processes of the collapse of the Soviet system and the national renaissance during the era of perestroika began, this identity disappeared from all nations except the Russians. By 1989, all ethnic outskirts had become increasingly nationalistic.
Simply due to the fact that Russian national identity was suppressed much more strongly, in Russia this process dragged on for a much longer period. But it was precisely when it was restored that conversations about the Russian nation began, and I think that this is just some kind of stupid setup. This is a mincemeat that they are trying to turn back, and in conditions where, apart from conflict, it will not give rise to anything. The Russian nation cannot appear in the form in which the authors of the law present it, as a kind of synthesis and unification various peoples and nations living in the country. This law constitutes an international criminal offense against them. The Russian nation exists. It is described in many ethnographic reference books, encyclopedias, and so on. Then it suddenly turns out that the Russian nation will be abolished, and “Russian” will appear in its place. Purely legally, this can be regarded as a threat of genocide, because genocide is not always physical extermination. The ban on Armenians in Turkey calling themselves Armenians is also a form of ethnocide.
A law on a certain “Russian nation” is no more needed than a district police officer’s order to rename me Yuri or Igor. The authors of this idea entered into very dangerous ground. This will not lead to anything good. In fact, it is proposed: let’s put everything into one pot, declare it the “Russian nation” and let’s build it. But it is not clear on what basis to build it - purely logically, it must be built on a Russian basis, as on the basis of the majority of the population, and if on some kind of neutral basis, then there is a danger that Russians will be artificially separated from their roots.
There is a danger that other peoples will not want to turn into Russians, and Russians will be forced to follow this comb. That is, this stupid project will not give anything but chaos in interethnic relations.
Director of the Levada Center, Dr. philosophical sciences, sociologist Lev Gudkov
Of course, the project of the “Soviet people” was more a slogan than a reality. Practically and legally, this definition meant nothing, so there is no need to talk about the real “Soviet people,” which became evident at the moment when pressure and state control were weakened. This concept began to fall apart due to the emergence of a movement for equal rights, equalization of the status of autonomies and republics and the demand for greater rights for the latter. This ultimately blew up the imperial structure. There seems to be no meaning to this experience. The desire to return to Soviet times is a repetition of the same mistakes.
Stanislav Govorukhin
Stanislav Govorukhin on the creation of the law on the Russian nation:
We have been the Russian people for many centuries, and now we are the Russian people in fact. “Russian” - the word itself is disgusting. It may have caught on, but “Russian woman”, “Russians”, even purely linguistically, sounds disgusting.
Later, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, he said the following:
- It’s not that the word didn’t please. Journalists simply asked me a question about how Russian citizens should be called, and I expressed my tastes on this matter.
And what word do you think should be used to call our compatriots?
Russians.
But we are not all Russian. You are Russian, I am Russian. But in Russia there are also Bashkirs, Yakuts, Chechens, not to mention Ukrainians, Belarusians and dozens of other nationalities.
The fact is that the whole world knows us, and the Bashkirs, and the Yakuts, and the Ukrainians, as Russians. People living in Russia are the Russian people. And now we have to explain to everyone that we are not Russians, but Russians? You will get tired of retraining the whole world. Either it is too early to talk about this topic, or it is necessary to retain the expression “Russian people,” which implies multinationality. Russians have not designated a specific nation for a long time. This is a community of people who live in Russia.
Do you think this will not offend anyone in our multinational country?
It’s quite absurd to be offended if this is a given. Although I’m sure there will be thousands of fools who will be offended.
State Duma Deputy Vladimir Bortko (Communist Party of the Russian Federation)
On November 11, 2016, at a plenary meeting of the State Duma, deputy V.V. spoke on behalf of the Communist Party faction. Bortko.
State Duma deputy Vladimir Bortko (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) proposed starting a discussion in the lower house of parliament about the legal enshrinement of the provision on the Russian people in the Constitution.
The issue became relevant in connection with the work on the law on the so-called. “Russian nation”.
During the meeting, Bortko drew attention to the fact that “the Russian people are not legally designated anywhere.”
“It is necessary to at least legally define the position of the Russian people, which is not contained in the Constitution,” the parliamentarian said.
Speaking about the work on the draft law on the Russian nation, Bortko expressed fears that a French model would be proposed. “There is every reason to believe that the authors of this law will propose some kind of French model of a nation, when all holders of identical passports without a recognized identity of the people are considered its members. Such a policy today has made France the prey of migrants and terrorists,” the deputy recalled. “Understanding this, I would like to initiate a discussion of this problem of our Constitution in the State Duma,” he said.
The modern Constitution is written liberally, Bortko believes. “Liberals who, to put it mildly, do not have a very good attitude towards the Russian people, which they have repeatedly expressed and are expressing,” the deputy said.
“Only with clear, legally verified relations between all the peoples included in the Federation, relations built on the basis of absolute equality, regardless of size, without division into senior and junior and legal positions that clearly indicate the positions of the Russian people themselves, can the law become that cement, which turns the millionth national country into a single whole without winks and omissions in the form of “well, you understand,” Bortko is sure.
Full text of his speech:
- Human Rights Commissioner in the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova noted that the idea of the Russian nation is attractive at first glance, but it should not be associated with one people, even the titular nation, since “this may offend other peoples, nationalities, nationalities.”
In this regard, I would like to talk about the Russian people, especially since there is no titular nation.
What is the place of the Russian people in the constitutional and legal system of the Russian Federation?
In the model set by the constitution and laws of the Russian Federation, there is no Russian people: the state of the Russian Federation denies the Russian people legal subjectivity, Russian national identity is outside the constitutional and legal field of the Russian Federation.
What is “the people”? A people is also determined by a number of characteristics - language, culture, territory, religion, historical past, etc. But a people is also defined by another important feature: a people is several generations of people who have been related to each other for centuries and continue to reproduce family relationships among themselves by having children. By uniting as a people, they solve the problem of preserving their unique genetic material in their descendants.
The smaller the people, the more jealous they are of preserving their identity, their unique difference from others, which can and should be understood. But elementary justice forces us to treat the same large nations, in particular to Russian, which is impersonal to such an extent that it is not legally designated anywhere. Even in its own Constitution, unlike, by the way, the Constitution of Tatarstan, which directly speaks of the Tatar people as state-forming people. We open the Constitution of Tatarstan and read: “This Constitution, expressing the will of the multinational people of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Tatar people...”.
