By Vestnik Kavkaza
Problems of overcoming cultural obstacles in the multinational society have troubled Russia for many years. Experts discussed the influence of cultural similarities and differences in harmonization of these relations at the round table “Differences as a resource for inter-cultural communication management.”
According to Fatima Albakova, the whole world “experiences intensive dithering of cultural traditions and global unification leads to denial of ethnicity in favor of pluralism and equality of cultures. Such cultural insensibility causes losing of the “native” status and leads to searching for differences by creating an image of “an alien,” an enemy. That is why not a fusion of cultures is necessary, when one culture absorbs another, but a union of these cultures, when both cultures continue existing. To overcome cultural obstacles we should perceive differences which can play a positive role.”
Natalya Rykulina thinks that the most reliable method of making people respect national and cultural differences of each other is propaganda through the mass media: “For some reason everything which is reported on migrants and the ethnic issue by the mass media has a negative shade. Those ethnic periodicals which write about ethnic differences in a positive way are local. Russia has to have a common information portal which would unite all ethnic periodicals and become available for everyone.”
“Few people know that Burgundians lived in Stavropol Territory and Krasnodar Territory. Or that Avars could become one of the binding nations of Europe. The result of one battle made them return to Dagestan. Few people know what Caucasian Albania is,” historian Konstantin Mordvinov says. “These are our ancestors, our history of the lost millennium.”
He urges not to exaggerate influence of Byzantium and Greece: “In fact we were made by Eurasians. In Kiev, the Golden Gates are ours, as well as defensive churches in defensive towers, acropolises’ walls. A part of these walls was destroyed when Genghis Khan, that great man, tried to restore the first state which appeared on our territory. In that period we were not Barbarians or Pagans. Insignificant attention is paid to the period of the state union of tribes. Karamzin and other prominent historians gave a name to it. The state is called The Great Valley by them.
We should bind our history, our lost millennium with some practical issues. Firstly, we should try to have national relics returned. Today the libraries of the Vatican contain very interesting sources which are devoted to this period of our history, but they are not used. We need business trips, translators who know runes. We should bring this and establish museums from our own funds which contain things which are forgotten and do not remind anyone about the multi-ethnic character of the union of tribes. National regionalism should be reflected in architecture, buildings, light industry, the souvenir industry, restoration and art. It should unite us all. A constant regional element should encourage progress. We also should reassess the status of what we have. There are undiscovered burial mounds. In Russia we have temples which are buried in earth. To discover oil or other natural resources, aviation is used. To discover the layer of this multinational culture, we should use the capacities of aerial and photo shooting, special equipment. I know that a major burial mound which is an analogy of Egyptian pyramids situated near Voronezh.”
