The Phenomenological Gap: Intentionality and the Search for Identity in Post-Soviet Countries

This article applies the phenomenological approach of Edmund Husserl, in particular the concepts of intention-ality of consciousness and phenomenological reduction, to analyze the process of formation of state identity in post-Soviet countries. The author considers the state as a dynamic phenomenon, constituted and constantly redefined by acts of collective intentionality directed at it as a source of order, legitimacy and identity. The key problem lies in the contradictory nature of the search for a new identity by countries aspiring to join the EU/NATO. On the one hand, this implies a radical rethinking and rejection of the Soviet experience through specific intentional acts (symbolic politics, decommunization, language reforms). On the other hand, the ques-tion arises about the authenticity of the new identity: is the desire for abstract “Europeanness” replacing one form of alienation with another? Using V.S. Stepin’s typology of rationality, the author identifies a fundamental difference in the ways of development: Russia demonstrates the features of classical rationality (striving for hierarchy, determinism, universal truths). On the contrary, most other post-Soviet countries are in the zone of post-nonclassical rationality, where collective intentionality is aimed at actively redefining the state as an “unfin-ished project”, which manifests itself in a permanent revision of the foundations of identity and legitimacy. The examples of the policies of these countries show how an intentional act aimed at “Europe” materializes in at-tempts to symbolically “put aside” the Soviet past. It is concluded that true identity does not require a simple break or adherence to an ideal, but a phenomenological understanding of the entire continuum of historical existence in all its complexity.