Ke kořenům moderní ruské národní a kulturní identity
Towards the Roots of a Modern Russian National and Cultural Identity

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss the impact of political events in the first decades of the 19th century on the formation of a modern Russian national and cultural identity. It is about a broader context towards cultural history, especially about showing the role of the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church. The work is of an analytical nature with the features of a case study. It focuses on the first decade of the 19th century, in particular the so-called, Patriotic War, usually referred to in general history as Napoleon‘s eastern campaign, but also shows some other key identifying features in the historical retrospective, as well as perspective. In doing so, it puts an emphasis on finding out the roots and effects of the so-called official nationality.The formation of a modern national identity was a widespread process of the second half of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Russian environment, like most other ones, was linking older, traditional identifying features, with modern ones. In both cases, as well as ideas, also political issues were significant. In Russia, this character manifested itself even more as the identity of Russian society having been formed based upon a fear of the enemy. The primary identifying factor was the state, which was seen by Russian society as the only guarantee of its independence and identity. The second identifying factor was belonging to the leader, the state leader, but also to the leader on a local (military) scale. This identification characteristic was conditioned by the traditional passivity of Russian society, its expectation of the future and the action of both secular and spiritual power. Spirituality and faith went hand in hand with it. The Orthodox faith was another pivotal identifier. Unlike other countries, in Russia, the church had not become so powerful. It was a consequence of being subordinate to the State, a secondary position resulting from Byzantine Cesaro papistic tradition. Significant for the formation of a modern national identity was thus the language, literary, historical, ethnological, folklore and other traditions. In the present study, the factor of the Napoleonic wars has been accentuated, especially the Patriotic Wars, but at the same time attention was drawn to the role of personality of the type of the historian Karamzin, who formulated historical and other traditions of modern identity, based on the necessity of the Russian state and its Orthodox Church, in the form of ideology, the culmination of which was Uvarov’s definition of a so-called official nationality.

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