Chance of Civic Education in Russia

Abstract

This article shows how education, which is the most important form of activity in the social medium, changes the cultural image and awareness of individuals, and shapes and transforms their political attitude toward the surrounding day-to-day realities. A comparison analysis is used to explore a civic education system that forms the national and state identity of a person as a derivative of an “imagined community.” This phenomenon will be regarded here as the result of designing social and political values and their internalization in the public consciousness. This approach makes it possible to optimize the process of education for the public sphere which is destined to form an active citizen, to create a sustainable link between an individual and the social medium and is the most important tool of political communication.

Introduction

At present, special institutions for political and civic education have been created and function in many developed democratic countries in Europe and North America. In addition, a research committee of the International Political Science Association is dedicated to the development of political education.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Council of Europe adopted a number of recommendations, along with a large-scale program for teaching democratic civic consciousness. Many of these recommendations can be applied in Russia too, where the search for an optimal model of political and civic education is currently in process.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a whole generation has grown up. Their childhood and youth took place, whereas established folk and classical Russian cultural values were being dislodged by schematic stereotypes of mass culture generally oriented toward a primitive version of the Western way of life. A large part of this generation is now marrying and having children of their own. The formation of a civic conscience starts very early in life. For the 1990s generation in Russia, however, there was no patriotic education system for the primary and early secondary socialization stages. Thus, this generation’s political conscience and political socialization are clearly different from that of the previous and following generations, which may make it difficult for the different generations to cooperate with each other in the future. To analyze this problem, the authors used system analysis methods where each object is examined with consideration for its system character. Each component of the political socialization system can also be contemplated as a sub-system. At the same time, the system as a whole has properties that do not belong to any of its components.

The authors’ concept has been shaped by modern theories of citizenship, according to which the procedural and institutional arrangements are not sufficient to attain a balance of private interests as the purpose of political social life: a definite level of civic virtues and civic consciousness is required (Galston, 1991; Macedo, 1990). Regarding the concept of education, however, it could be advisable to indicate a different position, such as Arneson (2003) and Shapiro (2008, 2017). The authors distinguish the following approaches to forming methodological guidelines.

The first approach emphasizes the role of organizations and institutions in civic society, where the people adopt the ideas of self-discipline, cooperation, and duty (Janoski, 2010; Rosenblum, 1989; Walzer, 1980, 2009).

The second approach points to a necessity for formal instruction on civic consciousness, which will be used to append or correct what the people have been taught in civic society. It also refers to a person as the highest value of the community and the self-fulfilling prophecy of public development (Bridges, 2004; Callan, 2010; Ceaser, 2017; Feinberg, 2000, 2006; Haynes, 2009; Kymlicka, 2017; Levinson, 2004; Van den Berg & Meadwell, 2017). Such an axiological approach to forming a citizen helps address directly the axiological sphere of public political conscience.

From the behavioral perspective, civic self-consciousness is a form of rational thinking, that is, a combination of an individual’s views and notions that one uses to define his roles and perform his functions in the sphere of power. The essence of civic self-consciousness is the ability to define one’s own interests, relate them to those of other people, and find ways to solve tasks regarding these interests, using the state and other social institutions. In this case, political conscience is represented as a kind of extended thinking superimposed onto politics. From the axiological perspective, political conscience is one of the levels of public culture. The authors believe that, in particular, the value–conscious approach to forming civic consciousness and identity can be implemented in present-day Russia by adapting universally acknowledged values and world culture while taking local peculiarities and traditions into consideration.

This position, then, required the authors of this work to carry out the following tasks: to define the essential meaning of “political conscience” at a time when the role of the state and official nationalism are in the process of being restored; to further investigate the “projecting” identity type acting as an “imagined community”; to analyze the issue of education as a cognitive component of nationality; and, finally, to present a discussion on the analysis of civic education during a national cultural crisis and of the practice of patriotism as a national goal. At the end, we present our conclusion that the practice of political education in Russia reflects a deep structural transformation in the state officials’ imagination toward an extreme militarization and politization of civic discourse, whereas the main task of education should be to form an active citizen with the potential to influence politics (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018).

Materials and Methods

The authors use methods from cultural studies, political science, and sociology to analyze the system of political education and formation of the civic conscience in Russian citizens. The structural–functional and the system methods were used to investigate the theoretical basis for civic culture and political attitudes, their elements, structures, features, and so on.

The use of this model for the study was determined by the following situation. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting disintegration of social ties gave rise to many fundamental conflicts in every sphere of society, destabilizing social and political life in Russia. The revolutionary transformation in social values and lifestyle has caused changes to the individual and public conscience, whereas the lack of an official national ideology for the mass civic conscience is one reason why the society has entered a period of unstable ideological pluralism. Therefore, the authors considered it important to examine the problem of finding and forming integrating values—the central theme of this study. A complex investigation on citizenship education as a multi-stage phenomenon of human conscience was required (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018).

The Main Part

“Teaching” Citizenship: The Problem of Its Renovation

“Political” aspect traditionally refers to anything that is relevant to the distribution of power in the community and possibility of influencing such a distribution (Weber, 2010). Although there are different ways to interpret “political” aspect, С. Schmitt wrote about the irreducibility of this concept in the exceptional sphere of state activity. He argues that the rapid development of modern mass media contributes in an especially revealing manner to the demise of the traditional liberal state-society divide. He strongly emphasizes the importance of political over economical, technical, or legal aspects. The “political” aspect was understood by him not as a way of life and not as a combination of institutions but as a criterion for adopting a definite type of decision. He understood the political aspect as a political division, in which all political actions and motives, and the distinction between friend and enemy can be boiled down to: “The specific political distinction . . . is that between friend and enemy” (Schmitt, 2007, p. 26).

For Arendt, however, the “political” aspect appears as a dimension of only the “general world,” where people recognize each other as equals and are capable of solving the problems of indigenous social life. The human and political in this logic appear to be isomorphic to each other (Arendt, 2005).

The role of higher education is to serve as a transmitter of citizenship and culture. Educational institutions are integrated into the system of teaching future citizens and maintaining democracy (Giroux, 2008). While commenting on Arendt’s contribution to thinking politics, citizenship, and education (political pedagogy), Lange (2012, pp. 6-7) proposed “the politicisation of education, not as party politics but as education for the public sphere.”

Ahier, Beck, and Moore (2003, p. 63) admit that,

The question that has to be asked is whether the very ways in which higher education has been extended to a greater percentage of the population, and re-structured to serve the economy, run contrary to earlier democratic and social hopes and aspirations. Do some current developments actually marginalise social understanding and foster only individual means of dealing with problems of society, inhibit connection and collective commitment, encourage despair and a general lack of concern for the fate of others? Such critical questioning may lead to one of two conclusions. Either one can see that other identities are being fostered by the extension of higher education, at the expense of that of “citizen,” or a new form of citizenship is being constructed as an alternative to that which the social democratic state tried to promote.

