I wrote the following text as a comment on the entry “The legitimate Russian parliament was created” in the blog of Andrei Illarionov (video “The total of the First Congress of Russian deputies, a discussion with Sergey Lubarsky and Ilya Ponomarev”)
https://aillarionov.livejournal.com/1334636.html
The “legitimate Russian parliament” referred to is a group of ex-parliament (Duma) members gathered in Yablonna, Poland.
Because my text was not published by the author of the blog (even more resulted in my being banned from that forum) I am publishing it here as an exhaustive expression of my position regarding any attempt to say something on behalf of the Russian nation, whether it is the Russian Duma inside Russia or the “First Russian Parliament” outside of Russia.
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Recently I read that at an exhibition in Yekaterinburg, Russia a certain security guard spoiled the painting of Malevich's pupil. There were three people without faces on the painting, their heads looked are like an egg, instead of faces there was an empty place. And that guard drew eyes on those heads. At the trial it turned out that the guard was a mentally ill, Afghanistan/ Chechnya veteran. They tried to excuse him by the fact that he decided that the painting was a children's drawing.
However, the matter is not about excuses but about the following. I am sure that the guard simply could not stand the sight of faceless figures in the room where he was sitting. Why do I think so - because psychological trauma derives from the fact that a person feels impersonal, he was made a non-person, without a voice. War made him impersonal, as well as those he killed and who tried to kill him. These are exactly people without faces. I am sure that the appearance of the painting was a trigger for that person and he intuitively tried to change the terrible reality into which the painting transferred him.
Why I am writing this: it not only war that can make people figures without faces. It can also be done via an attitude towards them, of other people. And the headline “The legitimate Russian parliament has been created” is an expression of such an attitude.
The Russian parliament cannot be legitimate if it is not elected by the Russian people. The members of this parliament were not elected here and now; the “congress” is a collection of individuals, some of whom are ex-parliament members. Appealing to past status is absurd.
True, the author of this blog has written more than once that there are no people in Russia, justifying this statement by the fact that the “people” are persons with civil rights, and Russians have had no civil rights for a long time. To this, I answered him that the word “people” comes [in Russian] from “to be born somewhere” so the people remain a people under any regime. Thus, the Jewish people remained so, being enslaved in Egypt, captured by Babylon, and scattered.
I remember being struck by this statement and marking it for myself as a “red flag”, as they say in the West. The second “red flag” was the author's proposal to the Russians to abandon Orthodoxy, on the basis that Orthodoxy is allegedly incompatible with successful economic development; in addition, there is no ethics in it, but there is a link to imperial-thinking. This statement struck me even more than “there are no people in Russia”.
Firstly, because of its blatant ignorance (if the accusation of caesaropapism is quite reasonable, then the accusation of the lack of developed ethics is so absurd that one can only shrug his shoulders in dismay - if a person managed not to notice the existence of a discipline called “moral theology”, what can I say here?).
Secondly, and this is more important - by what is called “entitlement” in English. One can dislike Orthodoxy or the Russian people and speak out accordingly (“Russians are zombies”, “Orthodox are not capable of independent thinking”, etc.); while it's annoying, it's human. But the statements “there are no people in Russia” and “Orthodoxy must be abandoned” are a completely different phenomenon, in spirit, a phenomenon which is practically inhumane. Everything was eaten by the sense of entitlement, “I dare.” I write here about the spirit of such statements.
However, if there are no Russian people, then it is all OK, isn't it? There is only “a legitimate Russian parliament,” i.e. a tiny dictatorship-ipishka because the parliament cannot say “there are no people in Russia,” - such a statement would immediately make it illegitimate. Parliament needs a people to be elected; this people give the right to be a Parliament, to represent them. And the dictatorship-ishka, having come to power, can then mercifully grant rights to the people, creating a people out of nothing, emptiness, so to speak.
20 November 2022