A number of non-governmental and religious organizations in Russia discussed the issue of making the teaching of the subject of literature in schools “more patriotic”. During the discussion one of the participants suggested eliminating the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Bulgacov from the school curriculum. He noted that the complex philosophical issues that are raised, in particular, novels “War and Peace” and “Crime and Punishment” are not accessible for the schoolchildren. This initiative was supported by the Head of the Russian Academic Foundation, Roman Putin (Russian President’s nephew). He admitted that he has not read Tolstoy’s novel at school. (I have no doubt that the majority of the representatives of the current Russian elite has not read the novels whose ideas have inspired several generations of Russian and Soviet intelligentsia).
The problem, of course, is not the complexity of the works by these authors, it is clear that we perceive the world masterpieces at different age with different depth. The fear of the current Russian elite is that the mentioned writers were criticizing the Russia reality of their time and were talking about the defects that were also typical of today’s Russian (and not only Russian) reality, whereas this will hamper the “patriotic” education of the teens. Although they, for example, have not read Tolstoy but have heard that this genius writer had great reservations about the official religion, wars, imperial ambitions, any authority and ownership, which is contrary to the “pro-state” and “patriotic” dogmas.
This fact of Czarist and Soviet censorship is not taken into consideration. It turns out that it is a problem for today’s censors. Czarist and even Communist officials were realizing that fooling the people and lumpening should have its limits and boundaries. Extremely ignorant and brainless mass, eventually, becomes dangerous also for the government authorities in the event that the “food” is insufficient. Today’s Russian managers are not so far-sighted, it seems to them that the 90 percent rating will stay forever. The same lumpen risk is available in Armenia. God forbid someone decides that Hrant Matevosyan or Hamo Sahyan are overly complicated for our schoolchildren, and decide to substitute them for “patriotic” poets of the 1960-70’s.
… “Russophobe”, as we know, is quite an accepted label. If you dare not to worship Putin’s genius, then you’re a “Russophobe”. But it seems to me that the true Russophobe is the one who does not duly appreciate the high culture created by the Russian people.
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Aram ABRAHAMYAN
