№ 3 - 2001
Podvintzev O.B.
Post-Imperial Adaptation of Conservative Consciousness: Contributory Factors

The article contains analysis of factors contributory to the adaptation of conservative consciousness in the post-imperial period, i.e. to a process as a result of which one may remain a conservative, but cease to be an imperialist-minded State-monger. Among such factors, the author singles out, in particular, illusions of reversibility of the empire’s disintegration and of its transformation into a really meaningful commonwealth. One’s reconciliation to new realities is also favoured by awareness of the heavy burden of the former imperial commitments, by the frustration of the once cherished illusory hopes for prosperity to be soon achieved in the former imperial possessions, by the conservatives’ participation in political “arrangement” of the post-imperial expanse, etc. (This article, in a sense, completes the previous one by the author published in Polis No.3, 1999, where, on the contrary, factors impeding the process of conservatives’ post-imperial adaptation were considered.) The combination of factors of post-imperial adaptation, the author believes, engenders opportunities for influencing this process in a well-considered and purposeful manner, for adjusting its course.