Identity In Social Ritual: Tradition And Its Absence

This study offers a philosophical and cultural analysis of identity in the context of tradition and its rupture, drawing upon the intellectual frameworks of Sir Roger Scruton and Yuri Lotman. At its core, the research investigates how personal and collective identities are formed when cultural and social rituals are either preserved or disrupted, and what consequences this has for the individual and for society. The work presents a dual interpretative model of identity. On one hand, Scruton defends a conservative perspective, in which identity is rooted in inherited tradition, religion, and national loyalty, complemented by the individual’s lived experience. On the other hand, Lotman illustrates the phenomenon of “broken continuity” in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, where tradition was eradicated and replaced by a “semantic vacuum.” Within this vacuum, identity must be reconstructed through communication practices and newly emerging forms of social interaction. The study emphasizes the tension between two poles: 1. Liberal identity transformation — the modern promise of freedom to “choose” one’s identity, which in practice reduces to system-imposed roles and superficial symbols of protest, thereby masking conformity as individuality. 2. Conservative self-construction of identity — the weaving of personal biography and ancestral heritage into a coherent whole, where tradition provides a moral compass and cultural anchoring, while individual experience enriches intellectual horizons. The research concludes that authentic identity is forged not in destruction or escapism but through creative engagement with tradition and community. While Scruton represents the endurance of a “house that survived,” Lotman exemplifies the intellectual labor of drafting a blueprint for a “new house” after rupture. Taken together, they outline a broader map of European and Russian history in the twentieth century and provide complementary insights for the renewal of identity in contemporary Eastern Europe.