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2. The current process of informational globalization is another important factor. It looks strange at first glance that the future image of female power is created by irrational mechanisms (information images).
These two circumstances provide the coming female power in the irrational scheme with a so-called meta-basis to allow it to gain primacy over men.
It should be pointed out that since the contemporary image of a politician or a leader corresponds, on the whole, to the male image, woman has to build up her image according to the dominating image. In its development informational globalization will open up new horizons of forms of conduct and external visual signs. Woman as an image of the leader of the future will reject male behavioral strategies, which will inevitably predetermine the new trends of political adventurism created by the new (female) image of power. Today, this is amply demonstrated by the female power of political adventurism of female anchors on Georgian TV.
C o n c l u s i o n
The information concepts that describe globalization as a cultural (non-political and non-eco-nomic) paradigm suggest that culture is its main universal. Continued conservation of the traditional (local) cultural types against the wider background of growing globalization trends testify that the Caucasian peoples have concentrated their cultural efforts on ethnic-cultural self-preservation and a quest for uniform cultural morphology.
Gulfia BAZIEVA
Ph.D. (Philos.), senior researcher at the Department of Ethnology of the Kabardino-Balkarian Institute of Humanitarian Studies
(Russia, Nalchik).
GLOBALIZATION AND PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPING ETHNIC CULTURE (BASED ON INFORMATION OF THE KABARDINO-BALKARIAN REPUBLIC OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
Abstract
T
his article looks at the key aspects of the evolution of today’s global culture based on incorporation of the ethnic
culture of Kabardino-Balkaria into the general context of integration relations. According to the author, the practical, moral, and
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aesthetic experience of the people expressed in ethnic culture manifests itself as the primary foundation of multivector interaction with other components of the new format of world culture currently evolving. This is prompted by the social-historical nature of ethnic cultures, their “accumulative” nature, and the ability to preserve and
consolidate the socially important achievements of the nation’s activity. At the same time, globalization processes are stimulating the appearance of new forms and ways for culture to function, which is leading not only to content-value changes within it, but also to its more active influence on the social processes.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Today’s interest in so-called ethnic phenomena can be regarded as a reaction to the global sociocultural processes arising from the dynamics of historical changes, complicated and multifaceted interrelations, and so on. Ethnicity is often considered the ideal origin in the chain of these interrelations that can prevent cultural values from being leveled out and standardized in today’s globalizing world. But the nature of ethnicity is also interpreted from the opposite viewpoint—as political-ideological fiction and an obsolescent organism. In this respect, studies aimed at revealing the special features of the development of ethnic cultures are becoming particularly important and there is a growing need for a systematic culturological approach to the study of their role and place in today’s polyethnic space.
The wide network of ethnic contacts at the most different levels presumes mutual exchange not only of information, but also of different forms of world perception, world outlook, and comprehension of oneself and others. Such a mutual exchange has always been going on and is manifested at different times either by militant servitude or by peaceful coexistence. But the dynamism of ethnic relations used to be of a primarily regional rather than global nature. This is precisely why we feel that, today, study of the problems of ethnic cultural development during globalization is an important and urgent task.
Ethnic Culture and Globalization
Globalization raises several questions, two of which can be singled out in the context of the problem currently under discussion. What is the influence of globalization on ethnic cultures? And are ethnic cultures capable of enhancing or hindering global trends? An analysis of different types of culture (archaic, traditional, national, and so on) makes it possible to claim that traditional ethnic cultures are more viable and, on the whole, capable of adapting to life under contemporary conditions, including globalism.1
Compared with other social entities, ethnic (national) cultures are the main components of human culture. Moreover, ethnic culture is the first historical entity of culture, since it was originally formed as a culture of local traditional societies. Later, different subcultures predetermined by different living conditions, world outlook, and other forms of differentiation appeared. Integration into the sociocultural sphere should promote not uniformity and leveling out of all the integrating elements, but an increase in diversity of the entire whole. “Differentiation of differences generates the energy of dynamics; ignoring individual traits and standardization saps this energy. Nationalism has a chance of
