№ 4 - 2005
Smirnov A.N.
Ethnicity and Cultural Pluralism in the Context of the State Policy

The article claims to analyze multiculturalism as a multivectorial process affecting both the state institutions and the societal structures, as well as citizens’ minds. The author demonstrates that renunciation of the majority’s cultural monopoly for the sake of equalizing the status positions of the minorities in most cases fails to achieve the objects contemplated. And, what is more, while being meant to harmonize the foundations of the state-political structure and to consolidate the complex society, the measure in question sometimes leads to directly opposite results. Instead of expected rallying, segmentation of social structures takes place, on the basis of group affiliation; instead of adding more legitimacy and strength to the idea of civil nation — the general national self-consciousness becoming still more “friable”. Furthermore, as the author concludes, orthodox-perfunctory adoption of multicultural rhetoric is only conducive to the ethnocentric prejudices being rooted in, imparting to them the semblance of political correctness.