Journalistic discourse

The sample of publications studied at this stage has not changed and has the following form.

Daily Newspapers:

"Kuban News";

"Free Kuban";

"Krasnodar news";

Kuban today.

Weekly Newspapers:

"Krasnodar";

"7 days of Kuban";

"Moskovsky Komsomolets in the Kuban";

"Arguments and Facts - South";

"Regional news";

"World of Kuban";

"Patriot of Kuban"

During the three spring months (March-May 2003) we singled out 31 publications of these publications, which, to one degree or another, produce the discourse of interethnic relations. Most of these materials are either a broadcast of statements and ideas directly coming from representatives of the regional authorities or other political figures, or a kind of result of a confrontation between elite groups fighting for power resources. For the region, debating the ethnic is still a political matter, because ethnicity is seen as a fundamental characteristic of social reality, on the basis of which it is considered as an important means of mobilizing resources. Symptomatic in this regard is the tendency to reduce the number of publications that could be classified as purely journalistic, which is manifested in the reporting period. Noted by many analysts, the fact that the regional media are "independent" and dependent on the budget or local "oligarchs" practically deprives them of their right to vote. When the topic is politically loaded, there is no room for journalistic initiative.

This is largely due to the prevalence of eventful publications, that is, those caused by some significant events, noted in previous reports, over subject publications. During the period under review, such actions that would have provoked a mass reaction of the press, and not the usual information about them, did not happen. However, with a certain degree of conventionality, the proposed classification turned out to be relevant this time as well.

Event Publications

The Meskhetian Turks are the ethnic group around which the corresponding discourse of the Krasnodar media is largely constructed. From time to time regional newspapers publish materials with Meskhetians as the characters, and absolutely all of them are considered as "problem reportage". An illustrative example is an article in "Free Kuban" dated March 1, which tells about the census conducted by employees of the Crimean PVS ROVD, administration employees and Cossacks "of all residents of the Crimean region, in the column" nationality "which is written" Meskhetian Turk " . From the very first paragraph it becomes it is clear that this is precisely a “problem report.” “On March 1 of this year, the registration deadline for Turks expires. And since the procedure for registering their stay on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory has not yet been determined, from the beginning of the first month of spring, many representatives of this nationality may have serious problems. "In total, the term "problems" alone is used 6 times.

The main content of the article, however, is not devoted to the difficulties of the Meskhetians themselves, but to the "problems" that they, and migrants in general, bring to the "receiving" society. According to the author of the article, "as a result of migration processes, the ratio of ethnic groups that have historically developed [highlighted by me - A.K.] in the territory of the Crimean region has changed . " If until 1995 representatives of 50 nationalities lived here, then "according to data as of January 1, 2003, 134 thousand people live on the territory of Krymsk and the Krymsky district - representatives of 86 nationalities" . For the author, this moment alone seems to be a problem, and yet "the influx of migrants creates a lot of social problems, as well as problems for law enforcement agencies" . The statistics given, however, do not provide clear evidence of this, which the author himself is aware of. "Over the past five years, the Meskhetian Turks have committed 69 criminal offenses. But, according to experts, this figure cannot be accurate, since some of them have in their passports in the column "nationality" written: "Azerbaijani", "Georgian", " Uzbek." Kurds - 7 crimes, Yezidis - 7, Gypsies - 28. Armenians have committed 64 crimes in the last four years alone." The shortcomings of quantitative indicators are compensated by referring to expert knowledge about the criminal specialization of a particular ethnic group. "According to operational data, the main role in the field of drug trafficking is played by the gypsies, the Meskhetian Turks are characterized by concealment of taxes and income from commercial activities, drug trafficking, theft and petty hooliganism. But the crimes committed by the Meskhetian Turks receive a great public outcry ".

