The development of people's self-awareness has become an urgent task since the moment when the understanding of culture as a phenomenon related to the history of mankind began. Actualization of the problem is due to the fact that each nationality has its own cultural heritage.
Today, Russian national self-awareness is paying special attention to itself. This is the result of its modernization against the backdrop of globalization processes, as well as the need for the formation of civil society in the country.
National self-consciousness with its minuses and pluses in the modern world is the most important component of understanding historical reality. One of the pressing tasks facing social philosophy today is to determine the positive and negative aspects of people's understanding of themselves. Without solving this issue, according to many researchers, free and responsible cultural development is impossible.
The ability to control the course of historical events is provided in conditions when the historical and national consciousness possess a certain quality. Moreover, this quality should be identical in content to the current interpretation of the cash culture.
National self-awareness as a separate category in social-philosophical literature does not yet have a universally recognized definition. At the same time, individual features of this concept have a fairly clear wording.
National identity is a qualitatively defined component of historical reflection. This component largely determines the specifics of social creativity for each cultural region. Researchers associate this specificity with the historically formed psychology of the people as a whole, their mentality, the degree of ethnic self-determination, traditional norms and foundations that came from the depths of time. The circumstances of the present also have an effect, giving rise to a special acceptance of one’s own cultural experience among the people and provoking a reaction to another environment.
The national identity of Russia is a complex system of subordination of elements of a religious, ethnic, socio-political nature. According to some authors, these components were complicated by a kind of “pseudocultural heritage” with double standards of perception imposed on peoples. In addition, researchers note the presence of certain "reflective complexes" reflecting the disappointment of the national identity of the peoples of Russia, provoked by the collapse of the mighty USSR, the greatness of which caused pride in the ethnic formations that formed it. At the same time, the indicated “reflexive complexes” are also an expression of the opposite aspirations that arose during the collapse of the self-understanding of individual nationalities, which in some situations turn into mutual rivalry or even enmity.
Paying attention to the problems associated with the peculiarities of the development of the national identity of Russia, the researchers point to the initial mosaic identity of nationalities. This is mainly due to the diversity of cultural roots (confessional, ethnic, eventual and historical). Researchers also note a certain limitation that arose as a result of the declaration of religion as the main structure-forming core in the formation of the country's national identity.
It is worth noting that the problems of self-perception of the peoples of Russia are only a special case of the general world problems. At the same time, the movements of autonomous peoples towards global unity become apparent.