3 июля 2012

"Routine patriotism". Russian historical politics in September 2011. Analytical report.

Сommemorative medal: "To Russia's Patriot". Source: rosvoencentr-rf.ru. On the front side of the medal: patriotism, motherland, honor; on the reverse side: for distinguished services in patriotic activities

The sixth monthly report based on the materials of the “Historical politics monitoring” closes the first half-yearly cycle of analytical works, the main topics of which are also presented in a special “big” report for the period from April till September 2011.

Review

The main topic of September report is quite wide: news items related to patriotic issues are collected in one group and in their turn are connected with history and attitude towards past. The matter concerns discourse practices associated with erection of monuments, organization of festivals, establishment of special youth historical “non-political” associations. We have called the general spirit and the message conveyed by these initiatives “routine patriotism”.

Among September materials, such as news about “spiritual and patriotic project “Minin militia” and Novosibirsk alley named after Yuri Gagarin (“example of patriotism for future generations”) special edition of the newspaper “Vecherny patriot” (“Evening patriot”) issued as a supplement of the Moscow magazine “Bolshoy gorod” stands out indeed. “VP”, representing, in fact, a stylization of the Soviet newspapers of Brezhnev’s times, dwells on the present-day problems and pseudo-problems of the capital from the “patriotic” point of view. Stylistic regards from the past turn out all the more topical – the language and the topics of the materials are very similar to official discourse.
“Memorable dates” of the month: 631^th anniversary of the Kulikovskaya battle, 100^th anniversary of Pyotr Stolypin's death, 70^th anniversary of the start of the land-lease program.
“Event of the month” – the next session of the commission for counteracting the falsifications of history and the suggestion announced at the session concerning the necessity of creating a unified school history textbook for students of one age group. «We should not generate pluralism in the head of a 5^th grader”, thinks the author of the idea Vladimir Medinsky.
“Special cases” this time are not only from Russia – they include a news item from the UK, where a radio show based on the novel by Vassily Grossman “Life and fate” became a national bestseller. At the same time we keep track of the prevailing themes of the monitoring – together with the news on “Stalinobuses”, opening of new monuments to victims of repressions and the story about a lost monument which in fact was always there.

The sources of news were websites of political parties, newswires on web portals and online versions of the media (newspapers, radio and TV channels) including the regional websites of nongovernmental organizations, official sites of the parliamentary parties of the RF: «Edinaya Rossiya»: www.edinros.ru and er-portal.ru, as well as «Molodaya gvardiya»: www.molgvardia.ru; CPRF: kprf.ru, LDPR: www.ldpr.ru, Spravedlivaya Rossiya: www.spravedlivo.ru. Other parties: «Yabloko»: www.yabloko.ru, «Pravoye delo»: pravoedelo.ru, www.sps.ru. The RF President web site: news.kremlin.ru. News portals and on-line versions of the press: www.rian.ru, gazeta.ru, www.regnum.ru, www.regions.ru, www.polit.ru, interfax.ru, baltinfo.ru, newsru.com, kommersant.ru, vedomosti.ru, mk.ru. News of the Russian Orthodox Church: www.patriarchia.ru, magazine “Moskovskaya patriarkhiya” www.mospat.ru. Websites of TV channels: www.1tv.ru, www.rutv.ru, www.vesti.ru, www.tvkultura.ru, www.tvc.ru, www.ren-tv.com. Radio stations: echo.msk.ru, svobodanews.ru, rusnovosti.ru. Websites of nongovernmental organizations: archnadzor.ru, cogita.ru, hro.org, memo.ru and others, as well as the informational database Integrum.com

Topic of the month: «Routine patriotism»

“Patriotic” directive is a traditional trait of the state approach towards history. The antique expression about “history as a teacher of life and light of truth” is perceived by the present-day officials pragmatically, as an instruction. Since patriotism means “love to one's motherland”, the authorities undertake a search for important historical parallels, didactic and heroic examples from the past meant to show the citizens how they should “love their motherland”, and what and how we should remember from its history.

Thus, the festival in the children's camp “Dzerzhinets” in Nizhegorodskaya region was called “Heirs of the Minin militia” (see urokiistorii.ru/2336) referring to the history of the end of Time of Troubles. The year 2011 (evidently preparative with regard to the festivities of the years 2012-2013 (1612-1613)) was declared “the citizen Minin year”. Children and teenagers in “Dzerzhinets” attended thematic lessons devoted to the history of motherland, took part in a few lessons of hand-to-hand fighting, intellectual quizes and sports competitions. The representative of the region in the Council of Federation Mikhail Shnyakin remembered at the festival about “more and more frequent cases of falsification of history”. In his point of view, “Heirs of the Minin militia” learned “how to love their homeland” and received a worthy “patriotism lesson”.

