Translated material
The end of the Russian world
How and by whom it was intended that they are now trying to pass off as an ideology. And why nothing happened
Peter Sarukhanov / "New Gazeta"
"Russian World": Birth
The expression “Russian world” (hereinafter referred to as the RM) first appears in the “Clovation for the update of the Ten Church” - a literary monument of the XI century, where it is used in the meaning of “Rus'” or “Russian land”. The next time we meet it after 800 years in an article by the historian Nikolai Kostomarov “Two Russian Nations” in the same meaning. Looking into the past (or seeing the future), he writes that the conditions for the formation of the RM are “the desire to join other lands, undertaken under the banner of religion, success, consecrated by the idea of God's permission, support for mass, submissive power, when the latter reaches out to it to protect it, as long as it needs it, and subsequently the removal of folk law into the hands of its chosen ones.”
The modern doctrine of the RM was born in the 1990s in response to the collective crisis of identity after the collapse of CCCR and the collapse of communist ideology. Parents of the RM should be considered, first of all, G. Pavlovsky and P. Shchedrovitsky.
RM was conceived as an answer to Russian scattering after the revolution and the collapse of the USSR. Its creators believed that the era of nations-states was coming to an end, and RM was conceived as Russia, regardless of its political borders, as an alternative to isolation and contrasting itself to the rest of the world.
Despite the intellectual freedom of this time, RM was a political order “One of the responsible government workers”, whose name is not called the creators of the doctrine.
"Russian World" and the Kremlin: mutation
RM did not immediately become part of the official discourse of the Kremlin.
At the dawn of the “Russian Spring” in 2014, an interview was published with A. Chesnakov, director of the Center for the Political Conjuncture, and a former deputy head of the internal policy department of the President of the Russian Federation.
Chesnakov says that the RM brought to the Kremlin in 2004, Pavlovsky, and took the concept of V. Surkov, and then V. Putin. “By the middle of the zero administrative measures that would support the power system in a stable state, it was no longer enough,” says Chesnakov. This is an important phrase that actually means the following:
In the absence of real political competition, the authorities announced its legitimacy and irremovability, proclaiming itself the guardian of the RM, which was invented by it.
To understand what happened next, you need to recall the episode, it would seem, in no way connected with the RM.
At one public event, V. Surkov spoke about his first school “startup” for the sale of pornographic photographs, and then jokingly remarked : “Since then I have been trading with exciting images.” So, RM is an exciting image. This is a political brand that appeals mainly to emotions, and not to the mind. What makes him attractive? Greatness and belonging. This is a mobilizing brand.
The process of the RM mutation began. On the one hand, he gained new meanings, on the other hand, he lost specific outlines. In an interview recorded in 2021, V. Surkov says that he introduced the RM into the structure of state policy around 2004. It was a way to declare "our desire to expand." On February 15, 2022, he publishes material , where he again says that Russia is “close and boring” in its current political boundaries.
Among the definitions of the political values of the RM, the director of the Institute of European RAS A. Gromyko identifies the sacredness of power and paternalism, and among the spiritual ones - spirituality (in the sense of spiritual dominance over material), messianism (Moscow - the Third Rome), idealism, humility (or passionate). These “spiritual values” can be interpreted as the indifference of the state to the material well -being of citizens, collective narcissism, utopianism and willingness of the people silently undergo suffering from the authorities of the emerging.
A beggarly pension or toilet with a cesspool is just the dominance of the spiritual over the material.
It is important that on behalf of the authorities, Comrade Gromyko declares her sacredness. The Soviet Union, being an atheistic state, proclaimed itself supreme authority and did not need an external religious source of sacralization. After the collapse of communist ideology, the state again relies on the church to recognize its sacred power. Thus, RM is introduced from the Kremlin into the Russian Orthodox Church and becomes fundamental in church discourse.
"Russian World" and the Russian Orthodox Church: sacralization
RM, invented in Moscow cuisines, is filled in the church by divine meanings. Patriarch Kirill talks about the RM so often that the official church speaker claims that it was he who introduced this concept. The patriarch’s book “Seven Words of the Russian World” is released.
