Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

9 Russian perspectives on
Germany and Russian
self-definitions
Erhard Stölting
In 1997, the now vanished President Yeltsin invited the Russians to participate
in a competition: a large sum of money was to be given to anybody who could
develop a new ‘Russian idea’ suitable to be the new official ideology of the Russian
state (McDaniel 1998: 162–73). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and
the evaporation of its socialist ideology it was felt that the Russian nation needed a
binding new philosophy. The underlying assumption was that any stable society
must be held together by a common system of beliefs and values.
Unfortunately, the competition for a ‘new Russian idea’ came to nothing. The
issue was simply dropped. Evidently nobody was able to invent a new ideology.
Collective identities may be invented but the process of their elaboration and
their taking root in society is slightly more complicated than was supposed in the
competition (Anderson 1983). But the very idea of conceiving this competition
can be attributed to a specific previously existing image of political society in general.
According to this image, society is shaped and organised by political authority;
order and cohesion has to be imposed from above. Any autonomous developments
inside society are thought to be either impossible because a society which is not
shaped by authority is amorphous and passive; or any society which is not held
together by a binding altruistic ideology and a strong ruler will explode into chaotic
disorder as a result of the diverging egoistic and amoral striving of its constituent
individuals. The idea of the competition reflected a specific perception of actual
Russian society.
The idea that society has to be integrated by values has been central to the
sociological tradition since its initial stages and up to Talcott Parsons (Levine 1995:
35–58). The fear of an anarchic dissolution of society and the unrestrained and
amoral struggle of egoistic individualist interests is not only part of a Russian political
heritage which used to legitimise authoritarian rule. It is part of the European
conservative tradition in general. And to conceive of society as inherently passive
and needing stimulating inspiration from outside has been constitutive for political
ideas which stress mobilisation by political ideology and/or charismatic leaders
(Stölting 1990: 139–53).
Although the underlying concept of society can, in this way, be thought of as a
part of the European intellectual tradition it can also be seen, as specifically Russian.
The intention of creating a ‘new Russian idea’ was in line with Russian political