Historical Experience of the Modernization of Russian Society and Space

A. I. Treivish ()
Additional contact information
A. I. Treivish: Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences

Regional Research of Russia, 2023, vol. 13, issue 1, 6-33

Abstract: Abstract The article is based on a broad treatment of modernization as a development based on innovations and unlimited by the New Age. The historical experience of the country has been studied from two aspects: modernization of society in space and modernization of the socioeconomic space itself. The article considers waves of expansions and contractions (in a word, pulsation) of this space, the ratio of modernization and westernization, the features of a giant country with catch-up development, historical pendulums of innovations and reforms, as well as the perception of the Russian space in the context of modernization. As a result, an attempt was made to derive some cognitive lessons of history in this context, but not instructive, not panacean. The first lesson says that modernization is not an end in itself, but an important tool for solving problems of development, and this applies not only to Russia. The second argues that the main problems of modernizing a country stem not from its size, but the friction of space, the lack of means to overcome it, or a clear and bright perspective. The third, in essence, warns against cultural and any other determinism (reductionism) in assessing the possibilities of and barriers to innovation, as well as its rigid opposition to tradition. The fourth states the variability of the modernization space: it pulsates, with alternating periods of sprawl and shrinkage, differentiation and integration. The fifth lesson is related to regionalism as a kind of social diversity, an antonym for centralism, not a synonym for separatism: it is better to reckon with it than to fight, limiting the scope of the search for modernization options. The sixth lesson boils down to the fact that limited knowledge of spatial development requires continuation of the scientific search for its patterns. Finally, the most acute, in the author’s opinion, challenges to Russia’s spatial development in the 21st century are formulated, among which the inherited, nearly perpetual, and new or growing ones are identified.

Keywords: development; modernization; Russia; society; space; pulsation; experience; lesson (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1134/S2079970522700563 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:rrorus:v:13:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1134_s2079970522700563

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... cience/journal/13393

DOI: 10.1134/S2079970522700563

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Research of Russia is currently edited by Vladimir M. Kotlyakov and Vladimir A. Kolosov

More articles in Regional Research of Russia from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().