Between Hard and Soft Power: British and Russian Youth on National Pride

Abstract

This study examines the collective memory of British and Russian youth. We used the results of a comparative survey conducted among Russian and British students. The study focuses primarily on pride in the collective memory of young people with the aim of analyzing the category of pride among young people across several dimensions. First, we look at the qualitative content of national pride: pride in the realization of tasks related to “soft power” (for example, culture, education, sports), and pride in manifestations of “hard power” (for example, pride in military victories or power politics). Second, we analyze the temporal localization of national pride: where are the main events, personalities, and phenomena study participants take pride in, both in the past and in the present. Third, an important element of understanding pride in a country is the relationship between pride and shame: what events are mentioned more often: shameful or pride-inspiring.

In studies of culture and national identity, social scientists often turn to the idea of pride among citizens in their country. Questions about national pride are included in most large-scale recent comparative studies, such as the World Values Survey (WVS), the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), and regional surveys such as the European Values Study (EVS). In articles based on findings from the studies listed here, authors have often found a connection between pride and a series of other important socio-economic and cultural characteristics. For example, studies have identified a relationship between national pride and xenophobia (Hjerm 1998), national pride and sporting achievements (Shibli, Ramchandani, and Davies 2021), national pride and social and demographic characteristics (Smith and Kim 2006; Evans and Kelley 2002), and national pride and liberal or authoritarian views (Andrews, McGlynn, and Mycock 2010). Studies have also demonstrated that national pride is positively associated with happiness (Ha and Jang 2015). A subset of studies directly turns to the sources of national pride. At the same time, social and cultural contexts have proven important for national specificities (Schwartz, Kazuya, Sachiko 2005; Schwartz and Kim 2001; Zhang and Schwartz 1997). This latter category of work can be described as a new direction within memory studies that deal particularly with so-called joyful memories. As Tea Sindbæk Andersen and Jessica Ortner contend currently, the dominant sub-topics within memory studies are trauma and traumatic memories (Andersen and Ortner 2019). At the same time, to contribute to a more differentiated understanding of the nature of memory, we must include positive, constructive, and hopeful memories in our studies of memory. This is the direction taken by Tamara P. Trošt, who has analyzed the role of joyful memories in the formation of national identity and nation-building (Trošt 2019).

This particular article examines the collective memory of British and Russian youth. The authors used the results of a comparative survey conducted among Russian and British students. This research is a part of a bigger comparative research project of the Institute for Applied Political Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. It is aimed at examining the peculiarities of collective memory and national identity among young people in different countries. Within the framework of this project, polls are being conducted in Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, South Korea, Japan, and Venezuela. Several studies have already been published based on the analysis of the collected data (Kasamara, Sorokina, Maximenkova 2018; Sorokina and Maximenkova 2020; Katrich 2021). The data collected during the realization of the project are used in this study, as well. However, unlike other studies, the authors decided to emphasize the peculiarities of national pride. In addition, this study focuses on Russian and British students who have not been compared previously within the framework of this project.

Theoretical Framework of the Study

The following study fits the theoretical framework of other works devoted to the study of collective memory. The concept of collective memory was first introduced by French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (Halbwachs 1992). In its most general form, collective memory is understood as an idea of the past, constructed and shared by members of a particular social group.

In recent times, the study of collective memory has become common in the academic field. Dedicated “Memory Studies” journals have appeared, offering an interdisciplinary framework for conducting academic dialogues on issues related to memory, international academic conferences are being organized, and specialized master’s programs are being launched.

The “memory boom” is linked to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic (USSR), which was followed by the formation of new states, for which questions related to memory took on a key role in the building of new national identities (Corning 2010; Jõesalu 2012). Сollective memory serves as the main mechanism for maintaining group identity or as a solution to the problem of “identity crisis.” Collective memory is actively studied in the analysis of processes of national identity transformation, for example, in the study of the roots of Brexit (Schmidt, Muzzulini, Levine, and Tinti 2021; Crozier 2020). Studies on the interconnection of collective memory and identity also give a significant role to group-based emotions. For example, Grigoryan and Efremova (2017) state that people with strong identities feel more threatened by negative collective emotions associated with the in-group’s past, which discourages positive attitudes toward out-groups associated with these emotions.

Modern researchers of collective memory (Olick and Robbins 1998) argue that memory constitutes the main “mediator,” through which national identity is constructed.

Imperial Memory: Diving into the Context

Although this study is devoted to national pride and aimed at developing a new toolkit for its analysis, to under the context, it is necessary to refer to the particularities of the specific countries being studied. Studies devoted to imperial memory have been of particular interest to the authors of this study, which is based on comparing British and Russian students’ perceptions of the past. In light of the particularities of their respective political cultures, the process of forming national identity in Russia and Britain took place under completely different conditions. However, despite the difference in political systems, both Russia and Great Britain have imperial legacies, which affect not only collective memory, but also the construction of a contemporary identity, the things a nation takes pride in, and what a nation thinks about its past.

In 2014, Russia adopted the “New study course framework for national history,” including a historical and cultural standard, which emphasizes an increased focus on the study of the Great Patriotic War as an important element of “patriotic education.” New history textbooks had already been prepared and published based on this standard. From the beginning of 2015, three sets of textbooks from leading Russian publishing houses (“Prosveshcheniye,” “Drofa,” and “Russkoe Slovo”) were included in the federal textbook list. The blurb for the set of textbooks from Prosveshcheniye Publishers declares, “The main result of studying the course should be the formation of students’ Russian civic identity and patriotism.”

At the same time, patriotism, which Russian President Vladimir Putin called “the only national idea,” is built predominantly in a militaristic manner. The state program, “Patriotic education of citizens of the Russian Federation for 2016–2020,” indicated that developing the military–patriotic education of citizens is one of the government’s main tasks. Additionally, strengthening the prestige of serving in the Russian Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies, improving the practice of military units (or navy vessels), taking responsibility for educational organizations as well as labor associations, businesses, districts, cities, regions, krais, and republics were considered important in the education of citizens. In turn, the government’s focus on the formation of militaristic patriotic attitudes contributes to the fact that military victories and achievements—“hard power”—are beginning to dominate in collective memory. At the same time, the government hardly uses its resources for promoting “soft” patriotism. Students have no “heroes” from the fields of culture and art.

