Civic Identity as a Factor of Spiritual Security in South Russia: Methodology of Research, Complexities and Conditions of Formation

Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2019, Special Issue on Environment, Management and Economy, Pages: 1063-1067

J. Environ. Treat. Tech.

ISSN: 2309-1185

Journal web link: http://www.jett.dormaj.com

Civic Identity as a Factor of Spiritual Security in

South Russia: Methodology of Research,

Complexities and Conditions of Formation

Maria P. Tikhonovskova , Marina A. Igosheva , Lyudmila A. Shvachkina , Valentina I.

Rodionova and Alexey A. Lagunov

¹Institute of Sociology and Regional Studies, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Department of Philosophy and History of the Fatherland, Rostov State Transport University, Rostov on Don, Russia

Institute of Service and Entrepreneurship (Branch), Don State Technical University, Shakhty, Russia

Department of Social Philosophy and Ethnology, North Caucasus Federal University, Stavropol, Russia

Received: 13/09/2019

Accepted: 22/11/2019

Published: 20/12/2019

Abstract

The article is aimed at identifying the problem and the conditions of the construction of civic identity as a factor of provision of

spiritual security in the south of Russia. The subject of research consists in the civic identity as a factor of spiritual security of the

South of Russia. The paper presents the analysis of academic literature dealing with various aspects of the study of civic identity and

spiritual security of multicultural society which made it possible to determine the basic concepts of research and identify theoretic

gaps in the study of this problem. Research methodology which allows defining the authors' perspective of the study of civic identity

as a factor of spiritual security in the south of Russia has been identified. The article deals with factors which prevent civil

identification and consolidation of the multicultural region (cultural, socioeconomic, and geopolitical), the conditions for the

construction of civic identity as a factor of spiritual security of the region have been analyzed.

Keywords: Civic identity, Spiritual security, Region, South of Russia, Culture, Cociety

In our opinion, currently the problem of the construction

Introduction

of civic identity is not only a subject of research, but also a

category of social practice, particularly in the spheres of

social cultural policy of the state.

The sociocultural peculiarity of the South of Russia

consists in its unique ethnocultural composition, which, on

the one hand, appears to be its advantage which imparts a tint

of originality to it, and on the other hand, it entails grave risks

in the sphere of interethnic and interreligious relations.

The region has traditionally been the center and the

mixture of various civilization models, mainly Christian and

Islamic. This situation is fraught with potential threats,

associated with the use of ethnic and faith-based

contradictions for political purposes, which significantly

increases the risks of regional security. In this regard, the

study of civic identity as a factor of spiritual security of the

multicultural region is of great social significance, since it

makes it possible to comprehend the main difficulties in its

construction, and potential in the harmonization of interethnic

relations (12).

2 Materials and methods

An in-depth analysis of civic identity is presented in

papers of such domestic authors as N.A. Galaktionova, (11),

L.M. Drobizheva (8), M.A. Mchedlova, Y.A. Gavrilov and

A.G. Shevchenko (17), V.A. Tishkov (23). The authors

rightly point out that the actualization topics of civic identity

are associated with macrosocial transformational processes

taking place in Russian multiethnic and multi-religious

society. In the context of dynamic social processes that are

characterized by uncertainty, unpredictability, distribution of

mass culture, ethnic groups have faced the difficulties of

identification, particularly with respect to correlation of

ethnic, faith-based and civic identities.

Defining civic identity as “identifying oneself with the

citizens of the country, its state and territorial space, concepts

of the state, society, country, “image of us”, sense of

community, solidarity, responsibility for the state of things in

the state” (8), a number of researchers have identified the

Corresponding autor: Lyudmila A. Shvachkina, Institute of

Service and Entrepreneurship (Branch), Don State Technical

University, Shakhty, Russia. E-mail: shvachkina@mail.ru.

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Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2019, Special Issue on Environment, Management and Economy, Pages: 1063-1067

presence of loyalty to the state and recognition of it as “own”

as its key signs. In turn, several authors lay special emphasis

on the axiological basis of civic identity, claiming that it is

based on the idea of commonwealth, the correlation of the

collective past, present and future with a particular system of

values which actually serve as the basis for the political

unity” (17).

