Relevance of Lev Karsavin’s Ideas on State Cultural Policy

The article substantiates the expediency of using domestic philosophical heritage in the development of concepts and other normative documents of Russia’s cultural policy in the current situation. At present, Russian society has gained an understanding of the need to abandon the strategy of catch-up modernization and to implement socio-cultural development on the ways of deepening the country’s traditional spiritual values and its own historical vision of the multipolarity of the world. The ideas of the Russian religious philosopher L.P. Karsavin concerning such fundamental aspects of cultural policy as the peculiarities of the development of state ideology, the design of culture and state cultural programmes, the vocabulary and language of cultural studies are considered. Special attention is paid to Karsavin’s understanding of Russian culture as having Orthodox origins and developing on the basis of Orthodoxy. Attention is drawn to the importance of ensuring the unifying and living, creative character of Russian culture, the conditions of equality of different cultures and, at the same time, the presence of a hierarchy of interpenetrating cultural spheres. The development of some of L.P. Karsavin’s ideas by his followers is outlined, including the need to clarify the Christian meaning of atheism and to overcome the “irreconcilable” antagonism between religious and atheistic worldviews. The study outlines a line of enrichment of cultural theory with little-known works by L.P. Karsavin and A.A. Vaneev, which, according to the authors of the article, opens prospects for further development of new approaches to understanding the essence of cultural policy.

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