The authors of this article proceed from a broad interpretation of the “political” aspect, being guided by a principle of equivalence between public conscience and objective reality in the creative transformative activity of a person. The political perception (and knowledge as a result of it) is a combination of the consecutive social practices: (а) appropriation of the world by a person, converting it into a subject of observation, investigation and apprehension; (b) perception of the world by conscience as the task, problem and question; (c) responsiveness to the world, or permanent state of exploring a sense of its personal existence by a person. Accordingly, civic education is the organization of discursive space, which is called upon to satisfy a person’s fundamental need for self-expression and meaningful life in the public environment. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

A contemporary society generates these demands as a peculiar “social mandate” for adequate civic competence during a developing cultural crisis (democracy deficit, increasing extremism, co-existence of omnidirectional vectors of multicultural aspects and national security, problems of economic growth, migration flows, new network of social relations, etc.). Politically oriented education is called upon to render assistance to the people in their public self-determination and in realizing their rights and obligations. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

because

democracy is a political system in which ordinary citizens exercise control over elites; and such control is legitimate; that is, it is supported by norms that are accepted by elites and nonelites. <. . .> A democratic citizen speaks the language of demands. (Almond & Verba, 1996, pp. 136, 138)

The idyllic attitudes to the process of forming a “political person” as an exceptionally advanced development and the individual’s acquisition of legal and social rights recede into the past. A rank-and-file member of social media will be even less capable of supervising the adoption of civic competence and activities. Today, the notion of “citizen” assumes not only one’s rights but also one’s obligations. Moreover, with the current modes of political communications, citizenship is not limited by state borders.

Anderson thinks that modern nationalism and citizenship are new phenomena typical of modern society and they present a method to integrate space, time and social bonds into a perceptual unit. A particular feature of this combination is that it is not possible without the imagination, which is the medium and the basis for social ties; it aggregates the culturally integrated imagined communities. It is a kind of a modern society’s religion that promises immortality to a person as he imagines himself a member of the eternal nation. The European models of the “official nationalism” formed by the elite and implemented through various educational or language policies or cultural revolutions are considered by Anderson as the reaction of the elites currently in power to the unifying influence of the “printed-books’ capitalism” and spreading of the mother tongue as a means of communication and, at the same time, as a model to consolidate the national ideology. (Anderson, 2016, pp. 36, 39; Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018

We can summarize the conclusions to be drawn from the argument thus far by saying that the convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of imagined community, which in its basic morphology set the stage for the modern nation. (Anderson, 2016, p. 45)

“As the meaning-creating experience of the national conscience is the material with which to build an imagined community, it is logical that modern political discourse uses such notions as ‘global citizenship,’ ‘digital citizenship,’ and ‘media citizenship’” (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018). Nevertheless, it must be noted that because modern Russia is economically backwards, its civic culture (ipso facto education) differs fundamentally from those established in most of “western-world” countries.

Almond and Verba (1996, p. 366) note that,

That the civic culture is not transmitted solely by explicit indoctrination is not surprising. Its attitudes and behavior combine in a complicated, subtle way; it is a culture that is characterized to some extent by inconsistencies and the balancing of opposites. One important component of the civic culture is the set of attitudes concerning confidence in other people—a diffuse, partially inconsistent pattern that does not lend itself readily to explicit teaching.

How, then, can it be transmitted from generation to generation in modern totalitarian Russia? It is true that “the civic culture is transmitted by a complex process that includes training in many social institutions—family, peer group, school, work place, as well as in the political system itself” (Almond & Verba, 1996, p. 367).

But the specificity in perceiving the tasks of civic education in the Russian Federation is justified in light of the relatively recent supremacy of a state-level communist ideology. For a long period of time, the civic culture and political education were charged with bringing up a “new man,” who should unquestionably follow the instructions of the so-called “Moral Code of the Builder of Communism.” Meanwhile, the “western” model of political culture was based either on an alternative, anticommunist ideology, or on the principles of escaping from any speculative ideological rhetoric: “First, the civic culture emerged in the West as a result of a gradual political development—relatively crisis-free, untroubled, and unforced. Second, it developed by fusion: new patterns of attitudes did not replace old ones, but merged with them” (Almond & Verba, 1996, p. 368).

By now, the communist and anticommunist forms of political consciousness, in particular, have practically lost their relevance due to the global propagation of deideologization processes in the contemporary world. Naturally, this does not mean that the communities will no longer take care of the political socialization of a personality because

a major part of political socialization, then, involves direct exposure to the civic culture and the democratic polity themselves. In this way each new generation absorbs the civic culture through exposure to the political attitudes and behavior of the preceding generation. (Almond & Verba, 1996, p. 368)

But here, too, we can see two dissimilar models, two fundamentally different approaches to the target functions of the contemporary national political culture. In one case (the “western world”), the civic education liberated from “excessive” educational tasks is just reduced to awareness. In the other case (present-day Russia), attempts are being undertaken to form a fundamentally new civic education system that is not free from official ideological doctrines, but which sets special educational strategies adopted by the ruling groups. Despite the differences, a “generation” of citizens possessing a “reserve of influence” can be referred to as the common base of civic culture (both for the “western world” and for present-day Russia). A citizen is an integrative property of a personality characterized by taking and implementing socially-significant values, including national identity. (Almond & Verba, 1996, pp. 117, 266, 278–280; Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

The question is about free, initiative-taking, and competent individuals, who are also responsible, law-abiding, politically motivated, and have skills in public participation (Schmitt, 1927).

A citizen, irrespective of the place and time of his existence, will consistently implement culpability in the social medium through such qualities as loyalty, civic consciousness, nationalism and patriotism. As Anderson pointed out, in this process of creating a self-contained and internally consistent outlook, the state schools need to form a huge and highly rationalized, centralized and standardized hierarchy, which will be structurally similar to the state bureaucracy. (Anderson, 2016, p. 140; Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

Uniform textbooks, standardized education certificates and permits for teaching, strictly regulated grades of ages, classes, and teaching materials are all means to form a new “imagined community” in which the aboriginal population will, at some moment, be offered a national identity of its own. As Almond and Verba (1996, p. 369) correctly emphasize: “The newer orientations to political participation merge with the older two orientations but do not replace them . . . These older orientations must be carried on into the modern system.”

Civic education is aimed at changing a person’s consciousness, orienting him toward purposeful and rational behavior and away from random, spontaneous, and thoughtless actions. The authors’ concept provides for a discussion of the political education system in the broader context of strengthening public communication, which is understood as interrelations between a person and social medium, an individual and the nation (Baltovskij, Belous, & Kurochkin, 2015).

Political education is the most important part of a civic democratic education. “National state” and “statesmanship” emerge as the basic concepts of a mature political awareness (Radikov, 2015). A stereotype exists whereby a distinctive feature of the Russian mind-set, unlike the Western one, involves anarchism, a barely concealed contempt toward state institutions. In fact, nowadays, as before, attitudes toward the Russian state, political, and economic institutions range from supportive to no confidence. The disintegration of Soviet statesmanship has pushed the society to perceive the state as a hostile force opposing the interests of most of the people.

