ABSTRACT
Although myth plays an important part in structuring the discursive space of politics, mythopoeia by its very nature is anti-political. By definition, myth is not susceptible to dialogue. Like ideologies, political myths are axiological, suggesting certain basic truths that are not open to critique, challenge or contestation. 1 The tendency, moreover, to assume that a myth is untrue while at the same time providing a dramatic representation of the deeper truths that underlie social relations and the relations of a political community to fate and destiny is a contradiction that is the source of considerable power to elites and others seeking to mobilise popular sentiments. The contradiction at the same time reflects the ambivalent status of mythology in its entirety. These ambiguities are particularly evident when we discuss political myths. They reflect collective representations of a nation’s identity and place in the world, becoming collective acts of remembering and imagining while imbuing history and the future with the patina of the sacred. The politics of myth was particularly prevalent in the Soviet Union, where a distinctive ‘Marxist eschatology and millenarianism provided the Soviet polity with historical meaning by situating it in the context of a perceived human destiny’ (Weiner 2001: 18). At the same time, myths are typically applied instrumentally by leadership groups to impose their vision on the nation; and they may be used heroically to inspire a nation to acts of self-sacrifice in times of threat and war (Kołakowski 1989). In the Russian context the relationship of myth and politics is a profound one because of the long tradition of messianism, a term that in effect takes a myth and turns it into a national vision and a political programme (Duncan 2000).
