"What is happening now has no resemblance to the USSR"

Alexander Etkind, professor of Russian literature and cultural history at King's College (Cambridge), head of the European research project Memory at War , spoke about what modern Russia is like from the point of view of the science of historical memory, where the intelligentsia went and why the current government imitates the Soviet one.

— In any socio-political news, the intelligentsia instantly notices traces of the terrible past. Is the Soviet Union really coming, or are we experiencing some completely different, new formation? Do we know what this is?

We know, we know. I work professionally with historical memory, and I am especially interested in how it is used and used, for example, in today's Russia. What is happening now has no resemblance to the USSR and no continuity. Unless it is the same geographical territory - an important factor, but not a determining one. Those people who operated during the times of Stalinism no longer exist; their grandchildren, the third and fourth generation, live now. Was Skoybeda with lampshades possible under Stalin (columnist of Komsomolskaya Pravda, who wrote “Sometimes you regret that the Nazis didn’t make lampshades out of the ancestors of today’s liberals” - this is how she responded to politician Leonid Gozman, who compared SMERSH with the SS - editor’s note)? No, it was a completely different language back then. Or oligarch officials and their gigantic fortunes abroad. Did this happen under Stalin? It just wasn't even close. There was corruption, but these were children's tears compared to today's corruption. How does a simple Muscovite live now? He goes to Turkey or southern India, and this is very important to him - this is the center of his existence. And all of today's political economy and social psychology are completely different. This regime is not the same as it was then. And there is no continuity with that regime; it was destroyed. That regime killed much more and stole much less. Between them there are half a century of continuous reforms, secret reports, revelations, and repentances. And the country is called differently.

— The anthem remains.

There is some symbolic return, for example, when Putin says that we need to form a defense order, as it was under Stalin. But references to Stalinism, rather, cover up the interests of the authorities. It is in the interests of the authorities to pretend to be scoops and imitate political continuity.

- Why?

This is how memory works - people remember a lot in this post-catastrophic situation. Even researchers call the current period “post-Soviet,” although 20 years have already passed. You can come up with a name for this era, but there is no political will to build it any other way.

— What is “post-catastrophic”?

The Soviet regime was a great disaster. At one time I wrote an article about the hundred-year revolution, which lasted from 1905 to 2005. Conditionally. This is a permanent revolution that was once so desired, and it happened. It had peaks of global violence, like Stalin's terror or war. And the current regime is state banditry.

- So, the intelligentsia has phantom pains, since they always remember the Soviet Union?

She has very real pain. She has lost her place and her meaning. During the changes, the intelligentsia was a leader, for some time maintained a leading position and united the best of worlds - it had new opportunities and retained Soviet privileges: the Academy of Sciences, an apartment, cronyism when entering the university. These privileges were gradually taken away - first for general reasons of economy, and then for the purpose of social and political struggle against the dissatisfied. This is a story that no one has ever written. We can write to you. Although it's not over yet.

“The authorities are increasingly encroaching on values ​​that until recently seemed unshakable. Do you see this trend?

Yes, and there is much more to come. The system worked on an agreement: the authorities could earn any money without any control of the population. The population did not mind as long as its own prosperity grew. At some point it became clear that the agreement was not working. A protest movement arose, and the authorities sensed the danger that came from certain social groups - mainly from the intelligentsia. But the people will also be increasingly dissatisfied. The people themselves don’t know about this yet, but experts in power do, and they are in a panic. Welfare is all they have and they take preventive measures. There are also people like Skoybeda, who run ahead of the locomotive and think that something will happen to them. And, probably, they are right - they really will get it.

— How can one simultaneously write bills on punishment for justifying fascism and allow essentially fascist publications about the lampshade? Can we somehow reconstruct this logic?

Fascists are enemies, enemies must be fought, Gozman is also an enemy, which means he is also a fascist. Although this, of course, is not logic at all.

— Apparently, they mean something else by the word “fascism.”

The word "fascism" doesn't have much meaning at all. Historically this is "Nazism". In political discourse, "fascism" means "very bad." It's like swearing, obscene language.

— You said that the authorities still have some way to go. Where exactly? They will not close the Iron Curtain, because then people will not be able to travel to Turkey.

I think they will introduce exit visas, as they did before, to control the borders. Skoybeda behaves well and can leave, but you cannot. They have already begun to do this: a person who is in debt cannot leave now. Well, things are heading towards a Cold War. Edward Lucas from The Economist wrote a book called The New Cold War about five years ago. Everyone criticized him, but he was right.

— We operate with the concepts of “Iron Curtain” and “Cold War,” although you said that modern Russia has nothing to do with the USSR.

Generals are always preparing for the next war, but all they can do is prepare for the last war. We just don’t have other words and concepts. I call this the "memory model" - those images and constructions of the past that are used to understand the present.

- Does memory work this way everywhere and at all times?

Yes, especially among economists and generals. But in Russia there is a post-catastrophic consciousness, here memory models work more intensively.

— You said that events that took place a hundred years ago, such as fascism or Stalinism, are still discussed today, and you called this “oversaturation” of Russian memory. Do you have any explanation for this?

In general, people do not tend to remember events from such a distant past. In Russia this is explained by two factors. The first is the scale of the disaster. A lot of people died. According to sociological surveys, every fourth Russian has relatives who died in the Gulag. The second is the lack of development of this catastrophe in public speech, its unburied nature. There are no collective rituals, no cultural forms. During perestroika, the cultural sphere was seething - there was the film "Repentance". Later, a five-hundred-ruble banknote was issued with an image of the Solovetsky Monastery from the Gulag era. Do you know the story about five hundred rubles? When a camp appeared on Solovki, they made roofs with pyramidal ceilings. Solovki looked like the one on the five-hundred-ruble bill only during the Gulag - the bulbs were restored in the 1960s. And the new banknote, which the Central Bank issued a couple of years ago, already has onions drawn on it. This means that every Russian carried a monument in his pocket.

- This cannot be a monument, because a Russian wears an image of the Gulag without knowing it.

This often happens with monuments. A man walks past the Bronze Horseman, but does not think about Peter the Great. The message in the bill is encrypted, and decryption is waiting in the wings. It is unclear who painted this in the 1990s. My hypothesis is that it was Dmitry Likhachev’s idea to immortalize the Gulag - it was not possible to erect other monuments. His book of memoirs contains just such a picture of the camp. But this is my speculation, there is no evidence. In any case, someone did this on purpose.