Oleg Kashin about “professional Russians”

On June 15, 2005, the Russian Journal published an article by Kommersant newspaper correspondent Oleg Kashin, “To Professional Russians,” in which the author expresses extreme concern about how the search for ethnic self-identification of the Russian people does not lead to a positive revival of cultural and other traditions , and the growth of neo-Nazi sentiments in society.

The reason for the article was the program “Five Evenings” (Channel One), dedicated to a discussion of the “Ivannikova case” : “Among others, either four or five identical young people in dark jackets with badges in the form of double-headed eagles actively participated in the discussion on the lapels. That is, he spoke for everyone, and the others nodded to him very expressively. The one who spoke very calmly uttered phrases, the meaning of which boiled down to the fact that we (he said so - “We”, without specifying on whose behalf). says) we will not allow Russian women to be raped with impunity, deprived of the right to self-defense and imprisoned; that according to statistics, the majority of rapes in Moscow are committed by those who have come in large numbers (he said so - “They have come in large numbers”) and Caucasians, and that this problem must be solved." O. Kashin publicly called these “fighters” fascists.

The author notes that he himself is extremely concerned about the future of ethnic Russians in Russia. And not only because he understands perfectly well that the influx of migrants of other ethnicities into the country is an objective necessity for its survival. In his opinion, the violent attempt to introduce civic identity instead of ethnic (“Russian” instead of “Russian”) by the Yeltsin regime, which had extremely discredited itself against the backdrop of a surge in ethno-nationalism of other peoples inhabiting Russia, distorted the very concept of “Russian” and forced one to hide the offended national feeling. This internalized insult as a result gave birth not to a positive revival of Russian national self-awareness, but to ugly ethnocentric revanchism: “The Russian theme was locked in a dark room for too long, and behind the a priori sympathy for this historical misunderstanding, I confess, I did not notice (yes, I think I’m not the only one), as what came out of that dark room were not at all what one would have expected - a gang of professional Russians no less loud and disgusting than the Russophobes.”

And the appropriation of the right to “protect the interests of the Russian people” by a group of young people described by the author does not cause anything other than a natural feeling of disgust and shame: * “Identical people in suits with double-headed eagle badges, fat intellectuals with posters about Ivannikova, fighters and ideologists! Please come up with give yourself your own name, call yourself something in your own way, create a party, in the end, please don’t make a profession out of your Russianness.

Otherwise, we, the rest of the Russians, will be ashamed to be Russian. I don’t want to, you know,”* O. Kashin concludes his article.

Sources

• Kashin Oleg. To professional Russians // Russian magazine. 2005. June 15.