Full pentabasis – Newspaper Kommersant No. 206 (7407) dated 11/08/2022

As it became known to Kommersant, the presidential administration plans to prepare by March the first version of the large-scale training course “Fundamentals and Principles of Russian Statehood.” It is planned that it will be taught to students of all specialties to “place worldview accents.” “Fundamentals” is part of the previously announced project “DNA of Russia”, which, in fact, is a full-fledged reform of higher education in the humanities. As part of this project, the AP, together with the Ministry of Education and Science, plans to “define” and instill in students the values ​​that, according to officials, are in line with the national interests of the country. At the same time, the authors plan to form an “image of the future of Russia”, the basis of which will be a “pentabasis” of values.

Since the end of summer, the Presidential Administration (AP) has been discussing with the Ministry of Education and Science and specialized experts a project to revise the content of the humanitarian block of university disciplines. It is planned to strengthen it with correct, from the point of view of the Russian authorities, values. This initiative was called “DNA of Russia”. The website of the ministry says that the project was developed by the Ministry of Education and Science in accordance with the recommendations of the expert and methodological council of the State Council commission in the direction of “Science”. “DNA of Russia” was mentioned at a conference of university professors in Tobolsk in early October. Then, in the accompanying materials (Kommersant has it), it was reported that the “organizer” of the project was Deputy Head of the Ministry of Education and Science Grigory Gurov, and the “head” was the head of the presidential department for ensuring the activities of the State Council, Alexander Kharichev. He is part of the Kremlin’s internal political bloc, which is directly supervised by the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergei Kiriyenko.

In turn, Kommersant’s sources say that the main ideologist and “scientific supervisor” of the project is Andrei Polosin, director of the Rosatom department for interaction with the regions. Until 2020, he was a researcher at the Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University, and now he is the head of the Department of Management of Science-Intensive Industrial Regional Projects of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI and teaches at the Higher School of Economics. Both Andrei Polosin and Alexander Kharichev worked under Sergei Kiriyenko when he was the general director of Rosatom.

Not an ideology, but a “generally recognized axiom”

Within the framework of the “DNA of Russia” project, the idea of ​​a course “Fundamentals and Principles of Russian Statehood” mandatory for all students is being discussed. Meduza was the first to report on the new “ideological” academic subject (recognized as a foreign media agent). As Kommersant found out, the educational and methodological complex (TMC) for the “Osnovy” – in fact, the first version of the course – will be prepared by February-March 2023. This was reported to Kommersant by two sources familiar with the discussion of the liberal arts education reform.

Alexander Vilkov, head of the Department of Political Sciences of Saratov State University, takes part in the development of the Fundamentals. According to him, it is now assumed that the course will consist of several blocks. Students will be told how the Russian state arose, what are its specifics, what traditions Russian statehood relies on, what role the natural and climatic factor plays. And from the block under the so far conditional name “Russia and the Outside World”, students will learn why Russia “always had to withstand the onslaught from a variety of external opponents.” However, the specific wording and content of the blocks will still be corrected and discussed, Mr. Vilkov assured.

According to him, the developers want the course to be “concrete” and based on “historical material” and “the values ​​that underlie the Russian state.” “So that it meets the realities, arouses interest,” says Alexander Vilkov. “So that students can appreciate the significance of the Russian state, its functionality at different times. To understand why it is necessary to value and protect this most important institution.” To Kommersant’s remark that the Constitution forbids state ideology, Mr. Vilkov replied that the authors of the course did not set themselves such a task. But “modern Russian statehood”, in his words, “suggests the presence of a certain value core, which should be perceived as a single universally recognized axiom.” “There is a discussion of this core, which should form the basis of our state outlook,” Alexander Vilkov explained. “Aimed at the perception of the uniqueness of our statehood, our experience in fighting external invaders, community experience, and so on.”