1 See: Kultura v sovremennom mire: opyt, problemy, reshenia, Issue 3, Moscow, 2002.
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being preserved in the 21st century, in the globalized post-industrial society, but without national hostility and intolerance.”2
Two extreme points of view on the consequences of globalization can be singled out: universal Americanization and standardization of everyday lifestyles and cultures, on the one hand, and trends toward demarcation and confrontation, on the other. For example, the supporters of alarmism view globalism as a threat to the existence of traditional cultures, as a factor promoting the deformation of ethno-national values. But new approaches to studying the problems of globalization are appearing, one of which is the ethnography of globalization, since the global culture is not only forming under the influence of Western standards, but every ethnic culture is also having an impact on the formation of the global model.3
At the present stage, the globalization processes not only level out ethnic values, but also encourage their development. In the polyethnic space of the Russian Federation, the preservation and development of traditional cultures is becoming a necessary and important component of cultural policy. According to V. Zhidkov and K. Sokolov, “the cultural policy of a democratic state is activity which presumes the following:
“ 1. the formation of conceptual ideas based on public consent about the place and role of culture in the life of society and about the proper state of cultural life;
“2. the definition of priority goals for developing culture;
“3. the drawing up of corresponding programs; and
“4. their implementation by distributing different types of resources.”4
All of the listed areas are being developed to one extent or another in cultural policy at the federal and regional levels. In Russia, “federal legislation envisages the equal value of all cultures and their right to self-expression, and the federal authorities are demonstrating a desire to support diversity and cultural pluralism. The development of national cultures and the cultures of ethnic groups is regarded as a priority of the Russian Ministry of Culture, and targeted programs envisage a whole series of campaigns designed to support them.”5
Preserving and studying the ethnocultural environment of the people who reside in Kabardino-Balkaria is a priority task of the republic’s cultural policy, which is based on Russia’s perception as a historical union of different nations, nationalities, and ethnic groups. So preserving a single cultural space for the peoples of the Northern Caucasus, as well as integrating the culture of the peoples of Kabardino-Balkaria into the common cultural space of the Russian Federation is a matter of a strategic priority.
Cultural Life in Kabardino-Balkaria
Cultural life in Kabardino-Balkaria is being enhanced by encouraging the development of traditional and professional skills, preserving and using the cultural heritage, and creating new values. Keeping in mind the importance of developing independent creativity, since the 1990s, republic-level festivals of folk song and dance ensembles and the performers of Adighe and Balkarian folk songs,
2 Iu. Iakovets, Globalizatsia i vzaimodeistvie tsivilizatsii, Moscow, 2001, p. 287.
3 See: G. Liutikova, “Globalizatsia i kultura,” Kultura v sovremennom mire, opyt, problemy, reshenia, Issue 2, Moscow, 2002, p. 16.
4 V. Zhidkov, K. Sokolov, Kulturnaia politika Rossii, Moscow, 2001.
5 “Doklad zarubezhnykh ekspertov o kulturnoy politike v Rossii,” in: Kulturnaia politika Rossii: istoria i sovre-mennost, ed. by K. Razlogov, I. Butenko, Moscow, 1998, p. 237.
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national cultural festivals, regional cultural festivals (the Chegetia Festival of Art Songs, the Earth Shall Bloom Festival of Young Performers of Popular Songs, the Golden Disk Regional Competition of Popular Song Performers, and so on), shows and contests of choreographic art, folk orchestras, the Kashirgova national harmonica players, and so on have been regularly held in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR). Since 2001, the republic’s musicians have been participating in the Petropav-lovsk Ensembles competition of folk instrument players held in St. Petersburg.
Contests of different genres of musical art are regularly held at the North Caucasian Institute of Arts (NCIA): in 1994, the department of folk instruments held the First North Caucasian Competition of Folk Instrument Performers, and in 2000, the First North Caucasian Open Competition of Vocalists. In 2006, the Third North Caucasian Open Competition of Vocalists named after Russian Federation People’s Artiste N.K. Gastasheva was held. “I am sure that if we stop performing and listening to Tchaikovsky, Rakhmaninov, Beethoven, Brahms, and other Russian, foreign, and national composers only, this would lead to a decline in professional art and hinder our spiritual development,”6 notes N. Gastasheva.
