Students will be vaccinated with the “DNA of Russia”

On Tuesday, the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISI) held a round table dedicated to the “DNA of Russia” project and the educational and methodological course “Fundamentals and Principles of Russian Statehood”, which is planned to be introduced in universities soon. The experts and ideological inspirers of the course explained that young people are characterized by “a chaotic filling of the ideological contour”, which their project is intended to streamline. At the same time, it will help in opposing various types of ideological weapons of the West, such as the “theory of totalitarianism.” Finally, the project will show that Russia is a self-sufficient civilization that is able to coexist peacefully with others – with the exception of those “civilizational groups” that are characterized by “cannibalism and Nazism,” the experts concluded.

The first talks about the “DNA of Russia” project caused a noticeable response at the end of last year. Implemented under the supervision of the Kremlin’s internal political bloc and not without the help of the Ministry of Education and Science, the project, in particular, involved the search for certain value foundations of Russians and the formation of a special educational and methodological complex for university students called “Fundamentals and Principles of Russian Statehood”. The latter idea received the public approval of President Vladimir Putin at the end of 2022. These value bases were embodied in the “pentabasis”, which was the subject of a special article in the Journal of Political Studies. Its authors were Alexander Kharichev, head of the Presidential Administration for Supporting the Activities of the State Council, Andrey Polosin, his long-time colleague, scientific director of the DNA of Russia project, Andrey Shutov, Dean of the Political Science Faculty of Moscow State University, and Ekaterina Sokolova, expert of the EISI.

On February 8, a new article about the “DNA of Russia” was already published in the online publication “Vzglyad”. Its authors, Messrs. Kharichev and Polosin, lamented that “over the past 30 years, the value-cultural portrait of Russia has acquired a strange, sometimes completely non-scientific character through the efforts of ‘armchair professors’ and ‘alternative specialists’.” And they offered their own version, expressed in the scheme: “creation is for a person, love is for a family, unity is for society, order is for the state and mission is for the country.” The authors did not mention the term “pentabasis” in this material.

At the EISI round table on February 9, it was about the “DNA of Russia” and about its derivatives, “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood”. True, the beginning of the discussion was a little off: Ekaterina Sokolova did not want to answer the question about the value bases of the idea of ​​this course. “The question is probably not for me, because I am not the compiler of this course and have nothing to do with its content,” she explained. However, Mrs. Sokolova agreed to outline her general “vision of the situation” and diplomatically admitted that her vision was “complex and complex”. On the one hand, as a teacher, she is skeptical about attempts to inculcate value orientations in young people, but, on the other hand, she sees pragmatic benefits in this: the course could be useful for shaping the future of young people, their success and for creating a “really working social capital. The expert recalled that she herself grew up in a rather heterogeneous society, where there was no consensus about whether the USSR or the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, was bad or good. The course under discussion can provide some general mechanisms of horizontal trust, including intergenerational ones, Ekaterina Sokolova noted, citing the old concepts of “merchant word” and “noble honor” as an example of such mechanisms.

Andrey Polosin also referred to his teaching experience, highlighting the problem of “chaotic filling of the ideological contour”, which, in his opinion, young people face. “This ideological contour does not allow a person to find his own solution to life problems,” the expert emphasized. Moreover, according to him, all this leads to the appearance of “neurotic reactions.” The new course will solve this problem by explaining to young people the “four value constants” inherent in Russian statehood throughout all historical periods. At the same time, the terms denoting these values ​​can have “an unambiguous interpretation within the framework of one concept, but sometimes the opposite interpretation within the framework of an alternative one,” Mr. Polosin honestly warned.

He also listed four of these constants. The first is “one’s own way”: despite the various formats of civilizational interaction, the concept of “one’s own way” always brings Russia back to it. The second is “messianicity, the presence of a super-goal” or an understanding of the priority of tasks related to “solving topics or situations that have been postponed in time.” “If you are in (difficult.— “b”) you save your friend from the situation, then you are Russian, ”explained Andrei Polosin using a specific example. The third value is “super adaptability” and the fourth is “community in antithesis to individualism” or the desire for a joint solution.

The other participants in the discussion could only agree with Mr. Polosin and add something of their own. Andrey Shutov said that the new course should use a modern presentation of the material and not affirm postulates, but transfer knowledge through a system of questions. Anna Braines, Deputy Director of the Department of State Youth Policy and Educational Activities of the Ministry of Education and Science, warned that “the formats of the educational course cannot be too different.” Vyacheslav Sutyrin, Vice-Rector of the Academic University for the Humanities, said that if we “look for a point of culture outside”, then this will doom us to “second-rate”. Political scientist Vladimir Shapovalov also developed this idea, noting that values ​​and theories imposed from the outside are used against us as an ideological weapon. As an example, he cited the “theory of totalitarianism”, which, according to the expert, was used during the Cold War era to equate Nazi Germany and the USSR.

All participants of the round table called for a broad discussion on the subject under discussion. A Kommersant correspondent asked if both the values ​​of the “pentabasis” and the above-mentioned constants could not be considered inherent in Western countries, such as the United States. The experts explained that similar constants may occur in other civilizations, but this does not mean that their entire set coincides. And Mr. Shapovalov noted that it was the United States that was mentioned in the question, and this, in his opinion, once again emphasizes that the Russian civilization is as self-sufficient as the Western one. “And from a historical point of view, the United States and Russia have a lot in common. For example, in terms of spatial development of large territories,” the political scientist added. “We are in a certain conjugation of these values ​​with all other civilizational formats. Maybe I’ll say it not quite scientifically, but we have something in common with any civilizational group, except for such parameters as cannibalism and Nazism,” Andrey Polosin concluded the round table.

Andrey Vinokurov