The constitution of the Chechen state, however, does not contain the phrase “Chechen people,” but the Chechen language is mentioned as the state language. The head of Chechnya heads the “World Congress of the Chechen People”; January 9 in Chechnya is the official date of “Day of Restoration of the Statehood of the Chechen People”. That is, this is a Chechen national state.
The Russian people currently do not have their own state, while the Chechens, Bashkirs and Tatars do. The Russian Federation recognizes these states and concludes treaties and agreements with them.
By the way, some agreements that the Russian Federation concludes with the states of the former USSR are adopted outside the interests of the Russian people.
Example. After secession from the USSR and the expulsion of the Russian population, Tajikistan plunged into total poverty and devastation, but at the same time the population continues to increase. To stay in power, the Tajik authorities need somewhere to house the excess population. And the Russian authorities need low-paid workers. The Russian Federation and Tajikistan agree among themselves that the Russian Federation will receive surplus Tajiks and replace the Russian population with them. All this is officially called “replacement migration”. Everyone is happy, except the Russians, whom no one asked.
I recently returned from a meeting of the Russian-Caucasian Initiative club. There, the Caucasian peoples themselves said that they wanted to designate the place of the Russian people in our Federation, which has not yet been designated in any way. This is not us, this is what the Caucasus wants! The Caucasian peoples want clear and understandable relations with the Russian people, but for this it is necessary to at least outline the legal position of the Russian people. What the Constitution does not contain.
The efforts of the “Russian-Caucasian Initiative” are aimed at getting out of the paradoxical situation preserved in Russia, when Russians, making up 80% of the population and having every reason to consider themselves the creators of this country, are legally deprived of any legal personality in it and are “unknown”. Unlike a number of others Russian peoples, they are deprived of the right to count at least one square meter Russian territory with its national statehood. At the same time, not being a minority, they do not have the right to “national-cultural autonomy” - i.e. support of one's cultural identity with the help of the state.
Understanding this, President V.V. In 2012, Putin wrote a policy article “Russia: the national question,” in which he outlined the basic principles of a correct national policy. It was stated that: Russia is “a multi-ethnic civilization, held together by a Russian cultural core”, that “the core that holds together the fabric of this unique civilization is the Russian people, Russian culture” and that “the Russian people are state-forming - by the fact of the existence of Russia.”
However, he also spoke out against introducing an amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation on the “state-forming Russian people.” "Is it dangerous. We don’t need this,” he said, answering a question in the State Duma from a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, film director Vladimir Bortko.
According to V.V. Putin, introducing such an amendment will automatically make part of the Russian population first-class citizens. At the same time, he noted that the Russian people, in his opinion, really are “the basis, the backbone, the cement of the multinational Russian people.”
Some people ask: “Why, in general, is this amendment needed? What does it change? But this Russian amendment fundamentally changes the constitutional and legal basis of the Russian state. The inclusion of the Russian amendment in the constitution means the official adoption by the state of the Russian Federation of the following provisions:
1. The state of the Russian Federation recognizes the existence of the Russian people, the Russian people acquire subjectivity within the framework of the constitutional and legal system of the Russian Federation;
2. The State of the Russian Federation recognizes that it is located, among other things, on the lands of the Russian people;
3. The State of the Russian Federation undertakes to express the interests of the Russian people;
None of this is contained in the modern Constitution of the Russian Federation!
Let us recall that the rejected amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation was to replace the phrase “multinational people of the Russian Federation” with the phrase “Russian people and the peoples of the Russian Federation, united by a common destiny on their land,” that is, it simply demanded equality of peoples within the Federation.
The “Russian-Caucasian Initiative” became a grassroots movement aimed at correcting this situation. It was put forward in July of this year in Maykop (Adygea) at a joint meeting of the public organization “Elders of Adyga” and the local branch of the “Izborsk Club” with the participation of representatives of Russian patriotic organizations and represents a demand to restore the state-forming status historically inherent in Russia to the Russian people. The fact that the initiative came precisely from representatives of the Caucasian peoples is extremely important, because By destructive forces, it is the Caucasus that is constantly presented as a kind of opponent of Russia and the Russians.
Subsequently, the “Russian-Caucasian Initiative” was discussed at various kinds of meetings and round tables, including a discussion on October 24, 2016 in the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, and received the support of not only Russian patriotic organizations, but also more than 20 national associations in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Now conferences and other events are being held in the regions in support of it.
The RusKavInitiative is of particular relevance now, when there is talk about the law “On the Russian Nation”. Unfortunately, there is every reason to believe that the authors of this “law” will propose the so-called. the “French” model of a nation, when all holders of identical passports are considered its members, without a recognized identity of peoples.
Such a policy today has made France the prey of immigrants and terrorists, while in Russia it will inevitably cause an explosion of separatism and national extremism, fraught with the collapse of the country.
Understanding this, I would like to initiate a discussion of this problem of our Constitution in the State Duma. But not only this one. Well, for example, paragraph 4, Chapter One of the First Section of the Constitution says: “... if an international treaty establishes rules other than those provided for by the law of the Russian Federation, then the rules of the international treaty apply.” That is, international law is “more important” than the Laws of the Russian Federation that we adopt. It seems that this provision of our Constitution needs immediate revision.
But returning to the problem raised earlier, I want to say that only with clear and legally verified relations between all peoples included in the Federation, relations built on the basis of absolute equality, regardless of size, without division into senior and junior, and legal provisions, clearly denoting the position of the Russian people themselves, the Law can become the cement that will transform a multinational country of millions into a single whole.
Without winks and omissions in the form of - well, you understand...
The modern Constitution was written by liberals who, apparently, did not treat the Russian people very well, which they have repeatedly expressed and are expressing. For example, a young but prominent liberal Sobchak writes in an open letter to the President: “...The regime that was established in Russia in the early 2000s is scientifically called “elite autocracy.” In this construction, the authoritarian state, together with the elites - economic, intellectual, creative - opposed the dense and wild people our country…".
What can I say? This is about the people about which Generalissimo Suvorov said: “We are Russians!” What a delight!
