Ideological vacuum and mobilization of society

The Philosophical Sobor "The Great Russian Rectification of Names"

Session 6 "Total mobilization"

I would like to address the question of mobilization. When we talk about mobilization, even about, for example, football fans mobilizing when they go to a game, or people mobilizing to collect humanitarian aid, or those mobilizing as a community to build someone a house, it is important to stress that the main thing that brought people together was the meaning. I think that for the last 30 years, if not for the last 100 years, this has been the main problem of Russia. There has been a problem of meaning, or should we say its absence, since the formal collapse of communism (let's call it that).  There has been a certain vacuum of meaning in the state where, as far as I know, it is even written in the Constitution that any ideology is forbidden.

But if there is a formal vacuum, there is no ideological vacuum in reality, in fact, in the real world. People in the real world are still looking for meanings. Therefore, I think that Russia has gone through diversification. Some people succeeded in finding meaning in material things. Not in dialectical materialism, which lost a race to another kind of materialism offered by the political West, which seemed to be more viable. Those who succeeded at that time were satisfied with what I like to call, especially in Russia, the ideology of Gucci and oysters, a kind of Instagram capitalism, which developed into an incredible hunger for material goods and experiences. Fetishism had developed dramatically and had become almost a cultural phenomenon, but then a special military operation began and Putin's speeches and statements appeared. It seemed to me that he was offering some kind of meaning being 10 steps ahead of the curve and outpacing the society, especially its managerial class, so to speak. At the same time, people were standing where they were, not quite understanding what had happened. Organically, as already mentioned, everything came to a logical climax in 2014, of course, while in 2013 the West already faced a challenge, playing with different concepts of the future and different concepts of meaning in general on the Russian frontier, namely in Krajina.

I say Krajina deliberately, because there is this word in the Serbian language. There was a republic of Serbian Krajina in the 90s. These are now Croats, where our Serbian counterparts of modern Ukrainians were Krajins, who were Serbs before the infamous separation. There was a vacuum of meaning in Russia at the time, as the enemies, starting with Austria-Hungary in the 19th century, were working diligently. One hundred years ago, using the fashionable concepts of the time, especially Bolshevism, the enemies found an opportunity to defeat Russia. That is why I like to joke that Odessa has shown its Russianness these days, because the golden monument of Marx was recently removed there. It was obviously done for other reasons, but knowing what nasty things Marx said about Russians and about Slavs in general and about us Serbs - Southern Slavs - in his correspondence and notes, this act can be treated with a certain irony.  Continuing this thought, we can say that the South Russian peoples who destroy monuments to Marx and Lenin are showing their Russianness in a certain way.

I was 15 years old when I visited Russia for the first time in 1999. I was wondering why Lenin was everywhere, why Bolshevism was everywhere. For me, this was a person who came as an Austrian spy and directly destroyed the fighting ability of the army and was a kind of trigger to start the turmoil. Of course, there are different opinions, but the cult of Bolshevism was very strong. I was at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and I was very surprised to see the bust of this man, the Russian executioner, in front of the monastery.

So, in this vacuum of ideology, the vacuum of meaning, those who could not satisfy their appetite for Gucci and oysters, those who were searching for meaning and were not satisfied with what they saw in the monuments and busts, went on searching. That is why the problem of Nazism appeared in the Russian space, which was eventually suppressed, in my opinion. Of course, as a foreigner, I speak for myself. However, in Ukraine, in this part of the Russian land, it has spread its metastases. Often arguments occur that Nazism is not the dominant ideology in Ukraine because there is not a single parliamentary party that would be named appropriately and that would openly talk about it, calling things by their proper names. Perhaps, that's true, but if we look at the consequences, at how modern Ukrainian political culture has normalized many things, such as the violent destruction of the Russian language, especially among Russian-speaking people, that is, among Russian people who are forced and dictated to be non-Russians. Of course, these ideas have permeated society, and now the time has come to clean up this ideological mess.

I think that despite the many mistakes that have been made due to various reasons, circumstances, etc., the process of change has begun and has been quite successful so far. Speaking of ideological aspects, I think that your people are becoming more and more aware of the meaning, and that the most basic, fundamental content was found quickly enough. That is, the meaning of the struggle, which unites all the wars in which Russia participated, despite the different ideological or even ontological approaches that existed at that time. And which was the protection of the Motherland and the right of a Russian to exist in the Russian land. And, of course, as it has always been, it breaks people, provokes personal tragedies and mental breakdowns. But the responsibility that Russia bears now, and the importance that perhaps even an ordinary Russian does not see now, is the future of the world. Yes, partially, the war in Ukraine is a civil Russian-Russian war, although some of the Russian people refuse to call themselves that. This will never change their name, their surname, their mentality, at least not in the first generation, which is the generation of the main converts, but the responsibility, of course, for other parts of the world. It seems to me that somewhere in other countries, in other societies, a total mobilization took place earlier than yours, as soon as they felt for a moment Russia's weakness on the global level, by which I mean the recent events near Kharkov. We saw Azerbaijan taking the moment to attack Armenia.

There is also a bitter struggle in Serbia. We have strong, open Western pressure on society and authorities. Our government is cowardly and it can be blackmailed with compromising material. But it for the first time that they are in a difficult situation, because on the one hand our society reacted archetypically. According to all opinion polls after February, whatever they do, in Serbia almost 90% of locals support Russia, stand against sanctions and against the EuroPride that recently took place. This is Europe's premier gay pride parade. Our government applied to host this parade in 2019. This award, a great honor, so to speak, was given to us this year.

