Pain E.A. (2026) On national and civilizational identification: polemical notes on R. Brubaker’s concept, drawing on the ideas of L.M. Drobizheva. Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 11. No. 1: 101–115. https: ...

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Abstract

This article is intended as a polemical essay. The presented points have two main objectives. The first one is to outline the areas of agreement and scholarly disagreement between the author and the ideas of renowned ethnosociologist Rogers Brubaker, expressed in his 2017 article on two types of political identity (nationalist and civilizational). The paper argues with the American sociologist that civilizationalism is supposedly displacing nationalism in the political strategy of right-wing populists in Europe. The author is even more dubious about attempts to equate the civilizational ideology of European right-wing populists with the civilizational ideas of Russian right-wing forces. From the author’s point of view, such an equation is inconsistent with reality and fails to take into account Russia’s historical and cultural characteristics. Secondly, the article is motivated by the author’s desire to remind the ethnosociological community of a number of important theoretical and methodological propositions by L.M. Drobizheva regarding the particular aspects of civic and state identification in Russia and the differences between Russian principles of such identification and those that developed within Western political culture. The distinguished Russian sociologist and ethnologist’s ideas are extremely relevant in the context of contemporary discussions about the specifics of civilizational identification in Russia and the West.