ON THE. Narochnitskaya
The Russian people are the core of the Russian nation, constituting around themselves a historical, cultural, political union of the peoples of Russia. The Russian nation is formed on the basis of Russian culture because it has a strong communal dominant, expressed, in particular, in the rare cultural openness and everyday livability of the Russian people. Therefore, Russian citizens of various nations communicate in Russian, which does not diminish, but elevates their ethnic dignity. By identifying ourselves with Russian statehood, we can call ourselves citizens of Russia. By identifying ourselves with the Russian nation, we call ourselves Russians. Therefore, an adequate address to all of us would not be “Russians”, but “citizens of Russia”, “compatriots”, “Russian people”.
Whether we want it or not, whether we realize it or not, all the peoples of Russia tragic story fused into a single nation, because they live in a single spiritual tradition and unity historical fate. We are united by the centuries-old experience of creating a unified statehood, culture and civilization, the experience of confronting an inhumane regime, the experience of shared suffering, of eliminating the ideology of hatred and destruction. It is impossible to creatively solve our problems independently of each other. Only a joint struggle against the enslavers of our spirit will free us. The Russian nation will survive as a conciliar subject of social and political action only if it revives its own state body.
The Russian nation is a spiritual and political council of the peoples of Russia, the basis of which is the Russian multinational (multi-ethnic) people. A full-fledged nation is a community of free and responsible citizens, which is based on spiritual and moral principles, on ensuring security, protecting the vital interests and property of all citizens of the country, regardless of national, religious, and political differences. The Russian people unite the Russian nation and constitute the Russian state. Only the Russian state will allow all the peoples of Russia to survive in the face of the coming severe redistribution of world resources.
Only the Russian state is capable of preserving every people of Russia in history, capable of protecting the traditional Russian way of life, culture and civilization, and therefore preserving all Russian elites. The Russian state is able to recover only with the revival of the state-forming people. The Russian people built a state for all the peoples of Russia; they have always been distinguished by religious tolerance and the absence of aggressive nationalism. Therefore, the vital interest of every people of Russia and all its elites - all-Russian and regional - is in the national revival of the Russian people. “The Russian people are the founder and core of Russian statehood. Other peoples... entered the Russian project, and consciously entered into the Russian Orthodox kingdom... And while the core role of the Russians was not questioned, then all the other peoples blossomed on this tree, who consciously linked their destiny with the Russian people and remained faithful to them. And this does not mean any ethnic hatred, on the contrary. The Russian people will survive, they will preserve themselves as a successive subject of history and culture, then all other peoples will blossom on this tree” (N.A. Narochnitskaya).
Zakhar Prilepin
Zakhar Prilepin about the “Russian nation”. Interview with KP (Komsomolskaya Pravda):
KP Correspondent: And the Russian person is the one who was born here? Or anyone who has read Eugene Onegin?
Zakhar Prilepin: No, Russian is involvement in Russian culture. Towards the Russian matrix, history and Orthodoxy. Russian is generous and tolerant, strong but not vindictive, open but stern and consistent. Honoring national memory as a canon. Why such a question?
KP correspondent: Because it was decided to develop a law on the “Russian nation”. Even the President supported this. But why now?
Zakhar Prilepin: I think this project is determined by various events in the territory of the former USSR. One way or another, the same thing happens: a wonderful and beautiful state cannot cope with the imperial legacy of the Soviet Union. Not everyone is able to debug intra-ethnic relations. For 25 years they have been trying to show us that Russia should use Western European experience in building relations between nations. It turned out that there was no such experience. Or it doesn't work for us. That's why this request arose.
KP Correspondent: Look, American actor Steven Seagal recently received Russian citizenship. Before him were boxer Roy Jones, fighter Jeff Monson and, of course, Frenchman Gerard Depardieu. It seems that Italian Ornella Muti is next in line. Why do they need this? Are they fleeing a sinking ship or are they promoting themselves?
Zakhar Prilepin: I think these people don’t need PR. They are seeking a new traditionalism. These people are tired of the kind of Western society in which they find themselves. Moreover, they themselves may not articulate such things, but the physiological feeling does not leave them. And it's not just Seagal. In Germany, for example, Putin's rating is approximately the same as Merkel's.
KP Correspondent: Recently, director Stanislav Govorukhin said that he was disgusted by the word “Russian”, which they are trying to use to replace “Russian”.
Zakhar Prilepin: I don’t see anything bad in this word. This is the self-name of Russians who are not ethnically Russian. There is no problem with this. Derzhavin, like many classics, for example, wrote about the “Russians”. How did this humiliate the Russian people? No way. I will call myself “Russian”. A resident of “Russia”. And if someone talks about Russians, I won’t be offended either.
KP correspondent: But with all this, how can we avoid slipping into nationalism and receiving rebuff from the regions?
Zakhar Prilepin: As far as I believe, a clear mechanism has been developed - how can we insure ourselves against a new collapse of the USSR and the reincarnation of separatist sentiments. There are thoughtful things that needed to be packed into one package. It will be done now. Peoples will receive certain ideological, political, cultural and diplomatic statuses, and then fit into general concept. Indeed, in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, the president uttered the words that we had all been waiting for so long. About the fact that the Russian people are the largest divided people in the world. After the collapse of the USSR, 25 million people remained outside Russia.
KP correspondent: For foreigners, we all look the same - “Russians”. But if you stop a Russian person on the street and ask who he is, he is unlikely to utter this legal concept.
Zakhar Prilepin: When we sit together in a tank, we are all Russian. And when it is necessary to emphasize national identity, then Kalmyks or Buryats, Tatars, Chechens. As always. And there is no contradiction.
Pyotr Tolstoy
Pyotr Tolstoy about the “Russian nation”. Interview with KP (Komsomolskaya Pravda):
- In recent weeks and months, there has been a lot of talk about such a term as “Russian nation.” Not Russian, but specifically “Russian”. How do you like the term “Russian” itself? Who do you consider yourself more - Russian or “Russian”?
I don’t use the word “Russian”. I never used it, even when I worked for 7 years in Sunday program The time where it would seem every other time it should have sounded, I personally did not pronounce it. At the dawn of Russian democracy there was a position of Secretary of State, and there was such a person as Gennady Burbulis. He ran to Yeltsin and said: we must say “Russians”, this word is in Dahl’s dictionary, then we will not offend anyone. But I don’t understand the meaning of the word “Russians”. In general, I believe that things should be called by their proper names. The founder of the airborne troops, Margelov, said correctly: “We are all Russians to our enemies.” And Tatars, and Chechens, and Bashkirs. Our country is multinational and very rich. But this country is called Russia. When I see Pushkin, Gogol, Leo Tolstoy on the shelves today in a bookstore, and it says “ Russian writers“... You know, I’m just getting angry. What kind of Russian writers are they? They are Russian writers. Russians! We have Russian culture, Russian national tradition, Russian literature. And this is all Russia. It includes all those peoples who live in it.
