National Identity and the Phenomenon of Civic Religion

Goals: The article revises the concepts of civil nation and national identity to clarify the newly introduced — for Russian academic discourse — notion of civic religion which is basically misrepresented being believed to postulate religious tolerance and elimination of interfaith conflicts as its goal and essence. Ultimately, the paper aims to show a required internal connection between national identity and civic religion.
The study proves the thesis that a political component of a civic nation cannot be self-sufficient, and that it is possible only due to the irremovable historical / cultural component. The widely used concept of national identity has been reduced to formal ethnic (or citizenship) affiliations, and pursuant thereto its functional content and instrumentality in social research of civil solidarity / disintegration are examined. Special attention is paid to E. Durkheim’s concept of the religious to clarify the notion of civic religion. The concept serves to substantiate the thesis that society is viewed as something sacral — and not merely a living environment — by separate individuals, and that from socio-political perspectives practices of civic religion are urgent to any national state.
Methods: The research methodology is based on social constructivism according to which national identity is not a certainty but a result of purposeful activities manifested in the institution of civic religion. The task to reveal the operation principles of the institution has been solved through the analysis of works by J.-J. Rousseau, J. Michelet, R. Bellah, and V. Legoida.
Examining the problem of identity, the study drew evidence from the analytical article Beyond Identity by R. Brubaker and F. Cooper, most useful being corresponding characteristics of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ identities. This resulted in an original understanding of their connections, namely their dialectical connections, which helped show the topicality of civic religion as an institution and reveal a distinctive feature of national identity.
Conclusions: It is concluded that national identity and citizenship actually result from a variety of intense impacts contained in civic religion. At the same time, being an integral part of social life, civic religion is a practice with no guaranteed result, and basically aims to reconcile individual attitudes towards one’s own state / motherland with existential fundamentals of reality (life, love, family, death).

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