Made of large logs of pine, spruce or larch, a tall and spacious northern izba (log-house) was heated by a huge Russian stove. If the stove was the heart of the Russian house, its soul was the Red Corner (red [krasny] meaning beautiful in old Russian) where the family’s sacred objects sat.
This area included holy icons draped over with the embroidered bozhnik (godly-towel), a Bible—if there was a literate person in the household—and occasionally a figurine of a saint brought from a pilgrimage by a pious relative. Wooden representations of St. Nilus of Stolben were common. An oil lamp suspended from the ceiling burned in front of the icons.
Source: TMORA (The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis)
During the era of Soviet power, the ‘Red Corner’ was the name given to the place at a factory, plant, school, and in general at any establishment, that was equipped to carry out ‘agitation and propaganda’ of the new ideology, new communist ideas. The first post-revolutionary ‘Red Corners’ were places where ‘political enlightenment’ of the masses was conducted, lectures were arranged about the projects and plans of the new power, the bright future which awaited all workers during Communism was discussed. Slogans and posters were hung on the walls of these ‘corners,’ and banners were arranged in the ‘Red Corner’ near portraits of leaders, pamphlets with speeches by Lenin, Trotsky were placed on tables …
Gradually these ‘Red Corners’ turned into unique sorts of chapels of the new religion, and they became subordinate to the ideological department of the Party Committee of each factory, collective farm, etc. They became a place for mandatory meetings of the ‘Party collective,’ a meeting place for delegates, a place for elections.
During the 1960’s and 1970’s, life in these club-temples gradually began to die out, the ‘cult’ dwindled, and the stands and posters that were more and more depressing and mechanical gradually decayed, and everything taken together – the ritual, the design, and the paints – turned into a depressing ceremony that was no longer of use to anyone.
Many human rights activists expected that with the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian officials would refocus their repressive efforts away from the Jehovah’s Witnesses; but those expectations have proved untrue. And Putin’s campaign against the Witnesses has continued unabated.
As of now, 404 of the 538 structures classified as terrorists or extremists by the Russian government are Jehovah’s Witnesses; the number of searches in Jehovah’s Witnesses’ homes have increased and now number some 1800 in 71 federal subjects; and the number of Witnesses sentenced to camps rose from 32 to 45 between 2021 and 2022.
Aleksandr Verkhovsky, head of the SOVA information and analysis center, says this is insane especially in wartime and must reflect some judgment by the authorities that continuing to repress the Jehovah’s Witnesses is in their interests; but it remains unclear what basis there could be for that (baikal-journal.ru/2023/01/19/pochemu-vlast-bolshe-70-let-presleduet-svideteley-iegovy/).
But Sergey Davidis, head of Memorial’s “Support Political Prisoners” project, argues that there are three main reasons why the Putin regime continues to persecute the Jehovah’s Witnesses:
First of all, he says, “the Russian authorities are intolerant of any independent organization, especially a large one which has its own ideology” and in particular those whose centers are outside the borders of the Russian Federation, a reflection of the leadership’s paranoia about any independent group.
Second, he continues, many in Russia see the Jehovah’s Witnesses as being at odds with Russian traditions and so accept their persecution as a legitimate form of the defense of the latter. And third, going after the Witnesses allows the security services to make themselves look good statistically. After all, it is easy to go after those who don’t hide and don’t resist.
Thus the persecution of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is likely to continue or even grow, despite the fact that the Witnesses themselves provide no justification for such actions.
Father Aleksandr Men’: “To say that 700 million Catholics and 350 million Protestants are in error, and that only we are the true church, is to dwell in insane, utterly unwarranted pride.”
The service proper concluded w/ an early Franciscan benediction which I had never heard and like a lot:
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.”
Amen! To which I will only add that while I think my foolishness quotient actually surpasses the level of “enough,” applying it regularly toward Francis’ ends remains a challenge.
Source: Mark H. Teeter (Facebook), 22 January 2023. Thanks to Mark for his kind permission to let me reproduce his original post (minus three images) here. ||| TRR
While there was obviously nothing to like about Vladimir Putin in his earlier incarnations as KGB officer, deputy mayor of Petersburg, FSB head, interim prime minister who relaunched the Chechen War, and Russia’s newly minted, apparently sober second president, it is clear that twenty years in office have now made him a stark raving lunatic.
