Play of words: how the opposition was created

Change the names

A variety of symbols multiply in Russian space. These are not only different ribbons, but also all kinds of names, as Jacobson would say - meaning, deprived of the meaning: Nazis, Bandera, fifth column, etc. Everyone, however, knows what I'm talking about, and can easily continue this list. These words are involved in the state propaganda machine, and the meaning of their use is no secret to anyone.

However, there are strange manipulations with names that seem to be an intuitive interpretation, but their meaning is not fully understood. Here, for example, is a recent epic with a referendum regarding the renaming of Volgograd to Stalingrad. Why does Putin need this, who is already compared every day with Hitler? What did he want to lean against Stalin? Why turn this corpse? Here is an explanation of this symbolic manipulation, invented by Gleb Pavlovsky: “Having a less aggressive line against Ukraine, heading for a de-escort of this European conflict, Putin has to feed the expectations of a new Crimean majority oriented towards the imperial discourse, which wants victories and triumphs. Renaming Volgograd to Stalingrad - compensation for the failed New Russia. ” Honestly, I do not really understand how such a renaming compensates for the de -escalation of aggression against Ukraine (if one is generally taking place).

Leo Rubinstein connects the renaming with a return to a well -known past and quite appropriately remembers the return to the winter time. “Yeah,“ and we returned back, and returned to Stalingrad. ” Well, they haven't returned yet. Only while we are going, ”he summarizes what is happening. It is true, of course, that the main ideological vector of Russia's development was not moving forward, but running back. But why did this happen? What suddenly made the authorities decisively abandon the future?

It is curious that the fever with the names of cities covers not only Volgograd/Stalingrad. For example, Ksenia Sobchak reports on her blog that she had difficulties when changing her Russian passport: “... in Russian I, you see, is“ the city of birth-St. Petersburg ”, and not“ Leningrad ”. To my question, how, from the age of 16, I received an unthinkable number of passports without any nit -picking, the girl in the passport office reasonably answered: “Now times have changed.” What is true is true. And so I call my secretary, I ask you to help change the Russian passport. And then I sit down and think. And I can’t even explain why, but I just suddenly clearly understand that I do not want Leningrad to stand in my passport. I do not want to indirectly, but the “grandfather Lenin”, who was bored since October times. ”

Toponymy causes quite strong emotions in people who give it almost magical significance. Sobchak does not want to in Leningrad, as if a change in the toponym in her passport is drawn into another space and time. The magic named after today manifested itself in the anecdotal initiative of the self -proclaimed (and now, it seems, overthrown) mayor of Slavyansk Ponomarev, who proposed renaming Slavyansk to Putinsk. This is how the renaming is motivated: “It is not necessary to go far here, you just have to recall the Stalingrad battle, which became a turning point during the Great Patriotic War. Then everyone understood that the commander in chief of the Soviet Army would not allow the city named by its name to be taken by the enemy army. It is also worth the right to rename the settlements, and this will not only affect the fighting spirit. Perepolnians, but also to support them from Vladimir Vladimirovich. I don’t know if this information is possible. But even if it is an apocrypha, it fits completely into the channel of today's manipulations with names.

The invention of heresy

What is the meaning of all this bizarre and as if insane semiotics? It seems to me that it is necessary for the construction and simultaneous insulation of the so -called opposition. It should be clearly understood that at the time of the first mass performances of the end of 2011-the beginning of 2012 there was no opposition, although it was instantly spoke about it. There were a lot of citizens, outraged by falsification of elections, as well as some typical features of Russian statehood - the lack of justice, the criminalality of power and power structures, and emergency. But this discontent could not be called the opposition. The fact is that in the country it is impossible to find people who would be convinced of falsification, crime, theft and legal chaos. There was no opposition because there was nothing in the requirements of the protesters at all that the vast majority of citizens could not agree with. Almost everything. The concept of the opposition, however, was instantly thrown into consciousness, and long and senseless conversations began, for example, that it did not have a leader. What is the leader possible here? The main task of the authorities was to present a massive protest as an expression of the opinion of the minority, which glued an empty label of the opposition.