It should be noted that the described action took place only a few months after the All-Russian population census, in which the Meskhetians took an active part. This is confirmed by the statements of the chairman of the regional committee of statistics, and the results of academic research. However, the expediency of a new rewriting of the Turks raises no questions either among its participants or the author of the article. The main thing is that "like any other state, Russia, and the Kuban in particular, is trying to protect itself from unnecessary problems. But first you need to count how many of them, these same problems. "

The presented sample of publications about the Meskhetian Turks is typical for the region. It also serves as a typical example of the political engagement of the local press. It is this issue that is the key in the "national policy" of the regional administration, so other interpretations that are opposite to the position of the authorities are not allowed.

It should be noted here that addressing the topic of "interethnic relations" and the corresponding policies of different levels of government is still a popular means of conducting election campaigns, and indeed of political struggle in general. An example of this was the pre-election struggle for the post of mayor of Novorossiysk. On opposite sides of the barricade were V. I. Sinyagovsky, or rather the administration of the region, whose henchman he is, and S. A. Shishkarev, a State Duma deputy and a Novorossiysk "oligarch". The mass media controlled by the latter, which had not previously been distinguished by tolerance, chose criticism of their anti-migrant sentiments as one of the ways to denounce the governor and his creatures. In particular, in the newspaper "7 Days of Kuban" No. 10, in the column of rumors, an article is placed about one of the meetings of V. I. Sinyagovsky with voters. During the meeting, a question was raised about bringing order to the "Chinese" market. So in the city they call a semi-spontaneous bazaar near a long residential building, which has long been called the "Chinese wall" for its length. “Sinyagovsky, upon hearing the question, wrinkled his forehead with concern and answered: we, they say, will consult with the governor in order to expel all the Chinese from the Kuban ... This is how the innocent Chinese almost became a victim of elementary confusion.”

In "7 Days of Kuban" No. 9, an interview was published with the chairman of the regional organization "Union of Armenians of Russia" A.P. Oganisyan, in which he draws attention to the xenophobic events taking place in the region. "Do you remember the decision on deportation, on the creation of filtration camps, do you remember the pogrom of Armenian graves at the Slavic cemetery in Krasnodar, the riots, the pogrom in Slavyansk-on-Kuban near Sinyagovsky? At every step, every minute, with every movement, we see a violation of rights. " At the same time, A.P. Oganisyan is not inclined to single out the situation with ethnic minorities as a separate problem, noting it as an integral part of the general depressing situation with respect for human rights in the Krasnodar Territory. "The 25,000 Armenians living in Novorossiysk turned out to be just as infringed on their rights as all the other residents of the city . "

The confrontation that continued after the elections ensured the appearance of new publications. "7 Days of Kuban" No. 14 critically reacted to the initiative of A. N. Tkachev to organize recreation on the territory of the region for Iraqi children. “The last two years in the Kuban have not been marked by a special surge of internationalism. The governor’s speeches about surnames with “wrong” endings have not yet been erased from memory. !), even if it is a citizen of the Russian Federation at least three times, it will not receive registration in the region. Given this situation, the governor's proposal, in the opinion of the author of the article, should be regarded as an exclusively image-making move. "With a non-binding statement, the governor, firstly, indicated his commitment to humane ideals, secondly, he dissociated himself from previous attacks on neighbors-foreigners, thirdly, it is clear that no one will organize the mass importation of small Iraqis, but to accept a small group in Anapa or Tuapse - why not?".

The presented criticism of the policy of the regional administration is almost the only fact of its release to the public level. This became possible only thanks to the unfolding struggle within the elites. With the end of this confrontation, this possibility will also disappear.

Another type of event-related publications that have stirred up ethnic issues can be considered materials related to actions around Iraq. The events in Iraq were practically not accompanied by an increase in xenophobic speeches in the Krasnodar press, with a sufficiently large number of anti-war publications. In particular, the Krasnodar Center for National Cultures circulated its appeal against military operations in Iraq, which was signed by several dozen leaders of national-cultural public organizations.