Furthermore, at the state level, patriotism is built entirely on positive events and the deliberate silencing of “uncomfortable” historical themes. For example, the topic of World War II takes up 70 pages in a Russian textbook, while Stalin’s collectivization policies take up just one page (Kasamara and Sorokina 2017).

In Britain, the situation is the opposite. Here, the emphasis at the state level is on how important it is to take pride in the country’s soft power, both in the past and at present. Great Britain consistently takes first or second place in global soft power ratings (The Soft Power 30 2019) and has a leading position in the Nation Brands Index (Brand Finance 2019). The British government also issues several reports on the state of soft power in the country, and even refers to itself as a “soft power superpower” (British Council Report 2018). This also takes into account the teaching of history, in which various historical events are represented as “soft power” events. In British history textbooks, for example, the experience of World War II is analyzed not in the context of military action and key battles, but rather in terms of the impact of the war on civilian life in Britain. In addition, these textbooks pay special attention to the role of women in the war (Foster 2005).

Historical events that present the state in a negative light are not silenced, but rather the opposite, they are made public. In the country’s modern political discourse, the role of the colonial past and post-imperial development is widely discussed and even talked about from different perspectives. This discussion is not just being conducted in the pages of academic journals, but also in recent best-sellers. In official speeches, politicians do not hesitate to admit that the country lost confidence in the post-1945 period, “with the end of empire and economic decline” (Osler 2009). Researchers also acknowledge that public perceptions of the country’s history and different versions of its imperial past are constantly fluctuating and changing, affecting the popular understanding of the multicultural present (Black 2016).

Under these conditions, the concept of patriotism is also subject to rethinking, and begins to be interpreted as a concept based on shared values, rather than on race or ethnicity (Osler 2009). The topic of discussion in the process of teaching history in schools is whether to promote patriotism and also how to promote it. Authors of several works do not consider it necessary to promote “Britishness” and pride in being British. They believe that the key task in the educational process is demonstrating the contradictory nature of the past, and explaining that there is no indisputable point of view, but rather several different “realities,” each of which needs to be approached critically. “Students should be made aware of the principal arguments for and against patriotism, and [be] enabled to form their own considered judgements on the matter” (Hand and Pearce 2011).

In an interview, British historian Geoffrey Alan Hosking said that both Russia and Great Britain share a “post-imperial syndrome.” He argued that, “in the case of Great Britain, this feeling existed, but less acutely, because our empire disintegrated slowly, and almost all the parts of the empire were far away from us, these were overseas territories” (Radio Svoboda 2008). As such, conducting a comparative study will reveal how different strategies of “inhabiting” an imperial past influence the distinctiveness of a collective memory in modern times. Developing an understanding of these particularities will also contribute to building relations between Russia and the United Kingdom.

Following the work of Piotr Sztompka, the loss of the status of the empire can be viewed as cultural trauma, that is, as a cultural phenomenon and state of being that is experienced by a group of people, or by a society, because of devastating events that are interpreted as culturally traumatizing. Sztompka identifies two scenarios for overcoming this state of trauma: “one is the vicious cycle of cultural destruction, another a virtuous cycle of cultural reconstruction. The former occurs when parametric changes aggravate traumatizing situations, people resort to ineffective (or even counter-effective) coping strategies, and the obsolete culture is supported and perseveres by obsessive cultivation of memories. Another is a benign parametric change ameliorating the traumatizing situations, coupled with effective coping with trauma, and the ebbing of the obsolete cultural legacy through generational turnover (Sztompka 2000). We believe that the process of overcoming cultural trauma has taken two different courses in Russia and Great Britain. The difference in perceptions of the imperial past and in ways of working with this past has been examined in numerous studies (Smith 2016; Lo 2002). In his book, Collapse of an Empire, Yegor Gaidar argued that the political elite of Great Britain, unlike the elite of Russia, do not view this process as a geopolitical catastrophe (Gaidar 2010).

If in British society, the disintegration of the empire is a historical event that has been reflexively discussed, in the Russian case, this event has taken the form of post-imperial nostalgia that allows people to idealize the past and to block a constructive understanding of the present.

Empirical Collective Memory Studies

To develop empirical toolkit and to further analyze the findings, the authors of the article referred to studies based on empirical studies of the national pride and shame. Several studies have examined the relationships between national identity, collective memory, and feelings of shame and pride. Researchers have conducted both case studies of particular countries (McDonnell and Fine 2011), and have also drawn on comparative perspectives. These studies make it possible to track differences between countries, in terms of which events become sources of pride and/or shame, how these events are interpreted, and how they are experienced (Kasamara, Sorokina, and Maximenkova 2018; Schwartz, Fukuoka and Takita-Ishii 2005; Schwartz and Kim 2001; Zhang and Schwartz 1997).

Our study contributes to the research on memory that focuses on comparative analysis. First, we look at the qualitative content of national pride. To identify objects of pride, the majority of researchers studying collective memory use the typology suggested by the ISSP: (1) the way democracy works, (2) its political influence in the world, (3) a country’s economic system, (4) its social security system, (5) its scientific and technological achievements, (6) its achievements in sports, (7) its achievements in the arts and literature, (8) a country’s armed forces, (9) its history, and (10) its fair and equal treatment of all groups in society (Fabrykant and Magun 2019; Smith and Kim 2006; Domm 2001). However, for a comparative analysis in the context of collective memory, these various components can be consolidated. We propose dividing pride into two main groups: pride in the realization of tasks related to “soft power” (for example, culture, education, and sports), and pride in manifestations of “hard power” (for example, pride in military victories or power politics), drawing on the international relations concepts of “hard power” and “soft power” proposed by Nye (2004). However, while classifying this or that particular event as “soft power” or “hard power” we suggest focusing not only on the character of the event itself, but also on the way it is mentioned and the semantic content implied by those surveyed. Thus, for instance, the armed forces can function both as “hard power” when being used as a means of coercion and as “soft power” to those who believe their country’s army is no longer used to coerce but rather as a symbol of certain values (courage, gallantry, etc.). Likewise, a country’s economy falls under the category of “hard power” in cases where the military-industrial complex is emphasized or “soft power” if its role is assessed from the standpoint of quality of life.

