Russian Nationalism in 19-20 centuries - Essay Example

Russian Nationalism in 19-20 centuries In the modern Russian society there are many delusions about the nationalism in the history of Russia. On the one hand extreme liberal cosmopolitans call historical Russia "a kingdom of a great Russian chauvinism ". On the other hand apologists from conditionally "national and monarchic" camp represent the Russian Empire as absolutely Russian national state. Eurasian "patriots”, who are not nationalists, want the history of Russia to look as immemorial international commonwealth of the Eurasian people", which accepts new peoples in a family to make the country bigger.

Actually, they are all wrong. Russian nationalism as the direction of political thought, was created in the end of the19th –the beginning of the 20th century. Certainly, it is not right to deny the presence of national feeling in Russians much earlier. The division into “our” and “other” on the basis of an ethnic origin is traced in the Russian history since chronicles, long before the origin of the Russian parliamentarism, the French revolution and the French concept of the civil (not ethnic) nation.

However, the Russian national idea became the political direction on the general wave of "politicization" at a turn of one before the last century of the Russian Empire (Duncan). Actually, nationalism is a form of public consciousness, which transforms private experience of patriotic feeling into rational forms of political action, including ideology and organizational construction. These forms are everywhere in the world. But in Europe they have a number of peculiarities, because the theoretical, philosophical base of nationalism is stronger, deeper and implanted in political culture.

In Russia this rooting is weaker as Russian patriotic feelings were expressed not in philosophy, not in the political theory, but in literature, art. According to Berdyaev, “The Russian people did not achieve their ancient dream of Moscow, the Third Rome. The ecclesiastical schism of the 17th century revealed that the muscovite tsardom is not the third Rome. The messianic idea of the Russian people assumed either an apocalyptic form or a revolutionary; and then there occurred an amazing event in the destiny of the Russian people.

Instead of the Third Rome in Russia, the Third International was achieved, and many of the features of the Third Rome pass over to the Third International. The Third International is also a Holy Empire, and it also is founded on an Orthodox faith. The Third International is not international, but a Russian national idea” (cited in Sarnov, 2002). Russian political nationalism arose at a turn of 19-20 centuries and began to get the developed forms in the first decade of the 20th century. This process was stopped by Bolshevist revolution.

Now, certainly, the restoration of this process takes place. Today in Russia, there are no other serious ideologies, except nationalism. Liberalism isnt developed, it doesnt create any new theoretical forms, because its intellectual base is completely borrowed abroad. Communism continues to remain in the 19th century, and thus tries to play the Stalinism card today, but in communism there is nothing new, modern, attractive; these are chronic ideological viruses, which continue to breed in the heads of preachers of Marxism-Leninism Stalinism (Thaden).

Therefore, for Russia only nationalism plays the role of the most modern and, thus, the most organic phenomenon. Certainly, it acts in different forms, sometimes comical, ugly. For example, it is the adoption of symbolics and perception of meaning of Hitlerite Germany, elementary hooliganism or crime. Generally it is connected with low cultural level of, first of all, the youth environment, which doesnt try to understand deeper the concepts of Russia, the Russian people, the Russian history, and picks up the ideological garbage (Hutchings).

But generally the nationalism in Russia is presented by a wide range of highly educated people, gifted scientists. In Russia there is a strong layer of intellectuals, and neither liberal, nor communistic theorists can oppose anything to it, because there is nothing to oppose to serious and deep idea, and ideas are the driving force of the future. It is quite obvious that ideas of nationalism will prevail after a failure of the Post-Soviet international oligarchic project that the modern political regime in Russia represents now.

And it is obvious that it is already coming to the logical end. National ideas will win, they will have civilized, cultural forms, not the form of demotic nationalism that behaves violently without any definite goals. Cultural level of Russian nationalism is already rather high to find quite weighed, pragmatic forms, aimed at solution of relevant problems of the country and people. Works Cited Duncan, Peter. Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Holy Revolution, Communism and After. Routledge, 2000 p. 11.  Hutchings, Stephen C.

 Russian Literary Culture in the Camera Age: The Word as Image. Routledge, 2004, p. 86. Sarnov, Benedikt,Our Soviet Newspeak: A Short Encyclopedia of Real Socialism., pages 446-447. Moscow: 2002 Thaden, Edward C.. The Beginnings of Romantic Nationalism in Russia. American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 13, No. 4, 1954, pp. 500-521