Alan Kasayev: “We should reset the ideological component of November 4th”

Interview by Andrey Petrov, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

Yesterday, the main topic for discussion in the mass media which covered the Russian March was the decision by Alexei Navalny not to take part in it. Fortunately, nationalists’ demonstrations in Moscow stayed undistinguished. About 8,000 people came to Lyublino, about thirty of them were detained by the police. The Russian March is an annual tradition in the National Unity Day. The head of the department of journalistic skills of the Moscow State Literary University, Alan Kasaev, told in an interview to Vestnik Kavkaza why the holiday hasn’t become a pan-national holiday.

-          The Russian March is unfortunately the only so-called tradition which has strengthened on the Day of National Unity, even though it doesn’t correlate with the essence of the holiday. Why does this happen?

-          I think there are a few historical grounds for this. From the very beginning of establishing the holiday, the MPs of our State Duma and representatives of the executive power have said that this holiday is connected with the liberation of Moscow from the Poles in the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. Thus, there are grounds to speak about a holiday which is connected with the 17thcentury when Russia was a fairly monoethnic state.

The main drawback of the connection is that in the past 400 years the ethnic composition, borders and territories of the state have changed radically. The state is absolutely different. Today only people who can be called Russian statists or Russian nationalists (without any connotation, only as a term) connect the holiday with those events. The rest of the Russian population doesn’t really understand what the holiday is about.

The public opinion polls which are annually conducted ahead of the holiday confirm that the majority of the Russian population doesn’t understand the essence of the state holiday of November 4th, the Day of National Unity. There is a significant gap in state propaganda, mass media, because it is time to change the ideology of the holiday, tell people that today the holiday has nothing in common with those days and we should work for real national unity. The holiday should unite people of various ethnic groups, who are citizens of Russia or live in Russia. I think this is the main essence of the holiday.

-          Speaking about a holiday which could unite all ethnic groups, not only representatives of central Russia, what date would you choose?

-          It seems there is no date in the history of Russia which would unite all the citizens of the country, whatever their ethnic or confessional belonging, except for May 9th. Victory Day is a holiday which unites us all and there are no doubts in the essence of the holiday, and I hope there will be no doubts ever. It is possible to choose an artificial date, as was done with November 4th (it is an absolutely artificial date), but I think the result will be sad.

I think the date should stay, as the holiday has been celebrated annually for several years, but its parameters should be changed. The state propaganda mechanism works well, when the power needs to wash people’s brains to achieve a short-term goal. If the mechanism could work for multinational unity within one federative multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, the date will be alright. It is no worse than any other day.

We could say that the Day of Russia could be the date, but the 12 of June is also a politicized date, it is not perceived as a unifying element. So, there can be various dates, but simply we should reset the ideological component of the state holiday of November 4th and fill it with a new content.