According to researchers, “the absence of ideological

reference points leads to the disruption of nationwide values,

disorientation of a person in society” (2). Such a perception

of the role of ideology in society makes researchers pay

special attention to its protective function. According to V.N.

Kuznetsov (14), the protective nature of ideology is

expressed in “a set of values which confronts anticivic

ideology and all of its statised forms – whether they are

ideology of the state, imperial ideology, or any other

ideology” (13). This attitude appears to be quite conceptual

since the conditions of ideological vacuum and spiritual crisis

lead to the actualization of local identities (ethnic, faith-

based, etc.), politicization of which can heavily destabilize

multicultural Russian society.

The propagation of faith-based fundamentalism as a

threat to spiritual security of the South of Russia are analyzed

in papers of I.P. Dobaev & A.I. Dobaev (7), V.V. Chernous

(5). The experts place special emphasis on the role of

geopolitical actors in the propaganda of the ideology of

radical Islamism in the south of Russia. It is obvious that

under the conditions of the growing geopolitical competition

for the influence in the region, various radical organizations,

the activities of which are aimed at involving young people in

its network structures and destabilization of interethnic

relations in the region, are becoming increasingly active.

All of this testifies that spiritual security of a multiethnic

region can only be ensured under the conditions of

consolidation of society based on the unified system of

spiritual values which can integrate the representatives of

various cultures into common political and cultural space. In

our opinion, it is the reason due to which civic identity can

become the factor which is able to overcome the

sociocultural split in multicultural society. The perception of

this fact allows us to formulate the goal of research (15).

Theoretic and methodological basis of paper is presented

by the studies which were conducted in line with

interdisciplinary methodology which makes it possible to

make integrative use of the accumulated scientific potential

of various disciplines: philosophy, political science, social

science, and conflictology.

In his research, the author draws upon the methodology

of constructive realism, the basic principles of which were

developed by Western sociologists P.L. Berger and T.

Luckmann (3). According to their approach, social reality is

constructed in the process of socialization, during which a

person correlates their individuality with the collective

system of values and norms. It allows them to comprehend

their lives in a stream of many generations and to perceive

the continuity of historical process.

In the study of the problems of spiritual security we

relied on the concept of “social anomie” (9, 18), “social

(cultural) trauma” (22) and “sociocultural crisis” (10). These

concepts make it possible to comprehend the difficulties of

the process of construction of civic identity in Russian

society which are coming from severe disorganization of

society, spiritual and moral crisis, absence of social cohesion

and civil solidarity, actualization of ethnic and faith-based

identity.

Rostov researchers turn to the study of the potential of

civic identity in multicultural society as well; they are, in

particular, A.K. Degtiarev (6), Y.G. Volkov et al. (30). The

researchers agree with the fact that the construction of

general civic identity is vital, since its absence is fraught with

further destabilization of mutual relations of various ethnic

groups, formation of enclaves of separatism and isolationism

in the national republics. Furthermore, the authors point out

that under the conditions of polyethnicity of the region, it is

the construction of civic identity that can become an

powerful method of social control over the processes of

politicization and radicalization of ethnic factor (30). At the

same time, the researchers draw attention to the fact that in

the social consciousness “the image of civic consciousness is

associated with the value of the state, with a dream of the

better state, with the fact that a Russian feels pride not only in

the great historical and cultural heritage of the country, but

also in the powerful state which can protect their interests

both at individual and collective levels” (6). Thus, civic

identity of multicultural society is closely related to the

expectations of resolution of urgent social problems of

citizens of the region from the government institutions.

In our opinion, the problem of construction of civic

identity is directly associated with the matters of provision of

spiritual security of society. The actualization of the problem

of spiritual security is stipulated by the need for the

stabilization of interethnic and interreligious situation in the

south of Russia which in the absence of common spiritual

integrators which are of value for the representatives of local

cultures, is potentially conflictogenic.