But if the opposition is invented, it is necessary to find the difference between those who go to the swamp and imaginary majority of the population. Remember these miserable attempts to organize the countermates of Putin's “majority” from state employees? And it is here that symbols and meaning begin to play their role. It was with the help of names that the symbolic differentiation of the opposition was made and made, which thought the same as the entire population of the country, that is, was no different from the majority. To make my arguments more clearly, I will allow myself to turn to the history of early Christianity, to which we owe the rhetoric and the practice of such a symbolic stratification of society.

The general category of "demons" unites Akunin, Rubinstein, Kasyanov, Navalny, Latinin and Novodvorskaya. They all have hooves instead of their fingers.

Early Christianity faced a situation of struggle for control of the church of various Christian movements. At the same time, there was no clear way of allocating one or another direction as the only true, as there was no unified church institution. It was the early apologists of the Church that came up with the symbolic operation of the separation of the correct Christians from the wrong ones who received the name of heretics . The very concept of heresy was invented precisely during this period, because paganism with his religious syncretism was not familiar with him. In Greece, the concept of h airesis was adopted - it was attached to a certain integral doctrine, which had the founder and shared its followers. This concept did not have any negative shade that church polemists began to give it. Early Christianity consisted of people who believed in Christ the Savior, God's grace and other fundamental dogmas. How to distinguish the right from the wrong ones? The invention of heresy performed the function of differentiation and at the same time served as the gradual formation of church orthodoxy. I think that in Russia the creation of an opposition simultaneously serves the formation of state orthodoxy, which before that did not exist.

You can distinguish several rhetorical techniques of the Orthodoxy department from heresy, techniques, acting to this day, including in Russia. It is significant that all this rhetoric is largely avoiding doctrinal arguments in essence. So in Russia it is impossible to criticize the dissatisfied because they do not like falsifications and arbitrariness. Tertullian, who played the fundamental role in the design of the idea of ​​heresy, warned of the need to avoid disputes on the merits and discuss with opponents of the Scripture: “Therefore, one should not appeal to the Scriptures; You should not compete where there is no victory or it is doubtful or both is unclear ”(“ On the prescation [against] heretics ”(19)). Arguments were recommended to look exclusively in the rhetorical plane.

The true Christian belonged to the church, which kept the tradition and was its successor, and the heretic deviated from tradition, was alienated from it. This deviation from a certain dogma was supposedly inevitably expressed in sexual deviations and debauchery. But belonging to tradition was a much more reliable criterion for owning truth than understanding of Scripture. A sign of orthodoxy was the recognition of the inviolability and continuity of the church hierarchy, based on the dogma of apostolic continuity. The church right through the apostles rises to Christ, from which it draws its unshakable authority. Denise Bwell in his innovative studies showed to what extent the construction of the heresies activated the polemic in the terms of genealogy, cleanliness of the line, and even in terms of ethnic group and “race” (Genos) .

I believe that in today's Russia the whole official rhetoric of tradition, cultural and national genealogy and continuity of the continuum of Russian statehood from Peter to Stalin and Putin fits into a similar rhetorical scheme and plays an important role in the construction of imaginary opposition.

The authorities, inventing the opposition, sculpted its own face, which, it seems, frightened the whole world.

Irenaeus Lyon first formulated the principle of a single source and general genealogy of heresy. Her progenitor was proclaimed Simon Samaritan, “from which all the heresies came” (“Five Books Against heresy”, I, 23). He argued that heretics, like pagans, were sent by Satan and in their practice, of course, depraved: “They live voluptuously, ˂ ... ˃ love to resort to means exciting love and attraction ...” With the light hand of Irinea, the connection of heresy and the devil became the common place of church ideology. I admit that for the first time the idea of ​​this article came to my mind when I saw that Moscow was decorated with advertising shields on which a fragment of Yuri Danich’s picture “Demons” was placed. There, a group of Moscow intellectuals is depicted as demons with hooves. At this moment, I had a distinct feeling that I was dealing with the heritage of Irenaeus. This feeling was strengthened after the film adaptation of Dostovsky with direct attacks against the opposition was shown on TV.

The creation of genealogies (in both cases of false) is significant. It not only allows you to separate its own from strangers; Genealogies provide the unity of the built social field. Completely different people are united in a certain unified education called heresy or opposition. So, in Danich in his picture, the general category of “demons” is united by Akunin, Rubinstein, Kasyanov, Navalny, Latinin and Novodvorskaya. They all have their hooves instead of their fingers, referring to the general genealogy, to one demonic "species". In the same way, from completely different teachings, the early apologists of the Church glued some “common” movements that never existed in reality. These include, for example, Gnosticism, fabricated by church polemists.