I wish that Russians in their millions, frightened into action by what their nominal national leader said the other day, would rise to save the world from this menace. In reality, too many Russians have either bought the new party line hook, line, and sinker or disappeared into various modes of actual and internal emigration.
The much smaller groups of Russians who bravely try and combat Putinism and its cancers are badly outnumbered and increasingly embattled. Just read this website from time to time to find out what I mean.
Maybe I am exaggerating a little, but not as much as even I would like to think.
I apologize for this outburst, because mine is supposed to be a website about other Russias and other Russians. It would be sheer escapism, however, to claim that even the freest, boldest hearts in the world’s largest country are not affected by the regime’s downward spiral into a fascist, militarist, police-state abyss. {TRR}
“I Don’t Impose My Opinion”
Maria Bobylyova Takie Dela
April 11, 2017
Just as in Soviet times, schoolteachers are now forced to hold political information lessons, to talk with schoolchildren about the current political conjuncture. But a new generation of savvy schoolchildren has emerged. We talked with two teachers about their political stances and how they argue with pupils.
“We Must Raise Mentally Healthy Children with Traditional Family Values” Thirty years old, Natalya lives in Stavropol, where she teaches history and social studies at school. She supports the current regime and teaches children to think freely, love the Motherland, and practice correct family values.
I support the current regime and the policies of our president. I don’t like everything that is done. For example, I don’t quite understand why the regions are not entirely rational in spending federal money. But basically I’m satisfied with everything, especially our foreign policy. I’m insanely proud that Crimea is now part of Russia. I believe this is historically just. If you look at past wars, about forty percent of them were over Crimea. I believe that when Khrushchev gifted Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it was a big mistake. Crimea is strategically important to us and we cannot let our enemies make the region a sphere of their influence.
You don’t think it was done illegally?
Why illegally? Ninety-three percent of Crimeans voted in a referendum to join Russia. There was no pressure or coercion.
Are the subsequent sanctions fair?
They are inevitable consequences. If you want to take something, you have to understand there will be consequences. We are paying for them even now. But they’re trivial compared to the benefits: the Black Sea, Sevastopol, and the navy. We didn’t annex Crimea forcibly. We didn’t send in troops. There’s a propaganda campaign against our country underway in the world. We live in the provinces, but we have free access to all sources of information, and that’s good. Generally, having access to information is empowering, and the recent elections in the US have shown that.
You’re happy with the outcome?
Very much so. I supported Trump from the beginning. He didn’t voice such an anti-Russian stance as Clinton did. I don’t like her at all.
You weren’t embarrassed by his sexist attacks?
They’re trifles. He’s such an eccentric, extravagant man. Moreover, this is not only America’s sin but Europe’s as well. Things are far from normal when it comes to morality there. Their so-called tolerance alone suffices. They call it tolerance. I would call it something else.
They didn’t call Trump’s outburts tolerant.
It doesn’t matter. They’re in a state of degradation. Take, for example, all those same-sex marriages. They will cause the death of mankind, although I can’t say I’m against such relationships. Everyone has the right to a private life, and I won’t be the first to cast stones at such people. By the way, this topic really interests my pupils as well. For example, in social studies, we cover the topic of marriage, and we say that it’s a union between a man and a woman. Yet every time in class there is someone who says, “But what about same-sex marriages”?
How do you reply?
That it absolutely contradicts our country’s and our mentality’s moral foundations. And that it will cause mankind’s extinction.
But same-sex couples can also have children.
I believe this is wrong and has a bad effect on the children. If a child grows up seeing this example, he will think he can repeat it, too, and that there’s nothing wrong about it.
You believe homosexuality can be taught?
Yes, to a large extent. Even if there is something innate about it, it can either emerge or not under society’s impact. So society is obliged to beat it in time.
Do you have any LGBT pupils?
Absolutely not. I would have noticed. A girl once came to me for tutoring who didn’t hide the fact she was a lesbian, and she was clearly different from other children.
In what sense?
She openly told me she believed same-sex unions were normal.
What would you do if there were a same-sex couple in your class?
I would definitely tell the parents, as I did in this girl’s case. But her parents were aware: her family had given her a liberal upbringing . If parents consider it normal to raise their child that way, there’s nothing I can do and I won’t intervene, nor do I have the right.
