A few words on a possible law on the Russian nation. Law on the Russian nation: will they look for “pure Slavs” in the Russian Federation? - publicist ·

The law “On Unity”, which is currently being developed Russian nation and management of interethnic relations" will be renamed, writes Kommersant. This decision was made working group on preparing the concept of the bill due to “society’s unwillingness to accept the idea one nation».

The document may be called “On the Fundamentals of State national policy" “It’s calmer this way. It turned out that society is not very prepared to perceive such a concept as a single nation uniting all nationalities. Considering that the president also proposed translating the strategy of state national policy into the language of law, we decided to change its name,” explained the head of the working group, former minister on nationalities affairs, academician.

The bill, according to him, will spell out conceptual apparatus, a mechanism for delimiting powers between the federal, regional and local authorities, a system for monitoring ethno-confessional relations in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, state policy towards small and indigenous peoples, principles of ethnological examination of bills. He noted that a special section will most likely be devoted to the Russian nation.

The working group will present the new concept in a month.

Another former minister for nationalities said that the working group is still studying the proposals of experts. One of the working options for the name of the bill, he noted, is “On the fundamentals of state national policy in the Russian Federation.” The main thing, in his opinion, is “to consolidate once again at the legislative level the ideas of the state national policy strategy that have entered real life.”

In December 2016, the first deputy chairman of the Committee on Education and Science destroyed the mental unity of Russia. As an example, he gave Far East, where distinguished students are sent not to Moscow, but to Seoul ( South Korea). “It’s already a mentality that they don’t live in Russia,” he noted.

On November 3, the Duma Committee on Nationalities began to develop the concept of a law on the Russian nation, the creation of which was initiated by the President of Russia. The head of state suggested that the basis for the law could be a strategy for the development of national relations in Russia.

In October Putin unity of the people key condition to preserve the statehood and independence of Russia, as well as the existence of the country as “a single and native home for all the peoples who inhabit it.”

According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, about 200 different nationalities live in Russia, with almost 80 percent of citizens being Russian.

Illustration copyright AFP Image caption What exactly the final version of the law will look like is still not very clear

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday supported the idea of ​​developing a law on the Russian nation. In his opinion, the law could come from a strategy for the development of interethnic relations in Russia.

This was expressed by the head of the Federal Agency for National Affairs Igor Barinov and the head of the department Russian Academy National economy and civil service Vyacheslav Mikhailov at a meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations in Astrakhan.

Russia has already developed a “Strategy of State National Policy”, adopted four years ago.

Article 3 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that “the bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in Russian Federation is its multinational people." Article 19, paragraph 2, notes that the state guarantees equality of rights and freedoms of man and citizen, regardless of nationality.

Vyacheslav Mikhailov’s abstract comments about the need to include in the law “all innovations related to interethnic relations” did not greatly clarify the initiative, opening up wide scope for interpretation.

Alla Semenysheva, Advisor to the Head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities:

There is nothing particularly worth being afraid of; this is an already existing strategy of national policy. Vyacheslav Mikhailov’s proposal for the name of the law is his personal proposal, he is the developer of the formulation “Russian nation”, and everyone latched on to it, but the point is not in the name, but in the need to adopt a sectoral law, since such a law exists both in the field of education and in others.

This topic has been discussed for more than a year in the professional community. The rules of law in the field of state national policy are determined by more than a dozen laws and decrees, but, for example, there is no specific body that would be responsible for the sociocultural adaptation of migrants. Of course, the law should give greater powers to the authorities state power, it is necessary to establish a structural vertical in the sphere of state national policy.

We have a state program according to which we have been working and living since 2014, but we need to go further and consolidate the conceptual apparatus, delineate powers between government bodies at different levels. In the state national policy strategy, paragraph 12 says that diversity national composition is the property of the Russian nation, and the Russian nation is a civic identity. And this does not cancel national identity, but goes in parallel with it - you can be a Chukchi and a Russian at the same time. The name of the law is a secondary matter, but all experts say that the need for its adoption is ripe.

Work on the law has not yet begun; we are talking about a document that does not exist. The law is not written in two days.

Based on this clarification, the BBC Russian Service asked experts whether such a law is needed at the moment and in principle, and also what the Russian nation is in general.

Egor Kholmogorov, nationalist publicist:

A law on a certain “Russian nation” is no more needed than a district police officer’s order to rename me Yuri or Igor. This is an absolutely senseless idea, which is lobbied by Mr. Barinov: someone wants to build a highway, railway and to have government contracts, so here too - we are only talking about nation-building.

