Geopolitical commodity

Last summer in a southern Ukrainian city near the Sea of Azov, I took an active part in debates, friendly conversations, and roundtables on Kyivan Rus’, the revival of Orthodoxy, and the prospects of the Russian World in present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

In Ukraine, the latter subject is usually discussed by fanatics, the possessed, zombies, hysterics, fetishists, as well as priests who teach their flock that God cannot hear prayers in the Ukrainian language. However, in this case, fortunately, the people were highly adequate, interesting and competent. A half of those present were Orthodox priests from Moscow and Ukraine and the rest were intellectuals specializing in philosophy, theology and the history of church, as well as a few Orthodox journalists.

I have always tried not to be dogmatic, but rather to take a dynamic and impartial attitude to everything, so I check my assessments many times over. I had formed an attitude to all the viewpoints on the Russian World concept long ago, but I was glad to be able to verify my own ideas and conclusions before such an intellectual audience.

My report at this forum was called “Eastern Christian Civilization vs. the Russian World: a Relationship between the Ontological and Spin-Mastering Aspects in Modern ‘World-Building’ Projects.”

I first tried to describe the four main directions in the Russian World (RW) concept that now exist in Russia.

1. Pyotr Shchedrovitsky — Yefim Ostrovsky — Sergei Gradirovsky: the RW as a space where standard Russian is spoken. Russian implies a different pattern of thinking than, say, English, German, Arabic, or Chinese. This also includes the concept of the RW as a post-Soviet state that preserves not only the know­ledge of Russian but also memories of the USSR’s erstwhile grandeur.

2. Aleksandr Neklessa: the RW as a “republic of many peoples,” a horizontal unity of “many Ruses,” both inside and outside Russia. (A similar type of the RW is also popular among the followers of the “Novgorod idea” — Vadim Shtepa et al — but is rejected by Moscow-centrists.)

3. The Kremlin and the circles close to it: the RW as the Kremlin’s sphere of influence and a stepping stone for a likely construction of quasi-imperial statehood (it is regarded as an analogue to the Eurasian doctrine for Ukraine and Belarus: Eurasianism is the Moscow-Kazan-Astana axis, and the RW in the Moscow-Kyiv-Minsk axis).

4. The Russian Orthodox Church and related circles (represented in Ukraine by Moscow-centrists and Ukraino­phobes from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate): the RW as a sphere of influence of the Moscow Patriarch, a Russian-language and “Rus­sian-culture” Orthodox space in which there should be only one interpretation of “common” history.

Almost all the concepts base themselves on the importance of the standard Russian language. The majority accepts only one possible interpretation of the “common past,” and almost all ideologues (with a few exceptions) regard Ukrainian and Belarusian identity, cultures and languages as unacceptable rivals for the RW, with the most radical ones trying to overtly demonize them.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has a well-known definition: “A country considers itself part of the Russian world if it uses Russian as a language of interethnic communication, promotes Russian culture, preserves a common historical memory and shares the same civic values.”

I read the conclusions of my report:

1. RW concepts, devoid of an mystical/religious content, are purely secular geopolitical and geocultural doctrines.

(In other words, the attempts to interpret the RW as a church space and an Orthodox area are erroneous.)

2. The RW is not the expression of a civilization-related identity of Orthodox countries but of an empire-building ideology with some elements of nationalism.

(In other words, the attempts to interpret the RW as a civilization-related identity is a deliberate falsification: one should not confuse civilization-related identity with that of an imperial state or ethno-culture.)

3. Most of the RW projects are based on the principles of a power-wielding monocentrism and a hierarchal system of administration typical of Russian political culture.

(The absolute majority of RW concepts call, as in the 19th century, for rallying around not just Moscow and Great Russia but around the Moscow tsar (read: Rus­sian emperor, Politburo of the CPSU CC, or the president of Russia.) Any talk about a confederation and a “union of equals” (Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) are often derided in the margins of this kind of events by the participants themselves — the “Russian World’s” architects.)

4. The attempts to interpret the RW as Holy Rus’, and to interpret Holy Rus’ exclusively in connection with the Russian language and culture, resemble an ethno-phyletic heresy.

(Interpreting Orthodoxy as a “Rus­sian religion,” equaling Holy Rus’and the “Russian World,” attempting to hammer into the flock’s minds the idea that Ukrainian is a result of “spoiling” and “Polonizing” the Russian language, attempting to preach that Ukraine and Belarus were invented by the enemies of Christ [this can be often heard from both priests and Orthodox apologists] is an ethno-phyletic heresy condemned by the 1872 Local Council of Constantinople in connection with the Bulgarian schism. The growing ethno-phyletic attitudes in the present-day Ukrainian Orthodox Church may result in its Ukrainian-oriented flock switching to other denominations.)

5. The RW concept is now being used as, first of all, a spin control exercise and a nation-building doctrine that further develops the pan-Slavic concept of a “triune Russian nation.”

