Suchergebnisse

La Rusia post-soviética es una sociedad plural donde las opiniones de las minorías sobre el pasado están bien representadas y compiten entre sí por el patrimonio cultural. En contraste con el período soviético, los arqueólogos han perdido su posición como los únicos guías e intérpretes del pasado remoto. Hoy en día, son desafiados por productores de "pasado alternativo", líderes de nuevos movimientos religiosos, científicos esotéricos, empresarios étnicos y políticos radicales. "A quién pertenece el pasado" se convirtió en un tema candente. En este artículo analizaré una lucha dramática por el sitio de la Edad del Bronce de Arkaim entre los arqueólogos y sus opositores, y explorararé cómo ese sitio arqueológico se convirtió en un centro importante para varios movimientos religiosos postsoviéticos, quienes son los que visitan Arkaim hoy en día y por qué lo hacen. Haciendo esto, qué están buscando allí, qué símbolos están construyendo en las colinas circundantes, y cómo tratan los restos arqueológicos. ; Post-Soviet Russia is a plural society where minorities' views of the past are well represented and compete with each other for cultural heritage. By contrast to the Soviet period, archaeologists have lost their position as the only guides to and interpreters of the remote past. Nowadays, they are challenged by producers of "alternative past", leaders of New Religious Movements, esoteric scientists, ethnic entrepreneurs, and radical politicians. "Who owns the past" became a hot issue. I will analyze a dramatic struggle for a Bronze Age site of Arkaim between archaeologists and their opponents and explore how an archaeological site became an important center for several post-Soviet religious movements, who are those people visiting Arkaim nowadays, and why are they doing this, what are they searching there, what symbols they are constructing at the surrounding hills, and how they treat archaeological remains. ; Fil: Shnirelman, Victor A. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of Moscow; Rusia.

Interest in the social role of religion, including religious education (RE), is on the increase in the European Union. Yet whereas Western educators focus mostly on the potential of religion for dialogue and peaceful coexistence, in Russia religion is viewed mostly as a resource for an exclusive cultural-religious identity and resistance to globalization. RE was introduced into the curriculum in Russia during the past ten to fifteen years. The author analyzes why, how, and under what particular conditions RE was introduced in Russia, what this education means, and what social consequences it can entail.

The dramatic transformations experienced by Russia in the 1990s were accompanied by the radical changes in views of the past. Whereas social class struggle was emphasized by the Soviet Marxist historiography, ethnicity became the focal point of the post-Soviet one. This replacement was especially sensitive for historical education at school where an image of the class enemy was forced out by that of ethnic enemy. It is in this context that an ideology of national-liberation movement was replaced by an idea of the clash of cultural values as a universal explanation of wars and ethnic conflicts. This new paradigm is analyzed with reference to images of the North Caucasian highlanders in the post-Soviet history textbooks, especially with respect to their participation in the Caucasian war in the early 19th century and their deportation in 1943–1944. I will also discuss how the new North Ossetian and Ingush history textbooks represent ethnic neighbors – the Ingush by the Ossetians and the Ossetians by the Ingush. I will argue that cultural fundamentalism and ethnocentrism, which make up the basis of the post-Soviet historiography, cultivate soil for cultural racism – the most powerful type of racism in the contemporary world.

Every newly emerged and nationalizing state has to confirm its legitimacy and, more often than not, employs a cultural-historical approach for that. It is even more so, if, under an authoritarian regime, the given society presents itself as a cultural-historical entity rather than a civic one based on political cohesion. The less democratic a society the more it is eager to depict itself as an organic community based on a well-bound culture and deeply rooted in the given soil. In this case the idea of an ancestral heritage is used as a substitute for political legitimacy.

A view of the past is an important element of ethnic identity in the contemporary world. Nowadays, it plays also a crucial instrumental role in a struggle for political, financial, territorial and cultural resources and benefits. This struggle is especially intensive under unstable political environment which is used by various ethnic elites in order to upgrade their status and to get an access to some privileges. The myths of the past are often forged and disseminated as an important part of the ethno-national ideologies which are aimed at ethnic solidarity. An image of the enemy is an integral element of the ideologies in question which have xenophobic connotations as a result. A place of these sort of myths and ideologies in the contemporary Russian education system is analysed. It is demonstrated how they manifest ethnic strifes and conflicts in various regions of the Russian Federation, and how they infuse students with intolerance, chauvinism and racial moods which seems alarming.