The Third Colloquium
The Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for World Economy and International Relations, Moscow, Russia
Friday, December 3, 1999
National Identity in Contemporary Culture
5. When you think back on the 20th century, what event, person, written work or other cultural achievement tells you more about Russian identity than anything else?
6. Have literature and the arts in post-Soviet Russia told us anything important about the big questions facing Russia? Or have they lost altogether that role in Russia's national life?
7. Will Russian Orthodoxy-or religion in any form-play a significant role in shaping the Russian future?
Dr. Billington reads the fifth question aloud and asks colloquium participants about what would best explain Russian identity to an average American. What event should be studied? What book should be read?
Aksiuchits: An event or person would have to be studied for their significance in the context of Russian national identity. . . . In that sense, the most important event is the Great Fatherland War [the Russian term for World War II], when Stalin for the first time was forced to allow certain elements of national and religious identity to come to the surface in order to beat Hitler. And once they emerged from the underground, it was impossible to completely suppress them again. The most important personality is Solzhenitsyn, and the work of art is his historical cycle The Red Wheel (Krasnoe koleso). Along with the pre-Revolutionary Russian classics there is the first genuine Russian philosopher, Solovyev. In the post-Soviet period there isn't much to talk about-there are living classics, the Village Prose writers, although they marginalized themselves politically. But the Russian genius can show up in other creative forms, so you can't say that artistic literature has completely lost its role in Russian society and as an expression of national identity. A new generation will produce new literary talents.
As for Russian Orthodoxy [Question 7], it is not just the church hierarchy, but all the faithful, and Russian Orthodox civilization, with all the streams that flow into it. The problem is that it functions at different levels. As I go around the country it is miraculous to see all the ground-level activity, all the churches that are being built, and all the parish activities that are being organized. Monastery life is being revived after near-destruction. And all of this is playing a role in the renewal of society. The church hierarchy, the synod, is completely made up of people named by government organs, which means the KGB, some of them are even atheists. They have put the brakes on reform, first of all by putting off the periodic assembly (sobor) that is supposed to be held. The last one was 1990, they put off the 1995 one, and now they are putting off the one scheduled for 2000, all because they are afraid of being replaced. This is temporarily holding things up, but with a new generation, the role of Orthodoxy in Russia will be strengthened.
Chubais: I'll confine my remarks to identity and literature. I don't think that our literature has been fully appreciated or sufficiently read, and there are layers and layers of literature and film in which you can find something very genuine and true about Russia. When Shukshin was trying to get permission to film "Snowball Berry Red" (Kalina krasnaia), he wrote that throughout their history, the Russian people have always preserved a respect for the qualities of honesty, conscience, hard work, and kindness (chestnost', sovestnost', trudoliubie, dobrotu). A movement like Village Prose had great social-philosophical meaning. Why did they write about the countryside when the city was a much more comfortable, attractive place to live? Because in the village, in that small community (obshchina), you couldn't lie to yourself or to others. A lie might come across the television screen but it wouldn't work in face-to-face encounters. Village Prose was a way to save ourselves in the midst of all these ideological lies, and it emphasized the Russianness (rossiiskost') and not the Sovietness of our culture. In a similar way, Vysotsky and Galich were artists who played an enormous role in preserving human values (chelovechnost') in an ideologically compressed society. They said what they thought despite all the limitations. Rasputin's Live and Remember (Zhivi i pomni), and Aitmatov's The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years (I dol'she veka dlitsia den') reminded us to learn our history, to know everything that happened. Even the titles are deeply critical of the regime, and this value for the truth of our history and our culture got past the censorship. Solzhenitsyn did not so much create something new as destroy every Soviet lie. Since the end of the Soviet period, television has had a catastrophic effect, destroying all national values. It's not Russian and it's anti-culture.
