Возраст как символ в современной российской политике

PolitBook. 2024. № 3. С. 22–38.

Клещенко Л. Л.

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of age as a political symbol and its use in contemporary Russian politics. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research includes the concepts of symbolic politics and a constructivist understanding of age. The study was conducted using survey methods – a semi-structured interview. A secondary analysis of the data obtained in 2020 in the study of generational aspects of Russian politics was also used. The conclusions of the study are as follows. The use of age symbols in a political context is due to their characteristics such as recognizability, proximity to personal experience and emotional charge. The symbols of childhood and old age are dominated by negative connotations associated with the perception of these ages as different from the normal human condition, and therefore the likening of objects to old people or children in politics is often a discrediting technique. Symbolic infantilization, as a method of symbolic politics, can serve as a basis for exclusion from politics, for political mobilization around the need to protect children, and for the legitimization of power based on the opposition between 'unreasonable children' and 'rational adults'. Symbolic senilization through the comparison with the old or the elderly can perform the functions of legitimation/delegitimation of power or a certain policy, denial of political subjectivity and political discrimination, as well as in the construction of an image of the future. Public opinion in modern Russia is dominated by negative meanings of symbols of childhood and old age, such as dependence, inferiority, inefficiency. Informants associate these traits with both childhood and old age in politics and attribute them to those Russian and foreign politicians whose activities they do not approve of.

Keywords: детство, российская политика, Russian politics, Childhood, symbolic politics, символическая политика, политический символ, political symbol, symbolic infantilization, symbolic senilization, symbol of childhood, symbol of age, символическая инфантилизация, символическая сенилизация, символ детства, символ возраста