Orthodoxes in this picture of the world belong to their "race", while invented heretics - to radically alien. The heresy of church polemicists is usually entered "because of the hill." Tertullian unfolds an unchanged opposition between Jerusalem and Athens, while heretical perversions of the teachings are attributed to the influence of Athens, that is, Greek philosophy. He argued that Valentinianism is Christianity, spoiled by Plato’s influence, Marcion fell into heresy under the influence of the Stoics, Epicurus and Zenon, a dialectic, which, according to Tertullian, made it impossible to achieve truth, penetrated the church due to the coronetal influence of Aristotle. In Tertullian’s writings, contempt for philosophical clever, which is opposed to the authority of tradition, constantly sounds:

"7. Intelligence - the main source of heresies; The Christian is enough of one faith.

8-11. Heresy should not look for excuses in the words “Look and find”; There is no need to look for something else to have faith. ˂ ... ˃

20-22. Truth belongs to Christ, then to the apostolic legend.

23-25. Apostolic teaching is devoid of contradictions; The whole truth received from Christ is revealed in it.

26-29. The church is the only heiress of truth and the apostolic authority ”(“ On the Preception [Against] heretics ”).

The strategy for inventing heresy contributed to the self -determination of the church, gaining its own identity, which was largely formulated in a polemic against those who were named after heretics.

Meaning

It is amazing, of course, to what extent the rhetorical models of the early church polemic turned out to be tenacious. The Russian authorities act according to the prescriptions, which was once tested by Justin Martyr, Irinee or Tertullian. The production of the opposition from mass protest was carried out by throwing some empty “signifiers” into the media sphere, which helped to differentiate where unanimity existed in reality. I believe that the activities of the Duma mainly came down to the production of such odious signs. Let us recall at least the homophobic law. The theme of homosexuality is thrown into society, which seemed to have long lost all relevance. The persecution of gays, of course, causes a negative reaction in a significant part of the intelligentsia, which begins to marke as homosexual, “goropeic”, immoral, and so on. Russia in such rhetoric becomes automatically defender of traditional family values. There is a separation of its owners from strangers, and it occurs on the field, completely alien to the content of political protests. The Duma constantly produces odious and irritating sane people by legislation, which works for the symbolic isolation of an invented opposition. Let us recall at least the notorious law on NGOs as foreign agents. The last such gesture is aggression against Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, a symbolic event that most successfully forms the image of the opposition as a minority that protects the interests of NATO and foreign people. Each new gesture of symbolic differentiation enhances the feeling of a certain anti -people education and at the same time narrows its framework. So thanks to the Crimean epic there was another round of separation into his own and strangers, which began with the homophobic campaign.

Of course, the game with these signifiers always unfolds on the verge of absurdity. For example, a ban on non -normative vocabulary, which should present the opposition as defenders of the battle, certainly does not fit into the preservation of the Russian national tradition, unthinkable without a mother. I believe that the story of the renaming of Volgograd is the same provocative symbolic gesture. He will undoubtedly cause a wave of protests, people will not without reason to say that we are talking about the restoration of the cult of Stalin. They will answer that we are talking about perpetuating in the name of the greatest victory of the Russian people in the Patriotic War and that their protest only confirms the anti -people and antipatriotic essence of the opposition. At the same time, as this happens all the time, this kind of provocation will inevitably entail further sliding into the swamp of Stalinism. Symbols form a reality that they march.

All this multi-stage symbolic operation allowed the authorities to submit dissatisfaction with the population with falsifications and arbitrariness as a hysterical performance of “demons” and national traitors against the Russian tradition and authority of power. This operation was quite successful. But just like the early church gained identity in the process of making heresies, the Russian government finally determined its own person, which it did not have before the start of manipulations with the desired. As a result, at the site of a neutral thieving bureaucratic institution, a homophobic, aggressive, stupid and through and through the false of the Khar of the current Russian government was formed. The authorities, inventing the opposition, sculpted its own face, which, it seems, frightened the whole world. There is nothing to be done, for the creation of political fictions you have to pay your own face.