THREATS, RISKS AND WAYS TO STRENGTHEN ALL-RUSSIAN IDENTITY IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS AS A SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis and systematization of the views of Russian scholarly community on the processes of development of all-Russian identity in the North Caucasus. The topic of identity is among the basic in the scientific discourse about ethnopolitical and ethnosocial processes in the region; a large and diverse material has been accumulated that requires generalization and conceptualization. The object of analysis was publications in peer-reviewed Russian scientific journals for the period from 2018 to 2023. The risks and threats to Russian identity, outlined in scientific discourse, are explicated and joined into three groups: risks and threats determined by, firstly, the socio-economic crisis in the North Caucasus, secondly, the processes of politicization of ethnicity, thirdly, religious and political radicalism. It is shown that most researchers analyze the issues of identity within the framework of the “identity conflict” paradigm. The methods and ways of strengthening the all-Russian identity proposed by researchers were systematized and it was found out that most authors associate this task with increasing the effectiveness of state identity policy, and the processes of modern Russian nation-building are most often considered as directed “from top to bottom”. It has been revealed that researchers pay some attention to the geopolitical factor of identification processes in the North Caucasus, and this factor is almost completely depicted as a negative influence of major geopolitical actors on the processes in the North Caucasus. It is concluded that it is the geopolitical approach in the analysis of regional ethnopolitical and identification processes that should become key, since the North Caucasus as an important geostrategic region of Russia has become one of the most important objects of geopolitical struggle in present-day conditions.

Keywords:

North Caucasus, identity policy, all-Russian identity, conflict of identities, threats and challenges to Russian identity, geopolitical approach, scientific discourse