In 1993, a professional ensemble called Shikapshina was created at the NCIA College of Culture and Arts under the supervision of V. Kharitonov, a talented teacher and head of the folk instrument department (in 2004, M. Kashirgova became the director). Its repertoire includes works by Kabardino-Balkarian composers, more than 40 of which are kept in the archives of the music foundation of KBR radio and television, as well as folk melodies arranged by V. Kharitonov. The Shikapshina ensemble of Adighe instruments took part in the Fraternal Songs Festival of the Caucasian Peoples in Cherkessk, in the Third International Festival of Adighe Culture in Maikop, and in the KBR Days of Art in Moscow. In 2007, the ensemble won first prize at the First Open Republican Contest of Folk Instrument Ensembles in Maikop.
The growing interest in traditional culture can also be seen in professional types of art: theater and painting. “Historical themes from the life of the Kabardinians and Balkars, as well as traditional customs are expressed more and more frequently in paintings and graphic works, and people are comprehending the figurative structure of traditional folk art and penetrating deeper into its national foundations,”7 notes B. Malbakhov.
The Nalkut-Nalmys National Showpiece Fashion Theater, created in 1996 at the Republican Center of Scientific and Technical Creativity of the KBR Ministry of Education is successfully engaged in preserving and developing the traditions of national art, as well as in the study of modern technology of decorative-applied art. In 2004, it was awarded the Grand Prix at the 8th National Contest of Children’s Fashion Theaters. In 2007, the theater’s collective was awarded a special prize in the Best Headgear of Russia nomination at the Golden Needle Association Contest sponsored by V. Zaitsev. According to the heads of the creative studio, the restoration and development of folk art, in particular national costume, is impossible without pursuing figurative stylistics and studying both the past and present art practice of the people. Only then is it possible to see the prospects for developing national culture.
However, there are several urgent problems in the development of national art creativity. For example, the old industrial centers with rich art traditions are gradually being taken over by contemporary enterprises which do not always consistently develop the traditional art heritage, as well as by those that are placing particular emphasis on stylizing items of traditional art. This heterogeneity often erodes the understanding of the cultural and creative tasks of craft industries. Moreover, during significant sociocultural changes and transformations, both in society as a whole and in national art in particular, the vernacular arts require concise organization in order to promote the emergence of new facets of traditional art and raise it to a new level of development.
6 “Bol’shoi gala-kontsert v Institute iskusstv. Interview S. Mottaevoi s N. Gastashevoi (Grand Gala Concert at the Institute of Arts. Interview of S. Mottaeva with N. Gastasheva),” Kabardino-Balkarskaia pravda, 16 December, 2006.
7 B. Malbakhov, Kabardinskoe narodnoe dekorativnoe iskusstvo, Elbrus Publishers, Nalchik, 1984, p. 92.
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At present, carpet, jewelry, and other crafts, which are becoming centers of applied art, try to preserve their specific features: the prevalence of handicrafts and the creative execution of items based on the collective nature of the craftsmen’s activity, techniques, and art tradition. Defining the purpose of an item is still an important element in craftwork and presumes the ability to give form and art integrity to a decorative piece. At present, development of traditional crafts is giving rise to several problems associated with the following:
1. segregating traditional crafts into an independent organization;
2. training staff in special educational institutions;
3. developing national crafts as a specific art system.
Without qualified specialists, no scientific organization of national art crafts and ethnic aesthetics, or restoration of traditional art is possible.
Contemporary folk creativity is verging on design and aimed at producing contemporary items, on the one hand, and on fine art and designing individual decorative hand-crafted items, on the other. In the first case, projects are being created for different branches of industry and enterprises that manufacture art items, and in the second for special art workshops where hand work is widely used to produce fabric, ceramic, and carpet items. Sometimes an applied artist not only designs, but also makes the item himself, as a prototype to be mass produced or as a unique work. Examples are G. Bzheumykhov (plastic arts), L. Bulatov (felt), L. Nurmagomedova (batik), V. Oiberman (musical instruments), and others.