This will not lead to anything good, it is written in our constitution that Russia is a multinational country, where there are many nations, and among them is the Russian one, which created this state, and there are others who, with varying degrees of voluntariness, became part of it, exist certain relationships between them: and national autonomies, and the processes of assimilation, and, unfortunately, manifestations of separatism, when Russians were killed in the 90s, and now they are being gently squeezed out of some regions.

And now the only thing on which the state can be built is that the absolute majority of residents of the absolute majority of regions are Russian, be it the former German Kaliningrad or the once Japanese Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. 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 the 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. But Tatarstan, for example, can reduce the hours of the Russian language in schools and force students to study Tatar language Russian residents and talk about the great Genghis Khan. That is, this stupid project will not give anything but chaos in interethnic relations.

For me, as a Russian nationalist, there are many problems in the existing concept of national harmony, but it has one obvious advantage - it does not question the existence of the Russian nation. But the concept of the Russian nation presupposes this denial; the title already excludes any agreement for a person of nationalist sentiments.

From a purely hardware point of view, this concept is a colossal setup, when for the last two years the president has been wearing the laurel wreath of the conqueror of Crimea and the winner of ISIS, and here he says something that inevitably turns a lot of people away from him.

Alexey Chesnakov, director of the Center for Political Conjuncture:

The presidential elections are approaching. For a significant part of conservatives and conservationists, the topic Russian people- darling. Putin acts electorally competently. He "cements" his supporters.

Kirill Martynov, Candidate of Philosophy, Associate Professor at the School of Philosophy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics:

This very construction by the author of the concept is a paraphrase of a similar construction of Soviet times, when the Khrushchev-Brezhnev nomenklatura was concerned with imposing “imaginary communities” and securing their existence. Now this has become relevant due to the non-trivial situation before the presidential campaign: on the one hand, the ratings are still high, on the other, the economic situation in the country continues to deteriorate, and it is not very clear how to mobilize the electorate if everything goes according to plan and the president can easily do without this human support.

One of the theses that slipped through Putin’s comments is to organize a “year of national unity,” and it can be assumed that this will coincide with the election year, and if so, then funding may be allocated for this, and this will become one of the points of the presidential campaign.

If we take funding out of the equation, I think that the law has practically no real content - maybe this is a question of delimiting cultural policy in national republics, this old problem and one of the reasons why these ideas were torpedoed earlier: either you give an ethnic interpretation of the Russian nation, and then it is defined as Orthodox with the priority of the Russian ethnic group, or you give a civil interpretation of the Russian nation, then you return to the constitution with its words about a multinational people and you have no room for maneuver - it cannot be said that Russian culture can have priority over other cultures, since we have a multinational people.

Nations cannot be fixed by decree from above. What we have encountered in recent history is formally a reverse process. [The initiative] sounds absurd: it is a social contract in reverse, as if it is not the nation that creates the state, but the state that forges the nation.

I am somewhat wary of the idea of ​​a nation, since it is easy to move from a political nation to an ethnic one, overplay the rhetoric and start fighting for the “purity of our ranks.” In Russia, unfortunately, there is no political nation, and perhaps in modern world it is too late to form them, but Russia has not done this work, which has been done by European states, some countries outside Europe, and the United States.

This political nation did not materialize for us for two reasons. Firstly, the borders of the Federation do not coincide with the borders of the “Russian World”, which is generally unclear where it ends. Without being a nationalist, it is clear that outside the Russian Federation - including in Central Asia, there was a problem of the Russian diaspora and nothing was done for this part of the political nation - it is not a matter of ethnicity, but of cultural background.

On the other hand, within Russia itself there is a huge number of diasporas that other residents do not consider as their own. There is a high level of xenophobia, especially towards people from the Caucasus when they come to the central part of Russia: when renting an apartment, many people demand that the renters be of Slavic ethnicity. The situation is even worse with the peoples in the east of the country - the Buryats, Tuvans, and partly the Yakuts, who are constantly subject to discrimination in household level, despite the third article of the constitution and the Russian passport.

But the main problem is that the Russian nation does not see itself as a political institution in isolation from the state, in the form of what is called civil society - key agent nation. If it is considered hostile and alien, then a political nation does not exist. This manifested itself well on, which for many people became, for various reasons, an unnecessary thing. And the instrument with which one can organize a nation is unclear, since in the modern world the state cannot do this, and the procedure itself looks the opposite.

