The Polis, Nation and Civilization Cycles of Russia’s Sociogenesis

Abstract

Sergey Dobrolyubov — Researcher. E-mail: dobrolyubovsv@mail.ru

This article presents a sociological interpretation of Russian history, which is based on the theoretical explanation of the mechanism of sequential expansion of a society’s formats (sociogenesis). This helps to unveil a few social parallels in the history of Western Europe and Russia, such as the birth of large polities (i.e. the Frankish Kingdom and Kievan Rus), the following feudal disintegration, the emergence of nations and multinational empires.

The phenomenon of sociogenesis is based on the competitive and cooperative nature of any society and man himself. The communication and cooperation of individuals in certain situations leads to the emergence of common meanings, values and, eventually, the formation of a common social consciousness and identity that becomes the core of a self-sufficient society. On the other hand, the cultural, economic and political relations, and the competition between the elites of different societies lead to a typification of practices in a wider social environment, which is followed by political expansion and the emergence of wider social frameworks. The combination of these processes constitutes a sociogenesis as a process of sequential growth of society. It is accompanied by the ripening and dissolving of social consciousness and identity in one format and the transference of them onto a wider format.

A society in each of its formats goes through a preliminary, administrative, universal and final phase of development. The preliminary phase begins when the subjects of further integration emerge and compete with each other. The administrative phase begins when the most successful center succeeds in unifying the environment in a common social structure by promoting communication between individuals and value convergence. At the universal phase, a commonality becomes a society with a shared social identity, consciousness and hierarchy of values, where the value of society itself constitutes the highest value. At that moment, society is ready to make the next step in its expansion; the cycle of sociogenesis is once again repeated in a broader format, leading to the breach of the once narrow social consciousness, and bringing it to its final phase. The transfer of social consciousness and identity into a wider community is associated with value and identity crisis, and is accompanied by anomies and social conflicts. The average phase duration of the ripening and dissolving of consciousness is about 250 years. At the administrative phase, a society must have a rigid social structure, while at the universal phase it has a chance for social liberalization due to social consolidation.

In the Old Russian or Kievan Rus period, we may see only the beginning of this sociogenesis. The genesis of town societies went through preliminary (600-850), administrative (850-1100) and universal (1100-1350) phases. At the universal phase, towns obtained power and became city-states, which led to a fragmentation of the Kievan Rus political entity. Russian sociogenesis is expressed in the consecutive transformation of Moscow town society into a Muscovite principality society, later into the mono-ethnic Great-Russian society, and finally, into the poly-ethnic modern Russian society. The Great-Russian nation went through the preliminary phase (1150-

1400) when Russian principalities competed with each other. Then it went through the administrative phase (1400-1650) when Moscow became a nation. After that, it went through the universal phase (1650-1900), during which the Russian state, based on national consolidation, widely expanded. That mono-ethnic Russian identity is now dissolving within the poly-ethnic Russian nation. The modern Russian nation is the equivalent of a complex poly-ethic European nation such as France or Britain. The modern Russian nation went through the preliminary phase (1400-1650), then administrative phase (1650-1900). Later came a universal phase — a crisis of Revolutions (1905, 1917), Civil War (1918-1921), Stalin’s repressions and the Patriotic War (1941-1945). Some parts of the contemporary Russian state do not belong to that informal community (North Caucasus), while some parts of this community are now in the former Soviet republics.

The sociogenesis in Russia has been rather particular. Due to its despotic social tradition, (the ramification of Russia through its forced inclusion in the Mongol Empire after 1237) state expansion in Russia is always ahead of society’s informal consolidation. That feeds the social rigidity and blocks the social liberalization.