The deputy found in the film a violation of Nicholas II's right to privacy, enshrined in the Russian Constitution of 1993, which the emperor did not live to see for a number of reasons

The former prosecutor of Crimea, State Duma deputy Natalia Poklonskaya, not satisfied with the results of the prosecutor's investigation, once again spoke out against Alexei Uchitel's film "Matilda", which tells the story of the affair of the future Emperor Nicholas with the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya.

The deputy found in the film a violation of Nicholas II's right to privacy, enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993, which the emperor did not live to see for a number of reasons. Dissemination of information about Nicholas's private life, and "without his consent," which is also difficult to obtain due to unfortunate historical and biological circumstances, is punishable, Poklonskaya reminds us, by imprisonment for up to two years ("two years"). In addition, using the method of legal archeology, the deputy found elements of such crimes as slander and insulting a government official. True, the government of a non-existent state. But Poklonskaya has a reference to the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire for this. After all, the Pussy Riot girls received a "two years" practically in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Trullo (7th century), why not refer to acts from more than a hundred years ago in support of a potential claim? The film itself, from the deputy's point of view, is an insult to the feelings of believers.

One could consider the events surrounding the film as a theatre of the absurd, but, for example, a guilty verdict for reposting an article about Hitler and Stalin preparing to attack Poland in 1939 is no less absurd. The Yarovaya package is Ionesco and Beckett, seasoned with Stoppard. The laws against adoption and on foreign agents are cavernous and archaic. Is it worth continuing the list?

Therefore, the conversation, despite all its Rabelaisian excessive stupidity, is serious.

Following Poklonskaya's logic, all works of art and chapters in textbooks that depict Nicholas II as a more or less real historical figure should be banned. If, as Radishchev would say, "we look around ourselves" to see what else the Orthodox could be offended by, it turns out that in order to respect their refined feelings, we would have to stop almost all life in the country. This is a tricky phenomenon - why do only Orthodox people go to court and only their opponents go to prison? Where are the offended Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews? Where are the lawsuits against, for example, Pyotr Tolstoy, who did not make a movie, but expressed anti-Semitic views with the utmost directness?

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Invasion of privacy. Why was Lenin put on display "without his consent" and now, like the Canterville Ghost, he can't find peace for decades? Shouldn't we sue those who keep him in a sarcophagus like a zoo?

The story itself. When the real Nicholas had relations with Kshesinskaya and between them there was only what happens between a man and a woman when they are enchanted by each other, Nicky Romanov was not an emperor. That is, the entity that was canonized in 2000.

Finally, our church is separated from the state. And, despite the fact that the officialdom of the Russian Orthodox Church increasingly takes on the powers of agitprop, it, although trying, has not yet become the main repertoire committee. And it is not for the deputies, whose functions are somewhat different, to judge or "defend" one of the most controversial, but also unfortunate characters in Russian history.

The author is the program director of the Carnegie Moscow Center

The Secret of the Afterlife Correspondence