The sacralization of the RM is not least through its identification with "Holy Russia". “The core of the Russian world today is Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the holy Monk Lavrenty Chernigov expressed this idea by the famous phrase:“ Russia, Ukraine, Belarus - this is holy Russia, ” says Patriarch Kirill. Further - more. “Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are like a holy Trinity, and no one can change this,” says N. Poklonskaya. When three Slavic people unite, looking at the image of the Holy Trinity, then we, united, will fight the united satanic forces, the Bishop Pitim (cottage cheese) prophesies .
The myth of the "triune people" denies Ukraine as such. The famous article by Timofei Sergeytseva “What Russia should do with Ukraine”, where he says that the states should not be with that name is a logical development of the doctrine of the RM.
For Patriarch Kirill RM, it is a stronghold of “traditional values”, and therefore poses a threat to his enemies, which, however, are never called politically, nor geographically, nor names. This is intentionally: RM becomes part of the occult dualistic cosmology. It is confronted with evil and good, darkness and light, in which the RM from the beginning stands on the side of the world and good. Russia as a keeper and apparent image of the RM attribute divine attributes - “omnipotence” (“Russia never attacked anyone”), omnipotence (“Russia never lost wars”).
All negative in her history is connected with the machinations of external or internal enemies. The current confrontation is the next chapter in this epic, where the RM is a victim of some mysterious forces that want to destroy it.
The peak of sacralization of the RM can be considered the XXV World Russian People’s Cathedral in 2023, which was called: "The present and future of the Russian world." The sacralization of his Russian Orthodox Church in the symphony with the state was its main task.
Criticism of the "Russian world"
Most of the researchers believe that no consistent doctrine of RM exists. So, M. Laryuel defines it as a “floating meaning” (Floating Signifier), whose formless is its integral property and the meaning of which depends on the audience and context. According to N. Vasilevich, “there is no and has never been a unified ideology of the“ Russian world ”, this is a number of myths, metaphors and ideas, including their Orthodox wrapper, but not exclusively in it,” and therefore “current support *** from the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, in my opinion, this is not so much support for the ideology of the“ Russian world ”as the authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin.”
This is not only scientists. So, A. Lukashenko said : “I asked the ambassador ( Russian. - A.K. ), what does the collection of Russian lands mean and what is the Russian world? No one explained to me. Someone after the elections, after the elections, threw the Russian state-owned ideologists, and they began to sing this song. This is a far -fetched, stupid set. ”
Even the same preacher of the RM may not have a clear picture of what RM is. So, S. Aleinikova draws attention to the fact that Patriarch Kirill defines the RM in extremely vague categories, such as the “Russian method of residence”, without revealing its content, features and differences from other residence.
In addition, she notes , “in three paragraphs of one speech on the theme of the“ Russian world ”on September 6, 2014, the patriarch fourteen times use the impersonal pronoun“ this ”, and the terminological scatter in the context of the topic under consideration has about one and a half dozen options, each of which carries an independent semantic load.”
Bishop Evfimiy (Moiseev) says that "RM, its being and its boundaries directly depend on how the carriers of the idea of RM understand and determine them and determine for themselves." In other words, that the Adept of the RM understands him, then he is.
On March 13, 2022, a declaration was published, denouncing the RM as heresy. One of its main critics Fr. also determines the RM. Cyril (Govorun). In his opinion, RM “uses the power of classical modernist ideologies such as communism <...>, to consolidate the masses of people, directing them through propaganda and coercion. He imported totalitarianism and civilizational nationalism from the twentieth to the twenty -first century. ” Thus, RM is “an imaginary community formed by an ideology that shares people and inspires them to kill each other.”
The end of the "Russian world"
Contrary to the statement of V. Putin that the concept of RM was used in the current meaning of the “time for centuries”, contrary to the statement of Patriarch Kirill, that the RM was invented not in Moscow or in St. Petersburg, RM is an artificial concept, and its genesis is easy to trace. So, not Russian politics is based on the doctrine of the RM, but on the contrary,
RM was artificially conceived by the Kremlin in order to justify the irremovability of power and justify territorial ambitions.
Since the creation, the concept of RM has completely changed its meaning. According to M. Nemtsev, "created as an alternative to nationalism and any form of imperialism, now it is identified with them." In 2015, M. Laruel predicted that RM as the soft power of Russia in the near abroad could become solid.