Through neglect of the country’s national interests and a fostering of no confidence in the institutions and regulations of Russian society, awareness of the national and state identity has gradually eroded among a significant number of people, including state officials. This process has been accompanied by a slump in production, the degradation of the economic structure, a reduction in people’s standard of life and a decline in the educational system.

An inevitable anomaly of the state’s weakening processes is the fact that the artificial minimization of state participation in economic and social spheres has triggered even stricter centralized controls and a trend to reanimate the role of the state.

By the beginning of the new millennium, the role of the state started to change, and ever more frequently, acknowledged as a source of positive changes. It took almost a decade to realize that it was necessary to strengthen the state and statehood. Today, an increasing number of people think that Russia needs a strong state.

Yet, the value–conscious perceptions on the strength of such a state differ significantly. According to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (RPORC; 2014), when speculating on what makes the country stronger in the eyes of the world community, Russians most frequently mention the army and armaments (31%). According to 15% of respondents, the strength of the Russian Federation is maintained by its foreign policy and the public’s esteem for the head of state. Another 13% refer to the Russian spirit, culture, and traditions of the country as the main source of strength, while 11% mention the abundance of natural resources.

Taking into account the differing points of view, we will characterize a modern strong state as an independent sovereign community capable of guaranteeing security and free development to its people and supported by the conscious unity of citizens. Meanwhile, consciousness always functions between such political polar opposites as regulatory requirements and individual self-consciousness. It is no coincidence that in Russia, two types of relations, that is, two types of civic consciousness, took shape between the state and a citizen: an official, faithful consciousness, and an opposing, counteracting consciousness:

Where either the tone of political life is so menacing that it requires, out of a concern for safety, the suppression of partisan feeling; or where partisan impulses are so negative and hostile as to require suppression (or expression only in limited and intimate circles), then the effective conditions necessary for an open and moderate partisanship are not present. (RPORC, 2014)

A true political atmosphere, however, at times accepts the expression of partisan feelings and counteracting effect.

It is interesting to see how things stand on the issue of citizenship in such a developed country as the United States. We again emphasize that civic consciousness is always realized between political polar opposites such as regulatory requirements and individual self-consciousness. For example, in the United States, the liberal and republican theories of citizenship have two completely different understandings of the fundamental nature of the political structure of citizens. In the liberal understanding, citizenship is a legal status that guarantees a person the protection of the law, but not participation in adopting the law. This allows freedom of association but does not require active political participation in the public sphere. Hence, the main characteristic of liberal citizenship is that it allows people to have the freedom to live their personal lives, that is, freedom not to act. Thus, freedom and power in the liberal perspective are negative: the freedom not to participate or to delegate direct control to others (the government). Policy, from this standpoint, is aimed at managing state affairs in such a way as to ensure maximum individual freedom and develop private needs. The ensuing problems associated with civic disengagement and low political participation have forced the liberals to look for ways to solve them. The primary thrust of their approach is to start placing responsibility for citizenship development on various types of educational institutions.

The republican system of citizenship is the direct opposite of the liberal one. Citizenship refers to the implementation of active participation (primarily through one’s own judgment) in the public sphere, relying on a number of virtues, the dominant one being an individual’s ability to think not of himself but of the common good. Republican citizenship is, therefore, associated not with individual identity but with social identity. Exercising human freedom in the public sphere has the advantage of occurring within a network of interconnections and coordinated actions to change the world. Young people should enter and change the world without receiving any dictates for transforming it. As H. Arendt (2006, p. 193) says that,

Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from the ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable. And education too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing the common world.

The System of Education as a Cognitive Component of the National Culture

We understand political education as a multi-staged activity in a person’s self-consciousness. The initial stage of political self-reflection implies intentionality, a person’s interest in his public function. The second stage involves the rules that a person employs to sort out his political perceptions; that is, a person uses, for example, ideas, theories, ideological practices, and science to explain and change the world. Finally, the third and final type of political self-reflection implies an observation of self-reflection itself, and makes it an object of political consciousness and action.

The system of education shapes a cognitive component of statehood (Zafirovski, 2014). Therefore, the federal state educational standard for secondary education in Russia specifies that the personalized results of the basic educational program will be reflected in the following parameters: Russian civic identity, patriotism, respect to the nation, sense of responsibility and pride for the homeland, the historical past and present of the multinational peoples of Russia, respect for state symbols (emblem, flag, and anthem), a person’s civic stance as an active and responsible member of Russian society, who knows his constitutional rights and obligations, respects the law and public order, possesses self respect, consciously accepts the traditional national and panhuman humanitarian and democratic values, and is prepared to serve and defend the homeland. These qualities actually amount to the concept of national and state identity.

The social science course plays a decisive role in civic education and achievement, exposing students to the democratic values recorded in the Russian constitution. It is studied throughout the period of school education. A specific feature of the course is that it includes the apparently abundant issues in gnosiology and philosophy, anthropology and sociology, political science and cultural studies, law and economics. Such a vigorous paradigm results in the fact that, for most students, the acquisition of the social science material is confined to the mindless memorization of a set of definitions. The educational process does not rise to developing “cultural democracy” (Ahearne, 2010), that is, shaping students’ skills to look for cause-and-effect explanations, analyze events and processes, and give independent, substantiated, moral, and civic opinions.

An analysis of the political science components in the social science school books used today in the upper forms of general education schools testifies to the fact that they have derived from mid-century political science concepts. Students should learn basic political science, which many will later study in the higher education system.

Alongside this, the school books practically ignore the issues concerning Russia’s development and the facts related to the change in the political system. It is clear that without giving consideration to real political processes, the study of the political system in schools will actually become a mere scholastic exercise and indoctrination.

The standards for basic education in bachelor’s and master’s degree programs do not directly set a mission of establishing and developing the values of Russian statehood among the students. Many people today believe that the role of political education is fulfilled by the political science education in the higher education system (HEI).

However, political education and political science education are not identical. We will highlight two very important problems in this context. The first is related to the possibility that political knowledge will be ideologized (a culture of powerful ideologies) (Oakes, 2012). The second problem is the fact that political science is studied today as an educational subject by only a part of the Russian student body. Therefore, many Russian HEI graduates are unacquainted with the present-day characteristics of politics, political relations and political systems, and the regulations and principles of political activity, that is, political knowledge in the Age of the Internet. For example, in modern deliberative democracy, “arguing that the liberal marketplace metaphor diminishes the deeper role politics ought to play in public life, highlights the importance of thoughtful consideration of political ideas and communications that try to encourage collective deliberation on community problems” (Perloff, 2014, p. 26). Consequently, about a third of American social media users “have reposted political content previously posted by someone else, employed social media to encourage other people to vote, and used social media to encourage others to take political action on an issue that they viewed as important” (Perloff, 2014, pp. 26, 114). Expecting these days that the task of educating state-oriented Russian HEI students will be solved automatically while the overall impact of Russian education is being reduced seems illusionary.