The call of the Supreme Mufti of Russia T. Tajuddin to declare jihad by the United States and the negative reaction of the Russian federal authorities to it were discussed in the press. N. Emizh, mufti of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Adygea and the Krasnodar Territory, speaking in Krasnodar News on April 9, noted that " fortunately, none of my co-religionists in Adygea and the Kuban took Tadjuddin's statement seriously . " A. Babskov, head of the department for religious affairs of the department for interaction with political parties and public organizations of the regional administration, regarded it as nothing more than an emotional statement. "However," he noted, "it could lead to an ethnic conflict, here I agree with the president. Talgat Tadzhuddin had no right to declare jihad to America, he simply does not have the authority to do so." The position of the newspaper also represented concern about the situation. "The word has been said - the call of Tajuddin can be taken into action by radical Islamic groups. And this is unlikely to serve to establish peace in the Middle East."

Subject publications

Representatives of the creative intelligentsia, primarily writers, are important subjects for producing the discourse of ethnicity in the region. Newspapers periodically provide them with their pages, and the published materials often deal with ethnic issues to one degree or another. So "Kuban Today" on March 12 published V. Loginov's reasoning "Ivans deprived of kinship." The reason for them was the new Russian passport, in which there is no "nationality" column. The writer considers the rejection of its official fixation as depriving a person of the very nationality. The latter is conceived by him exclusively in the spirit of primordialism as an expression of a certain biological unity, as a single genus, requiring mandatory documentary fixation. “But I will scream under torture: I am Russian, Russian, with ancient roots. In my family, Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Suvorov, Kutuzov, Zhukov. And Lomonosov too. it is written about my parents: Loginov Nikolai Vasilievich - Russian, Loginova Maria Vasilyevna - Russian. And I will not forget about this until the hour of my death. " This approach to understanding nationality allows us to say: "The Russian people have been deprived of their kinship!"

In his reflections, the author seeks to rely on representatives of other nationalities, because he sees in ethnicity an expression of a person's identity and a kind of dividing line, the destruction of which will almost lead to his death. "Russian, I am an admirer and defender of my people. A Tatar, an Adyghe, or the same Jew have no right to reproach me. Each of them is free to sing his nationality and even consider it God's chosen. A ban on this is tantamount to a ban on patriotism. "We are all different. Anonymity is fraught with loss of identity." The writer especially addresses the Jews. "I did this on purpose, in the hope of enlisting the support of the Jews. After all, they also lose their nationality in their passports. And I want to ask natural Jews: is it not a shame for you to lose your nationality?" The author himself is sure that "the sinister item in the questionnaires is anathematized and forgotten. On the contrary, now this nationality is in vogue, you can be proud."

The immediate result of the action for the author is obvious. "They want to bring us all - Russians, Tatars, Jews - into a single detachment of Russians. Bring them together in order to depersonalize. So that everyone becomes Russians in general." But this, however, is not the main thing. The main goal is to enslave the Russian people. "It was necessary that the rebellious Russians forget that they are Russians. For this, a new passport has been prepared, where there is no "nationality" column. Behind all this is "our main enemy" , using the "diabolical plan of the American intelligence officer Dulles" .

Regional writers, even when discussing the literary process, inevitably touch upon the issue of ethnicity, primarily the "Jewish question". "Kuban Segodnya" dated April 11 published notes by V. Kanashkin, in which he, following Solzhenitsyn, examines not only literature, but the life of Russian society as a whole through the prism of Russian-Jewish "cohabitation." "If you cast a" generalized "look at the past, you will have to admit: we had a Varangian period in Russia, there was a Tatar, there was a German, there was also a completely fresh, Jewish" . However, due to various circumstances, "the era of the Jews in Russia in its functional-hegemonic form has come to an end." The formation of the State of Israel will eventually lead to the fact that all nationally minded Jews will settle there. Therefore, "the remaining Tatars, Germans and, of course, Jews are no longer an obstacle, let alone seditious ones, now . "