I would like to tell you a little bit about this and about the spiritual battle that is taking place here in Serbia. There are three important test questions. The first is the imposition of sanctions against Russia. The second is the recognition of political Kosovo, i.e. self-denial for the Serbs, which we agreed to. And the third question is to agree to a Euro-gay parade. In society, this has caused absolutely opposite disputes and a sharp rebuff. First of all, our government, which initially voted against Russia at the UN General Assembly in February and March, stopped doing so because it was not afraid of the first speeches and protests in support of Russia that took place in Belgrade. Later, as the time of Europride approached, the church processions began. I am very happy to see that they are also taking place in Russia. I saw that there was a big procession in St. Petersburg and later in Moscow. It's interesting that Christian processions took place simultaneously in Catalonia and St. Petersburg. There were about the same number of participants shown on TV, but Catalan journalists claim 700,000 participants, while in St. Petersburg the figure is 30,000 participants. It's a very interesting manipulation, but it is different.

If we look at our processions, we see that we have a certain third elite, led by the Patriarch personally, although the processions are not an initiative from above, but the initiative of the faithful themselves, that is, this movement comes directly from each church. At the same time, the Patriarch has practically clashed with the secular authorities and President Vučić. The Patriarch openly stated that for the Serbian people, for the Serbian Orthodox Church, the LGBT ideology is unacceptable, and that textbooks for teenagers with a gender-based European ideology, which have already appeared in 2022, are unacceptable.  President Vučić had made an announcement that he was against holding EuroPride. But on the day of the parade, at 8:15 a.m., he met an American ambassador, Christopher Hill, who was in the Clinton administration at the time when we, the Serbs, were being bombed, with a man who personally participated in the war against us.  After this meeting, Vučić gave his permission and EuroPride was held, with several thousand people participating, although 10,000 people were announced. Belgrade looked like Beirut again, i.e. a small group of foreign diplomats, mostly LGBT activists from all over the world, with very few Serbian participants, guarded by a huge number of police and gendarmerie officers. There were clashes with football fans; there were several thousand of them. There were real fights. Thank God nobody died.

This situation has shown that the Serbian government and President Vučić himself don't have the ultimate power in the country; it's the American ambassador who does. This is a very important moment for the territorial authority of the sovereignty issue. On one side of the barricades we have the believers and the nation as a whole, who have the most important thing - meaning. And on the other side we have an utterly helpless, incapable, impotent state. In my opinion, this situation is very good, because we have been under direct occupation more than once, in 1941, in 1917, but every time we were victorious.

I want you Russians to understand the meaning of this, because mobilization as such can be just a bureaucratic phenomenon if there is no sense in doing it.

It is often said by journalists and ordinary people in Russia that those of the older generation are likely to think this way, and that young people are likely to be less patriotic.

No, we have the opposite situation. Our older generation was the one that was satisfied with everything, they went to Rome to shop. This is my parents' generation and a little younger than them. But our young people are completely different. Our young people are more church-oriented and patriotic. Moreover, when I say "church-oriented", this is probably a different concept, because we have the only Apostolic Church, the only dogma, but there are peculiarities. The peculiarity of Serbian Orthodoxy is the constant protection of the faith. The Russian Orthodox faith, in addition to the protection of the faith, has a personal contemplation and a personal understanding of the Gospels. It seems to me, there is sometimes a wrong understanding of what the world is. In Serbia, it is absolutely impossible to meet a person who could be both anti-Russian, pro-NATO and a believer. An Orthodox, at the same time. These are just mutually exclusive things. And here I have met people who would simultaneously post on their social networks "NO WAR" posts and identify as religious people, too. It is possible because there is also a component of personal contemplation in faith. I think the fact of the matter is that you have had real stability in Russia for the last 20 years. This is not just political stability. It can exist anywhere, for example in Romania at the time of Ceaușescu. They really had wealth and there was the possibility of personal economic development, it was probably not as strong but stable. And it seems to me that, in the existing ideological vacuum, a generation of people has emerged, not all of them, but a significant percentage of them, who are content, who see no other meaning than the one I spoke of at the beginning, oysters and Gucci, who see eternal life as a biological life, who hope that science will invent immortality on earth. And this is an ideal that still exists from the time of Francis Bacon and many others, especially the Renaissance thinkers who rationally denied Christianity. Perhaps after the French Revolution, rather than in the early stages, it became clear. Of course, it is very difficult to say sharply to a generation like this: "we have to mobilize and maybe even die before they find a cure for death".

The situation is different in Serbia. Because we have raised generations of frustrated youth. They are frustrated not because of material prosperity, but because of the feeling that we are under occupation, and this state of affairs is now coming to a climax. And, thank God, everyone has seen the example of the American ambassador and Vučić's respect for him. That's not clear to many people in Serbia.

In foreign media, including the Russian ones, I often read that Vučić is a firm politician. At the same time, the West brought this Serbian Progressive Party to power in order to separate Serbia from Russia and to recognize Kosovo.  A generation of frustrated young people has been born here. Regardless of their own economic opportunities, they stand with Russia and the Russian victory. Because we know that this is our only chance to survive, and we know that it is yours as well.

In 2014, Russia was on the brink of awakening with the Donbass, and Serbia was on the brink of awakening together with Russia.  If you ask me what my main message is, I will say that the main thing for mobilization is the natural meaning. I think this is your eternal sense, as long as Russia has existed, this sense has always been with you, at all times, this is the sense of protecting the Motherland. Because when a Serb thinks of Russia, he sees church domes, Borodino, the image of a Russian soldier and a Russian holy warrior like Alexander Nevsky.

Translated by Daria Mochalova