What if you had the right?
I would talk with the teenager and find out the cause of the problem, probably more for myself, so that I would know how to raise my own children later. Because I really wouldn’t like my future child to turn out like that.
What would you do then?
I would have a talk with him. I would take him to a psychologist. I would do everything possible to fix it.
What if nothing helped?
That wouldn’t happen. In adolescence, children don’t have a clear position that cannot be broken. I would break it.
What if you found out a fellow teacher was gay?
It wouldn’t affect my relationship with him, but I wouldn’t let our families become chummy so my own child wouldn’t be exposed to his example. Children really do copy the behavior of adults. We must raise mentally healthy children with traditional family values. There are things we had nothing to do with devising and that we have no right to change: family, patriotism, and decency. What kind of family can there be without children?
As I already said, same-sex couples can and do have children.
How is that? How can two men have a child? Only through a surrogate mother. But I don’t think you’ll find many women willing to bear a child for two gays even for money, not in our country, at least.
What about adoption?
That’s impossible in Russia, thank God. I think it is extremely wrong. Children should be raised in normal, full-fledged, traditional families.
What if you had to choose between an orphanage and same-sex parents?
Who said that an orphanage is necessarily a bad thing? I know many children from orphanages, and they are full-fledged individuals who are grateful to their minders and to the state, which provides them with both real estate [sic] and material support. Many of the children in our school come from orphanages. They are all well adapted both in terms of education and in terms of socialization with other children. Our work involves smoothing out the differences and avoiding bullying and conflicts. We’re good at that here in the Caucasus.
You probably have multiethnic classes?
Yes, and different religions. It’s a very complicated topic, because we have many different ethnic groups. Turkmen, Chechens, Armenians, and even Syrians go to our school. Teachers have to deal with the topic of religions and ethnic groups delicately. Someone puts on Alisa‘s “Sky of the Slavs,” and you’re immediately on the lookout, because the song can provoke very different reactions and feelings from children. You always have to think before speak. Children react instantaneously. You aren’t able to reverse time or take back what you said. But religious topics really interest children.
Alisa, “Sky of the Slavs” (2003, dir. Oleg Flyangolts)
What exactly interests them?
They closely monitor the material well-being of priests, for example, the story about Patriarch Kirill’s watch and all that. They come to me and ask whether it’s true.
What do you tell them?
That I don’t know myself. Like them, I read the same news. But I think when it comes to religious issues there can be no freedom of interpretation. No wonder we have a law against insulting the feelings of believers. Believing or not believing is a personal stance, but there shouldn’t be any blasphemy or mockery. What happened to Pussy Riot is indicative in this sense.
You think the verdict was fair?
One hundred percent fair, of course. If anyone would be able to go into a church and do as he wishes, what would become of us? We need to respect the feelings of believers, especially in our country, where Orthodoxy has always played such an important role. Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality: that’s how it was, and it’s still that way to some extent. Yet all religions are respected equally in our great country. I’ve never heard Vladimir Vladimirovich give a single speech in which he called on everyone to become Orthodox.
Do you like Putin?
A lot. He’s a charismatic leader, in my opinion: this is obvious to everyone. He arrived at a complicated moment and immediately won people over. There is something attractive about him. He always finds a way to get out of any complicated situation gracefully. He can joke or scold, but he always comes out the winner. He deserves to be the most influential politician in the world, and he is the most influential politician. The western media accuse him of being an authoritarian, but I would call it authoritarian democracy. It’s not the worse option for Russia.
Do you following the corruption scandals plaguing the regime?
Of course. Be we have to understand that corruption is a mindset in Russia. In my history lessons, I always tell the children about how Peter the Great decided to eradicate corruption and asked Prince Alexander Menshikov’s advice. Menshikov replied, “You’ll run out of rope and be left without subjects.” We know that Menshikov was the biggest embezzler in Peter’s court. So there has always been corruption and there will always be a corruption. Do you think that if Navalny took power he would beat corruption without getting bogged down in it himself? On the other hand, these stories are not always true. They are often just PR campaigns to tarnish someone who has fallen out of favor. Besides, I think corruption thrives partly due to our political passivity and popular legal illiteracy. If you decide to go with the flow, don’t be surprised when you get to the river bed and see what you see. You have to start with yourself.