If we compare this festival with some similar initiatives (to do it we'll have to go beyond the framework of the monthly report, see urokiistorii.ru/3160,urokiistorii.ru/3163), we can note that they differ mostly by the topic of the history lesson (Minin, end of the Time of Troubles, 1812 Patriotic War or the Great Patriotic War), while “hand-to-hand fighting”, sports events (very often a military game “Zarnitsa”) migrate from festival to festival as one of the distinguishing features of “patriotic” actions (this is often connected with the fact that festivals are organized for the participants of military and sporting historical clubs).

With regard to the choice of artistic means another project from Nizhny Novgorod strikes as interesting – puppet theatre taking part in the program “Raising a citizen”. The shows of the theatre are meant for primary school children, children from orphanages and boarding schools – like, for instance, “The tale of the city of Lebedints” “telling about the great Time of Troubles and the victory of Russian troops demonstrating the force of patriotic feelings” (see urokiistorii.ru/2370). Children could practice their knowledge and give way to emotions in the course of a special competition of drawings on the basis of the show – the best works were included in an exhibition.

More habitual practices, such as the construction of a memorial alley named after Yuri Gagarin in Novosibirsk, very well underline the routine nature of patriotic discourse (see urokiistorii.ru/2369). The speaker of the Municipal Duma enumerates the merits of the alley in one sentence – this is an “example of patriotism”, and a form of improvement of the territory”.

Quite a different initiative – as if in the “opposite direction”, a grassroots one – is a photo exhibition of the youth non-political association “Dvigateli” in Kursk. The work of the activists was aimed at drawing the attention of the administration to the “deplorable condition” of the historical memorial “Kurskaya Duga”. “Dvigateli” spoke of their work as of a “civil campaign”, the aim of which was to change the attitude towards history in the city and the region. Just like in the case of our first examples an important historical event (in this case the Kursk battle, the tank battle near Prokhorovka) becomes a pretext to discuss history as a coordinate system of the modern system of values – «the society which does not remember its history does not have a future” (see urokiistorii.ru/2393). The kind of history meant is also typical – it's a heroic and tragic history – and of course, the history of the victory.

Let us again turn to the publication of the “Evening Patriot” to end the “patriotic” topic of the month. In the satirical “Letter of the intelligentsia on the current moment” printed on the last page of the magazine one can find patriotic constants about “powerful Russian traditions” as a basis for the ruling party “United Russia” which enable the party to consider itself the hope and the support of the nation by right. However, further on in the letter the matter concerns the opposite — “intelligentsia” from the “Evening Patriot” suggests creating “secret patriotic societies” on the island of Capri (known in the Russian culture thanks to the writer Maxim Gorky) to support the authorities in Russia. In the comically inverted image of the world these “patriotic clusters” will replace “unpatriotic” citizens of Russia influencing modern politics from abroad. Thus we can see that the “image of an enemy” and “genuine patriotism” (and partly, references to the classic argument of the Russian 19^th century between westernists and Slavophiles are still living images in the present-day public discourse.

Memorable dates of the month: 631^th anniversary of the Kulikovskaya battle, 100^th anniversary of Pyotr Stolypin's death, 70^th anniversary of the start of the land-lease program.

The anniversary of the Kulikovskaya battle of 1380, one of the most well-known historical dates of the medieval Rus', was celebrated in September 2011 with a large-scale historical reconstruction show. To a large extent the legendary history of the battle (described in detail in the ancient Russian poem “Zadonschina”) determined the script of the show – from the combat of the hero Peresvet with Chelubey to the key role of Dmitry Donskoy's ambush regiment. Historical reconstructors from more than a dozen Russian cities, according to a reporter from the “Russian world” foundation, showed “the life by medieval laws” to the spectators (see urokiistorii.ru/2364).

The anniversary of the imperial government prime-minister Pyotr Stolypin – his 150^th anniversary was included by President Medvedev in the most important historical dates of the coming year – embraced two round dates. In 2011, when the preparation for Stolypin’s 150^th anniversary was being discussed, the 100^th anniversary of the death of this statesman was celebrated at the same time. In Moscow a solemn opening of a bas-relief with Stopylin’s portrait in the Public Chamber took place, and one of the halls was named after him. The same day a memorial service for the prime-minister who died 100 years ago was served in one of the Moscow temples. It is typical that most attention to this event was paid by the monarchist movement “For Faith and Homeland” and information and analytical service “Russian National Line”, whose slogan “Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality” obviously refers to the history of Russian Empire of 19^th century. The news item of the monitoring the very image of Stolypin is logically inserted in this semantic field (see urokiistorii.ru/2385).

