ANTI-WESTERNISM AS THE MEANINGFUL AXIS OF RUSSIAN IMPERIAL-TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL RELIGION
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/2520-2626/2025.37.3
Abstract
The article is devoted to topical theoretical and practical issues that are directly related to the aggressive nature of imperial Russia and the current Russian-Ukrainian war. The author aims to describe and study the insufficiently researched aspects of this aggressiveness, using the conceptual notion of “political religion” developed in global theoretical thought. The article begins with a conceptual analysis that distinguishes between its key terms: “secular religion,” “civil religion,” and “political religion.” The author asserts that the primary strength of the concepts of political religion is their inherent connection to totalitarianism, its practices, ideology, and mythology. Political religion describes the way a totalitarian society is organized. At the same time, the author outlines several actual issues, including the internal connection between traditional religions such as radical Islam and Russian Orthodoxy with political religion, which by its very nature seems to be an organic secular religion.
The article uses a historical-chronological method to describe the development of political religion in the Russian Empire/USSR/Russian Federation in the 19th-20th centuries. The author notes anti-Westernism as the meaningful axis of Russian imperial, and later imperial-totalitarian, political religion. This religion subjugated Russian Orthodoxy, transforming it into a component of the state mechanism, an instrument of power that claimed and continues to claim absolute authority. In the article, the author outlines some Ukrainian responses to the challenges posed by Russian political religion, which contained both “right-wing” and “left-wing” elements that were united in their imperialist ambitions.
The totalitarian mythology that permeates Russian political religion is now widespread far beyond Russia itself. Such mythology is a comprehensive system for explaining the world and programming the actions of individuals, groups of individuals, and social communities. Imperial culture serves as one of the effective tools for this dissemination both in the past and today. The author intends to continue researching this material with the aim of finding ways to counter Russian aggressive expansionism.
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