How do you start?
Don’t give bribes, for example, even it makes things simple and quicker. Obey the law even in those particulars where you imagine you can violate it. However, there is much more order than before. I remember what happend under Yeltsin. [Although she would have been twelve when Putin took power — TRR.] Those were horrible times. I grew up in a village. There were five children in our family, and Mom traded hand-me-downs with the neighbors. We took turns wearing them out. Dad wasn’t paid his wages for months at a time, Mom couldn’t find a job, and Grandma wasn’t paid her pension. We had a garden. We grew what we could, and it was our only means of survival. I remember well how everything changed with Putin’s arrival.
In the material sense as well?
Of course. When I went to work at the school, I got a young specialist’s bonus for three years. Although I didn’t go to work at the school right away. I put in time as an administrator and a real estate agent, and I worked in management. So I have something to compare it with. I have worked at the school for six years and I sense the state’s support. I get a decent wage and I am able to satisfy most of my material needs. I feel calm and confident. I live in a country where there is no Chechen War to which soldiers could be sent.
Soldiers can now be sent to other wars.
If you mean Ukraine, I have no information our troops are fighting there, except for professional or special units. All the rest is western propaganda. I don’t like the war in Ukraine, just as I don’t like any war.
What about Syria?
What about Syria? Yes, we’re fighting there, but it’s not our country. Everything is calm within Russia. There are no longer any separatists sentiments, as there were under Yeltsin, and I am personally grateful to Vladimir Putin for this. Historically, we have been attracted by strong individuals who can establish order by any means. In this sense, I see Putin as a man of his word. He never makes promises he doesn’t keep.
Who is your favorite historical leader?
Peter the Great. Russia flourished under his reign. We got a navy and an empire, and we were victorious in war. Of course, there were excesses, but there is not a single politician in the world who doesn’t have them. Basically, you should always look at things objectively. So when we cover Ivan the Terrible, I always teach the children that besides the bad things there were also good things: centralization, the annexation of Astrakhan and Kazan, and the conquest of Siberia. Expanding territory is a good thing. It means resources, people, culture, borders, and a geopolitical position.
Do you think that Russia has its own way?
I really like the position of the Slavophiles. I like thinking that our history and our people are typified by a certain exclusivity. History proves it. We have never been ready for a single war, but we win all the wars we fight. This makes me proud, and I teach the children to be proud of this, to be proud of their country, its heritage, and its great culture. That’s what real patriotism is about. My pupils and I look at the facts together and learn to analyze rather than just label things and divide them into black and white. My job is to provide the children with full access to all historical information. I never impose readymade conclusions. For example, in the tenth grade we’re now studying the Emperor Paul. My children love him terribly and feel sorry for him. They say he was unloved by his mother, and then he was killed. Although I relate to him coolly, to put it mildly.
Do discussions arise a lot during your classes?
Constantly. I think it’s very important to let children speak. Our job, after all, is to educate individuals, not homogeneous clones. Our country needs strong, independent people who are able to think. Teachers who don’t let children speak undermine their own authority. If you’re not willing to argue, you’re a despot who imposes her own opinion, not a teacher. Children fear and hate you, and I don’t want that. One of the places that history happens is right outside the school building. So I never stop lively discussions, because they teach children to think and analyze. Of course, if a discussion goes on for three classes in a row, I’ll find a way to get back to the lesson plan. But I really like lively discussions. It’s so great when you see individuals growing up right before your eyes.
Are your pupils interested in politics?
Very much so, especially the upperclassmen. They watch the news, ask questions, and argue. Political debates happen both during lessons and recesses. They are interested not only in politics but also in everything that is going on, for example, the recent story of Diana Shurygina really agitated them. But they are also interested in the elections. They can’t wait to vote for the first time.
Do you voice your own political views to them?
I express my viewpoint, but I never impose it. I think children have a right to their own opinions, so I let everyone speak. There are lots of different children among my pupils, and I wouldn’t say all of them support the regime. They read RBC and Life and Meduza. I have a boy in the ninth grade, Yegor, who is an ardent oppositionist, and I find it fairly interesting to discuss things with him. He never descends to demagoguery, but reads and watches lots of things, and supports his opinion with facts. I also watch TV Rain and listen to Echo of Moscow to be familiar with a different point of view and be able to rebut Yegor.