In September the first “northern convoy” was commemorated in St. Petersburg and Archangelsk – arrival of ships from the US and UK with weapons and food within the land lease program. The meeting of the veterans from Russia, UK, US and Canada took place at the Piskarevskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg, and in Archangelsk the opening of a memorial stele “The city of military glory” was timed to this anniversary. That day Russian service of BBC published fragments of the documentary military chronicles of land lease, in the course of the realization of which 75 maritime raids were done and more than 3000 British military and trade seamen died (see urokiistorii.ru/2329).

Event of the month: Session of the commission for counteracting the falsification of history. Suggestions concerning the “unified history textbook”.

On 27 September the members of the commission discussed primarily the image of Russian history in mass media – historical shows on TV, live-action movies on historical topics, specialized web sites. The second large topic (and, in fact, just another side of the question about the sources of history knowledge for Russian citizens) was school history textbooks.

As at the moment of establishment of the commission the matter concerned special “expert” functions (some members, in particular, Vladimir Medinsky, insisted that “it was not censorship”) of professional historians. For instance, he suggested reviewing historical movies being released. In the opinion of the members of the commission, the situation on TV is also quite complicated – together with a large number of “good” shows about history, there are inappropriate ones as well. The conclusion about a “lack of consistency” is coherent with the general concept of the commission concerning the elaboration of a more distinct “strategic policy” in understanding history. The Internet could also serve as a policy-forming instrument – it is suggested to create a unified database of high quality historical portals, distinguish them from pseudo-historical and historically incorrect ones.

The discussion about a textbook was introduced with deplorable figures of opinion polls – about 50% of Russian citizens can’t name the date of the start of the Great Patriotic War, only about 10% remember the events of 4 November 1612 (while the Day of National Unity has been celebrated for the last few years already). Thus, the main initiator of the idea of a “unified textbook” (that is one unified textbook for students of a certain age group (junior secondary- senior secondary-high school) member of the “United Russia” party Vladimir Medinsky turns to the concept of “main things” again, which should be necessarily put into the minds of students already loaded more than possible. “We should not generate pluralism in the head of a 5^th grader”, considers the deputy, immediately citing the example of “unambiguous” positive heroes: Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Mikhail Kutuzov – military commanders, conquerors, statesmen. And again, just like in the thesis speech of the president Dmitry Medvedev about the Year of Russian history (see July report) – it was suggested to exclude the main historical values – victory in the Great Patriotic War, contribution of commanders-conquerors – from historical discussions.

The topic of a “unified textbook” remains conspicuous and important throughout the fall months – Medinsky publicly talks about it, prime-minister Putin supports it. It is quite possible that specific measures aimed at the implementation of this idea will be taken in the nearest future.

September news: special cases

· «Much ado about nothing». Controversial information was received from Novorossiysk during the last two days. An obelisk to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War “Monument-Flag” disappeared from its spot there.

· «”Life and fate” by Grossman became a radio show and a bestseller – in the UK». Thanks to a BBC new project (radio play with famous actors) the novel “Life and Fate” by Vassily Grossman got in the list of British bestsellers.

· «Blockade.NET: “National memorial book” through modern technologies”. TV and radio company “Mir” launched a web project “National memorial book” for the 70^th anniversary of the start of the blockade: recollections of the witnesses, letters, documents, photos will be collected during 872 days (as long as the blockade lasted) to be published on the web site.

· «The government of the Saratov region is going to turn Stolypin into a brand». International scientific conference “Stolypin readings. P.A.Stolypin: traditions of reforming Russia” took place in Saratov with the participation of the leaders of regional authorities. A cultural center named after Stolypin and a museum will be opened in the region, which is also going to help Putin collect the money for a monument in Moscow.

· «Return of a Stalinobus». An appeal to collect money for a new Stalinobus was published in Livejournal. This time buses with Stalin’s image, as well as various products, are to appear in Russian cities by 7 November.

Thematic index of September news items

1991: http://urokiistorii.ru/2366, http://urokiistorii.ru/2382

Afghan war: http://urokiistorii.ru/2359

Blockade: http://urokiistorii.ru/2342

The Great Patriotic War : http://urokiistorii.ru/2331, http://urokiistorii.ru/2342,http://urokiistorii.ru/2353, http://urokiistorii.ru/2375, http://urokiistorii.ru/2393

Veterans: http://urokiistorii.ru/2375

World War II: http://urokiistorii.ru/2329, http://urokiistorii.ru/2357

Elections: http://urokiistorii.ru/2321, http://urokiistorii.ru/2332,http://urokiistorii.ru/2365

Gagarin: http://urokiistorii.ru/2369

City of the military glory: http://urokiistorii.ru/2326

Grossman: http://urokiistorii.ru/2373

«United Russia»: http://urokiistorii.ru/2408