Astrakhan was symbolically chosen for the council meeting. With a population of 530 thousand people, this city is home to representatives of more than 100 nationalities and 14 religious denominations. However, before dealing with interethnic problems, Putin paid attention to business ones. Before the council meeting, he managed to solemnly put the field named after him into commercial operation. V. Filanovsky, owned by the LUKoil company. The president began the council meeting on a positive note, saying that largely thanks to the implementation of the State National Policy Strategy, Russia is successfully countering “global threats” in the form of extremism and terrorism.

“As a result, almost 80% of the country’s citizens—I note this with satisfaction—consider relations between people of different nationalities to be friendly or normal,” Putin cited statistics, adding, not without pride, that a few years ago this figure was only 55%.

However, as it turned out, there is no point in relaxing, especially when in the modern world “there are increasing trends in the erosion of traditional values.” The positive was followed by the negative. Repeating several times that interethnic relations are a “delicate and sensitive” area and appropriate work is required there, Putin said that coordination between government bodies implementing national policies has not yet been established. Further, the President noted the sphere of “social and cultural adaptation migrants." According to him, currently this area is not provided with sufficient “ legal norms, organizational and economic instruments."

"It is necessary to determine federal body responsible for this direction,” Putin said.

As if in response to this remark, the head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs (FADN) Igor Barinov entered the discussion. Let us remember that the department was formed about a year and a half ago. At the time, this caused a great stir in the media, but after some time, attention to the agency waned.

Now Barinov told Putin that FADN was actively working in precisely the areas that he indicated. Barinov spoke about the established interaction with the expert and scientific community, and about the already implemented “system for monitoring interethnic relations.”

“Even now, despite the implementation of only a tenth of the potential capabilities of our system, it with a high degree of probability makes it possible to warn early stage large-scale conflicts like those that happened on Manezhnaya Square, Biryulyovo or Kondopoga,” the head of FADN said proudly and asked the government to include the full launch of this system in the list of priorities.

Now the government is working to transfer the necessary “staffing” and “federal budget funds” to the agency to implement the task of socio-cultural adaptation of migrants. If this task is realized, Barinov promised that the agency would take on this area, that is, the federal body that Putin spoke about.

After Putin and Barinov, experts entered the conversation. The head of the Center for the Study of Interethnic Relations at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Leokadia Drobizheva, spoke about the need to overcome ethnic stereotypes, and also about the fact that the Russian nation is glorified not only by athletes, but also by scientists who make discoveries. She asked the president to give special instructions to promote the ideas of scientists and university workers in the interethnic sphere to the teaching and teaching masses.

Putin liked the idea. "Connecting your work with practical activities universities is extremely important,” the president praised the initiative, noting that it will “give legs to the idea.”

Once the head of state intervened in the discussion. One of the participants suggested taking the path Western countries and create single register ethnic groups of the Russian nation who can claim preferential citizenship. The President noted that in all practices it is not worth focusing on the West, since not everything is good in their interethnic policy.

However, some ideas also found Putin's approval. In particular, the celebration of the Year of Unity of the Russian Nation: “You just need to choose this year.”

But the most important thing that the president emphasized was the creation of a law on the Russian nation. It should be based on the State National Policy Strategy. Putin considered the creation of this law to be one of the things “that definitely needs to be implemented.” At a council meeting, this idea was proposed by the head of the department of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Civil Service, former Minister of Nationalities Affairs Vyacheslav Mikhailov. His version of the name of the law is “On the Russian nation and the management of interethnic relations.” In his speech, he said that the law should finally reveal this concept. Many participants in the discussion spoke about the need to separate the concepts of “nations” and “ethnic groups”.

During the meeting on right hand The first deputy head of his administration, Sergei Kiriyenko, sat in front of the president. He did not make a speech, but on at least one occasion the cameras recorded Putin having an animated conversation with him.

The head of the sector of migration and integration processes of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Mukomel, in an interview with Gazeta.Ru, expressed the opinion that the law should have a broad practical use. “If it’s about everyone needing to be friends, it won’t work. The law must clearly regulate the legal relations of Russian citizens and representatives of different ethnic groups“Without this, it will remain declarative,” says the expert, noting that in Russia there is no anti-discrimination legislation as such.

Mukomel believes that despite the fact that civil identity in the country is quite high, the problem of forming “ civil nation"in Russia he faces quite strong xenophobic sentiments: "It seems that individual government officials from time to time support these sentiments."