The idea of a law on the “Russian nation” appeared. Why is it needed, and how do you feel about it?
So far I haven’t heard anything concrete other than the idea, so it’s difficult for me to comment.
In general, what is the “Russian nation” for you?
I understand that we're talking about about articulating what the different peoples of Russia have in common. We have something in common - love for our country. President Vladimir Putin said that patriotism can be a national idea. There are other values that are important to people, regardless of their origin, culture and religion. I think that such a category is justice in the deep Russian sense of the word. How to “live according to your conscience.” Every person understands for himself what it means to live according to his conscience. What's good and what's bad. It seems to me that such things bring people closer together. This law involves the search for terms that would bring together and stitch together all the peoples of our country.
So this is a story about ideology?
Undoubtedly. And all our stories are about ideology. People who shout at every corner that they have achieved the destruction of state ideology, they themselves are ideologized to the limit. They believe in some kind of foreign investment, they have their own sect, which is very active. And they are spreading this sect terribly, preaching everywhere. But at the same time they forbid us to have any ideology.
-Viktor Militaryov - Russian public figure, publicist, Russian nationalist:
It would seem that what’s wrong with the idea of a Russian nation? After all, this is just the totality of all citizens living in Russia and abroad. And why shouldn’t we, citizens of Russia, be united in our citizenship and love our common Motherland? Moreover, the “Russian nation” is just another name for the Russian people. After all, Russia, by all European and world standards, is a monoethnic country. 80% of Russian citizens define themselves as Russian. 90% call Russian their native language. In addition, we, thank God, do not have any discrimination against national minorities based on ethnicity.
However, supporters of the idea of a “Russian nation” do not at all consider modern Russia mono-ethnic state. And they consider it a multi-ethnic state, or, as we usually say, “multinational”. For them, the Russian nation is synonymous not with “Russian and other peoples,” but with “many peoples of Russia.” That is, in other words, “Russian nation” is for them a synonym for the term “multinational people of the Russian Federation” used in the Constitution.
It would seem that there is nothing criminal in this either. After all, this is all just a usage of words, which cannot in any way cancel the fact that there are 80-90% of Russians in Russia. Well, they called us, following Yeltsin, “Russians,” but do we feel sorry? Call it a pot, just don’t put it in the oven. However, everything is not so simple.
It would be entirely possible to refuse to mention the Russian people in the Constitution and in the discussed Law on the Russian Nation, if not for one extremely fundamental circumstance. For some reason, almost all the constitutions of the republics within the Russian Federation, and, as a rule, in the very first lines it is mentioned “ titular nation"of this republic.
And therefore, if we are not willing to practice double standards, then we must either exclude the mention of titular nationalities in the constitutions of the republics, or introduce a mention of the Russian people in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and federal legislation. That's the minimum.
Our authorities, it seems to me, are confident that if not the “titular nationalities” themselves, then their “national elites” are much more united and, so to speak, “loud” than the Russian people. And it is presented by our authorities mainly in the form of the “silent majority”. And therefore, in order to “maintain stability,” national minorities should be “appeased” much more than the “silent majority.” Which “won’t go anywhere from the submarine anyway.”
The ideology of the “multinational people of Russia” is not an ideology civil nation, but a continuation of the “Leninist national policy”, that is, the ideology of internationalism.
Moreover, today only Russia adheres to this ideology, albeit in a bashful form. Even China, despite all its “official internationalism,” is trying to populate all its “ autonomous okrugs"and other national territories by Han Chinese so that there are at least 80% of them everywhere. And Western countries, despite all their current “multiculturalism,” do not at all abandon the assimilation of minorities.
The idea of the “Russian nation” has the following component: the position of the authorities, based on the views of an internationalist nature and asserting that national minorities should be taken care of more than the people who make up the majority of the population.
Representatives of the Russian intelligentsia from the national republics have been “howling like wolves” for a long time, saying that Russians in the republics increasingly feel like second-class citizens. This is approximately how Russians and Russian-speaking people feel in Ukraine.
Migration, which takes away jobs from Russian citizens, has been causing extreme irritation for many years. Moreover, in last years irritation with migrants is further aggravated by the fact that many in our country have the impression that migrant worker It is much easier to obtain Russian citizenship from Central Asia than to a Russian living in Central Asia. And every single one of the migrant entrepreneurs from Transcaucasia are citizens of Russia, and have been for quite some time.
And all this is further aggravated by the fact that for many years, in almost all conflicts on ethnic grounds, the authorities practiced selective justice in favor of the non-Russian side of the conflict. Thank you that, at least at this point, at least some progress has finally begun. Since the conflict in Sagra, law enforcement agencies began, so to speak, to “judge fairly.” Not always, but quite often. Plus, we must add, of course, the literally heroic efforts of the heads of Chechnya and Dagestan Kadyrov and Abdulatipov to prevent youth interethnic conflicts in Moscow.
So, the situation, of course, has not reached the boiling point, thank God, but to say that peace and grace reign in our interethnic relations would be, to put it mildly, an extreme exaggeration. And it would be extremely naive to believe that the proposed Law on the Russian Nation will be an effective means of inter-ethnic pacification. At least in the concept proposed by its initiators.
It is necessary, along with recognition of the rights of national minorities in Russia to develop their national cultures, legislate the fact that Russian state built on the “monoculturalism” of Russian culture. That Russian culture lies at the heart of our state.
And finally, perhaps most importantly. Stop using disgusting and tongue-tied bureaucratic phraseology, which is not only stylistically tasteless, but also raises reasonable suspicions among the majority of the population of pursuing Russophobic policies. Let's learn by heart once and for all: not “the multinational people of Russia,” but simply “the people of Russia.” And not “Russian nation”, but “Russians and other peoples of Russia”. And believe me, such a rejection of bureaucratic nonsense and replacing it with the normal Russian language will greatly improve interethnic relations in our country.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky
To strengthen statehood, Russia needs a separate law on the Russian people, protecting Russian citizens regardless of their nationality anywhere globe. This was stated by the leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky. According to him, it is very important to feel the difference between the formulations “nation” and “people”.
