Society entered a period of severe crisis – primarily psychological and moral. How to survive it and come out of it a winner?
This can be learned from the most famous novel about the crisis – “Crimes и punishment” Dostoevsky. Our entire history over the past year has passed under the sign of this inevitable “and”. First, the fatal question: am I a trembling creature before the world community, do I have to comply with the moral and legal law, or do I have the right? I am young, strong, I can turn the whole world upside down, and that seedy country has no need for its treasures at all, it’s time for it to die, to fall apart. In conscience, you can allow yourself – and take away this pearl from her …
And now, after a few months, this overstepped superman, a fever begins to shake the superpower, emptiness and cold penetrate to the bones. There comes a feeling of absolute rejection from the world. Even the closest ones suddenly drifted away, because the rupture of communication with humanity occurred in the schismatic himself, who took up the axe. Until he repents, takes the blame upon himself, he is doomed to bear the curse of shed blood.
2014 turned out to be the year of the terrible judgment over Russia. The Greek word “crisis” means “judgment”. Everyone who is caught in a crisis has to overcome it internally, peering into the foundation of their character and culture. Did you sympathize with the general impulse under the daring slogan “everything is ours”? Have you felt a surge of pride at the sight of the weak and humiliated, and a surge of joy at the news of other people’s troubles? Have you heard in your heart the drumbeat at the cries: “Tanks against Kiev”, “Europe against the wall”, “We will defeat Pindostan”, “We will defeat the fifth column”? We must remove this thorn in our hearts – the conviction that we are the best, that the world is indebted to us and we are unfairly offended. If we understand that it is fair, and also merciful for our sins, then it will feel better, but only if we do not stop halfway, we do not try again to cheat and dodge punishment / karma.
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- How to overcome the crisis?
The other day I was at an exhibition of Anselm Kiefer, who is dominated by black and ashy tonality (even in sunflowers), and many paintings are made entirely of lead. There is no more relevant artist for modern Russia than this German, who is still burned by the history of his country ( he was born in 1945). On one of his canvases there are portraits of Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Wagner against the backdrop of the battle of Arminius, who was heroized in Nazi Germany. And they, these great ones, are also directly or indirectly involved in the tragedy of the “super-people”, proud of their greatness and allowing themselves “blood according to their conscience.”
Russian society needs a new level of self-awareness, criticism even of such “unshakable foundations”, which are expressed by the concepts of “people”, “victory”, “feat”, “land”, “Russia”, “motherland”, “strength”, “unity ”, “integrity”, “glory” … It would seem that what is wrong with such words as “great Russia”, “Russian world” or “Russia is above all”? But let’s substitute here, for example, Germany – and we will understand why it is impossible for modern, sane Germans to think about themselves in this way in a country that has been recovering from Nazism for seventy years now. And our totalitarian past is much deeper, while attempts to cleanse it were superficial and affected only a narrow layer of society. Twelve years of totalitarian fury were enough for Germany to come to its senses, and Russia is already falling into the same trap for the second time, from which a quarter of a century ago it got out seemingly unharmed, almost without bloodshed.
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- How to think about a crisis so as not to become a victim of it
This year is the time of judgment over all traditions and culture. Above the classics, contemporaries, above ourselves. Either everything that has been done for three centuries after the opening of the window to Europe is meaningless, or the desire to instill in people a sense of freedom, dignity, responsibility, compassion must somehow acquire historical flesh, pass from great books and literary images into the existence of society. There is a lot of talk about “lustration” these days. This word is from the Latin “lux”, light, and means enlightenment, purification. We need an inner, spiritual lustration, which can affect much of what we love, even in Gogol, Dostoevsky, Blok, Mayakovsky, Pasternak, in their “Scythian”, arrogant, militant and adoring motives. “Try to fight us! Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians, With slanting and greedy eyes! What is there to be proud of? All of us, following Pushkin, will have to look with disgust at our past life and shed bitter tears, trying to wash away the sad lines. Among them, alas, are the “Slanderers of Russia” by Pushkin himself: “So send to us, vitii, Your embittered sons: There is a place for them in the fields of Russia, Among coffins that are not alien to them.” Alas, when the truth leaves the poet in tears, even his great gift leaves behind it, drooping down.
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Two eternally Russian questions: “Who is to blame?” and “What to do?” – they now receive, at the judgment of the whole society, unexpected, but the only possible answers: “You yourself are to blame” and “There is nothing to do.” There is only one way out: to repent, to return someone else’s, to pay off all accounts, to suffer a well-deserved punishment. Then another life will begin … But, following the ending of Crime and Punishment, this could already be the topic of a new story.