What do we take from all this? Political socialization performs a key function in a democratic society. It provides a way for adults to communicate a culture’s political heritage to young people. New media technology provides immense possibilities for mass persuasion and manipulation. “Whoever proves most capable of employing the mass media effectively is likely to determine, to a great extent, the political course . . .”(Scheuerman, 1999, p. 21). Although mass media are not a panacea in our digital culture for obliterating knowledge deficits and inequities, they have had positive educational effects. Electronic media and the Internet have profoundly influenced political socialization. The Internet permits enriching interaction between users and commentators, promoting civic engagement and political participation:

Contemporary media represent portals that introduce young people to a world of politics that is played and constructed electronically, cinematically, and digitally. News, television dramas, movies, and music . . . introduce young people to the serious and sublime—along with the admirable and absurd − aspects of contemporary politics. (Perloff, 2014, p. 115)

Discussion

Citizenship Education During the Culture Crisis

The society of the early 21st century is in a state of culture crisis and changes, which are especially noticeable when compared with the greater part of the previous century (Wilkins, 2002). Defining the present time as “post-modern” means that the social medium is changing over to a new developmental phase, whose name has not yet been determined and whose subject matter is yet to be expressed. The citizenship education of students (citizen-making processes) will assume functions such as tracking, systematizing, manufacturing, shaping, and modeling the future (Bénéï, 2005). In addition, citizenship identity is the process of developing individual value based on a cultural feature, or related set of cultural features, to which preference is given over other sources of individual importance. The “engineering” type of identity is complexly composed, formed both on self-consciousness and on direction (Castells, 2010). The point at issue is about engineering social reality in a person’s conscience through identification tools. At the same time, the identity emerges as an object of engineering and design. The citizenship identity being designed has a complex nature. First of all, it is the process and result of shaping social and political solutions. Second, the designing does not take place in a social vacuum, but is supported by the dominant culture, styles of thinking, traditions, and other various social and historical prerequisites, for example, civic culture and democratic stability.

Let us come back to the problem of patriotism. An opinion poll carried out by Levada-Center (2013) showed that the level of patriotism among Russians had fallen by 10%. The poll used a representative, all-Russia sample retrieval for urban and rural populations, comprising 1,603 people over the age of 18 living in 130 locations in 45 regions of Russia.

Frankly, the results of the poll are not very optimistic. Whereas in 2007, 78% of the citizens considered themselves patriots; in 2013, the number fell to 69%. The percent of people who assert that they are not patriots has grown from 12% to 19%.

Moreover, Russians’ understanding of the meaning and essence of patriotism has changed. The most popular response was that being a patriot is simply loving one’s country. The percent with this response fell from 66% to 59%. And fewer people now think that patriotism is working for “the country’s good and prosperity,” which fell from 27% to 21%.

Some people think that being a patriot means “thinking that your country is the best”—21%, or “protecting your country from any abuses and accusations,”—also 21%. A true patriot always speaks the truth of one’s own country is what 11% of the respondents said; but, sadly, only 6% said that a patriot is someone who sees no fault with his country.

The respondents had very differing opinions on the dynamics of patriotism in society: 24% said that Russian citizens have become more patriotic, and the same number thought the opposite; however, 37% saw no change in this respect at all.

At the same time, there is a type of patriotism that has been very popular lately—a “reactive patriotism.” Such patriotism is people’s defensive reaction to current fairly widespread views that “Russia will never become a civilized country,” “Russia is in for a catastrophe,” “Russia will never rise from its knees,” and so on.

Let us try to explain the meaning of the changes in people’s conscience. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the lost “cold war,” and the fall of our country’s authority are all reasons why certain images of traitors, defectors, enemies, and so on, were formed in peoples’ minds. It is this “reactive patriotism” that is especially prevalent among younger people, as it triggers a certain inferiority complex, also called the “homo sovieticus” complex. This shift of notions is, most of all, dangerous in that it can cause aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, and false patriotism.

A modern political conscience, as well as modern political discourse, is often limited to the ideological and doctrinal forms of the past (Van Ree, 2002, pp. 155-168, 230-254). The disintegration of the USSR caused an end to the old system of political education that had been formed in an undemocratic Soviet state with a single dominant ideology and only one party.

It should be noted that the new model of nationalism is actualized as soon as the “innovators” gain control over the country and can use the state’s capacity to implement their ideas (Anderson, 2016, pp. 193-195). Early in the 1990s, the new people who entered politics had the strength of imagination typical for nationalism. Most of them had no political experience or theoretical knowledge. Nevertheless, the very process of conducting internal and foreign policy impels the Russian ruling class to shift to a new form of imaginary community and to acknowledge the necessity for political socialization. Its task includes forming civic political behavior among the Russian people and a reasonable and positive approach to political processes and events, while bridling the destructive and violent forms of demonstrations against the powers-that-be. The foundations for a new and constructive system-related and goal-oriented curriculum for citizenship education in Russia are being created.

Yet the formation of a new system of democratic civic education in Russia faces a number of problems. Russia’s historical experience of paternalistic and despotic etatistic power gave birth to a custom, whereby some representatives of the political elite refer to the country’s citizens as to easily controllable objects who are indifferent and apathetic, do not independently realize their interests, have no explicit position and are not capable of defending it (Freitag, 2010).

It is frequently thought that the criterion of identity is popular among Russians only when there is a real external military threat, while under normal conditions there is no need, and it is even dangerous, to emphasize it. The seeming successes of contemporary political strategists in attaining the intended political results through intensive propaganda, manipulations of public opinion, and public relations activity create the illusion that the systematic work for shaping the civic position is irrelevant, and reflect a passive and negative attitude toward citizenship education.

According to Anderson, since the modern nation has no Creator, its biography cannot be written in an evangelic manner, that is, from the past to the present by way of a long, procreative chain of rebirths. On the contrary, it should only be organized from the present into the past, which depends, critically, on how far the light of archeology can be cast. Such organization, however, is marked with deaths (Anderson, 2016, pp, 23-36, 185, 195, 204).

“Thus, the historical memory has, for a considerable number of Russian people, preserved the repressive totality of the branched structure of the Soviet propaganda system oriented to servicing and maintaining the party and the essentially bureaucratic state administration” (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018). That is why the attitude to political education as a phenomenon of ruthless totalitarianism persists (Tolstenko, 2016). As a result, there is no value-conscious definition of modern citizenship education (Parker, 2002):

The development of civic education in contemporary Russia means that the development of democratic values, paradoxical as it may be, most frequently takes place against a background of a progressing state system of bureaucratization, separated from the real needs of society. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

Consequently, there is weak state support of education and culture and, in general, no well-advised education policy.