“The definition of Russians specifically as a people is much more important for understanding the significance and greatness of Russia on the world stage. The concept of “people” and the law itself, which concerns every resident of the country, will become the unifying element that the great power so lacked, believes Zhirinovsky, whose words are quoted by the LDPR press service.
“Here we are talking about one thing: we need a concept that will unite us. This law should apply to all residents of our country; we will not introduce strict limits that we will only protect Russians who live on the territory of our country. We will protect them everywhere,” said the LDPR leader.
According to him, to a certain extent, the law on the Russian people will repeat an already existing idea, born in the Soviet Union. Citizens of the USSR defined themselves as the “Soviet people,” perceiving the idea of community and unity as the main components of a strong state. Now Russia, especially against the backdrop of the constant hysteria of the West, needs such a concept more than ever, Zhirinovsky said.
“We live where we were born. We are the Russian people. It is most important. According to the law on the Russian people, everyone will be able to call themselves whatever they want - Russian or Russian. But everyone will be united by the main concept - the concept of the Russian people, common to all of us,” the LDPR leader emphasized.
According to him, by adopting such a law, the state will clearly demonstrate to the whole world that citizens living on the territory of Russia or beyond its borders who speak Russian are not just people of different nationalities. These are people united by a common idea and understanding its importance for the development and strengthening of the country. That is why the law on the Russian people, proposed by the LDPR, will take Russia to a new level of interaction with other countries, Zhirinovsky said.
Vladimir Tkach
Among the many anti-Russian theses, one can single out one that is used by all the enemies of the Russian people without exception. They use it because it is the most destructive for us. This is the thesis that “Russia is a multinational country.” What makes it destructive is not the very recognition of the fact that many peoples live in Russia, but the false conclusion that is drawn from it about the equivalence of the peoples of Russia. In an incomprehensible way, the 120 million Russian people who created Russia became only “one of the peoples inhabiting it.”
However, that’s not all: the thesis about “multinationality” does not even mean “equality” of the Russian Giant with the Lilliputian peoples.
In the state created by our ancestors, the Russian people found themselves virtually powerless compared to other peoples. Having received political status in the form of their own republics and autonomies, they have the opportunity to pursue a policy of their own national development in these territories.
The Russian people do not have such an opportunity.
Status " multinational country» does not allow National policy development in relation to the Russian people at the all-Russian level. But to carry it out officially at any level other than the state level is unacceptable and criminal. After all, this will mean denying the Russian people the right to all of Russia.
It turns out that we seem to be at home, but nothing belongs to us.
The Russian people do not have an official political status - that is, their very existence is actually not recognized.
The current president has defined the Russian people as the “cement” that holds Russia together.
What kind of status is this - “cement”? Other Peoples have both political status and political rights, but the Russian people are “cement”?!
Another, much more outstanding political figure and real reformer, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, said the following about this: “A people who do not have national identity are the manure on which other peoples grow.” To be manure (sorry, “cement”) for the existence and development of other Nations - this is the status determined for the Russian people in Russia today.
The enemies of the Russian people go so far as to openly call nothing other than Russian national identity a threat to Russia. This comes from the very top. This nonsense is poured on us from TV screens. We are simply enveloped in this nonsense.
What kind of state have we received that sees the national unity of the Russian people as a terrible enemy? Who does it belong to, who does it serve? How does it turn out that the national oppression of Russians is the key to the existence of this state?
The answer to these questions is simple. They are trying to make us believe in outright nonsense by substituting concepts. Our political lack of rights is indeed the guarantee of existence, but not of the state, not of Russia, but of the regime of national betrayal and occupation.
In an effort to keep control of the country in its thieves' hands, this government decided to replace with itself the basis of the state integrity of Russia - the unity of the Russian people. Instead of developing the Russian people, as the basis for the existence and development of all of Russia, we are offered to rely on the existing political regime, creating the illusion of its indispensability. Pathetic blackmailers are introducing the idea that if they don’t exist, Russia won’t either. One can only wonder - how could Russia exist without them, the “irreplaceable” ones, to this day, for more than one thousand years?!
Only a narrow-minded mind does not understand where all this will lead. Any power is finite. Moreover, one that is built on the disintegration of society, on theft and lawlessness.
Any serious socio-economic and political crisis(and these happen regularly) will lead to the natural result of such a policy: the national elites nurtured by the regime will begin to tear apart the country created by the Russian people. And without national unity, the Russians will not have the strength to stop this.
Only an immature mind can believe that the interests of Russia can exist separately from the national interests of the Russian people. The people are the creator of Russia, the people are its master.
Vladimir Tkach
Russian blood in global politics
IN Lately The “Russian theme” has become very relevant, actively used in the political sphere. The press and television are full of speeches on this topic, usually muddy and contradictory. Some say that the Russian people do not exist at all, who consider only Orthodox Christians to be Russians, who include in this concept everyone who speaks Russian, etc. Meanwhile, science has already given absolutely definite answer to this question.
The scientific data below is a terrible secret. Formally, this data is not classified, since it was obtained by American scientists outside the scope of defense research, and even published here and there, but organized around it conspiracy of silence is unprecedented. The atomic project at its initial stage cannot even be compared, then some things still leaked into the press, and in this case, nothing at all.
What is this terrible secret, the mention of which is a worldwide taboo?
This the mystery of origin and historical path Russian people.
Why information is hidden, more on that later. First, briefly about the essence of the discovery of American geneticists. There are 46 chromosomes in human DNA, half of which are inherited from the father and half from the mother. Of the 23 chromosomes received from the father, only one - the male Y chromosome - contains a set of nucleotides that is passed on from generation to generation without any changes for thousands of years. Geneticists call this set haplogroup. Every man living today has in his DNA exactly the same haplogroup as his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and so on for many generations.
Our ancestors migrated from the ethnic home not only to the east, to the Urals, and to the south, to India and Iran, but also to the west, to where they are now located European countries. In the western direction, geneticists have complete statistics: in Poland, the owners of the Russian (Aryan) haplogroup R1a1 make up 57% male population, in Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Slovakia – 40% , in Germany, Norway and Sweden – 18% , In Bulgaria - 12% , and in England the least - 3% .
