Political Identity of the Post-Soviet Russia and Interpretations of the Russian History

The article is concentrated on the problem of the Russian political identity change in the Post-Soviet period in terms of the interpretations of the national history. After the instability of the late 1980-s and 1990-s, Russian elite and society have achieved more or less coherent understanding of the past. This approach implies the focus on patriotic component and marginalizes both left and right radical interpretations. However, it has close link with the Soviet version of the history interpretation, which had solid patriotic foundation. The victory in the Great Patriotic War is a key element of this version. Paradoxically, the Russian democracy has got its legitimacy through latent though extremely viable non-ideological components of the Soviet political identity.