Dmitry Butrin: Anti-Semitism in Russia has not been overcome only in “reserved” Soviet areas

On January 31, 2005, the Gazeta.Ru portal published an article by Dmitry Butrin, “The Last Refuge of an Anti-Semite.” In it, the author substantiates the idea that everyday anti-Semitism in Russia has, in principle, been overcome, and its manifestations must be fought not at the level of abstract “universal” sentiments, but by suppressing old hotbeds that have been smoldering since Soviet times in law enforcement agencies and government bodies.

The author is aware that “the thesis about the crushing defeat of anti-Semitism in Russia probably sounds quite exotic for now.” However, he is convinced that the rapid marginalization of anti-Semitic parties, “pogrom newspapers”, etc. manifestations of anti-Semitism, which previously seemed quite influential and popular, suggests that “anti-Semitism in Russia has ceased to be an idea interesting to society, and has turned into a hobby that is quite dangerous for the bearer of this ideology, but almost safe for other citizens, like collecting evidence about contacts with UFOs, urine therapy or playing thimble for money."

The latest events, in particular the anti-Semitic scandal that erupted on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, are the result of inappropriate and, most importantly, inept maneuvering of the political elite: “I’m surprised how the presidential administration failed to find a structure that would bind the Jew Leonid Nevzlin, a Chechen Aslan Maskhadov and the fight against anti-Semitism. But, I think, everything is still ahead."

Analyzing public manifestations of anti-Semitic sentiments, the author comes to the following conclusions. Firstly, at the everyday level, anti-Semitism in Russia as a whole has been overcome: “ordinary people” have long discovered “in their neighbors not only the Jew Rabinovich, but also their neighbor Isaac Abramovich.”

And secondly, *"in general, Russian anti-Semitism is most pronounced and noticeable where it is a legacy of Soviet anti-Semitism, and among representatives of power structures, who generally have relatively more experience in moving up Soviet career ladders, it is almost more widespread than among the semi-mythical “common people”...

Today, it seems, the only effective way to combat the problem of Russian anti-Semitism, and not the fading anti-Semitism itself, is to treat these particular foci, and not society as a whole. Moreover, having solved this problem, one can quite easily spit on the residual phenomenon itself: in a free country, no one can be forced to either love or hate a Jew as long as this remains a personal matter.”*

And using (and possibly inciting) an anti-Semitic scandal to solve political or economic problems (be it Chechnya, Yukos, relations with the United States, the European Union or Syria) is disgusting and inappropriate.

Sources

• Butrin Dmitry. The last refuge of an anti-Semite // Gazeta.Ru. 2005. January 31.