Are you trying to change his mind?
He and I just discuss things: he’s not going to change his mind, nor should he. It’s not my goal to impose my opinion. Although, of course, when my pupils grow up and become patriots, I’m pleased. It happens that a child transfers from another school. He sees everything in a bleak light and is quite unpatriotic. But then he learns to think critically and gradually realizes what a great history Russia has and what a great country it is. When I took over my own class from another history teacher, the children constantly referred to our country as “Russia.” But when, several months later, they said “We” instead of “Russia,” I was so proud I got goosebumps. Fifteen Armenians, three Turkmen, and five Russias are seated in front of you, and they all say “we.” They’re genuine patriots.
“I Feel Lonely, Insecure, and Misunderstood” Olga lives in a regional capital in the central part of European Russia. She is fifty-four years old, and she has taught at a pedagogical college her whole life. Students are admitted to the college after finishing the ninth and eleventh grades, which means that Olga deals with teenagers between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. She is a liberal, but she tries to hide it, because most of the people around here don’t understand her.
I didn’t always have liberal views. When the Soviet Union collapsed and life got bad very fast, I was opposed to it and voted for the Communists. But then there was some trouble in my family and I came face to face with the system and the state. I saw from the inside how the laws and state agencies function in Russia, and my eyes were opened as it were. I realized what mattered is that a person has freedom and should have freedom. People in Russia are fond of saying that what matter is one’s health, while we can put up with the rest. I think that people should not have put up with anything and then they’ll be healthy. But if there is no freedom, health won’t be of any use to them.
Why do you hide the fact you’re in the opposition?
At first, I tried to talk with my colleagues and voice my disagreement with the current regime. They didn’t understand me. They would say, “Aren’t you Russian? Aren’t you a patriot?” Initially, I would argue. I’d say I was in fact a real patriot, and that Pushkin, Akhmatova, Vysotsky et al., were on my side, while they had only one person on theirs. Then I realized it was pointless. They are seemingly decent, pleasant people, but completely alien. Or I’m talking to a colleague who tells me how a friend of hers has made it big. He works in a company that produces asphalt. They’ve learned to dilute the asphalt somehow to produce twice as much so they could sell it under the table. This same colleague of mine claimed to be a patriot, yet she also was a driver and had to drive on those roads. I don’t understand that. I’m surrounded by people who watch the national channels and don’t want to know a thing. They have university degrees, but they watch Kiselyov and Solovyov and listen to them like zombies. So there is no one with whom to talk.
No one at all?
There are one or two people who will hear me out, and I’m grateful for even that much. However, sometimes I’m aware I’m not alone. Recently, during a continuing education course, I was pleasantly surprised by the progressive woman teaching the course. She talked about our regime’s idiocy and that we had to filter what the leadership was sending down to us from above, because we were responsible for the kind of teachers we graduated. She also advised us to watch Dmitry Bykov’s lectures, can you imagine? I was simply amazed there were people like that in our region.
Who do you vote for?
The last time, I just crossed out my ballot so no one would get my vote. I voted for Prokhorov during the last presidential elections, although everyone tried to prove to me he was a pet project of the Kremlin’s. Now they say Navalny is a pet project of the Kremlin’s, although I have a hard time believing it. I read and listen to all the opposition politicians, including Navalny and Yabloko. My day begins with Novaya Gazeta and Echo of Moscow. I don’t watch TV except for RBC’s channel. When I catch Mom watching Channel One, I chew her out. But lately I’ve weaned her off it, thank God.
Do you broadcast your views to your students?
Directly, no, and besides, I can’t do it because I could be punished. Yet if you support the regime you can say anything at all. Like the school principal from Bryansk in that video. I’m 100% sure she was completely sincere. People like that can speak out, but I can’t. All I can do is introduce the younger generation to some works and give them the freedom to speak their minds and think. Making someone think like you is the biggest crime. They should think as they see fit. But our teachers sin by imposing their views. I teach Russian and teaching methods, and my students are future primary school teachers. So I can influence them only though quotations and by asking them to read things. Recently, I asked them to listen to Vasya Oblomov’s song “A Long and Unhappy Life.”
Vasya Oblomov, “A Long and Unhappy Life” (2017)
What political views do your students have?
