​Wandering Sacral

At the end of the 70s, among artists and writers close to me, several words arose that ironically denoted some features of the discourse that existed among artists and writers who were not very close to me. These words were uttered quite often, they were always pronounced with specific, slightly contemptuous intonations and were considered then (and in essence were) a killer argument in the sluggish, but not abating polemics between those who...

But here, excuse me, I feel certain difficulties. It seemed absolutely clear then who and who were arguing furiously among themselves. And now it’s not very clear.

However, perhaps it will be a little clearer what I'm talking about if I just say that the most common derogatory word against aesthetic opponents was the word "oven." Well, and a few more. For example, there was the word “imperishable”, which, by the way, is widely used to this day.

It seems to me now that it was I (although most likely not me) who brought the word “sacral” into use.

Sacral, yes. It was she, along with the oven, that, from the point of view of the artistic community to which I belonged and, in general, still belong, needed consistent artistic exposure. The word “deconstruction” came to us much later, but that’s what we were talking about. In short, one of the most important tasks of artistic practice was the unconditional desacralization of everything that was considered or more often designated “sacred” in the public, and most often in the authorities’ consciousness.

The official Soviet language did not make too much use of the word “sacral”, classifying it for the time being as more of a theological department. And why do they need foreign words if there is a native, hymn-intensive word “sacred”. It’s a good word, quite, by the way, sacred.

I can’t firmly judge whose ghost is wandering around Europe, but in Russia at all times the ghost of a wandering Sacral has wandered and is still wandering, taking on various guises corresponding to the current moment and the political situation.

The sacral has always been there and looked different in different eras.

In my memory, the Sakralka embraced the word “revolution” and everything connected with it. In early childhood, of course, “Stalin”.

In the 60s there was almost no “Stalin”. But there was “Lenin” in all cases. And, of course, “communism”. In those years, quite rapid desacralization was left to folklore. Therefore, an endless stream of jokes—sometimes, without exaggeration, brilliant—about “communism” and other “bright futures” reached the broadest masses of workers, students and pensioners. There were really outstanding anecdotes there - I’ll tell you later someday.

One of the last “shrines” and “icons” of the Soviet years was, again, Lenin. And not so much even Lenin as a historical figure, but the word “Lenin”, as well as his diverse iconography. That is why both of them became in those same years, during the heyday of such an artistic movement as Sots Art, one of the most delicious objects of gambling and luxurious desacralization. Well, and the word “Soviet” itself.

The 90s are the years of continuous, total desacralization, which, in fact, all the priests and shamans of the miraculous Sacral cannot forgive them, these years.

At the beginning of the 2000s, the Sakralka, badly damaged, but unusually, as it turned out, tenacious, perked up, shook off the dust and cobwebs and went like a pig towards the hated modernity.

The most painful point, the most sacred and nervous, the most sensitive to our time was “victory”. She became not an episode - albeit one of the most significant - of Russian history, but one of the most influential goddesses in the pagan-patriotic pantheon.

It is not permissible to talk about it in dialogue mode, it can only be sung, sacrifices can and should be made to it and decorated with many striped ribbons.

And today the very word “victory” in the context of bellicose rhetoric, in the context of all sorts of “we can repeat it”, ineptly diluted with official unconvincing sensitivity, cannot help but transparently and persistently remind us that it, this word, is a direct translation of the German word “ Sieg."

But not only the “sacred” passes through the department of the Sakralka. It is also everything taboo, forbidden, shameful, dangerous, not worthy of being spoken in public. Around words denoting something sacred, it is as if a force field is formed, charged with either positive or negative energy.

So these days, for example, the current president and his entourage avoid saying Navalny’s name.

So I just caught myself not mentioning the name of the “current president” for some reason, subconsciously making it taboo.

And it’s okay if it’s just me. I really notice that not only in the media, but also in private conversations, the word “Putin” has become involuntarily taboo. “President” is, so to speak, the best case scenario. They started saying “he”, “chief boss”, “this one”, “someone”... Have you noticed?

This is something like how one’s own or other people’s husbands or wives, avoiding their names in some cases, are designated as “mine”, “yours”, “mine”, “yours”. “My guy got drunk again yesterday, you bastard. I barely crawled home.” Or: “How is yours? Is everyone grumbling?

The sacred woman searches with a flashlight through the dictionary, through the list of names, through the list of historical - real or imaginary - events, designating certain - original or borrowed - words, names, historical events as sacred. The dictionary is always under the lantern, under its unquenchable light.

In recent days, the Sakralka has become unusually excited about the film “The Death of Stalin,” which resulted in a noticeable and widely discussed scandal.

Censorship or not censorship, insulting sacred things again, there are boundaries of decency, Russophobia, rental certificates, again censorship, which does not exist, but it exists, there is a limit to everything, Stalin died or he did not die, this is not art, but politics, not art, but an abomination, not art, but an evil libel, not art, but another attempt to destroy everything that already exists...

I haven’t seen the film, but, as they usually say in such cases, I’ll say it. I will say that, of course, I will definitely watch it. Despite the fact that I’m not a big movie buff and rarely watch movies at all. But I'll take a look.

I will watch it not so much out of a spirit of contradiction, but simply because from all my social, sensory and aesthetic experience I have long ago firmly learned that “they” unerringly attack with their entire pack of rats only what deserves attention, that , which in their minds shakes, that is, desacralizes their indestructible Sacral.

However, Sakralka these days performs under the pseudonym Skrepa. And in this case, what would you order to call what it is absolutely necessary to subject her to in order to somehow refresh the social, communicative air around us? If before this was called “desacralization,” then what now? “Descrepolization”, or what? Well, at least that's it, although it sounds, of course, terribly awkward.