Unfortunately, some types of traditional art (felt rugs, matting) are no longer used for a variety of everyday purposes, but serve only as decorations to accent the national style of a home. They have been replaced by factory-made rugs, including handmade ones. For example, since 1985, the rugs of Nalchik’s Gorianka factory have been exported to Canada, England, and the U.S. and are in great demand since they are made from natural wool and of a high quality. They also come in a wide variety of designs ranging from artistic and floral to national and children’s motifs.
At present in the Northern Caucasus, along with striving for active differentiation in art culture, there is also a desire to preserve unity in the ornamentation, style, and theme of vernacular art items. This often leads to local cultural features being erased and works of national art losing their originality. But their unique characteristics based primarily on the creative hand work of masters must be preserved to ensure that enterprises making vernacular art souvenirs are productive. The replicated style of folk art prevalent in machine-made items lowers the artistic and aesthetic virtues of the product being made. Studying these questions has great scientific and practical meaning, since it allows the correct approach to be taken when making use of the extremely rich experience of the past, as well as means of artistic expressiveness, decorative-technical techniques, forms of national art, diverse ornamental motifs, and thematic compositions, in contemporary practice.
The distinct and to a certain extent simple forms in folk creativity make its content easy to understand and also help to draw the individual into the creative process. The folk creativity of every nation has genres and forms in which the strongest traditions have developed. The uneven development of certain types of folk art is explained by specific features of the nation’s socioeconomic and everyday lifestyle, as well as its historically developed trends.
In a scientific study called Ethnic Tolerance in the Polycultural Regions of Russia, the authors singled out four strategies of inter-group interaction under polycultural conditions:
1. preservation of one’s own culture and acceptance of others;
2. search for and protection of one’s own cultural identity;
3. differentiation in keeping with ethnic and confessional traits; 4. search for social incorporation.
All the above-mentioned categories are aimed at preserving or acquiring a positive and clear ethnic identity, which is the basis of ethnic tolerance, as well as at balancing out the system of inter-
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group interaction. These include social-psychological mechanisms for preserving ethnic cultures and achieving ethnic tolerance.8
In this way, during the globalization of culture, which aims to develop universal spiritual-moral values, great importance is attached to art culture, an important task of which is not only to preserve one’s own ethnocultural values, but also to inculcate humanistic traditions of tolerant consciousness and behavior.
C o n c l u s i o n
In today’s society, culture is becoming complex in structure due to its transformation from a relatively closed into an open system in which ethnic interaction, which is particularly intense in multinational states due to the external influence of a huge inflow of innovations, is beginning to function along with interaction with a particular nationality. Under globalization conditions, ethnic culture no longer represents an autonomous system, but still remains the basis of the nation’s culture, its nucleus. Without this nucleus, it is impossible to talk about the uniqueness of a culture, since uniqueness is not a mechanical combination of traits, but something derived from the roots of a system that has developed over the centuries. Any society, no matter how complex its structure, always possesses some “nucleus of culture” consisting of fragments of the picture of the world that are common to most subcultures.
The current cultural space of Kabardino-Balkaria is characterized by a new approach to using the traditional values of culture which includes active study of cultural heritage and religious values. The ethnic role of art is growing in today’s society to assume the nature of fundamental interaction among ethnic, interethnic, and universal components.
The contradictory features of today’s cultural situation are manifested in the diverse theories of Russia’s further development: assimilating Western and, primarily, American standards as quickly as possible, or vise versa, searching for a formula of national self-preservation in today’s globalizing world? Global integration is forcing the people of the world to take measures aimed at preserving and supporting national culture. In the era of global standardization of cultures, understanding the principal importance of retaining cultural and linguistic diversity requires carrying out a special policy aimed at preserving and developing ethno-national traditions in Russia’s polycultural space.
8 See: Etnicheskaia tolerantnost v polikulturnykh regionakh Rossii, ed. by N. Lebedeva, A. Tatarko, Moscow, 2002, p. 385.
