CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2009
| Author | Likhacheva, Yulia |
|---|---|
| Title | NATION-BUILDING IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA: DEBATES ON RUSSIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM AND DAY OF PEOPLE'S UNITY |
| Summary | The given study focuses on the contemporary technologies of nation-building in Russia, analyzing, in particular, two different cases that were specially chosen because of a certain amount of controversy which accompanied their introduction. Both of these cases deal with the symbolic representation of the contemporary Russian state – the first is connected with the national anthem, the second – with the national holiday. Adopted during the Putin’s incumbency and by his initiative, these national symbols incorporate several layers of meaning and content as they consist of components of other symbols of different epochs. This complex nature of new symbols became at some point a vexed issue and provoked a large debate about the implications of using such symbols in the mass media. This work seeks to contribute to these debates by reconstructing the narrative of each one of them, enumerating and organizing the arguments of every part involved, and therefore aiming to the understanding of the reasons behind the antagonistic positions of the debaters. Besides, the analysis of the argumentation of the state will serve as a perfect example of the nation-building techniques; thus it will be possible to get an insight into the genuine operation of these techniques as one of the phenomena under consideration – the national anthem - is already an established and successful symbol that works; the other one – national holiday Day of People’s Unity – is still in the process of development, as each year some new meanings are added to the concept of the holiday. The other task of the study is to show that the contemporary state authorities have chosen the method of incorporating the segments of different epochs to the state symbolic, and that this method seems appealing to the majority of Russians as the main quality it possesses is the inclusiveness. As the new image of Russia as the democratic multicultural and multireligious state is promoted, the links to the past – different pasts, in fact, be it a tsarist or communist one, gain new important meanings as it clearly shows the participation of people of different ethnic origins and different religions in the life of Russia throughout the history. Moreover, this technology also attempts at incorporating people with different ideological and political beliefs into the system. Thus, the study will investigate whether this technology works successfully or not. |
| Supervisor | Miller, Alexei; Pelinka, Anton |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2009/likhacheva_yulia.pdf |
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