Unfortunately, there is so far no ethnogenetic information on the European patrimonial aristocracy, and therefore it is impossible to determine whether the share of ethnic Russians is evenly distributed across all social strata of the population or, as in India and, presumably, Iran, the Aryans made up the nobility in the lands where they came . The only reliable evidence in favor of the latter version was a by-product of a genetic examination to establish the authenticity of the remains of the family of Nicholas II. The Y chromosomes of the king and heir Alexei turned out to be identical to samples taken from their relatives from the English royal family. This means that at least one royal house of Europe, namely the house of the Germans Hohenzollern, of which the English Windsors are a branch, has Aryan roots.
However, Western Europeans (haplogroup R1b) in any case are our closest relatives, oddly enough, much closer than the Northern Slavs (haplogroup N) and Southern Slavs (haplogroup I1b). Our common ancestor with Western Europeans lived about 13 thousand years ago, at the end of the Ice Age, five thousand years before gathering began to develop into crop farming, and hunting into cattle breeding. That is, in the very gray Stone Age antiquity. And the Slavs are even further from us in blood.
The settlement of Russian-Aryans to the east, south and west (there was simply nowhere to go further to the north, and so, according to the Indian Vedas, before coming to India they lived near the Arctic Circle) became a biological prerequisite for the formation of a special language group, Indo-European. These are almost all European languages, some languages of modern Iran and India and, of course, the Russian language and ancient Sanskrit, which are closest to each other in terms of obvious reason- in time (Sanskrit) and in space (Russian language) they stand next to the original source, the Aryan proto-language, from which all other Indo-European languages grew.
The above are irrefutable natural scientific facts, moreover, obtained by independent American scientists. Disputing them is the same as disagreeing with the results of a blood test in a clinic. They are not disputed. They are simply hushed up. They are hushed up unanimously and stubbornly, they are hushed up, one might say, completely. And there are reasons for this.
The first such reason is quite trivial and boils down to scientific false solidarity. Too many theories, concepts and scientific reputations will have to be refuted if they are revised in the light of the latest discoveries of ethnogenetics.
For example, we will have to rethink everything that is known about Tatar-Mongol invasion to Rus'. The armed conquest of peoples and lands was always and everywhere accompanied at that time by the mass rape of local women. Traces in the form of Mongolian and Turkic haplogroups should have remained in the blood of the male part of the Russian population. But they are not there! Solid R1a1 and nothing more, the purity of the blood is amazing. This means that the Horde that came to Rus' was not at all what is commonly thought of it; if the Mongols were present there, it was in statistically insignificant numbers, and who was called “Tatars” is generally unclear. Well, which scientist would refute scientific principles supported by mountains of literature and great authorities?!
No one wants to spoil relationships with colleagues and be branded an extremist by destroying established myths. This happens all the time in an academic environment - if the facts don't match the theory, so much the worse for the facts.
The second reason, incomparably more significant, belongs to the sphere of geopolitics. Story human civilization appears in a new and completely unexpected light, and this cannot but have serious political consequences.
Throughout modern history, the pillars of European scientific and political thought proceeded from the idea of Russians as barbarians who had recently climbed down from the trees, backward by nature and incapable of creative work. And suddenly it turns out that Russians are those same arias, which had a decisive influence on the formation of great civilizations in India, Iran and Europe itself. What exactly Europeans owe Russians to so many in their prosperous lives, starting with the languages they speak. It is no coincidence that in recent history, a third of the most important discoveries and inventions belong to ethnic Russians in Russia itself and abroad. It is no coincidence that the Russian people were able to repel the invasions of the united forces of continental Europe led by Napoleon and then Hitler. And so on.
It is no coincidence that behind all this there is a great historical tradition, thoroughly forgotten over many centuries, but remaining in the collective subconscious of the Russian people and manifesting itself whenever the nation faces new challenges. Manifesting itself with iron inevitability due to the fact that it grew on a material, biological basis in the form Russian blood, which remains unchanged for four and a half millennia.
Western politicians and ideologists have a lot to think about in order to make their policy towards Russia more adequate in the light of discovered by geneticists historical circumstances. But they don’t want to think or change anything, hence the conspiracy of silence around the Russian-Aryan theme. However, the Lord is with them and with their ostrich politics. What is much more important for us is that ethnogenetics brings a lot of new things to the Russian situation itself.
In this regard, the main thing lies in the very statement of the existence of the Russian people, as a biologically integral and genetically homogeneous entity. The main thesis of the Russophobic propaganda of the Bolsheviks and current liberals is precisely the denial of this fact. The scientific community is dominated by the idea formulated Lev Gumilev in his theory of ethnogenesis: “from a mixture of Alans, Ugrians, Slavs and Turks, the Great Russian people developed”. The “national leader” repeats the common saying “scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar.” And so on.
Why do the enemies of the Russian nation need this?
The answer is obvious. If the Russian people as such do not exist, but some kind of amorphous “mixture” exists, then anyone can control this “mixture” - be it Germans, be it African pygmies, or even Martians. The denial of the biological existence of the Russian people is ideological justification for the dominance of the non-Russian “elite” in Russia, formerly Soviet, now liberal.
But then the Americans with their genetics intervene, and it turns out that there is no “mixture”, that the Russian people have existed unchanged for four and a half thousand years, that Alans and Turks and many others also live in Russia, but these are separate, distinctive peoples and etc. And the question immediately arises: why then are Russia not ruled by Russians for almost a century? Illogical and wrong Russians should be ruled by Russians.
The Czech Jan Hus, a professor at the University of Prague, argued in a similar way six hundred years ago: “...Czechs in the Kingdom of Bohemia, by law and by the dictates of nature, should be first in positions, just like the French in France and the Germans in their lands”. This statement of his was considered politically incorrect, intolerant, inciting ethnic hatred, and the professor was burned at the stake.
Now morals have softened, professors are not burned, but so that people are not tempted to succumb to Hussite logic, in Russia non-Russian authorities simply “cancelled” the Russian people– mixture, they say. And everything would have been fine, but the Americans jumped out from somewhere with their analyzes and ruined the whole thing. There is nothing to cover them with, all that remains is to hush up the scientific results, which is done to the hoarse sounds of an old and hackneyed Russophobic propaganda record.