The head of the Political Expert Group, Konstantin Kalachev, believes that the announcement of the law on the Russian nation is a continuation of the ideas of the “Russian Spring,” which gained strength after the annexation of Crimea.

“It was precisely these events that put Putin’s rating up significantly. And now there are attempts to consolidate this electoral support,” the political scientist sees a pragmatic meaning in the initiative, recalling presidential elections in 2018.

The idea of ​​institutionalizing the Russian nation is extremely popular among nationalists. Another thing is that they may not like the final version of the law, since Putin, according to Kalachev, positions himself as a “civil nationalist”: “They will most likely say that these are half measures.”

In addition, the details of exactly what criteria will determine the nation are not yet completely clear. Kalachev believes that it is not worth copying the American idea of ​​a single nation with many nationalities without taking into account Russian specifics.

In addition, there are questions whether the announced law will really improve anything in the sphere of interethnic relations. “Yakutia was recently recognized as the homeland of the Yakuts. Russian patriots became jealous. But what has really changed? - Kalachev sneers.

November 4 is the day of the so-called national unity. Probably by this day, the President approved the idea of ​​​​adopting a law on the Russian nation and classified this task as something that absolutely needs to be implemented.

TOLERANCE OR FRIENDSHIP OF PEOPLES?

I don’t presume to judge whether such a law is needed and what should be written in it. But it is absolutely necessary to strengthen and maintain friendly relations between the peoples inhabiting our land. Not all phenomena of life can be regulated by law: some are regulated by morality, everyday customs and habits, some - religious beliefs. Take this global and eternal question- relationships between men and women. Do we need a special law for this? I personally think it’s not necessary, but there may probably be other opinions. The law is not needed, but correct and reasonable education is necessary. The same is true with interethnic relations.

In general, in interethnic relations there is a lot in common with relationships between men and women. While there were no feminists, men and women considered themselves friends, tried to the best of their ability to please each other, but feminists appeared - and now women immediately felt oppressed and powerless. You see, they are not allowed into some higher positions, they are not allowed to do this and that, for which they must immediately enter into battle with the oppressors. I think the less talk about it, the more sense. Otherwise, people, out of their weakness, like to attribute their own failures to some infernal force: it’s not me who is a fool, but “pigish male chauvinism” is to blame. Something similar exists in relations between peoples.

“As a result, almost 80% of the country’s citizens - I note this with satisfaction - consider relations between people of different nationalities to be friendly or normal,” Putin cited statistics, adding, not without pride, that a few years ago this figure was only 55%.

It seems to me that the Soviet concept of “friendship of peoples” needs to be reintroduced. This is not tolerance, that is, tolerance, but friendship. You can tolerate something disgusting, but you can only be friends with someone you like. Friendship of peoples is mutual interest, curiosity, learning languages. We have vast experience in this matter. In the Soviet Union, the entire atmosphere of life was permeated with the friendship of peoples. The child read (or rather, they read to him) fairy tales of the peoples of the USSR, he looked at the pictures and saw how beautiful the folk clothes were. different nations, they told him where they live and what they do. There was sympathy and interest. It continued at school. The anthologies have always contained a certain number of poems and stories by writers from the republics of the USSR and simply different peoples of our country. The best poets translated them. At VDNKh, the child saw the “Friendship of Peoples” fountain (by the way, very much appreciated by Italian tourists for some reason), and gradually the idea of ​​​​friendship of peoples entered his consciousness. It took special effort to destroy it.

The idea of ​​friendship among peoples lived among ordinary people until the very end of the USSR. I remember well how in the summer of 1991 I was in Azerbaijan on a business trip, and fully experienced this sincere friendship. No one could even imagine that in six months we would become strangers to each other.

WHO IS GUILTY?

This idea was destroyed in the old proven way: weak little man they explained that another nation was to blame for his unsightly life. In general, the easiest way to “buy” a person is to tell him that he, a) deserves more and b) this more was taken away from him by such and such, and if it weren’t for him, wow, how would you live.

These conversations should be resolutely blocked. Is this censorship? Well, yes, she is the one. And without it, governing the state is impossible, no matter what the progressives mutter, who in the overwhelming majority have not even managed a kiosk in an underground passage in their lives.

