Grandfather-sovereignty. 77th Republic-Weekly - about independence

America is preparing for its 250th anniversary: ​​the Declaration of Independence of the United States was adopted on July 4, 1776. Two weeks ago, Russia celebrated its Independence Day - the Day of Adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty.

Independence and sovereignty, sovereignty and independence. We'll talk about them in more detail over the next week.

In Russian political newspeak, “sovereignty” and “independence” have long become synonymous. When Putin talks about sovereignty—and he does so perhaps more often than anyone else in the world—he is very pleased with himself. He explains to grown men in jackets that the concept of “sovereignty” means “being stronger and smarter,” the way kindergarten teachers explain to children that they need to pee in a potty. He says this with the air of a political thinker.

But as is usual in Russian political newspeak, every word is most likely not what it seems, and certainly not what the authorities are trying to make it out to be.

Sovereign is anything, but definitely not independent. Sovereignty is not about freedom. It's about possession. It's about control.

“Sovereign Internet”, “sovereign democracy”, “sovereign economy”, “sovereign culture” - all these favorite Putin constructs were created for one purpose - appropriation. Independence is always a process, it is a struggle: national, political, feminist, philosophical... It is a way out from under someone else’s will in order to gain one’s own. Possession is simply greed.

Independence is Kant with his autonomy of the will and the categorical imperative, where man is the end, not the means. This is Diogenes, who needed only one thing from the state: so that it would not block the sun for him. These are the Stoics with their inner strength: your sovereignty ends where my reason begins.

Sovereignty is a completely different story. This is Jean Bodin, who decided that the state needs a single, absolute decision-making center, otherwise it will allegedly fall apart.

Sovereignty is Hobbes’s “Leviathan,” the “artificial soul” of a state monster that devours people’s rights for their own safety.

Sovereignty, after all, is Louis XIV: “The State is me.”

Yes, there are, as they say, other opinions. There is Rousseau, who tried to invert the pyramid by arguing that sovereignty belongs not to the crown, but to the people. But, alas, sovereign Russia and Rousseau’s sovereignty are only related by similar letters.

Perhaps the most scathing and honest definition of sovereignty was given by the German lawyer Carl Schmitt:

“The sovereign is the one who decides on a state of emergency.”

This is certainly an epigraph to the modern history of the country.

All of Russia in 2026 is in a state of emergency. Making a decision to send us to such a situation, and a public statement about this decision on February 24, 2022, is an example of sovereignty named after Vladimir Putin.

In general, let's not forget how the word “sovereignty” is understood by those who use it in every public speech.

And we declare open the week of independence and sovereignty in Republic-Weekly - a publication, by the way, truly independent, but not sovereign.