Coercion to shame

Obviously, the case of Samodurov-Geofeev is not completed. And not only formally - the lawyers appealed - but in essence, in the sense that it will inevitably entail a public discussion on a number of issues (the most obvious - what is blasphemy and whether the secular state should fight it), and ideally, a revision of a number of legislative norms (although this, of course, is unlikely: it is not for this that the laws are written so that they will become clear when it becomes clear when it becomes clear when it becomes clear when it becomes clear when it becomes clear when it becomes clear Practical unsuitability, review).

I am not an artist, not a galleryman, not an art critic. The exhibits of “forbidden art”, as, indeed, almost all “actual art”, seem to me frank fraud. The best review of the exhibition, for my taste, belongs to Elena Efros , and other witty replicas came across blogs. The article by Grigory Revzin is very good, which is largely closing the topic.

But aesthetics aesthetics, and law is right. No matter how you relate to Kabakov and the company, it is interesting to understand on the basis of what evidence of a person in today's Russia can be found guilty of a criminal offense. And from understanding this, frankly, joy is not added.

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Among other things, three examinations were requested by the court. I can’t judge the psychological, and the other two are executed at such a level that the hair was on end.

The conclusion of the candidate of art history Natalia Aneeva is a fairly simple case. Despite the fact that the author knows the scientists of the words “concept” and “denotate”, its text gives the impression quite miserable. Half of it is an illiterate, but very pathos journalism, which would be quite combined for the newspaper, the level of “Orthodox” (“Radonezh” is still a higher quality), but the expert conclusion does not have a definition to the genre. When Eneeva is relying and trying to “turn on” the professional language, it turns out even worse. I hope that the phrase “ In a series of exhibits, which are gospel plots, in which the image of Christ is replaced by a character from the cartoon Mickey Mouse, the“ working moment ”is the common sense of the concept of“ mouse ”, which associates the idea of ​​a certain“ smallest ”essence that replaces the image of the essence, in the context of the Christian perception,“ the largest ” - grateful descendants of the goddess . They are included in the textbook. Even in two - the history of law and the history of art.

The pinnacle of this session of professional exhibitionism - a description of the very work of Alexander Savko - with God and the mouse - from the cycle "The Journey of Mickey Mouse on the History of Art." Eneeva resorts to a formula for the candidate of art, the formula “ Exhibit is a reproduction of one of the paintings of Western European classical painting ” - without specifying which one. Meanwhile, we are talking about engraving by Julius Schnorra von Carolsfeld from his famous biblical series. That is, an art history examination is conducted by a specialist who is not only unable to identify a specific work, but also elementaryly distinguishes the picture from engraving and confusing painting with graphics.

Of course, there is no questions to Eneeva. What questions can be for a person who allowed himself to declare a report to the scientific conference entitled “ First World War in the light of the apocalyptic prophecies of the Russian saints of the XIX - XX centuries. "? But there are questions to the court.

1) Why is the examination ordered to a specialist who is obviously engaged and supporting one of the parties in the process? Is such an examination legally insignificant even regardless of its level?

2) Why did the court accept the expert opinion, despite its obvious poor quality? The judge does not have sufficient qualifications to evaluate the art history text? But why order an examination if you are not able to control the degree of competence/incompetence of the contractor?

3) Why did the court indicate Eneeva to the need to specify the theses of its conclusion and reinforce them with evidence? Why was it not noted that phrases like “ any conscious distortion of religious symbolism is insulting in relation to it ” they do not have any legal value at least by virtue of a too general nature, which allows you to transplant a good half of the writers and artists of the New Age? Finally, why did the court not strik the obvious contradictions between the sheets of 3-5 and 8-9 expert opinion? If at the beginning of Eneev it argues that all the analyzed exhibits “ unconditionally contain humiliating characteristics, negative emotional assessments and negative attitudes in relation to a group of people who are believing Christians ”, then closer to the end is that the presented artifacts can be interpreted as criticizing the Soviet power, mass culture and consumption society, and offensive to the consumption society Believers are acquired only in the context of the exhibition “Forbidden Art”, where exhibits were specially selected, united by “ blasphemous appeal to religious imagery and symbols ” (it is unnecessary to say that professional argument remains at the same level as the cited passage about the “ common sense of the concept of“ mouse ” ”).

The list of questions can be multiplied, but the above is enough to conclude that neither the court nor the expert imagine what, in fact, this is the same examination, why it is generally ordered and what should be contained in it.

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It differs a little from the examination of the art critic Natalia Eneeva , the conclusion of philologist Andrei Vdovichenko . That is, it is written more smoothly, which is understandable-the linguist is still an employee of the Institute of Linguistics. But inside, everything is the same: free discussions about the Russian mat and completely unproven allegations that its public use is, regardless of the context, "the gross insult of public morality." At the same time, the author repeatedly appeals to confirm his innocence to unnamed “philological research”, pretending that he is unknown to the long -term disputes of linguists and culturalists about the etymology and functions of Russian obscene vocabulary and the scatter of their opinions on many aspects related to the existence of a mat in language and speech.

Vdovichenko does not even make the elementary concessions of professional ethics, which allows himself Eneev , which allows, albeit with reservations, the possibility of different interpretations of exhibited works. In philological examination, all works are interpreted completely unambiguously, without options, and at the same time, of course, absolutely arbitrarily.