Under Soviet rule (under Brezhnev), the idea of ​​a new historical community arose - Soviet people. Good idea, uniting. It seems to me that it should be reintroduced into circulation - in the form of the “Russian people”. It seems to me that there is no need to emphasize the word “multinational”. Yes, the Constitution says “We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation...”. But this doesn’t seem promising to me; on the contrary, we must emphasize unity. It seems to me that we need to talk about the “Russian nation” - about the unity of all the peoples inhabiting Russia. Subsequently, perhaps, instead of “Russian” they will say “Russian”, as ALL subjects of the Russian Tsar were once called, but this is a matter for the future. For now - “Russian nation”. The Russian nation consists of many peoples. We love them, respect them, study their past and present. As, indeed, we study local history, the local history of all the edges and regions of our common country. Why, for example, don’t they broadcast songs of the peoples of Russia on the radio, but always play foreign pop music or whatever it’s called?

What position should you strive for? It seems to me like this. We are all Russian. But everyone has some kind of small homeland. “Small Motherland” - this concept needs to be revived and cultivated. This is the place where you were born, where your ancestors are, your roots, dear graves, etc. Or maybe you were not born there, but the roots are there. And such diversity creates our strength, our beauty, our wealth. It is curious that the famous publicist A. Wasserman calls Odessa his small homeland, and considers himself Russian. This is correct and reasonable.

But to start broadcasting this idea right off the bat (we are all Russian, but everyone has their own small homeland) is, in my opinion, premature. This idea needs to be introduced gradually. The main thing is to understand which direction we are going. We need to learn from our Western “partners” about the gradual introduction of ideas. Imagine, thirty or fifty years ago, someone would have declared in France or Germany that homosexuality is the norm. Look, you could even get a black eye under your eye. And now - nothing, they implemented it. Graduality, steadyness and a firm understanding of which direction we are going - this is how ideas are introduced into the minds.

The idea of ​​friendship between peoples is a living and necessary idea. We need to return to her. But not just return, but adapt it to new reality. And skillfully and steadily broadcast.

WHO ARE THE RUSSIANS?

But the matter does not end there. As soon as they started talking about the law on the Russian nation, supporters of the special protection of the Russian people immediately perked up. He, as many believe, is the most oppressed and powerless, and therefore needs special protection.

So I would like to start by discussing: who are the Russians?

Residents of the Russian Federation? The so-called “Russian-speaking”? Those who are NOT Jews and NOT “chuchiki”? Racially pure Slavs without admixture... by the way, who is admixed? - Finno-Ugric, Mongol-Tatars, and so on, little by little - all sorts of Polovtsians, Pechenegs or “ancient Ukrainians”... In general, it is not easy to establish a criterion.

There are two approaches to establishing belonging to a nation, let’s call it conventionally German and Latin.

Germanic gravitates towards animal science: it is based on race, breed, heredity, anthropological types, reaching to the measurements of the skull... Hitler and his minions did not invent anything - they simply took to the last extreme what was in the air and what the German genius always gravitated towards - to the doctrine of the inequality of peoples. This idea is originally English. As for Nazism, the Englishman will outdo the German in this matter. In the colonies, the British firmly isolated themselves from the local population and treated the colonized peoples like cattle. The French separated much less, and the Portuguese simply mixed together.

All the ideas of Nazism, together with the practice of rationally maintaining the smaller livestock needed by the owners of life - all this was developed and tested by the British in the colonies. The idea expressed by Thatcher in its inescapable simplicity that something like this is not required in Russia large population, is a very Anglo-Saxon idea. The German Nazis differ from the Anglo-Saxon ones only in that the Germans loudly trumpeted this and theorized scientifically. However, let’s leave this fascinating question: it’s off topic today.

The second approach to establishing belonging to a nation is Latin. The French and Italians gravitate towards him. The name, of course, is conditional: this approach is characteristic not only of Latin peoples.

What is this approach? It's simple. The criterion of a nation or race is a sense of self, a cultural tradition - nothing more. (Note for the sake of curiosity: in the Latin tradition, “race” often refers to what we would rather call a language family: Latin, Germanic, Slavic.... By the way, in Romance (Latin) languages, the breed of dogs is also called the word “race”: race in French , raza in Spanish, razza in Italian).

Let's try to understand how the Latin mind perceives race and nation? Let's turn to authoritative primary sources. Here is a venerable author in this sense - Mussolini. The founder of fascism, and fascism, we are taught, is racism. Here's what the founder thought about race:

"Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races exist today. Funnily enough, not one of those who proclaimed the “greatness” of the Teutonic race was German. Gobineau was a Frenchman, Huston Chamberlain was an Englishman, Woltmann was a Jew, Lapouge was a Frenchman.” Reasonable, right?

