Struggle for Tradition as a Form of Social-Anthropological Practice

Abstract

The subject field and conceptual content of the article are devoted to the analysis of the concept “struggle for traditions”, which is emerging in the modern Russian academic community in the context of harsh geopolitical and ideological challenges of the early 20th century. In this paper, I develop the principles and methods of reflexive traditionalism based on the concepts of S. Khoruzhy, A. Panarin, O. Genisaretsky, A. Shchipkov, show that today it is strategically necessary for representatives of the Russian socio-humanitarian community to: (a) enrich and enhance the key parameters of Russia’s civilizational identity, (b) continuously carry out the process of critical reflection and prevention of imposed identities, (c) actively counteract destructive moments arising in the context of the development of the Russian state-civilization. I try to show that in the context of the recent turn towards tradition, three methodological strategies (as wordviews) have been formed: fundamentalism, liberal post-traditionalism and traditionalism, which, at a new level, build a configuration of discussions within which the historical perspective of Russia as a sovereign state-civilizational existence in a multicentric world in the 21st century. Within the framework of reflective traditionalism, a socio-anthropological approach to the phenomenon of tradition, seen as a constant of human existence, is emerging. Each tradition represents individuals or subjects of history (states, civilizations, peoples, strata, classes) that bear witness to it by their very form, content, and lifestyle. Thus, the world of traditions is a rich interactive, intersubjective, interpretive, fundamentally dialogical sphere that fully engages a person in its orbit, allowing them to preserve and multiply the practices of resilience and vitality.