On Russian Historical Cynicism

[illuminati]

Gazeta.Ru

Russians have finally made up their minds and elaborated an almost single approach towards the last decade of their national history. The dominating motive is historical cynicism. The scale of this cynicism is especially visible if we take the attitude of an average Russian to the event which is now called the August 1991 coup — most definitely a key event in the country’s recent history.

(In 1991 a group of Soviet government, military and KGB figures formed a so-called Emergency State Committee and attempted to seize power from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup ended after three days due to massive public protests in Moscow and a lack of resolute actions from the plotters. Boris Yeltsin played a major role in suppressing the communists which gave a major impetus to his political career.)

The number of Russians who consider the events of 1991 “a victory of a democratic revolution that ended the reign of the Communist Party” remains very low. According to the Levada-Center polling service, only 11 percent of Russians think so. The VTSIOM polling service puts this figure at 12 percent — this is the number of Russians who say they would side with Boris Yeltsin and his allies if the events of 1991 were repeated.

However, the statistics also give some reason for optimism — the percentage of Russians who consider the August events of 1991 a democratic revolution is constantly growing. Ten years ago the figure stood at only 7 percent. The VTSIOM center says that the share of staunch supporters and opponents of the Emergency State Committee have drawn level — there are about 13 percent of the population in each group.

The majority of the population refuses to pass ideological judgment on either side in the August conflict. According to VTSIOM polls, 39 percent of Russians claim that they have no sympathies with any party. The Levada Center claims that 48 percent of Russians think that the 1991 coup was “just an episode of power struggle among the top authorities of the country” and the rest consider it “a tragic event with lethal consequences for the country and the people”. Unfortunately, the formula in the latter question allows some ambiguity — it is not clear what is considered a tragedy, the coup itself, or its unsuccessful end.

Almost half of Russians think that after 1991 the country has been moving in the wrong direction, but refuse to see any political background in this phenomenon. The majority of the population blames it on the mistakes and incompetence of Yeltsin and Gorbachev as well as “the greed of the civil servants”.

According to VTSIOM, 38 percent of Russians aged 18 to 24 have problems in evaluating the 1991 crisis. That figure is twice as much among that age group than for any other group. But it is very likely that the younger generation will soon determine their attitude to the coup, and that will be historical cynicism.

Of course, that attitude can be explained by the traditional Russian mentality expressed in a peasant’s proverb: “If an icon is not good enough to pray before, it is certainly good enough to cover pots with it”.

But on the other hand, such an anti-ideological perception serves as a basis for official historical discourse. State television and mass culture impress on the public various stories of the “Russian tragedy”. We are told not to value the rightness and the moral qualities of Tsar Nicolas and the Decembrists, the Red Army and the White Guards, Gorbachev and the Emergency State Committee, but to put them all on one stage as characters of the never ending historical drama. They tell us that both sides were right in their own ways but their desires were actually harmful as it caused internal strife and eventually weakened the country.

This must be the essence of the tragedy the Russians who took part in the polls were thinking of.

The propaganda of historical cynicism is proceeding successfully. The ideology suits the mass consciousness and even works to create an illusion of national consensus and civil peace.

They tell us that there are no communists and liberals — all we have is the struggle of private profits and ambitions, and any political activity in such circumstances is useless.

The only consolation is that Russians have the same approach to their past and present leaders.