In The Doctrine of Fascism, the official text (it was written for the Italian Encyclopedia), Mussolini formulates:

“A nation is not a race, or a specific geographical area, but a group lasting in history, that is, a multitude united by one idea, which is the will to existence and domination, that is, self-consciousness, and therefore personality.” (The translation is clumsy, but the meaning is clear).

A SENSE OF COMMON DESTINY

That is, the criterion of a nation is subjective and psychological.

As you feel, so it is. It is a sense of shared history and shared culture. Common fate. That is why, despite all the difficulty of “mentally” establishing nationality, it is very easy to establish it “by feeling.” Theoretically it’s not simple, but in practice it’s simpler than steamed turnips. There are a lot of people who confidently and without doubt say about themselves: I am Russian. (Or, respectively, “I am French,” “I am German,” etc.). On what basis? Yes, not at all. Based on feeling. They are Russians, and that’s all. For example, I am like this. Although I have ¼ confirmed Ukrainian blood. Or my husband. Half of him is of Ukrainian blood, and half of the other half is Belarusian. That is, Russian blood, it turns out, is no more than a quarter. And since his surname is characteristic of Poland, then, one might think, he has a Polish one; and since the famous Jewish Pale of Settlement passed through Belarus, maybe the Jewish Pale of Settlement too... And all together - Russian. In the past, there was such a humorous saying in Russia: “Dad is a Turk, mom is a Greek, and I am a Russian person.” Very correct, that's exactly what it is. Or rather, this MAYBE is normal. If a person feels culturally and morally-psychologically Russian, then he is Russian.

Here I would like to remember my Western Ukrainian ancestors. My great-grandfather was from Volyn from the village of Gorodok, and took his wife from near Poltava. My grandmother was born in 1898. was born there. My great-grandfather was an estate manager, a peasant. The landowner noticed that the manager's girl was smart and advised her to study further, after the parochial school, which most people then graduated from. She was sent first to Warsaw to a gymnasium (Warsaw was psychologically the closest Big city for the then Volyn), and then to Moscow, where she graduated from high school. Then I entered the Besstuzhev courses, which I did not have time to complete: the revolution got in the way. So, I remember, at the end of my grandmother’s life, my friends sometimes asked her: “Lukia Grigorievna, are you Ukrainian by nationality?” To this the grandmother invariably answered: “Girls, there is no such nationality - Ukrainian. The Bolsheviks invented this. We are all Russian. Only some are Great Russians, others are Little Russians, and some are Belarusians. And together they are all Russians.” My ancestors spoke Polish better than Russian (my great-grandmother did not really learn to speak Russian until the end of her days). However, after the revolution, they proved their “Russianness” by deeds. Volyn then went to Poland, and they did not want to stay there, and left for central Russia - to Tula. They felt that they would be deprived Orthodox faith, they will spread Catholicism, and so they left. These are the Russian people.

Not only language, not only faith, not both at once, not everyday habits, not culture, but something that cannot be reduced to any of these factors determines national identity. Some feeling, spirit.

SMALL AND BIG HOMELAND

Can there be two or more of these feelings? Is it possible to be Russian and at the same time a Komi-Zyryan or Gorno-Altaian? In my opinion, nothing prevents this. Mountain Altai- this is your small homeland, there are your ancestors, customs, fairy tales, language. But at the same time, you are Russian, the great Russian culture is your culture, and the great Russian people are your people. Moreover, different nationalities were once included in Russia not by force of arms, not conquered, but they themselves joined because they were threatened by other countries and peoples. Remember, from Lermontov, from “Mtsyri”:

About the glory of the past - and about that
How, depressed by my crown,

Such and such a king in such and such a year
He handed over his people to Russia.

AND God's grace got off
To Georgia! - she was blooming
Since then, in the shade of their gardens,

Without fear of enemies
Beyond friendly bayonets.

Russians have never been an oppressor and exploiter for foreigners. He was the elder brother: he himself is undernourished, but I will feed the younger ones.