They have different views, but many of them sincerely upset me. Recently, they asked me whether I would steal food and take it home if I worked in the cafeteria. They think there is nothing wrong about it. Everyone does it and it’s normal. I wonder where a sixteen-year-old gets this view of the world. Obviously, at home, although my past communist views had their origins in school. I remember our teacher telling us we had to be like Volodya Ulyanov [Lenin], and I really wanted to be like him. I would go to the library and ask for a book about Lenin, but the librarian would be surprised and suggest a book of fairytales. Later, when the teacher said I was like the young Volodya, it was the highest praise I could imagine.
Do you experience any pressure from up top in terms of what you can say and what you can’t?
There’s no direct pressure. The fact is we have quite heavy workloads. I think it’s done on purpose so we don’t have time to think and approach the work creatively. I’m buried in papers and forms, and there is no time to do anything worthwhile. Plus I’m forced to work one and a half to two jobs just to earn something, and that isn’t conducive to quality, either. Sometimes, we’re asked to go somewhere. Three years ago, we were ordered to attend a pro-Crimea annexation rally, and although I was against it I went anyway. But I don’t go to May Day demos. They ask me to go, but I say I don’t support the goverenment. They look at me funny and leave me alone.
You’ve never thought about changing jobs?
I have thought about it, and more than once, but it’s not so easy to find a job in our region. I really wanted to leave ten years ago or so, when we were buried in paperwork. But now I think, why the heck should I go? I love my work and I’ve been at it thirty years.
Has your life changed since Putin came to power?
You know, I did alright in the nineties, if it’s possible to say that. We got paid on time, and as for everything else our province is half asleep. But in the noughties I started to feel personally uncomfortable. When the old NTV was dismantled, and the news program Nadmedni was shut down, it made me tense. And then there have been all these strange laws, Crimea, and sanctions. I have no hope at all that anything will change.
So you watched the old NTV and yet voted for Zyuganov?
Yes. I arrived at my liberal views the long way around. On the other hand, if a person doesn’t change, she stagnates. Only there is no point in these changes. I feel lonely, insecure, and misunderstood. I look at the people around me, and they’re in a patriotic euphoria. Ninety percent of them really support the annexation of Crimea. I have always traveled to Crimea and I’ll keep on going to Crimea, because I love it and I have family there. But I try and avoid discussing the topic with them. They’re happy: they got a rise in their pensions. I agree that Crimea has always been ours, but the way it was annexed was wrong.
Does your liberalism extend to all areas of life?
Generally, yes. But there should be moderation in all things. For example, it’s wrong if a young woman with tattoos and a shaven head plans to be a primary school teacher. In any case, I imagine freedom as a certain set of internal constraints. Teaching is a conservative profession, and if you choose it, you have to agree to certain restraints.
What other things should teachers not let themselves do?
Rather, they shouldn’t demonstrate them openly. You remember how in Ostrovsky’s play The Storm, the sister-in-law tells Katerina she can do anything as long it’s hush-hush. If this is what our society is like, you shouldn’t rub someone the wrong way. It’s a private matter for everyone. If I were principal, I would not care less about sexual orientation. But I’m against making it a matter of public record and discussing these topics widely. It’s the same thing with religion.
What about religion?
In our country, if you’re a religious person, you can speak your mind freely and often impose your opinion as well. If you’re not, you are forced to keep your mouth lest you offend, God forbid, the feelings of believers. So I keep my mouth shut. I keep my mouth shut about one thing or another. Basically, I’m a cowardly person.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men.And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5–8
_________
Patriarch Kirill calls for defense of the faith from “global heresy of anthropolatry” Interfax
March 20, 2016
“Today we are talking about the global heresy of anthropolatry, a new idolatry that wrests God from human life. There has never been anything like it on a global scale. The Church must direct the power of its defense, its word, and its thought towards overcoming this heresy of modernity, whose consequences could be apocalyptic events. We must defend Orthodoxy,” he said on Sunday, the Feast of Orthodoxy, after the liturgy at Christ the Savior Cathedral.
The patriarch recalled that in the modern age man and his rights had become the universal criterion of truth, “and the revolutionary banishment of God from human life, from the life of society had begun.” This movement had first swept Western Europe and America, and then Russia.