On the contrary, during a cultural crisis, the Internet radically changes the ways of citizenship education. According to Friedman (2009, pp. 57-58), neither citizenship nor place of residence is of primary importance now, but one’s education level, capabilities, creativity, and access to the global communication system:

This has radically changed the standard of living for massive numbers of people who live on the brink of the “flat world,” feel its influence and can use its advantages. The world has degraded to a “flat world” through information technologies. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

Generation Z has come to life, and they are digital technology people (“digital natives”). They are teenagers with a “creative imagination.” In Russia, Gen Z is represented by 23 million young people who were born between 1991 and 2010 in a world where the Internet is a necessary element in life.

They adopt roles and rules from social networks, which more and more tend to substitute parents or teachers. The law of cycles states that Gen Z will have a lot in common with the “silent generation” (born 1923–1943). The “silent generation” was maturing during the period of electrification, industrialization and boy scouts’ movement. Today we hear about energy-saving, modernization and youth groups. In addition, both generations encountered a global economic crisis. Generation Z will be influenced by hyper-guardianship: children constantly being supervised by their elders. After school they go to hobby clubs or evening classes. As a result, those in Gen Z lack communication with people of their own age. The “digital natives” have more knowledge of gadgets and technologies than of human emotions. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

“Lack of communication with the external world will often be offset with increased interest in one’s own inner world” (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018). And Gen Z will, most probably, be interested in art and science, and developing their imagination. We often hear that science needs to be developed, and innovations and start-ups should be supported. Students hear that. Scientific-popular entertainment is more and more popular; for example, exciting illustrated encyclopedias, computer games, or travel. Gen Z people, who are used to visual information from a young age, cannot grasp the meaning of texts:

This may cause a certain decline in the verbal culture. Live communication is superseded by technogenic communication. In this respect, citizenship education is more and more dependent on various administrative manipulations (“brainwashing”) aimed at putting visions of the past into reality. A particular feature of Gen Z is that it is “living in a world of fantasy.” (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

Within Generation Z, which is a large and non-uniform group, sub-generations can be distinguished. One of the most significant is the “generation of iron”—people who were born in the early ‘90s. In Russian, the word for “sheet iron” sounds very similar to the word for cruelty or harshness. This is a sub-generation that is more aggressive and prone to conflict. They do not consider cruelty to be wrong; on the contrary, they are proud of it. It is no coincidence that in social conflicts of the recent past related to violence (e.g., fights in Manezh Square on Dec, 11, 2010), the role of the “soldiers” was played by teenagers 15–17 years of age. This is also one of the reasons for the growth in teenage crime marked during the late 2000s and is an echo of social stresses that occurred during their childhood. This generation is more easily controlled because they lack the enthusiasm and the need to perceive the world about them, as the previous generations had. They are users waiting for a leader (“shepherd”). It is the difference between the creators and the users that can be a distinctive characteristic of Generation Z. The former will achieve wealth and power, while the latter will come to be totally controlled by their leaders, both financially and socially. Therefore, society may split in two, eventually bringing about a totalitarian state. As a result, the process of true political self-education will become impossible. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

But for all that, we must consider

what intellectual posture should we adopt towards the evolution of the “modern” nation state, the ways children are to be educated to live as citizens in such a nation state and what being a patriot means for those citizens who love their country. (Haynes, 2009, p. 365)

Patriotic Citizenship Education as a National Orientation

A target function is the dependence between the variable (target) being optimized and other, controllable variables, which are the conditions for solving a set task. It is no coincidence that mathematicians interpret a target as a variable to be optimized with the assumption that optimization is an activity aimed at attaining the best results. Hence, such a system of rational arguments will act as an ideology, which is used to explain a method for implementing a declared optimal result. If one approaches politics in general as a process of public changes, the purpose of politicians’ activity will inevitably be this very same optimization. (Murphy, 2006; Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

Allegiance to the values associated with a democratic system is the first stage of this sort of optimization, which is a conscious subordination to the general regulations and rules adopted in the society. Moreover,

the self-confident citizen appears to be the democratic citizen. Not only does he think he can participate, he thinks that others ought to participate as well. Furthermore, he does not merely think he can take a part in politics: he is likely to be more active. And, perhaps most significant of all, the self-confident citizen is also likely to be the more satisfied and loyal citizen. (Almond & Verba, 1996, p. 207)

Furthermore, the second stage is civic self-consciousness, which consists of “a specific method of communication between an individual and power, and society and state, when all the political process participants come forward as equals” (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018):

At least from the point of view of the individual participant, the opportunity to participate in political decisions is associated with greater satisfaction with that system and with greater general loyalty to the system . . . Everything being equal, the sense of ability to participate in politics appears to increase the legitimacy of a system and to lead to political stability. (Almond & Verba, 1996, p. 204)

Finally, democratic partisanship and patriotism should be presented as a concluding form of knowledgeable behavior based on the personal civic responsibility for the tone of political life, culture, and tradition. Thus, democratic partisanship does not imply political indifference, but must be expressed openly and is essential to a stable democracy. “A too-hostile partisanship might jeopardize the willingness to accept opposition, and could cause electoral decisions to be rejected or dispensed with altogether . . . And the political atmosphere must be able to accept the expression of partisan feelings” (Almond & Verba, 1996, p. 85).

Leary and Platt (2001, pp. 41-43) note that,

In the aftermath of September 11, people are hungry for social rituals and eager to communicate a deeper sense of national belonging. Yet this new wave of orchestrated patriotism is aimed at closing down debate and dissent through the imposition of a prescribed allegiance . . . But the pledge, once imagined as a living principle of justice and liberty, perhaps even equality, quickly became suffused with militarism and obedience to authority.

Not without reason do the practices of recent years abound with examples of the behavior of public employees and functionaries deprived, according to A.S. Pushkin’s expression of “true patriotic scrupulosity.” Therefore, the formation of patriotism in this part of the Russian population becomes an extremely important but difficult task. In Russia, “the civic education of citizens is effected by translating prescribed political values into public conscience through massive use of mass media capabilities as well as through a practice of fake political activities” (Modderkolk, 2018; Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018).