Abroad, we are all Russians, and this is the natural truth. They don't understand the details. In the same way, in the Trans-Baikal Military District, a guy from Noginsk is called “Muscovite”. At home we can be Bashkirs or Buryats. A nice Buryat couple worked for us. Cultural Russian Muscovites. But they did not want to lose their culture and read Buryat fairy tales to their six-year-old son before bed. And that's great! This is the same “blooming complexity” that Konstantin Leontiev once spoke about. Small and big tongues and cultures are precious colored threads from which the carpet of great Russian culture is woven. But in general we are Russians. Your own dishes, your own songs, fairy tales, customs - all this is beautiful and interesting, all this needs to be encouraged and cultivated. As well as Russian customs, songs and fairy tales. At the school near Moscow where my daughter studied, there was a subject “ folk culture”, which was taught by a great enthusiast of this matter. She taught the children, among other things, how to sculpt with clay, they learned the customs folk rituals...Songs, fairy tales, proverbs - this is the natural “place” where a person’s “small” ethnic identification lives. Speaking Komi, Avar or Ukrainian on topics of everyday life, customs, speaking it in everyday life is normal and wonderful. Talk about the “big” life - about politics, science, technology, common life- artificial and unproductive. Yes, in fact, this is exactly what happens.

In the language of the Bolshevik discussions on the national question a century ago, this approach was called “ cultural autonomy" It seems natural and fruitful to me. Stalin, an expert on the national question, called himself a “Russian of Georgian origin.” This formula seems very simple and correct to me. We have a big Motherland: Russia, and according to it we are all Russians. And there is a small homeland that we love and appreciate. But everything has its place. Very simple and fruitful! He does not forget his roots, does not deny, does not overcome, does not cling to something big, powerful and prestigious. It remains what it is, but at the same time retains its living roots. In the end, Bulat Okudzhava (by the way, also Russian of Georgian origin) considered “Arbatism” his nationality. And Arbat, by the way, is a Turkic word, from the Horde, no less.

I was in Kyiv three years ago. I noticed a curious circumstance: all the inscriptions and advertisements are in Ukrainian. But the announcements that citizens themselves write on a printer or by hand are entirely in Russian. Near the Universitet metro station there are many advertisements offering diplomas, drawings, coursework - ALL of them in Russian. Maybe something has changed now...

In general, our Ukrainian brothers prefer to talk about serious things in Russian. Here is the famous video of Yulia Tymoshenko, where she proposes to bomb Muscovites with an atomic bomb. Everyone clucks around this very bomb and does not notice the most interesting thing: they speak in RUSSIAN! Both interlocutors are Ukrainians, they speak among themselves, without the need to be understood by anyone else (in this case, it would be better to speak directly in English, as Saakashvili once did), and these national figures communicate in Russian language.

A very revered philologist and philosopher of the 19th century, Afanasy (sorry, Opanas) Potebnya, a true crest, Little Russian landowner, folklorist, true collector of Ukrainian folk art, said that writing about science in Ukrainian is like carrying firewood to the forest. This is an empty matter, unnecessary. It’s funny that a long time ago, back in the 80s, I happened to buy in Kyiv a collection of philological articles dedicated to Potebnya on the occasion of some anniversary, the so-called. "Potebnyansky reading". So there, almost all modern articles were in Ukrainian and Belarusian, only Potebnya himself was in Russian. And no one noticed the humor of the situation.

In the USSR, ethnic self-expression was not only not hindered, on the contrary, this side of life was emphasized. Alphabets were created for unwritten languages, and children were forced to learn literature in this language. My Soviet Ukrainian friends preferred to send their children to Russian schools: they taught Ukrainian, but studied subjects in Russian. What about Ukraine? It was the same story in the Baltic states.

Where did this come from? After and during the revolution, the new government did not feel confident enough and tried to rely on any movements and popular feelings. So they tried to please the nationalists by proclaiming the notorious “right of nations to self-determination.”

After the war, it was probably possible to create a single state. (I don’t say “unitary” on purpose, because I don’t want to go into details). But either they didn’t get around to it, or it wasn’t easy to do. After the war, Stalin was in fact an autocratic monarch, but an autocratic monarch can only do so much. Only someone who has never led any organization imagines that the top person can do everything. Not everyone! And the larger and more complex the organization, the more the first person, as they say nowadays, has a corridor of opportunities.

It seems to me that Russia has not yet spoken its word in history. And if she is destined to say it, then it will be best to do it with that simple and natural approach to the national question, which I tried to outline above in cursory strokes.

Will the law on the united people of Russia unite or quarrel us all?

At the meeting Presidential Council on interethnic relations in Astrakhan happened historical event: Vladimir Putin supported the idea of ​​the Law on the Russian Nation. And he even instructed the deputy corps and the Agency for National Affairs to write such a law. And in Moscow, the World Russian People's Council began, dedicated to a topic unexpected for such church events - the relationship between Russia and the West. And there the theme of Russians as a single nation opposing the West was also heard, but from the lips of Patriarch Kirill.

