Антиномии (Jan 2024)
Era of Upheaval as a Chance for Unifying Russian Identity
Abstract
The article focuses on the role of catastrophes, trauma and victims in the formation of national identity. Their importance in European and Russian culture cannot be exaggerated: the birth of a nation, like the birth of an individual, is almost always a trauma. In other words, a catastrophe accompanied by sacrifice, martyrdom, and suffering plays a huge role in the formation of new communities or the transformation of existing ones. However, the role of a victim as a subject suffering, offended, and oppressed has always been balanced by the role of a subject struggling, casting off fetters, and making heroic sacrifices for the sake of future triumph. According to the author, in the era of European post-nationalism, the role of victims is still exceptional, although the emphasis is often placed on the undergoing rather than the heroic aspect of sacrifice. The situation of catastrophe, which offers a chance to revise and renew national identity (or its counterpart), is often associated with war. The national community gains the opportunity to adjust the existing identity to a more contemporary one. Giving clear meaning to the sacrifices, sufferings, and exploits is a key to the renewal of identity, since they do not automatically entail either the support of an existing identity or the formation of a new one. The cases of Germany and Russia as countries that have experienced or are experiencing recurring catastrophes show what problems and ambiguities arise along the way. In Russia, the collapse of the USSR has not yet been fully understood as a catastrophe requiring an identity adjustment. Russian memory politics has so far sought to mask the fractures in domestic history of the 20th and 21st centuries by asserting “continuity” between its periods. The author believes that the current historical situation offers our country a second chance to form a more “appropriate” national identity based on the realities of today.
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