“The post-Soviet mechanism of civic education in Russia has not eliminated the old problems of formalism, order of precedence and awkwardness in its plans and reports, i.e., everything we call ‘state’ Machiavellianism” (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018). The modern Russian total state is nothing more than a “democratic despotism,” in which the will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided. In accordance with Schmitt, such a “democratic” dictator’s power does

not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which government is the shepherd. (Scheuerman, 1999, pp. 98-99)

The state program “Patriotic Education of Citizens of the Russian Federation” implemented in the country since 2001 is proof of this. The contents of patriotism have been confined to the official ideology of the Soviet past, practically to the state component: a readiness to sacrifice private interests to the benefit of state interests. Yet, writes Eric Foner (2001), at times of crisis, the most patriotic act of all is the unyielding defense of civil liberties, the right to dissent and equality before the law for all America but not resurrecting the slogan of “One country, one language, one flag.” We know statehood, as the national and state identity, is the product of purposeful engineering and design. Our national and state identity is understood as a result of designing social and political values that have relevance in the public conscience:

The model of the communist revolution had a defining influence on all the revolutions of the twentieth century, as they were contemplated in societies that were even more backwards than Russia. As a result, nationalism—this “imagined community”—penetrated every modern society. (Tolstenko & Baltovskij, 2018)

At the end of the 20th century, Russia had again entered a path of market public relations, corresponding not only to individual entrepreneurial spirit and initiative but to such forms of consciousness as underestimating general civic spiritual values, egoism, consumer attitude, and personal moral degradation. This is why the apprehension of its individual civic behavior by a person, regulation of its own political activity to the benefit of society and conscious goal-setting with respect to the past, present, and future come forward as the most important functions of the political culture alongside the upbringing and patriotic citizenship.

Not long ago, George Orwell wrote of the general tendency among intellectuals to “snigger” at patriotism. “It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box” (Orwell, 1970, p. 275). It could be that the present understanding of patriotism is expanding and now includes a person’s political attitude to the country as a whole and to his own home locality, to one’s history, culture, traditions, and to the surrounding people. Patriotism is not a mere point of view—it is a sort of “religion.” This state of individual consciousness is expressed in an individual’s everyday activity (Parker, 2002, p. 407). But one should keep in mind that the relations between a patriotic citizen and the current government of a democratic nation state are complicated and problematic. It is no coincidence that the Russian Ministry of Labor has developed a “Code of Conduct for Public Officials,” a procedure for selecting personnel for state civil service that considers not only criteria such as the professional level of applicants and their business-like meritocratic qualities but also their dedication to the interests of society and state. The “new patriotism” seems to imply that a good citizen in Russia is expected to be a creative, innovative, competitive, entrepreneurial, and enthusiastic participant in the global economy. As Habermas (1996, p. 515) notes, “State citizenship and world citizenship form a continuum whose contours, at least, are already becoming visible.” Drawing from these ideas, we can conclude that democracy in Russia is a mere “fake,” or “formal,” democracy in Habermas’ terms. The ideal is to be able to institute a genuine, substantive democracy constituted through the political communicative process which becomes the bulwark of a true sovereign democracy (Höffe, 2000, pp. 608-613).

On the Concept of “Patriotism” in Russia

In Russia, the destruction of the core foundations of Soviet identity caused a crisis in national ideas and the fragmentation of cultural identity. The identity crisis is accompanied by phenomena such as apocalyptic views, ethno-nationalism, national messianism, anti-Semitism, hostility toward inhabitants of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and irrational xenophobia and homophobia. In addition, there are widespread feelings of loss, nostalgia, shame, helplessness, fear, grief, and simply pointless rage. With this, there emerged a tendency for the Russian identity to reorient from state-civic to ethno-national.

Within this context, the following questions arise: What is the content of patriotism in modern Russia? Is Russia really a homeland for Russian citizens? What is Russia’s identity? What is the position of patriotism in relation to the history of Russia? Which parts of Russian history are especially valued now, which are rejected? What is Russia’s future role for Russian citizens? What does it mean to be Russian now? What role does the army play? What is the assessment of the army’s role in modern Russia? We will try to answer these questions.

Despite the varied and complex motivation behind patriotic feelings, patriotism remains a socially approved value. Its content is expressed in the intention to act. What matters here is how citizens view and assess their life experience in Russia and the experience of their ancestors, how they experience the present, and what plans they have for their future. Based on these parameters, their choices are made and the degree of “autonomy” determined. Russian identity is still deeply immersed in the national “continuum,” which is much deeper than is typical for most Western European countries. If in Western Europe, in the climate of progressive integration, national identity is losing its mobilizing significance and is being partially overlapped by other types of identity (regional and general European), then in Russia, society’s vector of development is oriented in the exact opposite direction. That is why it is extremely difficult to answer the question of whether Russia is truly a homeland for Russians. Russia as a country has become a problem. What is the modern Russian Federation? Is it a condensed USSR? A continuation of prerevolutionary Russia? A new country? Behind the answers to these questions are different versions of the future. The territory of the country is vast; the “Soviet legacy” of the Russian Federation is fraught with the danger of repeating the USSR’s fate. Regarding modern Russia under Putin, it is infected with postimperial syndrome. In fact, Russia has inherited all the former imperial functions of the USSR and even of the Russian Tsarist empire (which included Finland, Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Transcaucasia), which was called the “prison of nations.” All three countries are imperial powers in terms of territorial structure; they are characterized by the state’s extraordinary role in establishing control; state ownership ¹ ; the pronounced role of the administrative-territorial division; substantial monocentricity with a relatively small core and a huge periphery. To this, we must add “United Russia’s” (successor to the CPSU) monopoly on government. Significantly, the Russian Federation is much more imperial in its structure than the former Russian Empire, although formally it is a democratic federal republic. Since the territory of the Russian Federation is divided among the business oligarchs who seized power, it is, in fact, denationalized. That is why the Russian Federation still cannot be called a country (generally speaking, it is only a field for assembling old imperial-Soviet formations, but by no means a new country).

Patriotic experiences combine different aspects of human nature, feelings, rationality and will, intertwining personal and social, real, and symbolic. But one thing is almost certain: Russia has truly become a homeland for a narrow circle of oligarchs, state employees, military echelons of power, intelligentsia, and society’s political elite, who exercise hegemony over subordinated, and often subjugated and enslaved, segments of the population, and are clearly a “titular nation” with the appropriate patriotism.

Civic identity also carries the likelihood of social dysfunction and destruction because it is largely based on negative projections in all basic fields of identification. The process of an individual’s internal emigration to the local space of private life and professional (subculture) enclaves continues. The identification hierarchy seems to be reversed: the dominant are not global (homeland, country, and state), but local levels of identity (small group, community, professional and government functionaries’ subcultures, religion, and ethnic group).

The Russian Federation has a number of features that significantly distinguish it from Western federations (e.g., Belgium). A federation is usually formed by uniting two or more states in a single union state. The formation of the Russian Federation went in a completely different direction. Russia as a federation is not an association of several states. It was formed, as it were, from above by a confirmation of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR)’s administrative-territorial divisions (republics, territories, regions, and districts, whose borders were drawn under Stalin) that did not have state sovereignty. These autonomous constituents were recognized as subjects of the Russian Federation. They contain a huge potential for disintegration, accumulated over 100 years of totalitarian rule. Due to contradictions in the administrative division, the artificial unity threatens to turn into a long “parade of sovereignties” (recall that after October 1917, as a result of the fall of the Russian Empire, more than a hundred different state entities appeared). The tendency to “local” patriotism is seen in the fact that at present a significant number of Russians have narrowed their “state” identity. The Pomors’ patriotism can serve as one example of a return to “localism.” The Pomor movement was initiated during the early 2000s. As a result, the Pomors are presented not as an ethnographic group but as a separate “ethnos,” which is no longer Slavic, but Finno-Ugric. The tenets of the “Pomor renaissance” are as follows: (a) Pomors are not Russians, (b) Pomors is a small aboriginal ethnos of the “Russian North,” (c) Pomors have much in common with the Norwegians, who also are an aboriginal ethnos in the North, and (d) Pomors should consolidate and restore ties with the Norwegians, as they were in the 18th and 19th centuries (Ionin, 2013, pp. 189-194). Often this kind of local patriotism coexists with nationalist sentiments as expressed, for example, in the slogan “Moscow for Muscovites, Russia for Russians!” The quest for ethnic identity goes beyond the private matters of a citizen. As a rule, they become a “common cause” for political parties and official media resources; that is, they serve to mobilize and manipulate the masses.