The Fundamentals course was discussed at the DNA of Russia forum at the end of October, and Oleg Agapov, a participant in this discussion, adviser on strategic initiatives to the rector of the Kazan Innovation University, is sure that “every society has an ideology.” In his understanding, this is “a system of values ​​and guidelines that should be openly spoken about.” “We tried to highlight the answers to the challenges of our time that were in every era,” Mr. Agapov said about the discussion of the “Foundations”. “And we tried to identify the socio-cultural values ​​that can characterize each period in the development of society and the state.” He also explained to Kommersant why all students will have to study the Fundamentals, regardless of their specialty: “Future officials, economists, agronomists – everyone goes through the higher education system. There they receive not only a profession, but also place worldview accents. Oleg Agapov believes that the “DNA of Russia” in terms of tasks is much broader than one university course. “At the forum in Sochi, we worked with images of the future of Russia,” he shares. “This is an invitation to the intellectual class to work on the image of the future both for Russians and for the world. In the future, both Rossotrudnichestvo and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can use the developments.”

“The state allocates for education (students in universities.— “b”) taxpayer money. And they are interested in investing their money in something that will make their life better,” Andrey Polosin, his “supervisor” commented to Kommersant about the task of the project. successful. Create, make your life better – and those people who financed the opportunity to get this education. And shape a good life for the country.” According to him, it is now difficult to say what will come out of it – a separate course or the development of “systemic ideological complex solutions.” The same applies to specific deadlines: “We are waiting for professors, doctors, academicians to be able to formulate and find the right solution.”

Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology of Management of the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Management of the RANEPA Andrey Dakhin adds: in addition to the course “Fundamentals”, a “rethinking” of a whole block of humanitarian disciplines in universities is expected. “There is an understanding that the mission of humanitarian education is to form correct, strong solidarity relations between citizens and the state in Russia,” he says. “Some kind of block can be added to humanitarian subjects. Or there will be their expansion towards worldview concepts, and not just applied knowledge.

According to Kommersant, by January 2023, it is planned to “create federal teacher training centers, develop educational and methodological materials” for the course. It is assumed that by September 1, 2023, 6,000 higher education teachers will be trained there. Oleg Agapov points out that they “can integrate the acquired knowledge into their disciplines – political science, sociology and other subjects of the humanitarian block.” A Kommersant source in the presidential administration confirms these dates and figures, but stipulates that “real life” may make adjustments.

Origins of pentabasis

According to the interlocutors of Kommersant, both Osnova and DNA of Russia were born in the bowels of the internal political bloc of the presidential administration at the end of last year, when they thought about searching for “some value ideology of Russian society.” Experts were involved in the task, including from the academic environment. As a result of this work, a methodological model of “pentabasis” was born, which consists of five blocks: a person, a family, society, a state, a country. They are described in detail in the scientific article “Perception of Basic Values, Factors and Structures of the Socio-Historical Development of Russia” (Journal of Political Studies, vol. 6 No. 3, 2022). Its authors include Alexander Kharichev, Head of the Department for Supporting the Activities of the State Council, Andrey Polosin, the ideologist of DNA of Russia, Andrey Shutov, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science at Moscow State University, and Ekaterina Sokolova, Head of the Department of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISI). They selected value messages for each of the elements of the “pentabasis”: “patriotism” (for the country level), “trust in public institutions” (for the state level), “consent” (for the society level), “traditions” (for the family level), “creation” (for the human level).

According to the source, the article was written in March, but by October, many ideas about “pentabasis” had changed. Nevertheless, the participants of the DNA of Russia conference received it as a handout. “Indeed, the pentabasis was taken as some kind of value matrix, through which the participants of the conference measured the era of the Romanovs, Rurikovich, the era of the twentieth century. They also measured Europe and Asia through it. We looked at the similarities and differences,” says political scientist Alexander Asafov, who moderates one of the groups at the conference.

At the beginning of November, the authors of the article discussed at the EISI round table their progress in the search for the cultural code of Russia. So, Andrey Polosin stated that the “Anglo-Saxon” and “Asian” cultural grounds do not suit us: the former presuppose the active action of a person in his own interests, the latter in the interests of the collective. For a Russian person, according to Mr. Polosin, “action for another” is characteristic. And Ekaterina Sokolova compared the Russian version of “pentabasis” with pasta: “We are all from the same dough, albeit of different shapes. On the one hand, we are all separate, but on the other, we are all together.”

Anna Vasilyeva, Andrey Vinokurov