Lithuania: KGB´s files reveal link with the Russian Church

(Kirill, Patriarch of the Russian Church, Putin and Medvedev.)

          On the 20th December, Lithuania has released some former KBS´s files (country was under Soviet rule from 1944 to 1991) which shows the institution´s link with the Moscow Patriarchate. Nowadays, there are some hierarchical members of the Russian Orthodox Church who have been (or are) involved with the Russian secret service, now called FSB, among them Metropolitan Alexandr of Riga, leader of the Latvian Orthodox Church linked to Moscow.

          Paul Goble says that in the Putin era the penetration of the secret service penetration into the Russian Church has increased aiming, he comments, of using ecclesial property to cover up it´s business. The church is also one of the ideological basis of the government, which stands as defender of traditional values and Christianity, seeking trying to expand it´s influence outside Russia.

        It must to be considered that the release of the files has come precisely in time of tension among Moscow, Kyiv and Constantinople around the formation of a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church, hitting the Russian Church´s imagem and thus helping in it´s demoralization among the Orthodox faithful. Given Lithuania´s history of opposition to Russia, the files´ opening at this time doesn´t seem a coincidence.

The "unknown woman" and the search for Russia´s national identity

(Painting "Portrait of an Unknown Woman", by Ivan Kramskoi. The painting is exposed at Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow.)

          A few weeks ago I´ve got very impressed when I saw the image in the painting reproduced above. It´s name is "Portrait of an Unknown Woman" by the Russian painter Ivan Kramskoi, 1883. When I opened the screen it seemed I was in front of a real woman. Her deep gaze blends arrogance with seduction, and it´s further pronunced by the contrast of the face with the dark dress and the snowy enviroment in the background. It seemed the woman would jump off the painting to talk with me or go beyond a mere conversation.

          Kramskoi was part of "The Itinerants" (Peredvyhznyky), group of Russian painters who sought to educate the people throught art, travelling and holding exhitions of their works in the Russia´s interior. According to Orlando Figes in the book Natasha´s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, in the early 1860´s these painters moved away from the Academy of Arts of Saint Petersburg (today Imperial Academy of Arts) and, rejecting the European classicism of this school, they began to work with what the author calls "Russian style", inspiring themselves in the people´s folkloric and religious traditions. The withdraw happened with the rebellion of fourteens students of the academy who was known as "Wanderers", led by Kramskoi, who demanded freedom of choice in the paintings content. Many artist of this trend worked at the Stroganov School of Arts (today Stroganov Moscow State University of Industry and Arts), which received people of vairous social classes and who, therefore, knew the diversity of Russian society. They were sponsored by the great merchants of emergent Moscow, among them Pavel Tretyakov, railroads magnate and Russian arts collector who names the gallery where Kramskoi´s painting stands. The Russian painter was one of those sponsored by Tretyakov and was an important portraitist of the time, having reproduced people of the cultural milleu such as the Russian writer Lev Tostoy and Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. In Figes´ words, Kramskoi "painted against a simple background and concentrated on the face, attracting the spectators to the eyes and forcing them to penetrante in the inner world of the people whom they had treated as slaves until yesterday"* (Chatper 4, part 2). The author referes to the servitude regime which was in effect in Russia until it´s abolition by Tzar Alexander II in 1861. 

          In Kramskoi´s time all the Russian intelligentsia was obsessed in understanding the peasant, discovering their people´s identity and answering the question: "who are we?" The question crossed the whole 19th century and, despite the supression of the Soviet regime throughout the 20th century, the search for an answer continued with Slavophiles and Eurasianist and continuous to this day. This doubt came to light strenghtly with the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812, crushing the idea of an Europe as source of civilization, which led the first Russian artists and intellectuals to question the true identity of their people and the path that Russia should follow in the future. But the issue had already began to emerge a little earlier, around 1800, when it was flourishing a Russian "national" culture still dominated by an idealized image of Europe. In the view of the early artists, the imperial court and it´s Europenized city, Saint Petersburg, were artifical and strange to the Russian culture. Satires and plays sought to identify who was the "Russian" in contrast to the European inhabitant. In Orlando Figes´ words:

"Against the background of this domination by Europe, satires (...) began to define the Russian character in distintive terms other than Western values. These writers established the antithesis between the foreign artifice and the native truth, European reason and heart of the Russian soul which would be the basis of the national narrative of the 19th century. At the heart of this discourse was the ancient romantic ideal of the native soil - an 'organic'  and pure Russia, not corrupted by civilization. Saint Petersburg was just deceit and vanity, a narcissistic dandy watching all the time his reflection on the Neva River. The real Russia was in the provinces, a place without pretensions or foreign conventions where the simple 'Russian' virtues were preserved."* (Chapter 1, part 5)   