Next, we will consider the position of patriotism in relation to the history of Russia and which parts of Russian history are especially valued now and which are rejected. The primary source for teaching official patriotism is an information study of the events of the Second World War and celebration of the Great Victory over Germany in 1945. It is believed that the sculpture “Motherland Calls” on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd (Stalingrad) is part of a large-scale conceptual composition of three monuments, in different cities, with the Victory Sword. The first, “Rear-front Memorial,” stands in Magnitogorsk, where the Victory weapon was forged. The sculpture depicts a worker passing the sword to a soldier. “Motherland Calls” symbolizes the raising of the sword in Stalingrad. The third monument “Warrior Liberator” is located in Berlin, and shows the Soviet warrior liberator lowering the sword. Thus, glorifying the strength of the Red Army, which defeated fascism (the symbol of the Old World) and determined the future of the planet Earth, now serves Putin’s global public relations task of shaping a nationwide idea of a superpower. The goals with which the principles of state administration are defined are connected primarily with the struggle of various political clans and groups trying to consolidate their specific values. Critics began to portray the hammer and sickle on the USSR’s flag and coat of arms as a sort of swastika, citing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Katyn case, and so on. The need for Putin’s totalitarian regime to demonstrate the “rootedness” of the new system in age-old “native” traditions (a link to the Byzantine empire) and to strive to maintain a connection with the former “sovereignty” (the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome) has encouraged a revival of nationalist, clerical, and monarchical historical events as, for example, the glorification of Prince Vladimir, who baptized Kievan Rus; Ivan the Terrible, who established autocratic rule through repression and wars; and Peter the Great, who raised Russia to its feet. The tragic executions of the royal family and Tsar Nicholas II by the Bolsheviks have become an important symbol. A number of historical images presented in the context of the conservative theory “official nationality” (Pogodin M.P., Tikhomirov L.A., Ilyin I.A. and others) receive mass media support because they overlap with Count Sergey Uvarov’s (1786–1855) famous formula “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality.” To attract the sympathy of the West, an associative connection is made at the subconscious level (for example, using the national flag) of the White movement during the Civil War (1917–1922) and Russian foreign emigration with Putin’s Russia in the fight against communist ideologists (in fact, a fake image). Finally, Stalin’s deeds are cultivated as a symbol of absolute state power and a united, rigidly centralized state. There have been attempts to use some of these events and to give them a more modern bent when possible. It should be noted that these attempts stumbled upon fierce resistance from adherents of the communist ideology. Society is clearly split into groups, and, because of fundamental differences, reconciliation is almost impossible to achieve. As for historical events that have been ignored or cause a negative attitude, they primarily occurred during the transitional period after the fall of the USSR and before the Putin regime. The significance of Khrushchev’s “thaw” and Brezhnev’s developed socialism is often underestimated, and they are even subjected to historical distortion. Among the ruling elite, there persists a cold and indifferent attitude to the mass repressions of Stalin, the “famine” in Ukraine, and the defeat of the Red Army in the war with Finland in 1939–1940. The history of the popular wars of Bolotnikov (1606–1607), Razin (1670–1671), Bulavin (1707–1709), Pugachev (1773–1775), and the Decembrist uprisings in 1812 have been completely ignored.

Perhaps answers to the questions about Russia’s future role for Russian citizens and what it means to be Russian now can best be illustrated with the story of how the symbolism of the national flag was changed, reflecting the basic direction for developing the “official” national identity. Earlier, the three colors of the flag of the Russian Empire were interpreted thus: red meant “statehood,” blue meant the Mother of God with Russia beneath her, and white is the color of freedom and independence. These colors also signified the commonwealth of White Russia, Little Russia, and Great Russia. Putin’s ideologues, however, have the following interpretation: white means peace, purity, integrity, and perfection; blue is the color of faith, loyalty, and constancy; red symbolizes energy, power, and the blood shed for the Fatherland. It is not difficult to see the fake context of Putin’s hybrid propaganda trying to pass off the totalitarian regime as democratic and popular. A rather ludicrous future for Russia is symbolically represented in the national anthem, the melody of which was adopted from the anthem of the USSR. In the Law of December 25, 2000, Putin referred to the fact that “the Russian Federation is the successor of the USSR in accordance with the principle of continuity.” Apart from the deputies, Russians do not know even the first lines of the anthem. Moreover, the words to the anthem are for the most part those written by Sergei Mikhalkov, an ardent supporter of Stalinist ideology. Only the “Party of Lenin” and “Communism” were removed from the lyrics, and in their place colorless, a la communist, markers: “Be glorious, our free Homeland,/ Fraternal peoples, a union for the ages,/ Common wisdom handed down by our forbears/ Be glorious, our country! We pride ourselves in you!” In addition, a line from the second verse “Land of my birth protected by God” has provoked protests from both atheists and Muslims.

The state symbols caused interesting associations in a survey conducted by an independent sociological service, the Foundation Public Opinion (FPO), in 2004 (FPO, 2004). The questions were to elicit which events in the life and history of the country Russians associate with the state symbols, that is, the flag, the anthem, and the coat of arms. The appearance of the Russian tricolor for 8% of respondents brought to mind the dramatic, crucial events of Russia’s modern history, particularly the 1991 coup (“August 1991”; “Boris Yeltsin on a tank”; “the events of 1991”; “about crucial moments”). For 7%, the flag was associated with major sporting events and victories of Russian athletes (“when our athletes win medals”; “sports victories and awards”), 6% mentioned events before the revolution (“the times of Peter”; “the monarchy”; “tsarist Russia”; “uprising on the cruiser Varyag”; “war of 1812”; “Crimean war”; “Russian-Japanese war”), 3% said that at the sight of the Russian flag they felt pride in their country and a sense of patriotism, 9% recalled the red Soviet flag and felt nostalgic for the old days (“I remember the Soviet flag”; “the old flag is better”; “I remember how well we lived under socialism”). Most Russians (59%), however, did not have any associations when they looked at the flag.