The author sees the problem of modern Russian reality in the need to get rid of the legacy left after them. “The most fraught danger at this time is not at all that yesterday the Jews were at the top and commanded the Russian people, forced them to act in their own interests. space to remain in the viscous mire of the former complacent obscuration. It is this path that modern Russian literature follows, copying Jewish models of life activity in a flawed form. "All Russians, judging by the latest American television series by Rodion Nakhapetov and the excursions of Vladimir Pozner, gradually turned in America into a layer of avant-garde writers. In other words, they duplicated the Jews, who in America, as well as in the West, have always been such, it's a joke tomorrow they have turned from a production site into an endless "service sector". For the latter, however, according to the author, this is their essence. "The avant-gardism of the Jews is in their pre-modern guess: you can feed yourself (and how you can!) not by labor, not by the readiness to plow and sow, but by resourcefulness, swindle, mediating talent." Russian writers, on the other hand, have sunk into imitation of creativity, cherishing their selfish dreams. The avant-gardism of the Russians is in their obviously lacquered-sweetened hope that the texts they have worked out, like all sorts of other worldly entreprises, will equate them with the transcendentals of Booker-Anti-Booker and bring them closer to the clan of the "chosen ones."

In many respects, similar views are observed in the chairman of the regional branch of the Writers' Union of Russia P. Pridius, who is in opposition to V. Kanashkin. "Kuban News" dated April 30 published his memoirs about the writer A. D. Znamensky. Considering the life of the literary community of the Soviet period, he singles out structuring along ethnic lines as an important characteristic of it. “To put it in plain text, without bluffing, the organization (the Union of Writers of the USSR) consisted of two “chambers” - purely Russian and Russian-speaking. And although Russian speakers at that time made up about a fourth or even a fifth of the entire organization, they, imagine when voting, they could create the weather: here, by their grace, only one vote is missing - and that’s all, even if you die. It happened that for years no one was accepted into the Union: one during the vote was cut by those, the other by these. All the difficulties and problems that both the hero of the story and the author had to experience are connected in the article without fail with the activities of the "Russian-speakers". Among the latter, he gives a prominent place to the Jews. A. D. Znamensky, and the author obviously agrees with him, it was they who assigned an unseemly role in Russian history. “I didn’t know a single Russian head of the Gulag. Completely different people acted in this system - Kogans, Bermans, Frenkels ... Now their children and grandchildren vilify Stalin, attributing all troubles and crimes to him. But this is a clear distortion of history.”

Thus, it is clear that Krasnodar writers who have access to the press are quite united in their ethnic discourse. Ethnicity for them is a defining characteristic in the interpretation of social reality. It is in accordance with it that the structuring of society takes place, while Russians always face the danger of falling under the rule of other peoples. Each of the peoples is regarded as a unique and independently acting collective entity, but the most active and, accordingly, responsible for most problems are the Jews. We can say that focusing on the "Jewish question" is the cornerstone of these discursive practices.

By and large, the approaches of the regional media to the coverage of the topic of migration do not change. It is still conceived within the framework of "conflict" discourse. A typical example of this is the article "Land and the Nation in a Separate Region" in "7 Days of Kuban" No. 16. The author, Dmitry Protasov, links the aggravation of the problems of "national relations" in the region with the adoption of the federal law "On the circulation of agricultural land." He focuses on the situation in the Otradnensky district, which is characterized as extremely difficult. "The proportion of non-indigenous nationalities is increasing every year. As a result, houses are bought illegally, organized criminal groups are formed along ethnic lines." The area is located in the southeastern foothill part of the region on the border with the Stavropol Territory and Karachay-Cherkessia. It is this factor, according to the author, that turned out to be attractive for immigrants from the North Caucasus and Armenia. Their relatives from Transcaucasia reached out to the Armenians living here, as a result "already by 2000, seven thousand of the 25 thousand inhabitants of the village of Otradnaya were Armenians" . However, if the author still agrees to understand and explain the migration of Armenians, then "the settlement of entire settlements by Chechens and Dagestanis cannot be called justified . " In relation to them, a set of attitudes typical of the regional discourse is demonstrated. Firstly, "Chechens are trying to settle compactly. The Khorin farm, the village of Rud are already inhabited mainly by them. It is significant that in the summer you practically don’t see men there - mostly children and women. One can only guess what the strong half is doing at this time. " Secondly, "households were bought up without registration - according to receipts for receiving money. In just two days of checking the passport regime, 24 violators of registration rules were revealed . " Thirdly, "Chechen youths, with the connivance of the RVC, the administration and law enforcement agencies, were not drafted into the ranks of the armed forces . "

