Igor Eidman: Udmurt Yan Palakh?

In power are supporters of both tsarism and Stalinism, great-power chauvinism and the patriarchal structure of society. Naturally, they are enemies of the national cultures of the conquered peoples, supporters of their Russification and closer integration into a single empire.

Udmurt scholar Albert Razin, who signed an earlier open letter of protest against the adoption of a bill to abolish the compulsory study of the national languages ​​of the peoples of Russia in schools, committed self-immolation. He was an Honored Scientist of Udmurtia, director of the Institute of Human Udmurt State University and an activist in the Udmurt movement for the preservation of the language. Earlier, the scientist stood in a picket near the building of the State Council of the Republic with a poster: "And if tomorrow my language disappears, then I am ready to die today."

Under Putin, the Kremlin resumed the policy of Russification, traditional for the Russian Empire. In practice, the adopted law means that the opportunities for voluntary study of the native national language in schools will be significantly limited. This outrages the inhabitants and the national intelligentsia of most republics. But Putin's authorities are not going to stop. They need the unification and Russification of the regions. They want to take control and tame the national identity and culture of the peoples of Russia. Everyone should become faceless "Russians", speaking the language of the empire, consider it their homeland, and the ruler - their own father. The exception is Kadyrov's Chechnya. Kadyrov, in exchange for faithful service, is allowed (for the time being) to maintain a certain autonomy and be the all-powerful satrap of his province. But, I think, unification and Russification will get there.

Even during Gorbachev's perestroika, the writer Kamil Ikramov warned: “The idealization of tsarism, which now and then comes to light, is not nostalgic. It is directed not backward, but forward, to our future. But already today the first clashes are being seen, where, on the one hand, great-power chauvinism and the dream of a patriarchal structure of society, and on the other hand, the traditions of our democrats, based on respect for human and national dignity, on tolerance for ideas, opinions, religion and national problems. And one should not be surprised that the supporters of the first of the tendencies I have named in today's clash of opinions seem to have suddenly turned out to be defenders of Stalinism. This is not “suddenly”, but naturally, because the third is not given to any of us.

Now this anti-utopia has come true. In power are supporters of both tsarism and Stalinism, great-power chauvinism and the patriarchal structure of society. Naturally, they are enemies of the national cultures of the conquered peoples, supporters of their Russification and closer integration into a single empire.

I am afraid that the offensive against the remnants of the cultural autonomy of the national republics will continue. And even today's tragedy will not be able to stop it, just as the self-immolation of Jan Palach could not stop the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

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