on 12th june 2000, Russia celebrated the tenth anniversary of its new sovereignty. To mark the occasion, Vladimir Putin hosted a reception, giving out prizes for achievements in arts and literature. The prize for cinema-”the most important of all arts,” as Lenin said-went to Nikita Mikhalkov, a politically ambitious director and actor, for The Barber of Siberia, an uplifting hymn to the Russian state. Mikhalkov, whose father received Stalin’s award in the same Kremlin hall, took the microphone to thank Putin.
“Your Excellency, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,” said Mikhalkov, “I am convinced that the national idea which is growing in this country today-and there can be no great state without an idea and Russia is a great state-will soon become universal, a force for unification, construction and spirituality.” Putin replied: “Nikita Sergeyevich is right. Without a national idea there can be no great state… and we are a great state… With your help, we must all find out what that idea is.”
Ten years after the end of the Soviet Union, Russia is still in search of a national idea and is still trying to define its relationship with the past. The two are inseparable: in Russia there can be no national idea without looking back to the past. Unlike pragmatic western societies which deal mostly with the present and the future, Russia is always dealing with its past. History plays a disproportionately large role in the Russian psyche.
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