To operationalize the notion of pride in the realization of tasks related to soft and hard power, the authors also referred to the studies devoted to the study of patriotism. In fact, in their studies, Staub and his colleagues use the terms “blind” and “constructive” patriotism in the realization of their empirical tasks. Staub described blind patriotism as a rigid and inflexible attachment to country, characterized by unquestioning positive evaluation, staunch allegiance, and intolerance of criticism. At the same time, constructive patriotism refers to an attachment to country characterized by “critical loyalty,” questioning and criticism of current group practices that are driven by a desire for positive change (Schatz, Staub, and Lavine 1999). Modern studies devoted to the feeling of pride in the country’s achievements are mostly related to the analysis of these two types of patriotism and various socio-political variables. The studies illustrate that researchers often relate constructive patriotism with civil freedoms, critical way of thinking, and tolerance. But at the same time, the issues of national safety and ethnical integrity are not as important for it as for blind patriotism (Cameron and Berry 2008; Schatz, Staub, and Lavine 1999). Unlike blind patriotism, constructive patriotism is not critical toward emigration, because it considers the freedom of choosing the place of living to be one of the main personal rights and freedoms (Spry and Hornsey 2007).

In our opinion, active appeals to militarism, when national pride mostly results from military victories and demonstration of political power, that is, to the elements of “hard power,” is more likely to be associated with blind patriotism than constructive patriotism. This is made obvious by an American study of how US citizens perceive the 2003 military campaign in Iraq (McCleary, Nalls, and Williams 2009). In contrast, the feeling of pride based on cultural values, scientific and technological achievements, art, and developed institutions, that is, pride based on “soft power,” is more likely to be associated with constructive patriotism (Smith and Kim 2006; Evans and Kelley 2002).

If we turn to modern comparative studies on collective memory, we can observe that several authors identify nations where pride is dominated by cultural achievements, such as in literature and sports (Grossberg, Struwig, and Pillay 2006). For example, according to researchers of collective memory, the main source of pride for students from Ghana is the Ghanaian’s reputation for hospitality to strangers (McDonnell and Fine 2011), whereas for Korean students, it is achievements in sports (Schwartz and Kim 2001). Both hospitality and sports are elements of “soft power.” Meanwhile, pride in the armed forces, which is, in essence, “hard power,” is a very important ground for national pride in Russia (WCIOM 2019). Therefore, Nye’s concept of “soft power” as applied to collective memory, allows for methodologically improving the instruments for comparison.

Second, we analyze the temporal localization of national pride: where are the main events, personalities, and phenomena study participants take pride in, both in the past and present.

Third, an important element of understanding pride in a country is the relationship between pride and shame. When analyzing national pride, it is important to consider what events are mentioned by the country’s representatives or some particular groups of people most often, whether these events are shameful or pride-inspiring, and what specific events are mentioned as shameful or pride-inspiring. Modern researchers have mainly studied the collective feeling of shame in detail (Fukuoka and Schwartz 2010; Lickel, Steele, and Schmader 2011). However, the main focus of these studies is either on pride or on shame in different countries. There are few studies where the feeling of shame is compared with the feeling of pride in a given country or countries, which could allow for identifying the countries where the feeling of pride is predominant. For example, the study (Grigoryan, Khaptsova, and Poluektova 2018) shows that the feeling of pride prevails among Russian respondents over the feeling of shame, because the respondents were not ready to take responsibility for shameful events on themselves or their in-group, focusing on the fact that responsibility, first of all, refers to the people involved in the decision-making process at the state level.

Research Methods, Data, and Methodological Constraints

The empirical part of this study is based on data collected in Russia and Great Britain. Between September 2014 and April 2016, the Institute for Applied Political Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics conducted a study among 1399 students enrolled in the three top-ranking universities of Moscow, namely Moscow State University (MSU), National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), and MGIMO University (496 – MSU, 363 – MGIMO, 540 – NRU HSE). This sample included BA-level students from all faculties from the first to the fourth year. Of the 1399 study participants who partook in the Russian stage of the study, 630 were male and 769 were female. In total, 727 were first- and second-year students, while 672 were third- and fourth-year students. All the students we polled were Russian citizens studying in Russia (this is what we mean when we refer to study participants as “Russian students”). The study subjects included 365 students enrolled in natural sciences programs, 935 students studying social sciences subjects, and 99 in engineering.

The study compares these results with data collected in Great Britain between February 2016 and February 2017, based on a total of 368 British BA-level students surveyed at the University of Cambridge, of which 152 study participants identified as male, 207 as female, and 9 as other. A total of 220 participants in Great Britain were first- and second-year students, while 148 were third- or fourth-year students. All the students we polled were UK citizens (this is what we mean when we refer to study participants as “British students”). The subject areas the students focused on included 115 students in humanities, 105 in natural sciences, 68 in social sciences, 28 in engineering, 7 in law, 5 in business or economics, and 40 answered “other” in this category.

The questionnaire comprised 96 closed and four open questions devoted to the relative importance of the past, present, or future perceptions of each of these periods, normative political beliefs and orientations (political leader and elites), self-conception (how respondents evaluate their own country and how they believe others evaluate it), and collective memory. The questions concerning collective memory are mainly based on Barry Schwartz’s methodology of studying historical pride and shame, and participants’ judgments of their nation’s past (Schwartz, Fukuoka, and Takita-Ishii 2005; Schwartz and Kim 2001; Zhang and Schwartz 1997).

Two of the questions were open, and the answers to them formed the basis of this article:

• • Please give three episodes/events in the history of our country that you believe we should take pride in.

• • Please give three episodes/events in the history of our country that you believe we should be ashamed of.

When answering these questions, the respondents had the opportunity to expand upon their point of view in as much detail as possible.