The collapse of the myth about the Russian people as an ethnic “mixture” automatically destroys another myth - the myth about the “multinationality” of Russia. Until now, they have tried to present the ethno-demographic structure of our country as a vinaigrette from a Russian “mixture” of who knows what, and many indigenous peoples and newcomer diasporas. With such a structure, all its components are approximately equal in size, so Russia is supposedly “multinational.”
But genetic studies provide a completely different picture. If you believe the Americans (and there is no reason not to believe them, they are authoritative scientists, their reputation trembles, and they have no reason to lie in such a pro-Russian way), then it turns out that 70% of the total male population of Russia are purebred Russians. According to the data of the penultimate census (the results of the latter are not yet known), they consider themselves Russians 80% respondents, that is, 10% more, are Russified representatives of other nations (precisely among these 10% , if you “scratch”, you will find non-Russian roots). AND 20% accounts for the remaining 170-odd peoples, nationalities and tribes living on the territory of the Russian Federation. In summary, Russia is a mono-ethnic country, albeit multi-ethnic, with an overwhelming demographic majority of natural Russians. This is where Jan Hus' logic comes into play.
Next, about backwardness. The clergy thoroughly contributed to this myth - they say that before the baptism of Rus', people lived in complete savagery. Wow, wild! They mastered half the world, built great civilizations, taught the aborigines their language, and all this long before the Nativity of Christ... It doesn’t fit, no way doesn't fit real story with its church version. There is something primordial, natural in the Russian people that cannot be reduced to religious life.
Of course, between biology and social sphere You can't put an equal sign. There are undoubtedly points of contact between them, but how one passes into the other, how the material becomes ideal, is unknown to science. In any case, it is obvious that under the same conditions different peoples have different patterns of life activity.
In the northeast of Europe, in addition to the Russians, many peoples lived and now live. But none of them created anything even remotely similar to great Russian civilization. The same applies to other places of civilizational activity of the Russian-Aryans in ancient times. Natural conditions are different everywhere, and the ethnic environment is different, therefore the civilizations built by our ancestors are not the same, but there is something common to all of them - they are great on the historical scale of values and far exceed the achievements of their neighbors.
The father of dialectics, the ancient Greek Heraclitus, is known as the author of the saying “everything flows, everything changes.” Less known is the continuation of this phrase: "except the human soul". While a person is alive, his soul remains unchanged (what happens to it in the afterlife, it’s not for us to judge). The same is true for a more complex form of organization of living matter than a person - for a people. The people's soul is unchanged as long as the people's body is alive. The Russian folk body is marked by nature with a special sequence of nucleotides in the DNA that controls this body. This means that as long as there are people on earth with the haplogroup R1a1 in the Y chromosome, their people retain their souls unchanged.
Language evolves, culture develops, religious beliefs change, and the Russian soul remains the same, that all four and a half millennia of existence of the people in its current genetic form. And together, the body and soul, constituting a single biosocial entity under the name “Russian people,” have a natural ability for great achievements on a civilizational scale. The Russian people have demonstrated this many times in the past; this potential remains in the present and will always exist as long as the people live.
It is very important to know this and, through the prism of knowledge, to evaluate current events, words and actions of people, to determine one’s own place in the history of the great biosocial phenomenon called "Russian nation". Knowledge of the history of a people obliges a person to try to be at the level of the great achievements of his ancestors, and this is the most terrible thing for the enemies of the Russian nation. That's why they try to hide this knowledge. And we are trying to make it publicly available.
Nowadays, fair warnings are often heard that when developing modern strategy national justice to avoid previous misconceptions and mistakes that caused heavy damage to the peoples of Russia. In our opinion, the erroneous concept of the “Russian nation” raises objections, although some of its supporters may proceed from good intentions of strengthening the unity of the country.
Nowadays, fair warnings are often heard about this in order to avoid previous misconceptions and mistakes that caused heavy damage to the peoples of Russia when developing a modern strategy for national politics. In our opinion, the erroneous concept of the “Russian nation” raises objections, although some of its supporters may proceed from good intentions of strengthening the unity of the country. However, as they say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The definition of a concept requires taking into account its characteristics, that is, if our centuries-old culture, great, powerful and free language, spirituality, national idea and psychology, literature, cosmism, breadth of nature, prowess are Russian, then, consequently, the nation is Russian. It would not be amiss to recall the impact of the Russian Orthodox Church, which for many centuries played a huge unifying and nurturing role in our country. The Russian nation itself began to take shape after the adoption of Christianity. Denial of these and other factors, signs, attempts to “remake” the Russian people, as if according to the method of the Marquis de Custine, who made a similar absurd proposal back in the 19th century, will inevitably put would-be innovators, “perestroika” in the disadvantageous position of the barbarians.
It will be difficult for Russophobes to dispute that a huge consolidating meaning is contained in the concepts: Russian nation, Russian culture, spirituality, Russian language, prowess, generosity of nature, kindness, etc. Much has been written about this and is also discussed in this collection.
Refusal of the category “Russian nation” would cause great political, economic, geopolitical, cultural and civilizational damage to all of Russia. Thousands of famous figures in the West, East, and South have been singing the praises of Russian values for centuries and decades. And suddenly they are surprised to learn that we are “giving up” this property, eliminating the nationality column in the passport, etc.
The geopolitical damage may be irreparable. Let's illustrate this with specific example. One of the basics foreign policy Russia is oriented towards Slavic brotherhood, a course towards comprehensive rapprochement of the three East Slavic ethnic groups. And according to the plans of its organizers, the chimerical Russian nation would include Tatars, Bashkirs, and Ingush (which all these peoples clearly do not want). As you know, they are not Slavs. The question arises: how will we justify the need for Slavic unity and the creation of Slavic organizations? After all, other Slavic peoples, in their calls to strengthen fraternal unity, turn specifically to the Russian people. So, at the Slavic Congress, held in! 867 in Russia, a special appeal from foreign delegates to the Russian people was adopted. The document said: “We recognized the purely Slavic people in their feelings and their way of life - a people in whom the consciousness of blood kinship with us and fraternal sympathy for us have already powerfully awakened and are developing more powerfully every day: a great people, not only great in number, but also by the educational successes that he made in such a short time and under such unfavorable circumstances - great both for the high understanding of its significance in the history of mankind, and for the wonderful solid foundations it lays for the elevation of its education and its all-round prosperity." And suddenly the Slavic brothers learn that the Russian nation no longer exists. ?!
