It has been in the news recently that Taiwan's embassies and overseas representative offices have been told to replace the national emblems they currently use with that of the national flag or flower because the national emblem is too similar to that of the KMT. Much like Taiwan, Russia lacks a consensus on its identity and its national symbols.
Last Friday, as expected, the Russian parliament resurrected the controversial Soviet national anthem (the music, not the words), synonymous with the old Communist era, as a new anthem of Russia.
A package of bills on state symbols submitted to the State Duma (parliament) also included the Tsarist-era red, white and blue tricolor and the double-headed eagle that have been used in Russia over the past few years and the red flag was reinstated as the symbol of the armed forces.
This move, backed by President Vladimir Putin, caused a real schism in Russian political society. Most liberal and rightist figures and part of the Russian intelligentsia strongly opposed the endorsement of the music of the Soviet anthem as the national anthem. Some went as far as labelling it a coup d'etat. Most call it a symbol of the totali-tarian, Stalinist, Soviet past and a grave political mistake.
The renowned writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, musicians Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya and many other prominent Russians have expressed their opposition to the return to the Soviet-era melody.
Even former-president, "grandfather" Boris Yeltsin broke his silence, in a newspaper interview, and opposed his successor's action.
The Soviet anthem, which was picked by Josef Stalin as the national song, was written by Alexander Alexandrov in 1943, while much of European Russia was under German occupation. Yeltsin dumped it after the collapse of Communism in 1991 in favour of a melody by 19th century composer Mikhail Glinka.
Recent polls show, however, that 49 percent of Russians were in favor of Alexandrov's music for the Soviet anthem as the anthem of the new Russia.
Many people in Russia do not regard Soviet times as a period of crimes but as a contradictory period which saw dynamic development as well as repression.
"If we accept the fact that in no way could we use the symbols of the previous epochs including the Soviet one, then we must admit that our mothers and fathers lived useless and senseless lives, that they lived their lives in vain. I can't accept that either with my mind or my heart," Putin said.
National symbols are not to be trifled with and an anthem is just a piece of music. They are symbols bringing people of a country together, uniting them with each other, with their state and also with the past and future generations. These symbols remind people of their responsibility before their country, before its past and its future.
National symbols are among the pillars of society as well as of public ideals and values, the norms of conduct. Without them the population is an object of manipulation on the part of any forces. And only if there are common ideals, values and symbols does a population become a nation.
National symbols should unite the nation instead of sowing divisions. In fact, uniting a country is the main function of national symbols. Only united by state symbols does a population become a nation and a subject of history.
The unification of the three symbols, two of which have their roots in pre-Soviet, imperial Russia, the third originating in the Soviet period, must simultaneously symbolize the end of the civil war between the Reds and Whites that went on in Russia throughout the 20th century.
Arkady Borisov is a senior journalist based in Moscow.
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