A great, broadly-based spiritual search is taking place in Russia and it isn't covered in the newspapers, but there are large book fairs with lots of new publishers, art exhibits, and forty new theaters over the past three years in Moscow alone, all of this without government support. So, despite everything, a great deal is growing below, and it will have an effect. New names, new leaders, new ideas, new images will emerge from this spiritual, artistic, intellectual sphere and not from the world of political battles.
Kuvaldin: The two most significant personalities in 20th century Russian history are Lenin and Stalin, two fundamentally different figures. I think that the most important aspect of Russian identity is a strong centralized state (samoderzhavie), and these two leaders succeeded in preserving the state's control over a great land mass as they also tried to catch up with historical time. As for the most interesting artistic personality, I would mention Vladimir Vysotsky. His songs really did reflect the consciousness of the people, and he didn't create any myths, and eventually, in his final creations, he saw not only the destruction of his country, but his own tragic end. . . .
Chugrov: I would propose Malevich's black square.
Chubais: And why not Lenin's red star?
Chugrov: I see how Lenin and Stalin can be mentioned, but I think of them in pairs, for instance, Lenin-Solzhenitsyn. It reminds me of Kornei Chukovsky's children's book Doctor Aibolit, where there is a symbolic figure called Pull-and-Push (Tiani-tolkai), a camel with two heads that look in different directions. One person who best reflects the contradictions of Russian identity is Maksim Gorky. He was genuinely European, and he also sang of Stalin's White Sea Canal [a slave labor project which writers were invited to describe in glowing terms]. . . . Russian literature has lost its gift of prophecy. There are good writers like Viktor Astafiev and Vladimir Makanin, but they aren't prophets. And the journalistic writing of Solzhenitsyn, for instance, has lost its power. Solzhenitsyn is no longer the writer he was during the years of protest. This is both bad and good. It is unfortunate to lose the prophetic role of literature, but that may mean we are turning into a normal country.
On the subject of religion, there is the church-and that has always been part of the government structure-and there is faith. But there is a great potential for faith in this country. According to statistics, the number of people seriously attending church is growing, it's gone up from 10% in 1995 to 15% this past year. Religious observance will help raise the level of morality and responsibility. But remember that centuries ago, Joseph Volotsky won out over Nil Sorsky [Russian monks and important figures in their respective monasteries], the possessors over the non-possessors. Sorsky placed prayer above material gain, and he lost. But I wouldn't expect the Protestant ethic to completely take hold here. That's both good and bad. That's the way Russia is (takova Rossiia).
Baranovsky: When we are putting together a list of people who have contributed to Russian identity and to what the intelligentsia understood, we have to include Tarkovsky, with his films Andrei Rublev and The Mirror (Zerkalo).
Chubais: Did anyone really understand The Mirror?
Baranovsky: He provides a way to understand the intelligentsia and their cultural life.
Billington: And will the intelligentsia play a significant role in Russia's future?
Kuvaldin: No, and that will be Russia's salvation.
Chubais: When [Dmitrii] Likhachev passed away, two different television channels made an official announcement that the last member of the Russian intelligentsia had died. But the intelligentsia will always be here and will always speak in opposition to those in power.
Baranovsky: Today's Izvestiia has an article on the first page that insists that no matter what people say about Russia's special path, we will move forward in the same direction as every other country. So the first line of the main article of this newspaper concerns the very questions that we have been discussing here today. And these problems will be the subject of intense intellectual attention in our country, and I hope in yours as well. That's why we were so interested to hear Dr. Billington's thoughts about different layers of identity in America and where there are parallels with Russia.
Dr. Billington thanked the participants and asked Professor Parthé to say a few words. Parthé spoke about the study of Russia in American universities, which declined rapidly after 1991, but which is showing signs of significant growth, because students find it exciting to watch a civilization changing so dramatically on so many different levels, and they are taking advantage of the increased opportunities to study and work in Russia. Vladimir Baranovsky also thanked participants for their many interesting observations and Dmitri Glinsky-Vassiliev and everyone else who helped to organize this colloquium.