Enlightened cultural figures in the West may also be outraged. Let us recall that the German writer Thomas Mann called Russian literature holy. And the French poet Paul Valéry once noted that even if everything perishes, only the legacy will remain Ancient Greece and the Russian 19th century, then nothing will be lost. However, some would like to erase the very word Russian from the treasury of world culture and the community of nations.
It can be added that Russian classical culture was not engaged in preaching sex and violence, enrichment at any cost. In different historical periods, messages about the liberation of Slavic and eastern peoples. “We suddenly heard for the first time in a distant village - “freedom”, “equality” and “bread” in Russian,” exclaimed the Tajik poet Mirzo Tursun-zade.
As the experience of history has shown, it is, first of all, Russianness that strengthens the creative, constructive principle in building the power of the Russian State, in sacrificial service to it. “We are Russians, God is with us!” exclaimed Generalissimo A. Suvorov, winning brilliant victories over enemies who sometimes outnumbered our troops many times over. This patriotic line was quite successfully continued by Generalissimo I. Stalin during the Great Patriotic War, turning specifically to Russian values, the Russian idea, and Russian military traditions. Countless examples of this kind can be given.
It would not be amiss to note that one of the most zealous pioneers of the concept of the “Russian nation” were the Russian fascists who settled in Harbin. In their program document “The ABC of Fascism” (Harbin, 1934), they stated that although “the main elements of the Russian nation were Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians... the Russian nation also included other peoples of Russia, who also took part in its historical life.” . The compilers of “The ABC of Fascism” advocated that all the peoples of Russia represent “a closely knit family, conscious of the need for strong unity and cohesion.”
Some respected modern scientists - supporters of the concept of the “Russian nation” - argue that the alleged use of the concept of “Russian nation” can serve as an incentive to disintegration and separatism2. Caring for our unity is a worthy quality. However, the authors of the thesis about the “Russian nation” must first of all ask the nationally concerned Tatars, Bashkirs, Tuvans, Chechens, Khakassians and all others whether they agree to abandon their own national identity and join the so urgently proposed “Russian nation”? Surely, in this way one can only warm up, essentially stimulate separatist sentiments and actions.
In addition, significant historical experience and facts irrefutably indicate that when our state was Russian (before 1917), it included Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Moldova. The rejection of Russianness, its suppression in state building, and the adoption of foreign ethnopolitical models stimulated disintegration and separatism.
A qualified discussion of the issue requires the use of cultural, historical, psychological, linguistic arguments and facts. In this regard, we note that of the works included in the AKIRN collection “Russian Nation: Historical Past and Problems of Revival” (1995), the work of the famous domestic linguist and historian, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences O.N. Trubachev “Russian - Russian: history, dynamics, ideology of two attributes of a nation." The author, using a large amount of specific material, shows the genesis and meaning of the words “Russian”, “Rus”, which have been in use from time immemorial. Thus, since the time of Vladimir the Saint, the following words have been used: Russian people, Russian cities, Russian goods, Russian forest, Russian silver money, Russian double wine, etc. “The borrowed, mainly Western, character of the name Russia,” notes O.N. Trubachev, “is quite obvious” (p. 31). Further the reader will find interesting information about using these words in life. M. Lomonosov, for example, was more impressed by the concept of “Russian”. A. Radishchev wrote about the Russian man as the maker of Russian history. Let us turn to A.S. Pushkin as the highest authority. Academician O.N. Trubachev gives the following figures: in the works of Alexander Sergeevich the word “Russian” appears 53 times, and “Russian” - 572 times, that is, almost 11 times more often. “The linguistic and other differences between Russian and Russian are often simply not understood in the West, just as our home-grown translators do not understand it,” noted Academician Trubachev. The data provided by a well-known scientific authority helps to methodologically correctly approach the resolution of the dispute: Russian nation or Russian , thereby refuting new concepts of destruction of the system of domestic statehood.
The concept of the “Russian nation” is clearly at odds with the theoretical constructs of a number of well-known modern Western authorities. Back in the 70s and 80s. In the USA, the theory of ethnicity, which is still quite fashionable, was spreading. According to one of the American Political Dictionaries (1992), ethnicity is “the group identification of a particular people on the basis of common characteristics. Among the main ones: race, language, national origin or culture.”
Indeed, the role of ethnic factors in national consolidation cannot be underestimated. Let us quote L. N. Gumilev’s warning about the stability of stereotypes of ethnic behavior: “God forbid, try to remake them”...
A very large theoretical, cultural, and ethnic potential can be mobilized against the concept of the “Russian nation.” Speaking against the abuse of the word “Russian” in the national-cultural sense, reproaching some part of the intelligentsia for such self-denial, A. I. Solzhenitsyn recalled the following words of P. B. Struve, spoken by him back in 1909: The Russian intelligentsia is discoloring itself into Russian... is needlessly and fruitlessly covering up its national face,” and “it cannot be covered up.” “Nationality is something much more undeniable (than race, skin color) and at the same time subtle.”
The collapse of the concept of the “Russian nation”, the term “Russians”, etc., is forced to one degree or another to be recognized and liberal media. Thus, S. Babaeva and A. Kolesnikov, in an article published in Izvestia, stated: “Then we began to be called the pompous word “Russians.” But it didn’t take root. Some have become cosmopolitan “ladies and gentlemen.” Others remained impersonal “comrades.” The brunettes were unlucky: they merged into “a person of Caucasian nationality.”
In the current difficult transition period, it is important to take into account the lessons of recent history and the materials of previous discussions, adhering to sober political realism. New Russian chimeras and illusions are beneficial to our competitors, who do not lose sight of their own national and state interests for a second. Past unfounded, intensively spread Russian myths were very beneficial to our opponents.
Of course, the Russian origin is just as valuable as the national and ethnic origin. It includes sovereignty, national patriotism, multinationality, the common citizenship of all Russians, territoriality, common international political interests, joint concern for the difficult process of revival and development of a single all-Russian market, other most valuable qualities and conciliar aspects of the life of our country.
In a word, both Russian and Russian origins are dear and valuable, they should mutually complement and enrich each other. Therefore, supporters of the concept of “Russian nation” - instead of Russian - make a fundamental methodological mistake, opposing both of these principles, which is especially harmful and dangerous.
