State Symbolism in the New Russia

Project duration: 2002 – 2006

---

Responding to what has come to be referred to as the ‘cultural turn’, an ever larger number of scholars has argued that research can no longer be limited to the analysis of texts, as has long been the case among historians and political scientists. First, this kind of approach does not reflect the paradigm shift from a ‘logocentric’ to an ‘iconocentric’ understanding of politics as diagnosed already a couple of years ago. Second, analyses based on texts often assume that man acts in a rational manner; this applies, in particular, to rational choice theory, to name but one example. To ignore the emotional needs of man, however, appears short-sighted, especially as it generally is the emotions which are being appealed to when a populace is being mobilized for a specific political objective.

That there exists a close link between nation and emotion is no longer called into question and has been proven by various historical studies. To further understand the historical and political relevance of emotions, it is an obvious step to accord images greater importance. The growing significance of these, moreover, has been recognised in cultural studies, which have argued for a ‘pictorial’ or ‘visual turn’ to further the study of images in a research environment still largely dominated by verbal representations.

Political scientists with a more pronounced interest in cultural studies have reacted to this call and, since a few years, have spent considerable time on researching the visualisation of value systems. This, of course, is also a reaction to the fact that modern politics, part of today’s ‘event culture’, relies increasingly on film and television to transport its messages. At the same time, research into moving images has further sharpened analysis of representations of state symbolism as based on older, static images.

In contrast to such relatively new phenomena as film and television, the use of state symbolism has a century-old tradition. Whether employed in a mass democracy or an authoritarian regime, it serves as an important ‘binder’ as well as instrument of authority and mobilisation. Indeed, ‘whoever owns symbols has power; whoever has power needs symbols’ (Jan Kubik).

The upheavals in Eastern and Eastern Central Europe since 1989, which led to a fundamental change in values and the formation of several new states, provided research on state symbolism with a new impetus. This hardly surprises as the system changes, moreover the formation of new states on the territory of the former Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia required a revision or, as the case may be, development of new symbols of state. These served an important role both in the nation-building process and the representation of the state.

Studies in the field of representation broadly provide two definitions of state symbolism. The more narrow one considers flags, anthems, and coat of arms as the key elements of the phenomenon. The present study follows this definition as it allows the researcher to effectively capture the essence of a state’s self-image.

The reason state symbolism was of such importance during the transformation of the post-communist countries is because of its manifold functions, more precisely the representation of the state to the exterior and the construction of identity to the interior. In terms of foreign policy, the revised or even new symbols epitomised the sovereignty of the respective states; in terms of domestic policy, they served the integration of their citizens.

State symbolism therefore is closely related to the processes of inclusion and exclusion: It marks what is to be accepted and included as the own and what is to be disregarded and excluded as the foreign. First, state symbols help a state to communicate which traditions it aligns itself with and which ones it distances itself from. Second, state symbols visualize who belongs to the demos (i.e. who is a citizen) and who does not (i.e. who is an alien). In this context the demos can be defined as the entity of all citizens (e.g. in Russia) or be limited to one ethnic group (e.g. in Croatia, where the Serb part of the population was – first in terms of the state symbolism chosen and then by way of the constitution – excluded from the citizenship).

That there is so much discussion about state symbolism at times of dramatic political change is due to the fact that this kind of visual representation belongs to the focal points of collective identity, described by the French historian Pierre Nora as ‘lieux de mémoire’. In accordance with the French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, the change in state symbolism can also be understood as a ‘rite de passage’ or ‘rite of transition'. This term was originally used to describe the ritual an individual would participate in – such as an initiation into adulthood or a wedding – to mark a change in location, status, rank, or seniority. The US anthropologist Victor Turner transferred Gennep’s notion of a ‘rite de passage’ from individuals to societies experiencing sequential development: Whenever a society finds itself in flux, it loses its fixed structures and turns into an amorphous ‘communitas’. This means that it finds itself in a state of suspense where old value are no longer valid, but new one have not already been found. Such phases of social transition can leave groups – just like individuals – without words, verbally dislocated in a new world where a new mode of expression still needs to be found. The Russian anthropologist Serguei Oushakine has described this state of affairs as ‘symbolic apathy’. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is not uncommon for old symbolic expressions to be reused in such periods of ‘speechlessness’.

Focussing on the last years of the Soviet Union and the early years of the Russian Federation, the present project sought to analyse the re-encoding of state symbols in a transition period. On the one hand, it asked who participated in this process, which strategies were being pursued, and what kind of identities were being promoted, as linked to which particular kind of symbols. On the other hand, it examined whether the choices made met the requirements, specifically with regard to the representation of the Russian state, but also with regard to the inclusion of as large a part of the population as possible.


Publications

Isabelle de Keghel (2009): Die Staatssymbolik des neuen Russland Traditionen - Integrationsstrategien – Identitätsdiskurse, LIT (Münster)

Isabelle de Keghel (2003): Die Staatssymbolik des neuen Russland im Wandel. Vom antisowjetischen Impetus zur russländisch-sowjetischen Mischidentität, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa No. 53