adminPutin, who has made restoring national pride one of the chief aims of his domination over Russia, said the country had forgotten to construct a sense of national pride after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Patriotism is not just a nice word. Patriotism is above all serving the motherland, the country, Russia, the people,” he said in speech to a meeting on fostering nationalism whose text was published by the Kremlin yesterday.
“We must build our future on a solid foundation. And that foundation is patriotism,” said Putin.
The meeting in the southern city of Krasnodar late on Wednesday was attended by top members of the elite including the defence minister and minister of culture as well as leading Russian cultural and sporting figures.
Putin said that in imperial Tsarist Russia patriotism had been promoted by the Church and its priests across the country and in the Soviet Union by ideological departments of the Communist Party.
However modern Russia had neglected the task of creating a new nationalism, he said.
“No one promoted this for 20 years. Under the Soviet Union this largely focused on ideology. Nowadays we have no monopoly on ideology but we threw the baby out with the bath water. We stopped thinking of patriotism.”
But Putin added: “We should not take myths and cliches from the past,” and warned against creating a sense of “racial, nationalist or religious exclusivity” in a multinational state like Russia.
“We need to find new forms of work to nurture patriotism and civic consciousness . . . People are tired of stupid propaganda and they no longer trust it. It is important to be honest, open and effective.”
Russia’s population is overwhelmingly Christian Slav but it has large minorities notably including Muslims in the Caucasus and the Volga region as well as dozens of other peoples across its vast territory.
The state’s main recent attempts at fostering patriotism have been largely focused around warfare, like the Soviet victory in World War II or the recent anniversary of the 1812 battle against Napoleon’s invading forces. — AFP.
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