In 2024, RM is no longer associated with “soft force” and became an integral part of a warlike dictionary. In 2014, Patriarch Kirill said that "all war with people of other views and other beliefs is alien to our worldview, for" the religious dimension of the Russian world is the source of the peace of our people. " Now he sees the question differently. It is precisely about the war of civilization of "traditional values" against "liberal civilization." Having ceased to be an expression of “soft power” for the state, the RM has ceased to be the same for the church as it was before.
In 2010, Patriarch Kirill said that “belonging to the Russian world is determined not by forced means, but on the basis of free choice of people and peoples. Therefore, there can be no imposition of the idea of the Russian world. ” This statement is no longer of value. In 2023, at a meeting of VRNS, A. Dugin said that the choice of Ukraine is “not to be part of who it is,” and there is the cause of the current conflict.
Belonging to the RM is no longer a matter of voluntary choice, but the privilege of those who perform on his behalf. They themselves decide who belongs to him, and who is not, and are ready to use the weapon in order to approve the affiliation they indicated.
While the RM is based on the assertion that Ukraine is its full -fledged part, the practical application of the doctrine has led to the opposite result: the previously unprecedented consolidation of Ukraine in the confrontation, in which a new, bright Ukrainian identity is born. The heroine of the book of K. Gordeeva* “Take my grief” says: “In Ukraine, they always said:“ My hut is from the edge. ” Somehow we everyone lived on their own. And now everything is wrong. We are different. Do you believe that the common grief can rally and unite people? ” RM has become a synonym for grief.
RM also led to the apparent separation of the Russian Orthodox Church after the UOC branch on May 27, 2022. As it was rightly noted , in a couple of weeks "everything that the Moscow Patriarchate tried to preserve in post -Soviet Ukraine for more than three decades was destroyed."
If we turn to Russia itself, then we will again see the failure of the doctrines of the RM. She was conceived as a platform for reconciliation. So, in the declaration on the website of the Russian World fund says : “The Russian world is also Russian reconciliation, consent, Russian, unity, overcome schisms of the twentieth century. The Russian world should be not so much a memory of the past as an active, mobilizing the beginning of the construction of a better future for a great people living in the world with himself and the rest of the world. ” The RM led not to reconciliation, but to an unprecedented split from the time of the Civil War in society, which is shown, in particular, in the film “Gap of Communications” by A. Losk*.
P. Shchedrovitsky said that the RM owes its appearance not only migration due to the collapse of the Russian Empire and the USSR, but was formed largely due to the actions of the state to crowd out people from its territory. RM was supposed to reconcile those who left for no will, with those who remained. It turned out the other way around. RM led to a departure from the country to a million people . As in post -revolutionary Russia, they are again not “compatriots” for the authorities, which is in no hurry to hold out their hand. Patriarch Cyril compares them with the prodigal son and calls for repentance. D. Medvedev calls them “cowardly traitors” and “greedy defectors” and wants to “rot in a foreign land”.
So, being created as a reconciliation program, RM caused a colossal gap and alienation. This applies not only to the Russian -speaking community, but also by Russia's relations with the world.
In 2000, P. Shchedrovitsky talked about the “complementarity of cultures” and “multicultural dialogue”. In 2014, Patriarch Kirill said that "the construction of the RM is not the creation of a certain insulation system." In the same year, A. Chesnakov said that “RM has never been anti -Western. He is not even now. " Now all this is funny even to remember.
At a meeting of VRNS, Archpriest Sergiy Zvonarev offers to tighten the window to Europe, cut off by Peter I. A. Dugin’s grid: “Forget the West and everything connected with it. We begin to live in the Russian world. ” The same A. Dugin answers in a new way to the question about the boundaries of the RM. They are not where they think or speak Russian, and not where they know and love Russia. He offers a fresh look: "The Russian world is there, a Russian person can reach the document where we will be forced to stop."
“Forced” is a keyword. Imagine what the word “forced” will look like, and think: who is “close and boring” in the current borders and whose children will pay for their need to “expand”?
Despite the obvious collapse of the RM, it remains extremely dangerous. Considering that the military doctrine of the Russian Federation allows the use of the army to protect the interests of compatriots abroad (and they are everywhere), given the more loud narrative about “Russophobia” in “unfriendly” (that is, in almost all the western) countries, it is obvious that the thesis of “protection” of RM can be substantiated by any adventure that the Russian Doubts will bless and approve, declaring it to the “war with the Antichrist,” as he does it now.