Simply this country is regularly deviating from its identity
In the last one year, the “anti-Russian” and “Russianophoby” epithet has obtained such a wide meaning that it refers not only the critics of Putin’s government, but to anyone who says that freedom is better than slavery, that the government in any country should be formed through elections and be under the control of the society, and that reading is better than staying in ignorance and darkness. Those who are here, in Armenia, consider themselves as defenders of the interests of Russia, sometimes are too much encouraged and driven away by “pickaxing” tolerance, democracy and education.
This mentality, of course, is coming from Russia, the Kremlin and the intelligence gather around the latter “inspired by patriotic spirit”. They sought to prove that Russia needs an enslaved population, there should be an autocratic emperor with unique Russian “despotic willfulness” and paranoia, and, on the other hand, it does not need education, constitution, elections, and new technologies and other “spoiled” European but actually “Judaic” fictions. “We have selected a unique and very successful path,” they say.
According to supporters of this view, Russia is not Europe. The thesis, of course, is not new, it is spoken of not only by today’s ideologists, Dugin or Zhirinovsky. The same opinion was shared by, for example, Alexander III (in fact, a very weak-willed personality), who prior to becoming an emperor had exclaimed, “Constitution? They want the All-Russian emperor to give an oath in front of some cattle?” Such words, it seems to me, are a direct road to revolution, the tragic victim of which became the aforementioned emperor’s son decades later. But most interestingly that the father of Alexander III had the exact opposite opinion about constitution and democracy.
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Modern Russian historian, Alexander Yanov, in his article entitled “Why Russia needs Europe?”, proves that Russia generally in its history is ranging between its natural “European” situation and its rejection. The country, according to the historian, had “European” periods, which, however, were periodically interrupted, distorted by the reactionary, anti-European and “patriotic” revolts. According to Yanov, such “European” periods were from the 10th century to the mid of the 13th century, which was interrupted by the Mongol invasions since the 15th century after unyoke of the Tatar until the mid of the 16th century, when Russian feudal lords and ignorant ecclesiastic receiving the estates from the Tartars came to power. Peter the First’s reform period was also “European”. During the 19-20 century upheavals, Russia was also from time to time displaying its European identity. In the Soviet period, this identity was lost during, during the tenure of Yeltsin, it again tried to be revealed (along with the post-Soviet chaos), during the tenure of Putin, it again disappeared.
Overall, according to the investigator, the historical development has also positive trends. In 1700, the fundamentalist church vanished in Russia, in 1861 – the serfdom, in 1917 – “ecclesiastical autocracy,” in 1953 – political idolatry, in 1993 – the community slavery. Տhe imperial statehood is left. Is there a doubt that the latter is also doomed?
I’m also sure that Russian as well we Armenian identity is European, in other words, it is based on Christianity, Greek democracy and Roman law. Simply, this identity has not been finally established in our as well as in our friendly country’s culture. Deviations regularly occur in Russia in the direction of “Eurasian”, Byzantine or, more simply, the Mongol – Tatar, with all of its destructive consequences. These deviations are brilliantly illustrated by the 19th century Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky. I do not know whether today’s Russian elite reads his works. In any case, after “peculiar way” of consciousness and “patriotic” euphoria, sobering up will be tough. I hope that today’s deviation will be the last one. The same Klyuchevsky writes, “History teaches us nothing but only punishes us for not learning its lessons.”
…Recently, in one of the Russian sites, I read about Nazi judgments about Russia’s citizens who dare to criticize the government and, according to the author, they are ethnic Jewish, the “fifth column” and so on. Usual accusations, which are sometimes voiced in Armenia, too. Unusual thing was that this racist text was posted on tchaykovsky.ru site, which is dedicated to my very beloved Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He, in my opinion, is the greatest Europe composer.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
