Conceptualization of Patriotism in the Studies of Modern Civil Society

The article proposes versions of conceptualization of patriotism as a methodological basis for the research. It considers the concepts of patriotism as a specific sociopolitical attitude that forms a special state of political consciousness and moral feeling aimed at fulfilling civic duty to the state and its institutions. The condition for the formation of patriotism is the compliance of the activities of these institutions with the interests of citizens. The authors assume that the concepts "love of motherland" and "patriotism" describe essentially different phenomena. The concept 'love of motherland" describes a phenomenon that has a primordial essence. The concept "patriotism" refers to the political background and is defined through attitudes towards the state and civic duties. The authors argue that patriotism has a specific historical character and is transformed depending on the dynamics of social relations. There was no social basis for constructive patriotism to appear in Russia because of the weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie, the potential adherents of this type of patriotism. The concept of patriotism relying on paternalist tradition was proposed. There also existed other interpretations of patriotism. In fact, the conceptual split showed only the value and social split of the society. Consequently, when the split moved to its "hot stage" with the beginning of the Civil War, the war became the confrontation between different interpretations of patriotism. Modern Russia, like the pre-revolutionary, has not formed a fully-fledged civil society as the social basis for constructive patriotism. Following the suggested conceptualization of patriotism, the authors interpreted the results of a survey they conducted in March and April 2018 in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. The survey examined factors determining patriotic attitudes in citizens' minds and behavior. All respondents showed an inherent feeling of love for their motherland, but there were significant differences in their patriotic stances. The different stances depended on the assessment of the compliance of the activities of state institutions with the interests of society and citizens. The relationship was direct: the more patriotic the activities of the institutions of power seemed to the respondents, the more patriotic the respondents felt to be. Depending on this assessment, the survey identified clusters of the respondents: active patriots, passive patriots, non-patriots. The authors conclude that it is possible to form an attitude to search for "more patriotic" actors in the political consciousness of the population.

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