The Russian state is often accused of encouraging Soviet nostalgia. A new monument in Sevastopol reveals a more complex reality – an attempt to reconcile the contradictory elements of Russia’s past into a single coherent whole.
It is said that modern Russia is a conservative country, but that begs the question – what are Russians trying to conserve? The basic principle of conservatism is that a society should develop in accordance with its own traditions. But in the past 105 years, Russia has twice experienced radical breaks with its past which have thoroughly destroyed its established traditions. Does conservatism mean returning to the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and the old Tsarist slogan of ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality’? Or does it mean preserving the values of Soviet communism?
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