Russian civilizationism and the elusive Russian identity

The article is devoted to the ideological foundations of the Russian civilizational paradigm. Its relevance is growing as Russian society and the state turn to the problems of Russian national identity. Expectations associated with Russian civilizationism boil down to the fact that it should show Russia the way to a better future, help it turn off the disastrous rut. In this, it should be helped by an ideological theoretical optics, an alternative to Western centrism and modernism. Through the prism of these expectations, an analysis of the key provisions of the civilizational approach, set out in the works of N. Danilevsky, K. Leontiev, authors of the Eurasian direction, is carried out. It is substantiated that the civilizational approach could not offer adequate methodological optics to justify the expectations placed on it. The main theoretical contribution of Russian civilizationism was rather negative. Civilizationists have succeeded in consistently developing cultural relativism, focused on the destruction of Eurocentric dichotomies in the social sciences. However, they have failed to formulate a coherent, positive and applicable to specific historical realities idea of Russian national-cultural identity. Therefore, today selective appeals to the intellectual heritage of Russian civilizationists are typical examples, if not directly Eurocentric Western, then certainly modern thinking.