HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

In place of the symbolic unity of the “political nationhood”, represented by proxy by the irremovable “national leader”, the nation should be genuinely united, not needing a “senior policeman-tsar” for indivisible control over his “subjects”. The unity of a political (civil) nation doesn’t come from outside but from within, and not with the help of an army of officials, police and soldiers, but through direct political links that arise in a society that’s free of dictatorship.

The unity of a political nation, as opposed to the unity of “political nationhood” is elementary: it is not created by the state – the nation  creates the state . That is why a state created by  the nation, as opposed to a state that controls  the nation, becomes a genuine constitutional entity. For such a state to emerge, you need a consensus – the agreement of the majority on the fundamental values and principles of the social structure. The person who agrees to accept the basic principles of the constitution as their own, and who’s prepared to defend them if necessary even by taking up arms, becomes a citizen; and a people that is made up of such citizens becomes a nation.

The peoples of Russia are creating a Russian nation – but they haven’t got there yet. The USSR endeavoured to create something new in history: the Soviet people. However, since this project was a part of the totalitarian Communist project that rejected the fundamental constitutional norms necessary for creating a nation, it failed. People simply refused to consider the principles of Communist totalitarianism as their own.

Today, we have to solve this issue again, but within the framework of the constitution, and not through terror.

A nation state can emerge only as a result of the free self-determination of the peoples of Russia. People must be given a genuine possibility to make a conscious decision, based on all the information available, and not false information, as happened in 1993, nor the insulting views put forward later. They have to decide whether they are ready to live in a united state according to the principles laid down by the general constitution, or whether they want to continue to make their own history, with all of the benefits and hardships this brings. This is a serious test and brings great political stress, but there’s no way round it. You can’t build castles on sand.

So in order to create a nation state in Russia, three historically important steps must be made:

A clear rejection of the concept of empire and the creation of conditions for a free choice for the peoples of Russia;

The passing of a genuine act for the establishment of the new Russia. This was what the Constituent Assembly was prevented from doing a hundred years ago, because it was dissolved by the Bolsheviks. Perhaps a new Constituent Assembly will have to be created for this, that can use the current Constitution, parts of which have been suppressed;

Carrying out radical constitutional and legal reforms, so as to create the political and legal infrastructure of the Russian nation state.

The nation state is the state of all the peoples of Russia who declare that it is their desire and their will to become its co-founders. It will have nothing in common with a state that is based on privilege given by blood or belief. However, it cannot ignore the simple fact that the political space out of which it has grown was formed by the active participation of the Russian people and is based on their culture.

Being too embarrassed to acknowledge this historical fact is as mistaken and unacceptable as would be trying to drag some kind of political advantage out of it, and create privileges for the “titular nation” that wouldn’t be legal.

For almost half a century Europe has tried to solve this question under the banner of “multiculturalism”. This played an important role in the struggle against xenophobia and the general relaxation of morals. But as events have shown in recent years, notably the crisis over immigration, multiculturalism isn’t a panacea. Because too frequently it ignores the objective situation that modern societies don’t develop in a cultural vacuum, but within certain cultural traditions that have developed through history. These traditions, that are the basis for all the other elements of culture, deserve to be treated with respect. Therefore, it’s important for Russia to include in the philosophy of multiculturalism the principle of cultural integration, to provide for harmonious relations between different ethnic groups and beliefs, on the basis of their being flexibly included into the general space of Russian culture.