So, the obscenity inscription on the collage of Ilya Kabakov “You went ...” is comprehended as an insult addressed to the “uncertain circle of people - spectators”, each viewer separately, as well as “ all people who can see the exhibit or its image outside the exhibition, including experts, employees of the investigative bodies, judges ”. “The strongest moral suffering” should cause all these categories of persons, according to the author’s plan in the expert’s interpretation, the fact that the obscene inscription in the Kabakovsky collage is combined with objects drawn “in children's stylistics” - trees, mushrooms, toys and a house.

I must say that if I perceive the conclusion of Eneeva more or less indifferent, then the text of the examination of Vdovichenko causes me “strongest moral suffering”. As a candidate of philological sciences, I find this text aimed at the formation of " negative emotional assessments and negative attitudes in relation to a group of persons who are professional philologists ." For if the science of philology is that baby babble about mushrooms and the houses that we find in the conclusion of the expert Vdovichenko, then all philologists should immediately be deprived of even those modest state subsidies that they still have not taken over the oversight of them , and send to engage in some socio-healthy labor-to paint the fences or, to dig, trenches.

The most amazing thing in all this is that Vdovichenko is a truly qualified philologist, a Septuagint language specialist, translator and commentator Josephus Flavius ​​and Filon Alexandria. What did not prevent him from signing all the above. And here again questions arise to the court.

1) Did the judge know that Vdovichenko was not only an employee of the Institute of Linguistics, but also a teacher of the Orthodox Holy Tikhon-Tikhon Humanitarian University and the Moscow Theological Academy, that is, a person who was obviously engaged, and if she knew, why was the examination entrusted to him?

2) How does Vdovichenko over and over again turn out to be an expert in matters having a “religious” coloring? A few years ago, he, along with another philologist, Vsevolod Troitsky from IMLI, and lawyer Igor Ponkin, conducted an examination in the lawsuit of the journalist of the Moscow Komsomolets Sergey Bychkov against Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin (I recall, Father Vsevolod then called Bychkov “a crazy scammer”).

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I must say that all the conclusions in the case of Samodurov-Geofeev combined faded in front of this document. There, in particular, with links to Dahl and Ozhegov, it is reported that the scammer may well be called a person who simply leads to someone-for example, to the readers of the newspaper-“some information about ... a group of persons containing their accusations (justified or unreasonable) of ... reprehensible ... actions” [1] . In general, the word "scammer" does not certainly have a negative color. And even more harmless, the epithet “crazy”, which in this case “ does not contain instructions or hints of mental ill health, cannot be interpreted in this meaning, does not cause any similar associations ”, but simply denotes “ out of the order of one or another quality or the special eccentricity of the object ”. For comparison, the phrase “crazy speed”, “crazy heat”, “crazy prices”, etc., which, of course, have nothing to do with it, if only because the determined words in them, unlike the word “scammer”, are inanimate and, therefore, there can not be any double -reliability, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one considers the heat. psychiatric sense.

By the way, the Bychkova-Chaplin case was very difficult, and it is likely that the lawyer’s lawsuit was really not subject to satisfaction. But this does not cancel the fact that experts instead of linguistic analysis were engaged in the implementation of an ideological order - with the great pleasure that he, apparently, coincided with their own “civil position”. It is clear that under such conditions it is no longer to professional ethics and not to care about the purity of legal proceedings.

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But I, in fact, started this whole conversation not for the sake of Aneeva and not even for Vdovichenko. This is what I wanted to say . If a person by himself, without hints from the side, does not understand that it is ashamed to disgrace, then the public mechanisms for coercion to shame should be included, called a reputation in colloquial . And in our humanitarian community (and beyond, but this is another topic) in essence there are no reputation mechanisms, and therefore there are no reputation costs. Hardly one of the colleagues will refuse to be published in the collection edited by art critic E. or submit their report to the sections, where the linguist V.

We are careless, that’s the trouble. And this is very, very sad. Not because it is so necessary to punish specifically E. and V., but because the presence in the public life of such a thing as a reputation greatly contributes to the speedy solution of a variety of issues, which otherwise solve a more difficult way or remain unresolved.

This drawback, by the way, is felt equally different people, regardless of their views and positions. Say, quite conservative Maxim Sokolov shortly before the verdict in the case of “forbidden art” made a strange article [2] , where the court called, preventing Samodurov and Erofeev’s real terms of imprisonment, to make them “public censure in the form of a declaration of their knowing stains”.

It would seem that the wild idea and what does criminal proceedings have to do with it? In fact, in this appeal I will hear more confusion and a feeling of the same gapyu. There are no institutions or personalities that could pronounce the words “shame”, “squalor”, “pacrots” so that it is intelligible and important for someone except the circle of knowing like-minded people, so even if at least the court is a striking ...

If the development of the country goes according to the normal path, the 282nd article will be removed sooner or later or radically limited (I hope, even more radical than it recommends, say, Boris Dolgin ). But no matter how the criminal and civil codes look like, they will still remain a number of articles, the adequate use of which is impossible without objective and responsible conclusions of humanitarian experts, including linguists. It is obvious that the first step towards healing the situation could be the introduction of the procedural norm of adversarial examinations. Otherwise, an unprofessional and biased examination will remain an obstacle to intelligible legal proceedings - at least according to the "linguistic" articles.

Notes:

[1] For comparison, I will quote the same Ozhegov, who defines the denunciation as a “secret” and certainly addressed to the “representative of the authorities, the chief” “The indictment of someone else's activity, actions”

[2] In response to Erofeev’s statement, that “the artist’s task is to search and probe the pain points of society”, Sokolov with the resourcefulness of a middle -sized schoolchild suggested that Erofeev with a finger in the eye, because this is an “undoubted pain point”. That is, another non -stupid person with the highest philological pretends, as if he does not understand the difference between direct and metaphorical meanings.