On Two Voluntarisms and One Identity

The article focuses on analyzing a number of features of the discourse of national-cultural and civilizational identity of the modern Russia. This discourse is considered in two main variations: constructivist and essentialist. The author shows that despite all the striking paradigmatic differences, there is no significant difference between constructivism and essentialism at a level deeper than their initial methodological premises. Constructivism and essentialism rule each other out already at the level of associations with certain ideological attitudes — conventionally speaking, Western and anti-Western. Meanwhile, both constructivist and essentialist discourses are based on the same modern methodological voluntarism. Extreme constructivism and extreme essentialism are converging, since they ultimately appeal to our ability to contemplate an image of national or civilizational identity that is acceptable for modern us. As a result, a range of ideologemes, acceptable for describing Russian identity, is formed. In the process of its formation constructivist approaches play the leading role, while essentialism serves as a supplier of those elements of the identity building that appear per se insufficient for its successful (socially significant) imagination. These elements, like all elements that date back to the depths of the past, to “tradition”, in the present of Modernity can perform only those functions that are in demand by modern people, and not those that were performed by them earlier. Therefore, the essentialist discourse of identity is secondary to the constructivist one and is destined to serve it.