The primate said his first teachers has been confessors of the faith, a grandfather and father who had gone through the [Soviet] prisons and camps “not because they had violated the laws of the state, but because they had refused to betray the Lord and the Orthodox Church.”
“This idea of life without God has now been evolving with ever-more vigor planetwide. And we see that in many affluent countries efforts are being made to legalize all choices made by the individual, including the most sinful, which run counter to God’s word, to the concept of holiness and the concept of God,” said the patriarch, urging the faithful not to confine themselves to a ghetto, but to go forth into the world like the Apostles and preach.
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In June 2015, while giving a sermon in Brest, Kirill said that achieving holiness was the Russian national idea. The phrase “Holy Russia,” the patriarch noted, had emerged precisely because Russians had long considered holiness the national ideal.
So what Sidur feared has happened twenty-nine years after his death. Russian Orthodox vandals have come and desecrated his art. I met Sidur in 1964, and our friendship and collaboration continued until his death. His sculptures were usually made from clay and were fragile. If you remember the conditions in which writers and artists lived then—Khrushchev’s visit to the thirtieth anniversary exhibition of the Moscow Branch of the Union of Artists, the government’s meetings with the creative intelligentsia, the persecution of Pasternak, and so on—it is no wonder that Sidur feared they would come to his studio and destroy everything. So he gradually began to recast the sculptures in more durable material, metal. He had no access to the sculpture plant, and no money for the job, either, so he only managed to have dealings with random casters, and afterwards he would work long and hard to correct the deficiencies of the castings. His primary assistant in this work was his wife, Julia Nelskaya, a high school French teacher. A God-given educator, children doted on her. But she was forced to quit her job at the school and focus all her efforts on helping her husband. Vadim had been seriously wounded in the war, then he had a heart attack at the age of thirty-seven. I saw how hard it was for him physically.
Julia Nelskaya and Vadim Sidur
All of us, his friends, tried to be useful to him for the sake of his magnificent art. The authorities did not think much of him: they gave him no commissions, expelled him from the Party, and deprived him of the opportunity to make money doing book illustrations. But they did not kick him out of his studio, and they did not touch his pieces. Sidur did not have a single solo show in the Soviet Union. It has only been in our time that a museum has been created and a major show of his work has been staged at the Manege, along with that of other worthy artists.
Sidur was sent to the front when he was nineteen years old. He was on the front lines for eleven months as commander of a machine-gun platoon before he was nearly mortally wounded. This wound tormented him for the rest of his life: he suffered several heart attacks and died from it in the prime of his life. But he produced five hundred sculptures and thousands of drawings. And now a sated, well-groomed lad from the God’s [Will] group, which I had never heard of, showed up and set about destroying [Sidur’s works].
I won’t go into the ideology. This is just bullying and should not be ignored. I am certain that the Manege will succeed in defending its rights, and the guilty will be punished. But there is also such a thing as emotional distress. Not only have the feelings of believers been offended (if that is what they think) but also the feelings of non-believers, among whom I count myself. The feelings of all Sidur’s friends, both in our country and the world, have been offended. The feelings of the exhibition’s visitors were offended, and their day was ruined. Let us think about what our reaction to all this should be from a legal point of view. We live in a secular state, and our right to a dignified life in our homeland should certainly be no less than that of “Russian Orthodox activists.”
The course of history screams to us that Russian Orthodoxy is either a form of dementia or a form of permissiveness, a mandate for “therapeutic” violence. It is not clear to me how this leaky boat has not drowned in the waters of our time, and what causes people to get into it and go to the bottom, while also returning fire. A specter haunts Russia, only the specter of what? It’s obviously a stinking, rotting fleshy corpse.
Moscow art smashed as Orthodox activists denounce blasphemy
Anna Malpas
August 15, 2015 AFP
Moscow (AFP) – Sculptures by a renowned Soviet artist on show in central Moscow were smashed after being denounced by Orthodox activists as “blasphemous.”
“Delusional people came to the exhibition who broke several works belonging to the Manege collection, by Vadim Sidur,” said a spokeswoman for the Manege art centre by the Kremlin walls, Yelena Karneyeva, referring to the activists.
“Several sculptures are completely smashed,” she told AFP, adding that police had come and led away the activists. The works were made of plaster and linoleum.
A police spokesman told AFP that he could “confirm the incident happened and that currently all the participants of the conflict have been taken to the station to write statements.”
