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The Symbol of the Motherland in the Legitimation and Delegitimation of Power in Contemporary Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2019

Oleg Riabov
Oleg Riabov*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: riabov1@inbox.ru
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Abstract

The article dwells upon the use of the symbol of the “Motherland” in the legitimation and delegitimation of power. The Motherland symbolizes the matters that are essential for legitimacy-seeking: the unity of Russia, its territory and sacredness of its borders, the most important events of its history, the “authentic Russianness,” and multi-ethnic peace in the country. The author argues that the Motherland serves as an important factor of the legitimation of power in contemporary Russia, which allows the authorities to have high popularity both in domestic and foreign policies. This symbol is also actively exploited by the opposition; one mode of the delegitimation of power through using the symbol of Motherland (the “populist” mode) implies the symbolic struggle for possessing this symbol, or for the right to speak on behalf of the Motherland, while another one (the “liberal” mode) implies the desacralization of the “Motherland” and deconstruction of the practices of employing the symbol by the authorities.

Keywords

symbol of the Motherlandpolitical symbolslegitimization of powerRussian nationalismcontemporary Russian politics
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 48 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Migrant Rights, Agency, and Vulnerability , July 2020 , pp. 752 - 767
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019

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