The collage uses photo: Alice Reichtman for vtimes

Not so long ago, but even before the start of a new wave of rallies, on Russian social networks, primarily a sarcastically tuned twitter, a wave of local, but nevertheless hot controversy and admissible comparison of Alexei Navalny with Harry Potter, the hero of the English writer Joan Rowling about the wizard boy.

According to the plot, Potter survived after a deadly spell, and he began to call him a boys, but then he surrendered to the chief villain of Vollan de-Mort (he was the same-ling-willed), and he didn’t kill him, but he didn’t really kill him, after which the forces were delighted.

The final scenes of the Harry Potter self -sacrifice when he goes voluntarily into the enemy’s hands, although he could probably have hidden, indeed, often compared with the far from mandatory arrival of Alexei Navalny back to Russia. It is sometimes compared with excessive directness and pathos.

It would seem a comparison as a comparison. After all, everyone uses the cultural code that is available to him and is close. And if such an understanding of the events taking place is simpler, then why not. However, in response there was a choir of mocking voices: "Read another book."

Say, you measure everything in a row on Harry Potter. This is too much on the forehead, too obviously, too trivial. In addition, too sweet and pathos. This was reported to the thirty -year -old Russian millennials by their younger brothers - the post -decent twenty -year -old Zumers.

The statement of the deputy of the State Duma Natalia Poklonskaya was curious with this. She also compared the situation with the opposition politician with the same book by Joan Rowling. But her picture turned out to be diametrically opposite.

“ The situation around Navalny generally resembles a fairy tale about Harry Potter, where it is forbidden to say aloud the name of the one who cannot be pronounced aloud. Even Voldemort is not as terrible as the Russian Navalny! "

Natalia Poklonskaya, State Duma Deputy

Natalya Poklonskaya, born in 1980, in this dispute of generations, is more closer to Russian millennials. When the first book about Harry Potter was published in Russian, she was still a young girl and could well be part of that phenomenon of the end of the nineties - the beginning of the zero, when millions of people lived and grew up with a boy who survived, plunging into his magical world.

Explain the reversibility of assessments is not difficult. Only in the movie about James Bond people are inclined to identify themselves as supervision, and their assistants are fully realized that they are on the side of evil. In ordinary life, with the rarest exceptions, no one wants to be on the dark side of the power, and if it turns out on it, it immediately includes psychologically complex protective mechanisms - either aggression, or cynicism, otherwise it is turned upside down.

It’s not you Harry Potter, Natalya Poklonskaya says protesters, and we (though she does not specify who exactly in the current government of Harry Potter), but the Dark Wizard is you!

However, this ethical leapfrog in the spirit of Yin-Yan is interesting here with the turning out of the black and white picture of the world inside out and vice versa, as the lack of cultural references suitable for the public discussion.

Here are the thirty -year -old protesters and forty -year -old opponents recall Harry Potter, and it seems natural and logical to them. After all, they still looked and read (optical distortion). At the same time for the youngest (the very guroders), and for the elder (generation of Vladimir Putin), they look ridiculous.

But where to draw comparisons then? From which part of the cultural code? Alexey Navalny, for example, at the last court hearing, compared what was happening in Russia with the fairy tale of the Korney Chukovsky “Tarakanische”. Again, for him, a person born in 1976, this is logical. For the notorious generation, Tiktok, which has been said so much recently, is generally something ancient. Now in honor other fairy tales and other cartoons, and not in every family they read Chukovsky for a child.

President Putin himself even loves to send in his speech to jokes, sayings and other folklore - or, as his critics usually say, to the language of the Leningrad gateway. This seems to be not close and aesthetically, and in meaning in general, to everyone who is now younger than 50.

So is there a single cultural code on this field of political battles? You say: Pushkin. Or Tolstoy. Or Chekhov. Or Dostoevsky. And, probably, you will be right. Ultimately, it turns out that in addition to the great Russian literature, we have no single language for conversation. Neither Harry Potter, nor Leningrad jokes, nor Chukovsky’s fairy tales, it seems, will allow us all to agree.

But Pushkin - it can still be.

Harry Potter and the battle of cultural references