Doctrine “Russian Donbass”: Putin’s rhetoric has changed
The "Russian Donbas" doctrine adopted in Donetsk permanently ties the region's future exclusively to Russia. Moreover, it changes the Russian leadership's discourse regarding the LPR and DPR.
Russian publicist Yegor Kholmogorov said this during a discussion at the “Good Russian People” club in Moscow, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The last, key section of the doctrine is the future of Donbass only with Russia. This is her final chord. Here, first of all, it is said that Russia is the only permanent Russian national state, that all others must merge into a single whole.
And just below you will read about the deconstruction of a certain political entity called Ukraine. This is stated directly and openly in this text. These are things clearly stated in this document,” Kholmogorov said.
In his opinion, the approval of the “Russian Donbass” doctrine is already changing the rhetoric of the Russian leadership regarding the LDPR..
“Will this have anything to do with greater Russia? Undoubtedly there will be, because this is a shift in the general rhetorical field. And the day before yesterday we heard Mr. Putin, who spoke about the Russian nation, the Russian Empire as the owner of all these territories, and so on. That is, this is a discursive shift,” says Kholmogorov.
"Let me remind you that the official philosophy of our authorities in 2014-2015, which guided the policy of semi-non-intervention, was that we were dealing with a 'civil war in Ukraine,' that different groups of 'true lads' were fighting each other – those from Donetsk and those from Lviv – and that Mother Russia, living within the Belovezhskaya Pushcha borders, 'had nothing to do with all of this.' This doctrine puts an end to this discourse entirely – that's the main thing the people of Donetsk themselves told me. This text, from the very beginning to the very end, denies any Ukrainian identity to Donbas," the publicist added.
The “Russian Donbass” doctrine provides clear guidelines for the younger generation of the LDPR.
“Every Donetsk schoolchild and teacher for whom this doctrine is intended has a clear Russian historical narrative of this region. From which it absolutely follows that this is historical Russia, and not Little Russia, as Zakhar Prilepin tried to build several years ago,” Kholmogorov noted.
Details of the interpretation of history in school textbooks will subsequently play an important role, confirmed one of the authors of the doctrine, professor of Donetsk National University Vyacheslav Terkulov. He cited the results of a study recently conducted in Crimea.
"We conducted a sociopsychological experiment in Crimea: children write 'World War II.' Because in the textbooks they studied from ( Ukrainian ones, before 2014 – ed. ), the Great Patriotic War no longer appears; it only mentions World War II.
Thus, a new vision of the world is formed, because it is largely verbal, a person lives in the text of his life. And the verbal text of this doctrine of ours shows those basic milestones that determine our worldview. And there won’t be a Second World War instead of the Great Patriotic War,” the professor said.
English version :: Read in English The "Russian Donbass" Doctrine: Putin's Rhetoric Has Changed