Idea of empire as way of formation Russian cultural identity

In the frameworks of phenomenological approach a mythologem of the empire is understood as a phenomenon of domestic consciousness, denoting such intension of consciousness as sacralization of the national and state being. The idea of the empire is a mental design by means of which a selection and design of intentional availability is achieved. The aim of this article was to study the role of the mythologem / idea of the empire in the process of Russian cultural identity development. In accordance with the goal of the research the following tasks were completed: a research of the functioning mythologem / idea of the empire in the process of transformation of cultural identity in the XV-XVI centuries, in the XVII century, in the first half of the XX century; analysis of the ways representing the mythologem / idea of the empire in Russian culture of the XV-XX centuries. The phenomenological approach (E. Husserl), the metatheoretical approach (M.K. Mamardashvili, A.M. Pyatigorsky), the structural and semiotic approach (Zh. Delez, V.M. Zhivov, Yu.M. Lotman, B.A. Uspensky, M. Fuko, U. Eko) have been used in this work. The study resulted in the following conclusions. The constituting of the mythologem of the empire in the Russian national consciousness was a long process caused, first of all, by the existential requirement “to be” a part of the world history regardless of the center of the world events. This provision predetermined the initial dualistic nature of the Russian cultural identity tearing apart between an imagined ideal and reality, which is far from the ideal. In the XV-XVI centuries, in the circles of Russian clergy the concept of “The Third Rome”, expressing symphony between “priesthood” and “kingdom” was formed. In the XVIII century Peter I focused his policy on the values of western civilization and declared Russia an empire. The idea of “Empire” expressed sacralization of monarchical power. At the beginning of the XX century the first socialist state, the Soviet Union, was recognized by the Bolsheviks as a center of the world events. The idea of the Soviet state was treated by the Soviet ideologist as a paradigm of the power of people and in fact expressed sacralization of power of the party and party leaders. The aspiration to become part of the world history turned into a driving force of the occurring transformations: from a symbol of national consciousness to the ideological design representing claims of the power to “simulacrum”.