Richard Lourie: Russia, A Country Without Icons
[Richard Lourie is author of “The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin” and “Sakharov: A Biography.”]
In the past, Russia always had a strong sense of identity, often centered around images. When Vladimir I of Kiev baptized Kievan Rus in 988, the pagan idols were whipped, burned and hurled into the river. The Bolsheviks were iconoclasts too, turning churches into warehouses and using icons for flooring in banyas.
But the end of Soviet Russia was different from the end of pagan or tsarist Russia. True, in the initial exuberance, statues of Lenin, Stalin and others were smashed or hurled to the ground. But unlike the Christians and the Bolsheviks, no one was waiting in the wings with a ready-made ideology or new icons.
The Russian national idea, a somewhat vague and clumsy formulation, indicates a vision of goals and a system of values embraced by the state and the people to create the country’s identity at a given historical moment. Typically, it stresses the uniquely Russian elements in its opposition to the West. That identity has failed to crystallize in the new Russia in the nearly 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That vacuum has been described in both positive and negative terms. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia In Global Affairs, says in contrast to former U.S. President George W. Bush and “the missionaries on the other side of the Atlantic … Russian policy can be criticized for many things, but it has managed so far to avoid the inclination toward ideology.” Opposition leader Gary Kasparov sees it in darker tones: “The Cold War was based on ideas — like them or not. [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin’s only idea can be concentrated into the motto ‘Let’s steal together.’” Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky terms the new Russia as “capitalism with a Stalinist face.”
Describing the present is only the beginning. The next and more difficult steps are pointing out a new vision for Russia and indicating the practical path that leads to it...
Read entire article at Moscow Times
In the past, Russia always had a strong sense of identity, often centered around images. When Vladimir I of Kiev baptized Kievan Rus in 988, the pagan idols were whipped, burned and hurled into the river. The Bolsheviks were iconoclasts too, turning churches into warehouses and using icons for flooring in banyas.
But the end of Soviet Russia was different from the end of pagan or tsarist Russia. True, in the initial exuberance, statues of Lenin, Stalin and others were smashed or hurled to the ground. But unlike the Christians and the Bolsheviks, no one was waiting in the wings with a ready-made ideology or new icons.
The Russian national idea, a somewhat vague and clumsy formulation, indicates a vision of goals and a system of values embraced by the state and the people to create the country’s identity at a given historical moment. Typically, it stresses the uniquely Russian elements in its opposition to the West. That identity has failed to crystallize in the new Russia in the nearly 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That vacuum has been described in both positive and negative terms. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia In Global Affairs, says in contrast to former U.S. President George W. Bush and “the missionaries on the other side of the Atlantic … Russian policy can be criticized for many things, but it has managed so far to avoid the inclination toward ideology.” Opposition leader Gary Kasparov sees it in darker tones: “The Cold War was based on ideas — like them or not. [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin’s only idea can be concentrated into the motto ‘Let’s steal together.’” Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky terms the new Russia as “capitalism with a Stalinist face.”
Describing the present is only the beginning. The next and more difficult steps are pointing out a new vision for Russia and indicating the practical path that leads to it...