A well-known Orthodox activist Dmitry Tsorionov, known by the nickname Dmitry Enteo, earlier said he was at the Manege exhibition centre.
“We called the police,” he said. “They will close the exhibition for offending believers.”
Enteo, quoted by Interfax news agency, had said the exhibition included an “indecent” depiction of Jesus Christ and was “dirty, harsh mockery of Jesus Christ and the saints.”
The head of the nationalist God’s Will group is a prominent conservative activist. He cites Orthodox values while picketing and heckling at arts events and protests, sometimes with a television camera crew in tow. This year he attempted to stop a gay pride rally in Moscow.
The exhibition called “Sculptures that We Don’t See,” showed works by Soviet sculptors that did not see the light of day during the Soviet period because they were non-conformist.
The show, which opened to the public Friday, included some works with religious themes including a crucifixion bas-relief.
Sidur was an avant-garde artist unable to show his non-conformist works publicly in the Soviet era. He died in 1986. A museum in Moscow is now dedicated to his work and his art has been sold at international auction houses such as Sotheby’s.
Friday’s attack on his works swiftly prompted condemnation.
“Now Orthodox warriors are smashing a sculpture exhibition in the centre of Moscow. Hail the Russian IS,” Vladimir Varfomoleyev, a journalist at popular Echo of Moscow radio station, wrote in a Tweet.
‘Warning, religion!’
Artist Alexei Knedlyakovsky, whose installation about the Russian protest movement was damaged by Enteo last year, wrote in a Tweet: “Maybe after this Enteo will finally get jailed?”
An Orthodox Church spokesman, Vladimir Legoida told RIA Novosti news agency there must be a “legal assessment” of the attack, while stressing that believers “undoubtedly have the right to protest.”
In recent years, religious fundamentalist activists have targeted a number of exhibitions in Moscow and forced them to shut down, while organisers have been fined for inciting hatred.
In 2007, activists attacked an exhibition at Moscow’s Sakharov Centre called “Warning, Religion!,” complaining it insulted believers.
The exhibition included a print of Jesus with the head of Mickey Mouse and a spoof ad for Coca-Cola with the slogan “This is my Blood.”
Russia in 2010 convicted the organisers of inciting religious hatred and fined them.
The Sakharov Centre’s director was earlier fined in 2005 for inciting religious hatred with another exhibition called “Warning, Religion!”
Activists had poured red paint on the walls and paintings and smashed windows at the 2003 exhibition.
Such attacks on exhibitions carry echoes of brutal Soviet-era treatment of contemporary artists seen at the time as being ideologically unsound.
The Manege exhibition centre was the scene of one of the most famous Soviet-era crackdowns on contemporary art.
In 1962, then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited an exhibition of abstract painting at the gallery and angrily denounced the artists as “fags” and “bastards.”
In 1974, the authorities sent in a bulldozer to destroy an improvised exhibition in a park in southwestern Moscow by avant-garde artists.
An original view as to the cause of Petersburg’s economic problems was evinced by Alexander Karpov, director of the ECOM Expert Center. “In the near future, Petersburg’s economy is not threatened with development. This is facilitated by two factors, external and internal. The external factor is the State Duma and its laws; the internal factor is [Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy Vitaly] Milonov. Currently, the only possible scenario for economic development is a sluggish one,” he argued. “The city has to make a clear choice: either innovation or Milonov.” Karpov explained to Kommersant that he had in mind the famous anti-gay activist both as a specific person and as an embodiment of nutty legislative initiatives.
Church officials, city officials and MPs took part in the religious procession [in Petersburg on September 12]. Together with clergymen, they followed the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan as it was solemnly carried [down Nevsky Prospect]. Vadim Tyulpanov, Petersburg’s representative in the Federation Council, Legislative Assembly Speaker Vyacheslav Makarov, and deputy governors Vasily Kichedzhi, Vladimir Lavlentsev and Marat Oganesyan were spotted in the procession.
Famous deputy Vitaly Milonov was out in front of city leaders, however: he marched not behind the icon, like the officials, but ahead of it, in a group of clergymen carrying banners and crosses. Like the other priests, Milonov was wearing solemn gold vestments and bearing an enormous cross.
“I Don’t Impose My Opinion”
The Russian Reader 