          The figure of the unknown woman wasn´t a peasant, not even a common "citizen" as we conceive in the modern society. Judging by the time and the bakcground of the picture, the woman resembles a noble or member of the emerging merchant class. But this is part of "real" Russia, to use a word that can define the ideal sought by the Russian artists of the 19th century. Despite not beeing a peasant, the unkonown woman composes part of the national synthesis dreamed by these artists and, more especifically, by movements like the populist and "native soil". The first appeared 1874 and worked with the peasants promoting education, arts and political activism of socialist profile and aimed to lead Russia to development combining the European way with the people´s traditions; the second, which emerged at the same time, was a cultural movement composed of writers which published texts that extolled national unity and appealed to the artists to portray the people´s life and bring them the Western culture. The populists and members of the "native soil" wanted to unite the different parts of society into a single nation, to realize the national synthesis between the noble and the peasant.

          The Kramkoi´s painting offers a plunge into the Russian soul through the beautiful and seductive look of the unknown woman, face which offers to us a facet of a multifaceted nation. It´s an attempt to translate what Kramskoi saw at the streets while probing the question "who are we?" Art has this strength, of seeing the reality of the other, of a distant people, as if we were there and we were part of their identity.

* Free translation of the author.

** Published in Portuguese on December, 24th 2017.

Martyrs, heroes and others not so saints: the construction of the new Russian identity

(Town of Kaluga, Russia)

The anthropologist and professor at the New Bulgarian University, Milena Benovska-Sabkova, has carried out a work on memory policy implemented in Russia in the religious revival context. Her activity had as reference the city of Kaluga, with 350 thousand inhabitans 150 km southwest Moscow, and has been published in various academical journals (here - page 95-98, here and, most complete, here).

With the end of the Soviet Union, a series of research began in order to reconstitut and rebuild the religious communities, churches and monasteries destroyed in Russia. Much of this work was done by so-called kraevedenie, researchers specializing in local history as cultural heritage, biographies and origins of families. Such a kind of researcher has emerged still in the time of the Soviet Union and actually has a semi-official status, acting independently and also with research centers, schools, churches and local authorities. Within this branche there are the church kraevedenie, who makes the same work, but focused especifically on religious matters, with emphasis on survey of demolished churches, research on religious files and biographical survey of clerics and religious people, especially those who desappeared in the Communist era.

Since 2000, with the Vladimir Putin´s arrival to Presidency of Russia, the activity of the kraevedenie has has gained great official stimulus: they were co-optated by the authorities to work in rescue research of Russian history acting in schools, museums and in local activties such as congresses and books launches. Thus, these reasearchers began to form a semiprofissional group related a) to the national project of memory policy, b) to the regional projects linked to the memory policy at national level, and c) to the spontaneous research acitvity carried out by their members. The church kraevedenie also entered this process, and began to work close to the Russian Orthodox Church´s authorities. Thus, they consolidated the role as intermediaries between the Orthodox clergy and the common citizen making a knowledge "bridge" between the two social groups.

(Optina Pustyn Monastery, in the town of Koselsk 60 km from Kaluga. Founded in the 15th century, the monastery is one of the main ones in Russia and also region´s religious center. It was transformed by the Bolsheviks in the Kraevedenie Museum in 1917-29, and later received a department of a Koselk´s museum in 1957.)

It´s through the close relationship between the kraevedenie and the Russian Orthodox Church that the religious revival takes place in Russia. They work together both at national level in the Synodal Commission of Canonization of Saints and at regional level, following the example of the Commission of Canonization of the Eparchy of Kaluga, where the anthropologist Milena carried out her research. Therefore, these researchers not only rescue the Orthodoxy´s past memory but also integrate the Church´s plan to reconstitute a national religious identity.

Since 1989, the Orthodox Church has carried out a series of canonizations, among them the confessors and "new martyrs", that is, the religious assassinated or dead during the communist regime. The church kraevedenie are of fundament importance mainly for rescuing files, survivors´ memories and to discover abandoned cemiteries in the old churches. Along them work the so-called "religious entrepreneurs" who commit some of their time and personal resources to carry out and organize religious processions, restore icons, restore and rebuild destroyed churchers and create the so-called "sacred places" for visitation, as the new memorial designed in Kaluga for the veneration of the new martyrs.

