Study of the Axiological Foundations of Russian Statehood: Prospects for the Application of Politico-Textological Analysis

Abstract

The study of the historical and axiological foundations of Russian statehood is directly related to problems of national and civic identity and addresses the task of ensuring and protecting political sovereignty and national independence. Based on the analysis of a large corpus of works by Russian thinkers, writers, poets, religious and state figures of the 19th century, the content of such basic values as “freedom”, “truth” and “justice” was reconstructed, which maintained their significance throughout the history of Russia, but were substantively transformed in the public ideological-political discourse. The research was conducted based on the database of the National Corpus of the Russian Language (NCRL). In total, work was done with more than 7500 documents created during the period from 1801 to 1900. The main research methods, in addition to the general scientific methodology, were content analysis and politico-textological analysis. The concept of “freedom” was significant throughout almost the entire history of Russia, and in the 19th century, various aspects of it were addressed not only by thinkers and public figures of different ideological orientations, but also by publicists, poets, and writers. Interestingly, the legal and rational understanding of freedom was almost always combined with a moral and even religious content in the works of the authors of this period. The concept of “truth”, despite being used in its substantive sense much less frequently in the 19th century than in previous centuries, still retains its important axiological value in the Russian intellectual tradition and represents a complex moral-social ideological complex. “Truth” as a socialpolitical concept combines both the values and meanings of the Orthodox righteous way of life of each individual and the principles and goals of a truly just social and state system. The concept of “justice” is a cornerstone of the Russian vision of an ideal social and state structure, along with truth and freedom. The specificity of the domestic ideological-political discourse of the 19th century is that the concept of justice is inseparably linked with both the individual and society and the state, receiving moral justification for the necessity of following this principle first and foremost in the name of the common good, and then, as a consequence, in the name of one’s own well-being.