In total, respondents took between 40 and 60 minutes to complete the questionnaire. The answers to the open-ended questions were analyzed according to qualitative methods of content analysis, using the QDA Miner software. The coding was conducted according to all the requirements applied to qualitative analysis, including intercoder reliability assessment to enhance the credibility of the research outcomes (Burla, Knierim, Barth, Liewald, Duetz, and Abel 2008). The answers were coded independently by two coders. Then the coding results were compared and discussed until common understanding of categories and codes and coding system (codebook) was developed. The coding was conducted within the framework of a bottom-up approach (inductively), which is typical of conventional qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). Thus, the analytical process was aimed at reconstructing structures of meaning of research participants, and codes and categories were developed from a sequential analysis of data. This explains, in large part, the differences between the names of similar codes and categories in two countries—they take into account the specifics of the answers given by British and Russian students.

The sample in Russia was constructed based on quota sampling at each of the aforementioned universities. Within the quota for each university, we also constructed a quota sample for gender as well as for younger (first and second years) and older students (third and fourth years). Within each quota, we used snowball sampling to recruit participants. At Cambridge, we also sampled students by constructing quotas for gender as well as for the younger (first and second years) and older students (third and fourth years). We used quota sampling to create groups from Russia and Great Britain that we could compare with one another, which also helped to minimize the specificity of the universities we sampled. A slight departure from our planned quotas (50% male and 50% female; as well as 50% students from first and second years, and 50% students from third and fourth years) did not affect our results. After rescaling the sample, our results did not change. The sample was based on convenience and access as well as on the willingness of students to participate.

It is important to note that our study has several limitations. Our results do not allow us to reflect on youth in Great Britain and in Russia in general, or even on students of elite universities at large.

We should also emphasize a very important methodological limitation. First, the sample in Britain is noticeably smaller than the sample in Russia. Conducting sociological research requires the approval of ethics commissions. Therefore, as Russian researchers, we had a greater opportunity to obtain this approval and access at Russian universities, while conducting research in Great Britain included several logistical restrictions. Eventually, we were only granted the opportunity to conduct research and obtain approval from an ethics commission at Cambridge. Nevertheless, the results of analyzing the answers to the open-ended questions in both countries allows us to claim to have achieved theoretical saturation, while the quantitative section obviously requires additional research. Therefore, in this article, we will limit our analysis of students’ responses to the two open-ended questions that are the most important for us, based on Barry Schwartz’s methodology of studying historical pride and shame.

Second, our study stems from differing data collection strategies. In Russia, students filled out questionnaires independently, in the presence of a research coordinator, while in Great Britain, the questionnaires were distributed by means of email in the form of an online survey. We used two different data collection strategies for several reasons; first, was the falling levels of trust in society, which makes it difficult to motivate students to answer surveys online, while personal arrangements with a research coordinator, and the distribution of paper questionnaires to groups of students increased the possibility of students’ willingness to fill out the survey anonymously. Furthermore, many of the departments in Russian universities do not have centralized lists of student emails, which would allow for the distribution of an online survey. At Cambridge, we could easily distribute the questionnaire online through University Services, which structured sampling and used a single database of contacts to reach students. In the case of our survey in Russia and Great Britain, the difference in data collection strategies did not fundamentally affect the process of obtaining results, or response rates, in particular.

Results

Pride in Soft and Hard Power in the Context of Collective Memory

“Soft” Pride Among British Students

The survey question concerning events they take pride in often resulted in difficulties for British students. Over 40% could not answer this question, or responded that there were no such events.

We analyzed the responses by grouping all the events mentioned by the participants of the British survey (582 mentions) into categories. Our analysis of events listed as inspiring pride resulted in forty-six categories that can be classified as reflecting predominantly “soft power.” Events related to soft power are present in 41 of 46 categories. Hard power was present in only five categories. For the sake of comparison, we can also list the number of mentions of events that can be attributed to soft and hard power: 553 for soft power, and 29 for hard power. This means that events that can be generally classified as a part of soft power, or events that can be interpreted as relating to soft rather than hard power, are mentioned by students 19 times more than events that relate to hard power.

The Grounds for Pride Among British Students: Events Relating to “Soft Power”

The top-most mentioned events among those that inspire pride are shared by World War II and the National Health Service, or NHS (the latter is an institution rather than an event). Other phenomena were far behind and were mentioned at least two times less often than the two aforementioned events.

World War II

The category “World War II” is mentioned slightly more often than the NHS, but includes several sub-categories which includes the Battle of Britain, mentioned as one of the most important military campaigns of war for the British people (2% of study participants), and the cryptanalysis of the Enigma as a contribution of scientists to the war effort and victory (1%). Most of the answers within this category stressed the ethos of the British people manifested in the war, “the role ordinary people played in ending Nazi concentration camps,” “the sacrifices of all conscripted men and women,” and the fact that during the war democracy was successfully defended. This allowed this military event to be classified as an event related to “soft power.” The central themes discussed here are not related to the victory in and of itself, but rather the interpretations of the study participants humanize this category.

The category “World War II” is thematically linked to two more categories. The first is the acceptance of refugees and migrants that includes welcoming German Jewish children during World War II, which occurred in part during the Kindertransport operation. The second category is the contribution to the founding of the United Nations as a result of World War II, which should contribute to the establishment and consolidation of a new world order.

Prosperity and Development

As for the NHS, pride in this institution is a traditional sentiment among British people. According to the results of a survey conducted in 2016 by Opinium Research among 2,003 adults in the United Kingdom, the NHS tops the Pride of Britain list. The list reveals that the NHS significantly overtook British history, which received 25% responses compared with 36% (Opinium Research 2019). The NHS is a symbol and manifestation of a welfare state constructed in the era of postwar socialism, which our study participants often stressed in their answers: “The creation of the Welfare State, including free healthcare (the NHS), we should be proud of it and protect it.” Eight percent of the study participants, when speaking of their pride in the welfare state, did not mention the specific example of the NHS or any other policies.

