The ideologeme "brotherly nation": the legitimacy factor in a conflictual space

The article is devoted to the research of the representation of Russian society's collective identity in the descriptive and interpretative context of Russia's political relations with other Slavic nations. It is shown that the Slavic theme is an integral part of the native symbolic policy. At many politico-historical stages of the development of the nation (Russian Empire, Soviet state, post-soviet Russia), the dominant Slavic attribute represents a means to express the notion of uniqueness, solidarity and particular path. In contemporary Russia again a unique identity is reconstructed, where patriotic values, the notion of ethno-cultural kinship and symbolic nearness of nations are present in its structure. In this context such constructs of symbolic value as "brotherly nation" and "brothers Slavs" the author analyses in the substantial unanimity of the "Slavic" ideologeme are of high interest. The ideologeme is treated as a sense-forming element of ideological constructs, the symbolic basis of which give a plurality of meanings and incarnations to the construct "brotherly nation / brothers Slavs". Thus, the examined ideologeme appears through various interpretations as either part of the universal "Russian idea", bringing the Slavic problem in the orbit of the total conceptual model of the messianic civilizational role of Russia, or as a form of typology and creation of meanings of a segmented ethno-cultural Slavic space, brought together by the notion of "Slavic reciprocity". It is established that in the first case the notion "Slavic brotherhood" acquires a political universality and becomes an integral part of the symbolic political space of the Russian state; in the second case a unified Slavic space has a supra-political quality and is constructed solely through ethno-cultural uniqueness. It is emphasized that at the contemporary stage the ideologeme "brotherly nation / brothers Slavs" is also seen as a means of self-representation of the Russian society and expression of a specific Slavic identity, which, however, becomes a factor of political tension and a means of conflict legitimation. The problem of the conflictogenic potential of the ideologeme "brotherly nation / brothers Slavs" was analysed in terms of ideological policy and identity policy as two opposing models of the politico-symbolic practice. It is shown that the relay of big ideological projects with constant forms of expression of the unique identity does not take away the orientation and mobilisation characteristics from the ideological symbolic construct. In both ideological and post-ideological policies the value-oriented basis of the ideological elements structures the representation of the socio-political world, building meanings in the space of dual schemes, maintaining the conflicting world image. It is also shown that the idea of Slavic brotherhood, and of the "Russian idea", has become a regional project in terms of the identity policy, a project opposed to the global and universal pluralistic policy and culture. In the context of the Russian political process, the ideologeme "brotherly nation / brothers Slavs" extra-legitimizes the emergent conflict, grounding the unity of the Slavic world by the "roots" myth.

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