In this regard, it is difficult to overestimate the

significance of spiritual sphere, within which the values

which are able to become the basis for the construction of

civic identity are formed and conveyed. Representing a space

of symbols and meanings, spiritual sphere forms axiological

and ideological basis for the society, effectively ensuring its

stability and protection against external and internal threats.

The problems of spiritual security are considered in

academic literature in papers of A.V. Vereshchagina, N.K.

Gafiatulina and S.I. Samygin (26), V.I. Kurbatov (13), A.V.

Tonkonogov (24). Spiritual security is mainly thought of by

researchers as “the state of a sense of protection of spiritual

sphere of society, which includes cultural, ideological,

informational and psychological, scientific, educational and

faith-based securities as its subtypes and is characterized by

respect for interests of individual, society and state...” (24,

27).

The hazards that are stipulated by the processes of

deideologization of Russian society, as well as the crisis of

national and civic identity in Russian society, are described in

the studies of N. Baranets and I. Kalantarian, V.N. Kuznetsov

(

14), A. Marshak(16), Zh.T. Toshchenko (25).

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Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2019, Special Issue on Environment, Management and Economy, Pages: 1063-1067

A multifactorial approach to the study of problems and

perspectives in the construction of civic identity in the south

of Russia is used in the research.

polytheism”, frequently leading to clashes of identities. If the

balance of identities is preserved through the use of

regulatory order in stable society, the situation of prolonged

crisis causes their conflict.

The difficulties in the construction of civic identity in the

south of Russia are stipulated, firstly, by sociocultural

inhomogenuity of the region, associated with cultural and

civilizational peculiarities of its development, the presence of

a variety of local cultural communities mainly identifying

themselves by ethnic and/or faith-based attributes; secondly,

by socioeconomic problems associated with high

unemployment in certain republics of the region, aggravated

through social inequality and labor migration processes;

thirdly, the geopolitical confrontation of international actors

Results

Using the chosen research methodology, we consider

civic identity as a complicated system which is constructed

on the basis of affiliation of an individual with the national

state presenting common political and cultural space. Thus, it

entitles us to identify two key components in the structure of

civic identity: political and axiological.

The political component of civic identity includes the

comprehension of one's own state affiliation which forms a

collective image of “us”. A number of researchers define

civic identity as “a result of construction” of sociopolitical

senses and their internalization into social consciousness” (4).

In such a sense, civic identity is solely constructed within the

scope of the state as a political institution which in fact

controls the mechanism of national consolidation of society

based on common goals, interests or values.

(

individual countries, as well as terrorist organizations) for

the influence in the region. Assessing the conflictogenic

potential of the region, researchers point out that it is

primarily associated with the fact that the South of Russia

turned out to be in the zone of geopolitical struggle between

Russian, Western and Islamic civilizations (1).

As can be seen from the above, civic identity results from

the comprehension of affiliation of a person with a particular

political community; moreover, the choice of citizenship is

made exceptionally rationally, based on economic, political

and sociocultural preferences of an individual (20, 28, 29).

The cultural component of civic identity is based on the

system of spiritual values which are able to consolidate the

split multicultural society.

Spiritual values are considered in various aspects in the

academic literature - both as a set of moral norms which

serve as a basis for the formation of behavior strategies of a

personality and as an expression of axiological attitude of a

person towards themselves and the world (19).

In Russian cultural tradition, the concept of spiritual

values is intimately associated with moral standards, the

essence of which is largely presented in orthodox dogma. At

a certain stage of Russian history, it is Orthodoxy with its

system of values, traditions and symbols that exercised the

identification function and united people on a common

spiritual basis.

The socialist ideology, myths and symbols of which were

the basis of “social relations, political actions, and,

eventually, presentation of self-identification of Soviet

society” served as a basis for civic identity under Soviet

Union (20).

The blank space of the lost Soviet identity is mainly filled

in with ethnic and faith based forms of identities. The

absence of unified system of spiritual values is accompanied

with the development and reproduction of the state of social

anomie, the presence of which is in actual fact equal to the

latent collapse of society. Such a state of society is

potentially hazardous, since it prevents the construction of

all-Russian civic identity, both at the level of personality and

at the level of society. The comprehension of this fact forces

us to turn to the search for integrators which are able to

consolidate modern Russian society and become the basis for

the construction of civic identity.