Civil Rights and Equality

An important part of British students’ perceptions of their national history is related to events that are manifestations of battles for equality and civil rights. The NHS is also a symbol of commitment to the principles of equality. However, as a part of the welfare state, the NHS is best understood in the context of the theme of protection and development of economic and social wellbeing.

If we turn to the topic of civil rights and equality, there is a series of events named by study participants, which are analyzed in this study that stretch across all of British history. From the Magna Carta in 1215 as a major document that outlined the importance of the rule of law, the equality of all before the court, and human rights, to the Chartist Movement and Reform Act in 1832, and the abolition of slavery and end of the slave trade in 1833, to a large number of 20th-century events: the Representation of the People Act in 1918, granting women the right to vote in 1928, signing of the UN declaration on Human Rights in 1948, the abolition of the death penalty in 1965, legalization of abortion in 1967, legalization of same-sex marriage in 2013, and even the petition to eliminate the tampon VAT in 2016.

Pure “Soft Power”

The very concept of “soft power” and the success of the country in this realm was one of the things British students listed as something they were proud of (1% of those polled used this term in response to the question about pride). At the same time, study participants listed a large number of scientific and cultural advances both relating to the past and the present. These are events that Joseph Nye would attribute to soft power.

“Numerous Scientific advances” is the most common category that made it into the top five reasons for national pride. Study participants did not limit themselves to general words about science in their responses, naming established and renowned names and examples they are proud of (Isaac Newton, Frank Whittle, Michael Faraday, Edward Jenner, Charles Darwin, Dorothy Hodgkin, Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, James D. Watson, etc. ¹ ) as well as their specific contributions (discovery of gravity in 1687, the small pox vaccine in 1796, discovery of penicillin in 1928, DNA discovery in the 1950s, Invention of the Concorde in 1965, and the invention of the worldwide web in 1989, the fight against severe acute respiratory syndrome or severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS] in 2003).

Largely, study participants also perceive the technological advances of the industrial revolution as a part of scientific advances, and students do not tend to list the key role of the United Kingdom as part of their perceptions of this period.

As far as cultural events are concerned, these are listed less often, and when they are mentioned, they mostly relate to popular culture. Study participants mentioned Harry Potter, The Beatles, David Bowie, and James Bond. Shakespeare was mentioned alongside Harry Potter.

The Standing of the Country in Relation to the World and Global Inequalities

A separate category in British students’ pride has to do with decolonization. It is important to note here that this category comes up not by itself as an element of pride, but it is always linked in the context of the shame felt due to the period of colonization (this was the historical phenomenon that most often inspired shame according to this study). It is also important to note that this category of decolonization is not just about the very process of decolonization, but also about the effects of decolonization. For example, students would mention Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, and his apology to the “stolen generation” and its children for the actions of Europeans who settled the continent.

The Political System and Political Development

The characteristics of the political system and the nature of political development are also themes mentioned by study participants in the context of pride. Among the things listed were the British parliament and the gradual movement toward “a more democratic system over time” from the 1640s to the present day, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a move from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy and the contribution toward joining the European Union, which helped secure “peace in Europe.” All the events mentioned here were linked by the study participants to “peace” and their “relatively peaceful” nature.

If we take a look at all mentions of events within each thematic group, we see that the most important events for the students we polled are those that have to do with civil liberties, human rights, equality, and the fight for these things. These phenomena account for 60% of all events mentioned by students as points of pride. The phenomena most-mentioned next are events related to prosperity and development (30%). The third and fourth places stand close together and include World War II and events relating to soft power—24% and 22%, respectively (see Table 1).

Table 1. The Most Frequently Mentioned Events Inspire a Feeling of Pride Among British Students

Note: Events named by ≥1% of respondents are presented (N = 368).

The Grounds for Pride Among British Students: Events Representing “Hard Power”

First, we should note that all five categories that we listed as events having to do with “hard power” are categorized in this way approximately. This is consistent with the fact that study participants did not offer a lengthy or detailed interpretation, and based on the logic of the events, they can be categorized as hard power rather than soft power.

For example, this relates to the largest category, which was nonetheless mentioned by only 5% of those polled—the category of “war.” Some of those polled did not specify which wars they are referring to. In instances when they did specify, they mostly listed World War I, the Falklands War, the Napoleonic wars, and specific battles (Trafalgar and Waterloo, and the Battle of Agincourt in the Hundred Years’ War, which was mentioned by only one person).

Other mentions of “hard power events,” that is, the Imperial period, the Commonwealth of England, Brexit, and The Protectorate were very rare. At the same time, we should note that Brexit is included in the list of “hard power events” because study participants perceive it as a way to impose economic limits on other countries, which is usually categorized as “hard power.”

“Hard” Pride Among Russian Students

Russian students found it much easier to answer the question about the things they are proud of. Only 23% of those polled could not answer the question or said there were no such things. At the same time, analysis revealed 126 categories of pride-inspiring events for those polled in Russia, but the respondents were rather consolidating and unifying among the top four most mentioned categories. Of the 126 categories in the Russian case, only 74 can be classified as soft power, while 52 can be classified as hard power. At the same time, hard power events dominate in terms of absolute numbers of mentions: of 2710 answers, 594 of them (or 22%) are “soft power events” and 2116 (or 78%) are “hard power events.” This means that events mentioned that relate to “soft power” exhibit greater variation, but events mentioned that relate to “hard power” are mentioned approximately 3.5 times as often as soft power events.

Our analysis of all categories of events that inspire pride among Russian students included grouping some of them thematically (see Table 2). Each thematic group contains events from very different periods of Russian history. Six of the nine thematic groups included both soft and hard power events in differing proportions.

Table 2. Thematic Groups of Events That Inspire a Feeling of Pride Among Russian Students

Note: N = 2710 mentions of events; 126 categories.