The sound of the anthem summoned up the Soviet era for most people: 22% recalled Soviet times as a whole (“memories of the former USSR,” “the country’s former power”; “the huge lines, when everything was rationed”; “anxiety, hunger, parents’ death, war”), 6%—the Great Patriotic War (“the war of 1941”; “victory in the Great Patriotic War”), 6%—their childhood and youth (“my first grade class and the anthem on my notebook”), 4%—the holidays and parades of the Soviet years, 2%—being a Pioneer, Komsomol, party congresses, 1%—the leaders of the Soviet era (“I recall the old politicians: Andropov, Chernenko”), and 1%—Gagarin’s flight into space. Sports fans associated the anthem with sports competitions and victories (9%). For 4%, the sound of the anthem gave them “goosebumps,” an “emotional lift,” and sharpened “patriotic feelings.” Only in 3% of the respondents was the anthem associated with events in modern Russian history and with the realities of modern life (“time of perestroika”; “collapse of Russia,” “Putin’s coronation”). For 40%, the anthem did not call up any memories of events in the life and history of the country.

If for many, the anthem remains a symbol of the Soviet era, the coat of arms is strongly associated with prerevolutionary Russia and the revolution (“life under the tsar”; “all the Romanov tsars, history of Russia”; “autocracy”; “the February revolution”; “the capture of the Winter [Palace]”; “its [coat of arms] overthrow during the 1917 revolution”). Some of the respondents (4%), when looking at the current Russian coat of arms, recalled the Soviet coat of arms (“liked the hammer and sickle more: it’s connected with labor, but this one—it’s a flattened grilled chicken”; “we respect the Soviet coat of arms”). Others (4%), without going into historical associations, explained how they perceive the coat of arms and what they do not like (“something predatory”; “a chicken”; “mutants”; “a vulture”; “it’s an alarming symbol”; “reflection of duplicity”). For 2%, when they see the coat of arms, they feel “a sense of pride in the country.” For 1%, the associations were with present-day elections, politicians’ speeches in the State Duma, and the inauguration of the President, while for another 1%, the coat of arms called up “money,” “our coins” or “a royal gold coin” (“nothing comes to mind except the history of the Russian coin”; “about money, because this symbol is printed on it”).

And finally, it is appropriate and worthwhile to consider the questions: What role does the army play? What is the assessment of the army’s role in modern Russia? After the collapse of the USSR, the Russian army rapidly deteriorated and collapsed, just behind the manufacturing industry. From 1991 to 2011, the number of workers in the defense industry decreased from 5.5 million to 1.5 million. During the war in Chechnya, the army proved to be an instrument for suppressing the Russian peoples. A radical wing of officers under the command of General Lev Rokhlin drew up a plan for a military coup but did not carry it out because the general was assassinated on July 3, 1998. As of 2018, the total number of Russian troops was more than a million soldiers, which puts the country in third place in terms of cost in this area of activity. Under Putin, the army remains one of the main tools for suppressing opposition protests carried out by the Russian population. The growth of the military budget has been accompanied by corruption eroding the army from within. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov lobbied the Defense Ministry in the interests of the Oboronservis Corporation, a structure of the Defense Ministry that manages and sells the military department’s noncore assets. The total loss from the activities of the military firm is estimated at $91 million (according to other sources, $486 million). After the capture of the Ukrainian Donbass under Minister Sergey Shoigu, private military companies (PMCs) emerged in the army. One of them is the PMC Wagner under the patronage of Dmitry Utkin. Although such activity is prohibited by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and prosecutable by law (Articles 208 and 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the mercenaries’ activities are protected by the top leadership of the state and the army, as it serves the private interests of Russian oligarchs (for example, Yevgeny Prigozhin) in different parts of the world (Ukraine, Syria, Central African Republic, South Sudan, etc.). The PMCs take part in combat operations and provide protection for oil fields, pipelines, and natural mineral development sites (gold and diamonds). Formally, private armies do not exist; they are registered neither with the armed forces, nor as legal entities. In fact, mercenaries are fighting, for example, in the Donbass and Syria. In using PMCs, the state does not advertise its participation in an armed conflict, nor does it minimize the extent of participation. Thus, the army remains a conduit for the interests of Putin’s totalitarian regime and the Russian oligarchy and is also where large-scale corruption occurs. All this has a very negative impact on the education of civic consciousness in the military environment. This, in our opinion, leads to a negative attitude toward the army (with its hazing, corruption, inertia, lack of genuine civic education, etc.).

Obviously, with the era of postindustrialism, the perception of the citizen is transitioning from that of a passive subject into an active subject of political action; its main characteristics are independence, responsibility, flexibility, mobility, professional education, and the ability to join civic society to pursue their interests. Therefore, modern discourse should be focused on democratic ideals and democratic forms of political behavior and not validate discredited forms of power and privilege.

Conclusion

1. Thus, the role of civic education is to serve as a transmitter of citizenship and culture. Educational institutions are integrated into the system of teaching future citizens and maintaining democracy. A balanced education should encompass the analysis and acquisition of knowledge and teach creative skills, competence and the ability to cope with everyday tasks, while doing it all in cooperation with others. For a modern society, it is important to nurture such skills as creativity, enterprise, and willingness to take the initiative. We also believe that the coercive acquisition of knowledge and skills must not be abandoned. However, one should in every way encourage the voluntary, unprompted awareness of choice made outside the world of education. In our opinion, paternalism, both state and parental, should be limited if it can lead to a restriction of the individual’s capacity for autonomy (though not yet developed). Strengthening civic society and the development of civic education are necessary for a strong state and for implementing many organizational strategies and new forms of state activities.

2. To respect the principle of pluralism and democracy, it is necessary to show as much neutrality as possible in regard to specific ethnic cultures, by allowing, but not encouraging their expression. The basic educational principle of equal opportunity should not conflict with the requirement for cultural diversity. The voices of insiders, especially marginal groups, and outsiders should also be included in the education space. It is necessary to exclude the systematic violation of fundamental freedoms of the individual and principle of individual autonomy in secondary and higher educational institutions, so as not to deviate from the mission to combat social segregation and inequality in education. Only by seeking self-knowledge and critical assessment does a person attain a civic status in society without the institutions of coercion harming his personal thoughts, choice, and development.

3. Genuinely pluralistic societies do not force citizens to adhere to values “given” by the state; those who disagree should be allowed to live as they wish (tolerate the intolerant); participation in voluntary organizations should be developed in various communities (network of free associations), and the personal monopoly on power that is being established should be stopped. A commitment to the rule of law, the pluralism of opinion and economic freedom necessary for a free society must resist the attack organized by communitarian policies.

4. Rational progress has led to the active manifestation of civic responsibility being supplanted by a passive acceptance of civil rights. A civic-minded position compels us to ask not “Who has the right to power (legitimacy of actions)?,” but “What should the state or government (power) do (justice of actions)?” Recent events in the United States related to Russia’s interference in the presidential elections draw our attention to the threat of totalitarian and corrupt power, even in a prosperous liberal society.