(The zest with which the adherents to the “triune Russian nation” concept are trying to prove that Great Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are not three self-sufficient nations but three ethnic subgroups that form a united nation shows the lack of objective rational arguments and an attempt to replace the latter with emotional inspiration.)

I explained that Holy Rus’, as well as the Kingdom of God, is a religious, not a geographic or, the more so, geopolitical, concept. Therefore, the slogan “Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are together Holy Rus’,” now being plugged by latter-day preachers, should be regarded as a glib catch phrase. Holy Rus’ is Heavenly Jerusalem and a multitude of the righteous, who are as radiant as Christ himself, but not at all Moscow, Kaliningrad, or Sverdlovsk oblast; it is not Kyiv with Kirovohrad, Dnip­ro­pet­rovsk and Dni­prodzerzhynsk, nor is it Minsk or Vi­tebsk. On the whole, the RW ideology is the continuation not of Holy Rus’ but of the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome — with the inherent isolationism and the awareness of its historic mission, exclusiveness, and impunity.

I explained in my report that the basic manipulations of the RW doctrines are the results of the polyvalence and ambiguity of the ethnonym “Russian.” Firstly, “Russian” means “Great Russian”; secondly, it is “common Russian” or “Eastern Slavonic,” which unites all things Great Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian; thirdly, it is “pan-Russian,” fourthly, something indefinite, and so on. What is this “Russianness,” around which all doctrines of this kind revolve? Ethnicity? Ethics? Metaphysics? Eschatology? Cultural and linguistic identity? Geopolitics? “World” is the key word in the phrase “Russian World,” although it is all about a war of brands (ethnonyms, toponyms, politonyms) as a variety of the war of cognitive senses.

The most passionate exaltation of the RW could be found in the reports of some Ukrainian participants of the forum, which reminded me of Russian patriotic writing in the early 1990s, including the journal Nash sovremennik, the works of Natalia Narochnitskaya, Mikhail Nazarov, Oleg Platonov, Vadim Kozhinov, and many others known collectively as “the Old Right” (by contrast to the younger and postmodernist “New Right”), and the classical writers in this genre, such as the late 19th century philosophers Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Da­ni­lev­sky, Konstantin Leontiev, and some early Eurasians. The idea is that the Russian person (including “Little Russians” and “White Russians”) is a collectivist, that the Russians still have traditional families, that all Westerners only care about money, while Holy Rus’ residents live a spiritual life, that only the Russians are truly religious, while Westerners rent out temples for entertainment shows, and that Greek Catholics and even the Orthodox in Galicia have a false and ostentatious religiousness, devoid of any inner spiritual dimension.

Moreover, the Ukrainian architects of the RW preached that Ukrainian identity can only be European and hence rotten, and focused on material benefits. The “common Russian” language is native to all “Russian tribes” and “Russian countries,” while Ukrainian and Belarusian were designed by the enemies to make “Russia’s Little Russians and White Russians forget their Russian name.” There is no other more artificial and ideologically motivated language in the world than standard Ukrainian (ironically, the author of this thesis and I once spoke in the early 2000s exclusively in this artificial and ungrateful ”mova,” invented by the enemies of Historic Russia).

Although such revelations were not mainstream at the forum, the ideas and emotions I heard prompted me to put on my thinking cap and draw a very important conclusion about all, without exception, debates on the RW and similar topics in the past 150 years.

1. Any discussion on the RW begins with searching for a universal super­natural Eastern Slavic identity and its task is searching for a civilizational or world-building project.

2. It will always be said, in the course of debates, that the “Russians” are not only Great Russians but also Ukrainians and Belarusians. But the standard Russian language is the common property of all Eastern Slavs, and all the “Russians” have a special nature, a special mission, and a special path to Eternity. Furthermore, we must cast off tribal (Little-, White-, and Great Russian) prejudices, knit together and unite in the face of a common threat, etc.

3. Then they always ritually mention Gogol: look, he was not a Great Russian, but what a genius! And his local and regional patriotism did not preclude him from being a patriot of the entire Rus’. The more advanced ones also mention Vernadsky, Korolev, Yamgel, Chelomei, Sikor­sky, and, for some reason, Korolenko.

4. Any discussion on the RW always ends in the same way and quite predictably: it turns out after all that “THE RUSSIAN WORLD” is the habitat of the GREAT RUSSIAN ETHNOS (referred to as “Russians” in Soviet internal passports), the Great Russian diaspora outside the Rus­sian Federation, and the Russian-speaking individuals of other ethnic origin, who strive to be “Russian” (Great Russians).

In other words, the subject begins with a salutation — in search of universal content (the “Russians” is a supranational metaphysical brotherhood of the people of Light and Righteousness), and ends with a mournful cry — very specific, without any kind of universality (the “Russians” are those whose surnames end with “-ov,” “-ev,” “-in,” and “-ykh,” while the rest are “junior partners”).