The Grounds for Pride Among Russian Students: Events Representing the “Hard Power” ²

Wars

A key historical event in the list of pride-inspiring events among Russian students is the victory in the Great Patriotic War (sometimes also referred to as the Great Fatherland War), which refers to the conflict in the USSR from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945 on the Eastern Front of World War II (see Table 3). Our analysis of the responses by the study participants allows us to assert that, despite similar ideas about heroism in the responses by British students about this event’s equivalent (World War II), the main image that comes up in the case of Russian students’ responses relates to the USSR repelling aggression, saving the entire world, and turning into a great power as a result. Respondents view the victory as a moment of glory for the country, “I can be proud of my country, the victor in the Great Patriotic War and in World War II, which gave a commendable pushback against enemy aggression, and commendable pushback against the fascist system in general, including the many satellite states of Japan, which was the bulwark of fascism in the Far East, no matter what the American and British textbooks say.”

Table 3. The Most Frequently Mentioned Events That Inspire a Feeling of Pride Among Russian Students (N = 1399)

Note: Events presented are those named by ≥1% of respondents.

A similar set of associations was voiced by study participants regarding the Patriotic War of 1812 (Napoleon’s invasion of Russia), which made it the top three events listed by Russian students as events they were proud of, “Our country was the winner against the aggressor. Napoleon could not be stopped by anyone in Europe, but we stopped him and destroyed him.” Even World War I, in which Russia stopped participating in 1918, sometimes made it into the list of three major military events as an example of the Russian people saving the people of other countries, “The War of 1812, World War I, and World War II, because throughout all of these three major wars we pulled Europe through, and then also America.”

Answering the question about pride, some of the study participants listed only military events, and at the same time were unable to name anything concrete to explain why they chose these events: “All of these events are connected. One can mention the Battle on the Ice, the war with Napoleon, and the Great Patriotic War. I start feeling pride in Russia when I read or hear about all of these events.”

Advances and Discoveries Related to Military Development or Are Intended for Military Use

The second most mentioned event in the list of Russian students’ pride is the launch of the first man into space. As in the case of the Great Patriotic War, there are some interpretations of this event in soft power terms, yet the most common narrative turns the event into a victory in the arms race. Study participants emphasized that the flight of Yuri Gagarin is “space colonization,” and “the launch of a person into space showed everyone the superiority of the country above the rest of the world.” At the same time, we have to stress that other events related to outer space do not have such connotations and are interpreted as scientific rather than military achievements.

In addition to the first space flight, students also named other sources of pride, such as the invention of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, which led to “the ascent of the USSR to superpower status,” the launch of the Proton rocket in 1965 and the Bulava missile in 2005, and the invention of the Kalashnikov rifle.

This thematic group also includes categories like the “Military-industrial complex of the USSR” in general, and “Industrialization/Five-year-plans in the USSR.”

Territory, Expansion

The thematic group “territory/expansion” includes a small number of categories related to the expansion of state borders from the birth of the state between 1325 and 1340, when the lands around Moscow were consolidated by Ivan Kalita, until the present day (including the events in Crimea in 2014). This also includes the development of new land, for example, through the establishment of Saint Petersburg in 1703, the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway between 1891 and 1916, and the territorial expansion during military operations (the takeover of the Caucasus by Russia, the partition of Poland in 1939, and others). Events that were included in this group are not always related to military might and military victories, yet according to the approach proposed by Joseph Nye, pride in territorial expansion is usually conceptualized as pride in hard power.

Specific Leaders

The manner in which history is taught in Russia results in the fact that, aside from military victories, specific leaders of the country come to the fore in Russian students’ visions of various periods of history. British students, unlike their Russian contemporaries, refrain from naming either historical or contemporary individuals in their survey responses (aside from the thematic group we titled “Pure soft power” and individual cases when Cromwell or Disraeli was mentioned). In the Russian case, however, students often mention specific people. The entire period of rule by the Tsars and emperors, general secretaries, and presidents are listed by students as matters they are proud of.

At the same time, when speaking of other important events that inspire a feeling of pride, they also mention the role of the individual in history. For example, “I believe that my favorite moment in history is Alexander Nevsky, his victory on the Chudskoe Lake ³ .”

However, elements of soft power also come to the fore. These emerge in descriptions of periods when heads of state were associated with study participants with liberal reforms and with the softening of the political regime. This includes the rule of Alexander I (1777–1825), Catherine II (1729–1796), and Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982), as well as the period of Vladimir Putin’s rule, which is described primarily as a time of “stability” in the positive sense.

The Grounds for Pride Among Russian Students: Events Representing the “Soft Power”

Soft Power: Sports, Culture, Science, Education

There were many pride-inspiring events related to pure soft power among Russian students, as in the case of British students. Some of the events from this thematic group were even among the most mentioned (see Table 3).

The most popular answers involve science and education; however, when study participants named science, they did not bring up specific examples, and approximately half of those polled named the periodic table of elements (called the Mendeleev Table in Russian, named after the Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev). A few people named Soviet achievements concerning space (for example, the launch of the first Sputnik; Valentina Tereshkova, the first female cosmonaut to have flown in space; Alexei Leonov, the first human being to conduct a spacewalk). These events, unlike the first space flight, are not associated by the study participants with the arms race or the space race, or a battle for prominence in the international arena. The same goes for achievements in the sphere of education (the achievement of free, high-quality education; the inclusion of Russia in the Bologna Process; the establishment of large universities).

Sports and athletic events occupy second place in the list of grounds for pride in the sphere of soft power. These include the high level of athletic achievement in the USSR, the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the right to host the soccer World Cup in 2018, etc.). All these events were related to Russia’s positive image in the international arena, which is a part of soft power, as understood by Joseph Nye.

A few responses touched upon the cultural sphere. The study participants did not even list things that are usually mentioned with regard to Russia by people from other countries. Phrases about culture were general and usually included statements like, “Russia’s contribution to world culture.”

Human Rights and Freedoms

The thematic group “Human rights and freedoms” is relatively small compared with other issues raised by Russian students as points of pride. This thematic group is also small when compared with the response of the British students in the same group (who valued these themes more often as points of pride).

The most prominent category in this sphere was the 1861 elimination of serfdom, or the slavery of peasants in the Russian Empire. The number of mentions of this event is similar to the number of British students who mentioned the abolition of slavery and the slave trade (8% compared with 9%, respectively). However, mentions of other topics in the realm of rights and freedoms by Russian students is very low, and together they make up less than 2%, and all these events occurred in the past (Russkaya Pravda, the collection of legal norms in Kievan Rus’ from 1016; the 1825 Decembrist revolt, which aimed to put an end to serfdom, autarchy, and so on).

