State vs. nation: Socio-historical analysis

Abstract

The article offers a socio-historical analysis of the relationship between the Russian nation and the state. The concepts of ‘nation’, ‘people’, and ‘population’ are differentiated by the degree of contribution to the political and economic development of the country. The article highlights the role of the state in the formation of the high writing culture as a condition for the development of the nation and people through the education system. It is noted that the centralization of the Moscow state through ‘internal conquest’ enslaved the population and undermined people’s creativity. The ruling elites hindered the formation of the Russian nation until the second half of the 19th century. Then, the defeat in the Crimean War put the authorities in need of broad reforms, primarily, in the social sector. A lag in the development of the education system in the 16th–17th centuries led to the dominance of religious faith over rational thinking and the sacralization of the supreme power. This affected the pace of development of the Russian nation as the driving political force of society. In the future, the confrontation between the nation and the state transformed into revolutionary struggle resulting in the collapse of the Russian statehood. Today, a promising super-task of higher education is to produce a well-rounded, non-conformist and creative personality as a driver of the formation of an all-Russian nation and the strengthening of the country’s statehood.