4 Discussion

The growth of socioeconomic instability and the absence

of common spiritual values able to integrate people for

solving socially important problems of the region as well as

uncertain prospects for the development of society is

accompanied with the growing sense of mutual strangeness in

society. In this situation, the need for the construction of civic

identity which is based on common spiritual values for the

representatives of various cultures of the South of Russia,

presents a problem consisting in the provision of spiritual

security of the region.

Today, one of the vectors along which there is an

ongoing process of search for spiritual integrators of Russian

society, is the appeal to some “supreme” values, which are

frequently perceived as something non-figurative. These

values are mainly associated with the “heroic” past of people,

which in the absence of other integrators becomes the only

form of self-identification comprehensible by the mass

consciousness. Under the conditions of prolonged spiritual

crisis and the absence of distinct reference points for living, it

is history that “becomes that existential space in which a

personality can find their identity, the reason for their

existence, the basis for the unification with community” (10).

The images of the past are used to construct the image of the

future which is intended to elucidate the essence of processes

taking place in society. Such a situation is caused by the fact

that the heroic past of the country seems to be more attractive

than its present, which makes people search for spiritual

support in chapters of Russian history alone.

The second vector is associated with the search for

national idea which can become an integrator for people and

become the basis for the construction of all-Russian civic

identity. Assessing the modern ideological state of Russian

society, researchers point out that it is tessellated and

fragmented. This state of things results from a deep split in

society, the presence of inconsistent and conflicting

axiological systems in it.

It has been established that the periods of social transit

are accompanied by clash of values, or, according to the

figurative expression of Max Weber, “axiological

It should be emphasized that the present attempts to

construct civic identity on the basis of elaboration of a

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2019, Special Issue on Environment, Management and Economy, Pages: 1063-1067

general ideology are frequently strictly utilitarian and are

aimed either at legitimization of the current political regime,

or at substantiation of their political claims by a personality

or a group. In addition, in the process of construction of new

ideology, political actors also appeal to historical events from

national history, highlighting the relevant key points and

assessing particular historical events.

The purposeful activities of institutions which are

responsible for the processes of socialization of the younger

generation, aimed at “restitution” of historical images and

symbols which make it possible to create a comprehensive

concept of national history as both heroic and dramatic

process, in which a modern person can find substantiation

and justification for their own existence both as a personality

and as a citizen, into the consciousness of young people,

appear to be the most constructive in the construction of a

unified system of spiritual values which are able to

consolidate Russian society. We are primarily referring to the

institution of education, one of the most important functions

of which consists in the socialization of an individual, their

inclusion in the system of norms and values which are

generally valid for society they live in (31,33).

The implementation of this vector is only possible on the

basis of joint efforts of academic community and political

leadership of the country. The construction of civic identity

must become the primary goal of the state cultural policy

which must be implemented in close relation to the state

youth policy.

Moreover, it is necessary to bring back to life such value

of Russian culture as justice, not only in theory, but also in

the real world. Moreover, “justice as a reference point of

politics and life implies not only equality in a number of

economic and legal matters, but also a worthy reward for

feats, and punishment for crimes. Honesty of the judicial

system, elaborated and adequate law, the presence of means

of social mobility for the hard-working and talented. If justice

serves as a real value which is followed by power, then

everyone will consider it their duty to display this quality in

situations which they must estimate” (32).

socioeconomic problems; the influence of geopolitical actors

on the destabilization of the situation in the region. It is

evident that the state of the South of Russia should be

considered as hazardous due to the presence of the above

factors.

Despite the above fact, we can identify spiritual reference

points which are able to consolidate society on the basis of

civic markers. We believe that the modern system of spiritual

values which are able to consolidate Russian society should

be primarily based on the national history, common cultural

values, justice and well-being of the population of the

country. Moreover, not only an appeal to the heroic past of

the country, but also a pride in its present, and a distinct

vision of the future should become the basis for the

construction of civic identity in the region.

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