The Inception of the State

The myth of state inception is usually key in the construction of collective memory among citizens of a nation-state, and can become the foundation of national identity. In the case of Russia, many events can be considered as the beginning of Russian history: the unification of Kiev and Novgorod by Prince Oleg in 882, the Christianization of Kievan Rus’ in 988, the beginning of the Romanov dynasty rule in 1613, the establishment of the USSR, and the establishment of the 1993 constitution. These are just a few of the events named by the study participants. At the same time, we can observe that the sum of all the events that can be categorized as “inception of the state” is still negligible. The most mentioned events, the 1917 October Revolution and the creation of the USSR, could be characterized by violence and harshness.

The Ability to Deal With Crises/Stable Development

Events that can be united under the general theme “the ability to deal with crises/stable development” were named the least. However, it is interesting that almost all the events named in this category occurred in the recent past or in the current period, unlike all the other thematic groups, which included events from the entirety of Russian history, including those that took place centuries ago. Study participants said that they were proud of the fact that, the country could survive the dissolution of the USSR thanks to the reforms initiated by Yegor Gaidar, overcame the 2008 crisis, and came out of the 2014 crisis.

British and Russian Students: A Comparative Analysis

Pride in Soft and Hard Power

There were four more key differences between Russian students and their British counterparts:

• • Russian students found it considerably less difficult to answer the question about the feeling of pride and were eager to name the events they were proud of. While 40% of British students could not answer this question, or responded that there were no such events, only 23% of those polled in Russia could not answer the question or said there were no such things.

• • Events that are mentioned as causes for pride are more numerous in Russia. Our analysis revealed 126 categories for those polled in Russia and only 46 for those polled in the United Kingdom.

• • Events that were among the top four most mentioned in the case of Russian students are far more consolidating and unifying among those we polled, as compared to the most-mentioned events among British students. The top event mentioned by the Russian study participants was brought up by 63% of the respondents, while the top event for British students was mentioned by only 21% of those polled.

• • It’s quite obvious that categories related to soft power prevail among British students and categories related to hard power prevail among Russian students. As for British students, events related to soft power are present in 41 of 46 categories. In terms of absolute numbers of mentions: 553 for soft power, and 29 for hard power. This means that events that can be generally classified as a part of soft power, are mentioned by British students 19 times more than events that relate to hard power. Out of the 126 categories in the Russian case, only 74 can be classified as soft power, while 52 can be classified as hard power. Despite this, hard power events dominate in terms of absolute numbers of mentions: out of 2710 answers, 594 of them (or 22%) are “soft power events” and 2116 (or 78%) are “hard power events.” This means that events mentioned that relate to “soft power” exhibit greater variation, but events mentioned that relate to “hard power” are mentioned approximately 3.5 times as often as soft power events.

Shame Versus Pride

This study allows us to draw conclusions about how study participants in two countries are different from one another, not only in terms of the nature of their pride, but also in terms of the place their pride occupies within the broader interpretation of collective memory.

The responses of the British study participants demonstrate that they found it easier to respond to what they are ashamed of than the question of what they take pride in. While 42% of students could not answer the question about historic events that inspire pride for their country (see Table 1), the question about shame led to only 26% of participants saying they could not answer (see Table 4). While in the case of Russian students, we observe the opposite trend. They prefer feeling proud to feeling ashamed: 23% and 45%, respectively (see Table 3 and Table 5). At the same time, part of the Russian study participants stressed that a real patriot “cannot be ashamed of their history.”

Table 4. Historical Events That Inspire a Feeling of Shame for the Country Among British Students

Note: Number of study participants that mention the event as a percentage of the overall number of British study participants. Events listed in the table were mentioned by ≥ 1% of those polled (N = 368).

Table 5. Historical Events That Inspire a Feeling of Shame for the Country Among Russian Students

Note: Provided are the number of study participants that mention the event as a percentage of the overall number of Russian study participants. Events listed in the table were mentioned by ≥ 1% of those polled (N = 1399).

After coding, categorizing, and analyzing the chronology of the events listed by the students, we created graphs to illustrate the distribution of these events along a historical timeline for each country in general, and for the 20th and 21st centuries in particular (see Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4).

Figure 1. Distribution of Historical Events Mentioned by British Students Across History (the sum of mentions as a percentage of the total number of study participants).

Figure 2. Distribution of Historical Events Mentioned by British Students Across Decades of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries (the sum of mentions as a percentage of the total number of study participants).

Figure 3. Distribution of Russian Students’ Mentions of Historical Events by Century (sum of mentions as a percentage of the total number of study participants).

Figure 4. Distribution of Russian Students’ Mentions Across Decades of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries (sum of mentions as a percentage of the total number of study participants).

Another important difference is the personal connection or distance between study participants and the events they list. When speaking of events that inspire pride, Russian study participants associate themselves with them by using the pronouns “our” and “we,” especially if this was connected to victories and military triumphs. Despite the fact that the question was made as impersonal as possible asking just to list shameful or pride-inspiring events, approximately 15% of Russian study participants used personal pronouns while talking about pride-inspiring events. However, in relation to the topic of shame concerning events in national history, the respondents preferred to disassociate themselves from such events, and some stressed that because they had not participated in any shameful events, they could not feel ashamed of acts committed by older generations (personal pronouns were not used at all in the answers to the question about shameful events).

With regard to British study participants, we can observe that they tend to use the pronoun “we” when talking about shameful events, “taking over other people`s countries is wrong, and that our rule was mostly cruel/destructive,” “the various ways we have failed the poor,” “our actions in the Middle East,” etc. (around 11% of British respondents did this, while only 5% used personal pronouns when talking about pride-inspiring events). At the same time, it is important to note that in responses about shameful events, British students display a significant understanding of global and world politics. They are ashamed even of those events that the United Kingdom had nothing to do with directly, or share a collective responsibility for them with other countries (the Cold War, the Reformation, the Holocaust, problems with the environment, and global security, etc.).

