Elements of Symbolic Politics in the "Russian World" Project

Object of study is the symbolic repertoire of the “Russian world” concept. More specifically – the interpretation of this repertoire by the population. Aim of the research is to find out, how are symbolic elements of the “Russian world” interpreted by various social group within Russian society, considering the major discourses of symbolic politics’ actors in Russia. Following objectives are to be fulfilled to reach that aim: 1) Unravel the structure of the “Russian world” within discourses of major symbolic politics actors. 2) Find out, how informed the population is on various symbolic elements of the concept and how does it interpret them, based on secondary data. 3) Create an interpretive scheme, describing the concepts’ structure within political discourses and public conscience. Methods, that were used to fulfill stated objectives are: 1) Discourse-analysis 2) Content-analysis 3) Secondary data analysis (opinion poll results, conducted by sociological centers) Following work contains 41 pages divided into: introduction, 4 chapters, conclusion and a reference list. First chapter is devoted to the methodology. Second chapter describes the theoretical foundation of the work. Third chapter is based on the empirical stage. Forth chapter is focused on interpretation of results acquired. Main conclusions from the research are: fragmentation of public opinion on symbolic elements of the “Russian world”; symbolic elements of the “Russian world” are not exclusive; attention towards the concept from both symbolic politics actors and the population has massively declined recently. Topicality of the research is based on increase of attention that the concept has experienced lately and certain political actions that were taken based on it. The results of this research could be of use to symbolic politics scholars as well as specialists, who work in the field of politics.