In general, the idea of ​​a united Russian people arose immediately after the collapse of the USSR. If the citizens of the Union were united by the fact that they all consult and build communism, then what can unite the inhabitants of 193 nationalities in a capitalist country? Boris Yeltsin came up with the idea of ​​replacing the word “comrades” with the phrase “dear Russians and Russian women,” which, however, was not popular. And I canceled the line about nationality in the passport. Which, by the way, the leaders of the national republics are still asking to return.

I would like to remind you that even in Soviet period, when everyone was “comrades”, and even in Moscow, which, unlike Karabakh, was spared from an acute degree in the national question, there was dislike of southerners for northerners and jealousy of Russians for not quite Russians, but speaking and singing in Russian. Standard joke of the time. The announcer at the Philharmonic announces: “Music by Mark Fradkin, lyrics by Ian Frenkel. "We are Russians". Performed by Joseph Kobzon." Then you can laugh, and they laughed homerically.

My personal opinion is that it is useless to fuse all the peoples of Russia into one single nation. Moreover, to do this through voting in the State Duma.

But the logic of Putin and those who have been promoting the One Nation Law for the last quarter of a century is also clear. Why is everyone in the USA Americans, but we have Russians and Chechens? Let everyone be Russian. But will this idea be helped by some additional legislative act? In principle, all citizens of our country have the word Russia written in their foreign passports and without any law, and all of our people there are called Russians. But for “internal use” the majority of Tatars still prefer to remain Tatars, and there are no Dagestanis at all, because in this republic there is no such nation, but there are Lezgins, Avars and others. They don’t even want to call themselves Dagestanis, much less Russians.

By the way, the deputies who will have to pass and possibly write this law evaluate Putin’s idea of ​​​​a united Russian (Russian) people in fundamentally different ways. The Russian idea was most actively promoted by the LDPR, so I was the first to ask the first deputy chairman of this faction in the State Duma, Vadim Dengin, about what would be written in it:

“Zhirinovsky has always advocated amendments to the Constitution, which would indicate that in our country there is a cementing nationality. So that we can declare ourselves as a Russian country. We, as a party, advocate for the country to be divided into regions based on territorial rather than national characteristics,” he said. - We will be respected and feared when we become not a collection of different peoples who have a passport general sample, namely the nation. And now it is very important that we are respected and feared, and when Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin made a recommendation to adopt such a law, he most likely looked back at international politics. He wants to present a monolithic nation. Declare that Russia is Russian state, it is cemented by the Russian people. At the same time, no other people are disadvantaged by it. No religion is infringed upon, all interests are taken into account. But a Chechen, Kalmyk, Bashkir, or Armenian can always say that he is Russian. And this right must be confirmed by law, which provides a guideline that we are all Russians.”

One of the leaders of another State Duma faction - the Communist Party of the Russian Federation - Valery Rashkin has a diametrically opposite view of Putin’s idea, he even sees it as a threat to stability in the country:

“I would be very careful about touching such a delicate matter as the national question in Russia. We have more than 190 nations, and we have repeatedly stepped on the rake, trying to regulate national relations at the behest of someone else. Russia is not the United States, but a unique country where each nationality does not dissolve into the general mass, but remains itself. And the traditions of neighborly living of these peoples have developed over centuries; they cannot be regulated by some kind of law. Any attempt to regulate the relationship between these peoples and appoint someone in charge or change the status ends very painfully. The second is confessions. We have a multi-religious country, and no religion can be called the main one. In Soviet times, religions were practically banned, and this made it possible to equalize everyone. But now it will be very difficult for a Muslim to explain that he is Russian, and therefore Orthodox. Any leveling, belittling of the historical significance of one people or exaltation of another will lead to disaster. You can’t step on thin international ice with a bear’s paw. You need to measure it a hundred times before you take on the task of uniting the Russian peoples into one nation. This idea will divide us more than unite us.”

At least this idea has already separated the deputies of the two factions, who very often vote in solidarity. I have already mentioned in other publications about the theory of false information: throwing in some topic for discussion in order to not notice the real problem. Well, for example, to captivate everyone with a discussion of the topic of the synthetic Russian people, so that no one notices how the property tax is being raised. True, I never suspected Putin himself of this. This time, Valery Rashkin had such suspicions about GDP:

“The Russian theme can be a means of distraction from socio-economic problems, from the crisis. Let’s step on the always sore spot of the national issue - and this will distract from pressing troubles, from the failed anti-social budget that is now passing through the State Duma.”

The only trouble is that such a “deceptive” topic can not only distract, but also give rise to very serious problems.