Specificity of Temporal Localization

This study emphasized the temporal localization of events that study participants listed as either shameful or pride-inspiring.

If we turn to the graphs that illustrate the distribution of pride and shame across time, we can observe that the main part of important events for pride and shame involves 20th century history for both country cases (see Figures 1 and 3).

Nevertheless, graphs that present the distribution of events across the 20th and 21st centuries depict the main differences most clearly. While in Great Britain (Figure 2) pride is distributed more or less evenly and deals with recent history, in Russia, there is a large gap between a low level of pride in recent history, and a high level of pride in more removed events in the past (in the middle of the 20th century; see Figure 4). If we examine shame specifically, we see that British students exhibit a trend toward the growth of pride relating to current events, while in Russia the situation looks quite different and is far from straightforward.

The results of our study allow us to identify three major differences in pride as a part of the collective memory of young Russian and British people. First, for British youth, pride focuses on events that relate to “soft power,” while Russian youth tend to be most proud of Russia’s “hard power.” This is not only about “soft power” being 19 times more predominant for one group and “hard power” 3.5 times more predominant for the other, but also about the details of the number of similar categories revealed while analyzing the answers given by students from both countries. For instance, while the Industrial Revolution as perceived by the British students is a part of the thematic group pure “soft power” because study participants perceive it as a part of scientific advances, industrialization as perceived by the Russian students is closely related to military use and military development in the USSR.

Second, pride among British students stems from recent events, while pride among young Russians focuses on events in the past. It could be illustrated by lots of examples of various similar categories. For instance, when it comes to the answers given by the British study participants related to the field of science, alongside with the centuries-long history of discoveries the fight against severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS in 2003 is featured. At the same time the things mentioned by the Russian respondents are mostly related to the main events of the 19th and the middle of the 20th century and include Dmitriy Mendeleev’s achievements, but are not connected to the achievements of modern Russian scientists in the field of synthesizing superheavy elements of Mendeleev’s periodic table.

Third, the specifics of collective memory among British students are dominated by shame, while Russian students are more likely to feel less shame and more pride. While 42% of British students could not answer the question about historic events that inspire pride for their country, the question about shame led to only 26% of participants saying they could not answer. While in Russia this ratio is 23% and 45%, respectively. Moreover, part of the Russian study participants stressed that a real patriot “cannot be ashamed of their history.”

Discussion

Our findings highlight that it is not only the quantitative relationship between events inspiring pride or shame that matters, but also the actual content of those events. In particular, in the case of British students, the events that inspire shame are significantly associated with the events that inspire pride. British students are proud of all that has been achieved in the realm of civil liberties and the development of the social safety net, but at the same time, they mention these particular phenomena mostly because they are ashamed of the inequalities and injustices that used to exist before. For example, they mention the abolition of slavery and the slave trade because they are ashamed of the history of colonialism and the slave trade in imperial times.

In the case of Russian students’ responses, there are few connections between what they mention as points of pride and points of shame. In many cases, they are connected only if the same event inspires pride in some study participants and shame in others (examples of such divisive events include the dissolution of the USSR, the annexation of or unification with Crimea, periods of rule of particular leaders such as Ivan IV or Leonid Brezhnev, etc.). Moreover, the same person can name events that do not correlate with each other in terms of values: for example, study participants can be proud of how effective the “iron fist” of Stalin was during the Great Patriotic War, but at the same time, they can be ashamed of Stalin’s repressions during the 1930s. This is largely connected to a lack of consensus about many historical events in Russian society and with a lack of clear value narratives among study participants in relation to these events.

We believe that these interrelations between shameful or pride-inspiring events can be largely explained by several factors. First, the presence or absence of consensus regarding key historical events or at least a somewhat complete picture of the national history. Thus, in Russian society it is impossible to imagine a situation where shame and pride are reversed, because Russians’ ideas about the past are rather fragmentary. They do not have a coherent interpretation or critical view of key historical events, there are no logical connections. Second, the specifics of how history is taught in schools and the level of historical knowledge among graduates seem to be significant. The Russian approach to teaching history is not systematic, the emphasis is placed on individual events and/or characters, and not on the sequence of events or the connections between them (for example, see Tsyrlina-Spady and Stoskopf 2017).

In addition, one can note the uneven representation of shameful and pride-inspiring events in the Russian textbooks, where the latter are given a disproportionate amount of attention (Kasamara and Sorokina 2017). Shame over repressions cannot be reflected on the list of pride-inspiring events as pride in ending them simply due to a poor understanding of history.

In terms of future research, it would be useful to extend the current findings by examining the role of others factors including TV propaganda, memory lows, art and etc.

Conclusion

This study focuses on analyzing the differences between the bases for pride and shame in the collective memory in Russia and Great Britain using the concepts of soft and hard power.

Our contribution is four-fold. First, we develop a novel framework for the comparative analysis of collective memory that builds on the concepts of soft and hard power to conceptualize the historical locations of pride and shape. Second, we use extensive survey data to show that pride focuses on the events that relate to “soft power” for British youth, while Russian youth tend to be most proud of Russia’s “hard power.” Third, our analysis reveals that pride among British students stems from recent events, while pride among young Russians focus on events in the past, thereby highlighting important temporal distinctions in the collective memory of youth in these two countries. Finally, we find striking differences in the extend of shame feelings in the collective memory of British and Russian youth, as it is dominated by shame for the former and pride for the latter.

Future research should build on this suggested framework and the identified dissimilarities in the associations between the shameful or pride-inspiring events in the collective memory of the British and Russian youth to provide a more structured analysis of the diverse associations between collective memory and the development of the national identity.

What elements of soft power tend to fit into the collective memory the most? What types of historical events undermine the appeal of soft power vis-a-vis hard power? Under what conditions does hard power not prevent the formation of the national identity versus the empire identity? The application of the soft and hard power distinction does not only suggest a framework for posing these questions, but can also provide an analytical approach to addressing them in future research.