Also traditionally the author denies xenophobia. "You can't blame people - the same Chechens and Dagestanis - for being forced to leave their homeland. Most of them are normal, decent people . " However, these really acting people in the end will certainly be ignored, because geopolitics is of decisive importance. "The territory of the region is wedged into the zone of Islamic influence. Emissaries of Islamic extremist and pro-Turkish groups were more than once interested in the region due to its strategic position. In the early 90s, Turkey paid for the education of up to 60 Muslim children from the North Caucasian republics in its universities. I saw one of his acquaintances, who studied in Ankara, an interesting map where the Otradnensky district, together with part of the Kuban, was part of the non-existent Caucasian Islamic Republic."

Describing the current economic situation in the region, the author considers structuring based on ethnicity as its central point. "The Slavic population - the descendants of the Cossacks and visitors from all over the Union - has traditionally been employed in the agricultural sector and in local production." Over the past decade, this sector of the regional economy has actually collapsed. The minority, "who are younger and more reactive, were able to adapt to new conditions." The greater part "either drank themselves, or went to work for the owner (in most cases, a visitor), or make a living by gardening, fishing and hunting . "

The Armenian population is engaged in trade and agricultural production. "It is worth noting the mobility and enterprise of the Armenian diaspora, its huge economic potential. It is thanks to people from the Caucasus that the Otradnensky district is one of the leaders in the south of Russia in the production of cheap furniture and mirrors." However, most of this business is in the "shadow" sector, which leads to meager tax revenues. Labor rights of employees are widely disregarded. Furniture production is traumatic, but the shop workers do not pay the due compensation after accidents.

The author associates the greatest problems that can lead to violence precisely on an ethnic basis with the practice of implementing innovations in land legislation. “Possible speculative operations with land, as well as its use for direct and indirect purposes, attract many adventurers who usually call themselves investors. A significant part of them were born far outside the Kuban. "They will find that most of the land and everything grown on it will be in the hands of visiting uncles. And the locals themselves will be asked to either get out or do what is required of them." The consequences of the events that occurred according to this scenario are drawn by the author as very tragic. "Despite the active settlement of the region by migrants, it should be remembered that the native Otradnen people are the descendants of the Cossacks, the same ones who, under the leadership of Ataman Shkuro, fought against the red horsemen for a long time. A spark that flared up in the mountains could ignite the entire Kuban."

It should be noted that during the reporting period, materials appeared in the Krasnodar press that focus not on the problem of ethnicity, but on the realities of everyday existence of representatives of different peoples and their cultural practices. On April 21, "Free Kuban" published a note about the festival of performers on national instruments that took place in the Lazarevsky Center of National Cultures in Sochi. The diversity of musical culture demonstrated by its participants was enthusiastically accepted by the multi-ethnic public. The event showed people's desire not to build ethnic barriers, but to come into contact with the entire cultural mosaic surrounding them. As the author of the material states, "one thought did not leave me during the festival. The power of Mother Russia today is in our unity. Through the Adyghe accordion and Russian harp, Armenian zurna and Ukrainian bandura, the river of our friendship will be fuller and fuller. "

"7 Days of Kuban" No. 17 published an article about the modern life of the Greeks. Many Krasnodar Greeks moved to Greece, a considerable part of them remained in the region, and now almost all of them live the life of both societies to one degree or another. The article tells about the everyday traditions and norms that have developed in Greece, picturesquely tells about the holidays of the calendar cycle, music and other festivals. The reader receives a rather detailed picture of Greek culture, which turns out to be not "foreign" at all, despite all its originality.

However, such publications are very rare for the regional press, especially in relation to those peoples who are regarded as "problematic". We have to state the dominance of stereotypes in the published materials, and the knowledge of most of the inhabitants of the region about different cultures is limited to the "gastronomic" topic.