Today Russia celebrates Constitution Day in honor of the adoption of the Main Law of the country, which determines the rights and freedoms of person and citizen, and guarantees its highest value, on 12 December 1993. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev greeted the people of Russia. "The Constitution is the basic law on which our country is living. In this document the principles of Russian statehood and sovereignty are laid down, integral rights and freedoms are enshrined. Happy Constitution Day!" Medvedev wrote on Facebook.
There are still many challenges for the Russian society and leadership in ensuring constitutional liberties, associated with harmonization of relations in different spheres of life, Russian politicians and public figures announced during the All-Russian Forum "The State National Policy of the Russian Federation in the context of the constitutional rights and guarantees of citizens", dedicated to Constitution Day celebrated today in Russia. The forum was organized by the Russian Academy of National Economics and Public Administration and the Assembly of Peoples of Russia.
The chairman of the Committee for Nationalities of the State Duma of the sixth convocation, Gadzhimet Safaraliev, speaking at the opening of the event, passed on to the participants in the forum greetings from the speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, and congratulations on Constitution Day. Safaraliev emphasized that one of the key issues of the constitutional rights of citizens today is the implementation of national policy in the framework of harmonization of international relations.
"In this way, there are two important laws that have been adopted in recent years - the law imposing responsibility on the heads of municipalities for preventing conflicts on ethnic and religious grounds, by virtue of which the vertical in international relations was created, from the place where people live, to the Council under the President, and the law that gave the status of NGOs to federal national cultural autonomies. The latter significantly increased the possibility of adaptation and integration of migrants into our society because of the possibility of the autonomy to influence their citizens. There are situations emerging in different regions associated with the imbalance of national ethnic groups and this leads to an increase of tension, which is unacceptable, because it generates extremism, increases crime. In this way, I believe that this law also serves the cause of solving the main problem - the harmonization of interethnic relations," he claimed.
The director of the Department of International Relations of the Ministry of Culture, Alexander Zhuravsky, also congratulated the participants on Constitution Day and stressed the need not only to honor the letter of the law, but also to understand the purports laid down in the Constitution and in current Russian legislation. "I would also like to congratulate you on the fact that the term "Russian nation" has become the norm of Russian legislation. That had been described in the strategy of the state policy as synonymous concepts - the constitutional term "multinational people of Russia" and "Russian nation", has now become a common position. I want to salute you on behalf of the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medina, to pass on to you congratulations on all the holidays, at the same time I wish you fruitful work," Alexander Zhuravsky said to the participants of the Forum.
According to him, the year 2014 was important from the standpoint of developing mechanisms for implementation of the state national policy. "Starting this year, a new federal target program to strengthen the unity of the Russian nation was started, and the cultural development of the peoples of Russia is an important resource tool, though not quite financially capacious. Politics is the art of the possible, and we will work hard to use effectively the opportunities given to us by the leadership of the country. There is a lot of interesting, creative work, which will be focused on the strengthening of civil unity, on the fact that the Russian language, Russian culture, is a multinational, cross-linking cultural space, which for many centuries was expanded, then narrowed, but remained much wider than the borders of the Russian state, to be a competitive, attractive cultural code," Alexander Zhuravsky said.
The head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, dedicated his speech to the need for the harmonizing of significant identities for residents of Russia. "At some time in history it was considered that ethnic identity, religious identity are the most important, which is why many people suffered. In other historical periods it was considered that we need to come up with a new and innovative identity by sending values significant for people to "the junkyard of history," and it also led to human suffering. I believe that the time has come to talk about the harmonization of national and religious identities, the most important things for many people, and about all newly-born and emerging forms of identity, which also have the right to exist – this is civic identity and a pan-European and worldwide one," Chaplin explained.
Archpriest stressed that the pointless controversies should be left in the past "what is more important – to be Russian or of the Russian Federation, to be Orthodox or a supporter of universal values, to be a Russian citizen or a citizen of the world?" "You have to try through dialogue, through honest intellectual assaults and practical conclusions to harmonize these often divergent identities. I hope that we will succeed, that we will not only argue, but try to find a common path to the future. Russia is a multiethnic country, inconceivable without the dozens of nations which inhabit it and made their special and unique contribution to the formation of its historical appearance. At the same time, Russia is a country at the center of which have always been the Russian people, and I hope that together we will be able to make the Russian people, and all peoples living in Russia, strong, able to negotiate with each other to set great historical goals and achieve these goals. I hope that together we will always be something united that will ensure Russia a worthy place in all those complicated processes that are taking place in the world and which should not be left without our influence and participation," he said.