It turns out that this community does not hold a place for either the Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians or the Belarusian-speaking Belarusians! Or, actually, it does. It holds the promise of being a “singing and dancing tribe” (of the Pesnyary pop group type), small relict groups which prove by their very existence the universality and eternity of the “Russian World.”

But it is for this very reason that the project of a “triune Russian nation” flopped, when it turned out somewhere in the era of Alexander III that “Russian” is only Great Russian, whereas Ukrainian and Belarusian is something marginal and ostracized. Oddly enough, the absolute majority of the present-day RW builders have learned nothing from history and, therefore, they are reproducing late 19th century stereotypes without any correction and without understanding why these patterns did not work.

Speaking of the RW’s political dimension, the debaters at the forum took two diametrically opposed stands. Firstly, “three countries are one nation, and what is now is temporary and inadmissible: the existence of an independent Ukraine and Belarus is a scheme of the enemies of Historic Russia,” and, se­condly, “three countries are one nation, and this is good” (Austria, for example, is not going to reunite with Germany, and we should not do so with Russia and Belarus). The latter stand, that the “Rus­sian people” should not reunite into a single state, is really innovative for the “Rus­sian World” champions: none of them has spoken before about the uniqueness and self-sufficiency of the Ukrainian and Belarusian communities. Against this background, I personally almost looked like a Martian as I persistently stuck to the moderate, archaic, and Soviet idea of “three countries — three closely related peoples.”

I also understood why the Great Russian ethno-cultural consciousness is full of such a colossal desire to prove that Ukraine and Belarus were invented by Russia’s enemies. It is an existential irrational fear, somewhat like a 6-year-old child who is afraid to stay alone in a dark room: in a situation when Ukraine and BelaRus’are independent, the Russians have to deal not with the close, easy-to-understand and funny “fatback eaters” and “spud pushers” (derogatory terms for Ukrainians and Belarusians respectively. – Ed.) but with the Tatars, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Finno-Ugrians, and North Caucasus peoples, with whom it is senseless to speak about any Slavic solidarity.

Besides, the conceptual foundation of most RW doctrines follows from Russian political culture which recognizes only one subject of government. Likewise, one cultural model can be “the only true one.”

I was asked: you have so snugly cri­ticized all that we have been building, cherishing, and pinning our hopes on for so long a time, but what do you propose as an effective “grand” project for Russia, Ukraine, and other culturally close countries?

So I told them in brief about the Eastern Christian (Eastern European) civilization (the commonwealth of countries that adhere to the Eastern Christian, or even Byzantine, cultural and religious tradition) and about the opportunities they may have in a new century. The social ethics and cultural anthropology that have emerged in the context of Eastern Christian civilization (the so-called “anthropological maximalism”) may lay the groundwork for a new effective “world-building” project in the future. And while earlier, in the epoch of high modernism and postmodernism, Eastern Christian ethics were uncompetitive compared to Catholic and Protestant ones, the picture may change now, in the 21st century, because the criteria of the competitiveness of state and civilization are also changing.

Most of the RW concepts are Moscow-centered, whereas there are three centers and three “motors” of development of the Eastern Christian civilization: Greece, Russia, and Ukraine.

I also had some practical suggestions to the team of RW builders.

For example, if the RW concept is of a pan-Slavic, not Eurasian, nature, if the RW is a substratum of the Eastern Christian civilization, and if it is aimed at integrating Ukraine and Belarus with the Russian Federation, would it not be better to rename it “Rus’ World” or “Eastern Slavic World?” No, it wouldn’t, my interlocutors replied. One of the arguments is: if it is to be the “Eastern Slavic World,” what does it have to do with the Bashkirs, Tatars, and Kalmyks? And, in general, we have made so much effort to build a Moscow- and Russia-centered concept, and now you are chipping in with “Rus’” instead of “Russia.”

I also suggested that we stop moaning over the name “Ukraine” being wrong and “anti-Russian” because it is derived from the Russian word okraina (meaning borderlands or outskirts), which is not so in reality, but, instead, actively use the name “Rus’-Ukraine“ or “Ukraine-Rus’” introduced by Antono­vych (not by Hrushevsky, as many believe). But people were too tired to go into such subtle details at the end of the forum.

I suddenly realized that it is not the golden domes of Holy Rus’ and not even the ruby stars on the Kremlin towers that are shining over the beautiful and serene dream of a “Russian World” that spans all over Great, Little, White, Green, Blue, Yellow, Red, New, Seaside, or even Avov Sea Russia. Therefore, in the context of latter-day ideologies, the Russian World is a thing that is really very far from Heavenly Jerusalem but very close to “Russia that is rising from its knees,” a “sovereign democracy,” and an “energy superpower.”

This kind of conclusion, of course, brings you down to earth and strips you of exalted illusions, but it allows you not to lose your bearings, at least.