The Depreciation of the Grand Jubilee’s Value: The Commemorative Celebration of the 1150th Anniversary of the Russian Statehood in Novgorod (2012)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the subject of the 1150th anniversary of the Russian Statehood celebrated in September 2012. It was the liberal political commentary writings accompanying the original model of the jubilee celebrated in 1862 that was used as the point of reference of the rhetoric of the celebrations’ initiator, the President of Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev. This made the president of Russia to refer very often to the “era of the Great Reforms” (the 1860s, and 1870s). The article describes the course of the jubilee celebrations with accompanying information campaign in the public mass media, as well as a failed legislative action to make the symbolic anniversary of the origins of the Russian Statehood a National Day.