(Source: http://www.interfax.ru/culture/398758)

The text of the draft “The Principles of State Cultural Policy” should be supplemented by a provision on the uniqueness of the civilization created in Russia combining the best achievements of world culture with traditional values. According to Interfax, the Ministry of Culture insists on it.

The officials of the Ministry of Culture prepared proposals to the draft “The Principles of State Cultural Policy” and announced them at the meeting of the Public Council of the Ministry held on Thursday, September 25th. In this context they proposed to replace the phrase “Russia is a country that created a great culture” by another one: “Russia is a unique civilization characterized by the national culture that has absorbed and creatively reworked all the best things of the world’s cultural heritage in accordance with its traditional values constituting the basis of its civilizational identity”.

The Ministry was also not satisfied with the phrase “understanding of the Russian culture as an integral part of the world culture”. The authors of the amendments proposed to consider the Russian culture “a distinctive integral part of the world culture”.

Moreover, the officials proposed to add a provision on the preservation of the Russian repertory theatre.

At the same time the leaders of the ministry did not support the idea of reflection of the role of Orthodoxy in the draft of “The Principles of State Cultural Policy”. “Russia is a secular state, and Orthodoxy is one of our traditional values, its priority is already indicated in the project” – the First Deputy Minister of Culture Vladimir Aristarkhov said.

The draft of “The Principles of State Cultural Policy” was brought up to public discussion in mid-May. The discussion is to end before September 30, after that the final version of the document will be submitted to the President.

The draft of the document was developed by a working group chaired by the head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov. During the preparation of the draft for the public discussion the working group rejected a number of proposals from the Ministry of Culture that sent its own version of the document. In particular, a resonance was drawn up by the thesis “Russia is not Europe” which the ministry proposed to include into the document. “But the thesis “Russia is not Europe” will definitely be not included into the project, for it contradicts the objectives and the style of the document - an attempt to consolidate the society” - the adviser to the President of Russia Vladimir Tolstoy said, he is also a deputy chairman of the working group on the development of the concept of cultural construction.

The approach of the relevant ministry to the development of a concept of cultural policy principles surprised the working group, as the adviser to the President admitted. “Usually we are keen to share the position of the Ministry of Culture” - he said. The concept of the Ministry of Culture was signed by the First Deputy Minister of Culture Vladimir Aristarkhov and sent to Tolstoy as a deputy chairman of the working group. Under the version of the Ministry of Culture the document was to include the provision on “rejection of the principles of multiculturalism and tolerance”. The concept also contained a call to abandon state support addressed to the individuals and communities that deviated from cultural norms of behavior, for this deviation is unacceptable “in terms of the traditional Russian system of values”.