The memory policy in Russia also seeks to rehabilitate the civilians and militaries´ memory, especially soldiers killed in World War II. The so-called "Great Patriotic War" is considered, as Angelo Segrillo in the book "Os Russos" ("The Russians") comments, a moment of great trauma, meaning practically a refoundation of the country. It´s estimated that seven thousand cities have been destroyed and up to 27 million people have died in this event, of which 100 thousand only in the small district of Kaluga.

The kraevedenie are also involved in this secular historical rescue, mainly in the discovery and cataloging of the collective graves, activity that involves mainly military groups and war veterans. Milena comments that it´s through the indentification of the dead and a new decent funeral that there´s a "sacralization" of the soldiers, seen as heroes, civil "martyrs" of Russia. "The anonymous dead", the anthropologist says, "are transformed into heroes via personalization and 'proper burial'" (p. 20)

The new martyrs canonization and mainly the national heroes identification serve as a way of dealing with the traumatic past, not only of war but also of anti-religious persecution. Some of the kraevedenie who formed their academical life during the Soviet Union today have to deal with KGB´s files, where many of the crimes commited against religious people as murders, arrests and persecution are documented. The seemingly irreconcilable legacy of Communist terror against religious and ornidary citizens is transformed in a "positive" past through the heroes veneration and the martyrs canonization.

(Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in Moscow, Russian Orthodox Church´s headquartes. It was destroyed by the Bolsheviks at the behest of Stalin´s, in 1931, and rebuild from 1990 during Yeltsin government. It was consacreated on August 19th 2000.) 

 

In the current Vladimir Putin administration (2013-2018), there´s a clear attempt by the Kremlin to approach and ideologically instrumentalize the discourses of the Orthodox Church´s upper clergy on the country´s history. This instrumentalization, that appears on Putin´s public statements, fosters the idea of Russia as a civilization distinct from the others, unique and origial, in opposition to the West. It would be through the return to it´s cultural roots and the rescue of the tradition that Russia could fulfill it´s role as power which is destined to be. Thus, all Russian history, including the Communist period, is considered "sacred" and necessary as part of an unique experience of a people distinct from the others. In Putin´s own words:

"Many people argue about the Lenin’s Tomb, saying that it does not follow tradition. What does not follow tradition? Just visit Kiev’s Pechersk Lavra or go to Pskov Monastery, or Mount Athos. You will see hallows of holy people there. Go ahead, you can see it all there. Therefore, the communists continued the tradition even in that respect and did it competently, in accordance with the demands of those times."

(Military parade in Moscow on Victory Day, celebrated on May 9th: Communist period rehabilitated as part of the Russia´s "sacred" history.)

It´s possible to see clearly in the Putin´s statement the memory policy carried out in his administration. This is why the official stimulus of a historical rescue and a value transformation of the Communist period, from where the Russia´s new martyrs and heroes were rescued. This policy covers part of the Russian Orthodox Church´s upper clergy, as well as Orthodox leaders and faithful called "fundamentalists" and nationalist groups. These last two nourish an extreme rejection to all the Western influences and demand canonization of proeminent civilian figures in the Russian history, includind the dictator Josef Stalin. The researcher Igor Torbakov of the Uppsala University, in Sweden, comments on this Russian government´s attemp of synthesizing the contradictions of the Russian history into a single narrative:

"In Frederick Corney’s words, 'Putin was offering a narrative of modern Russian history in which the turbulences of Russia’s past served merely as a backdrop to recent progress, an offer of reconciliation without truth.' [author´s highlight] As its support base consists of a broad coalition comprising heterogeneous social groups, the regime, in its quest for historical legitimacy, seeks to synthesize disparate elements of Russia’s different 'pasts' into a kind of eclectic fusion. 'It attempts to yoke, if uncomfortably, various idealized aspects of the tsarist, soviet and émigré pasts' and present this concoction as 'history without guilt or pain.'

The search for an indivisible truth, the fascination with the irrational, the hope to find a special path, a destiny, a mission granted by God and/or History are current discourses among Russian intellectuals in the post-Soviet era, amalgamating all events and ideological branches into a single body. Nothing more exemplary of this characteristics than Alexander Dugin´s Neo-Eurasian though, so often mentioned in this blog, or the extremely heterogenous composition of members and groups linked to the Putin´s United Russia Party.

Russia seeks for an absolute unity, a totality that unifies everything and everyone in a new national identity. The Moscow´s memory policy is one aspect of the attempt to rescue or create a new Russian identity unifying successes and traumas, heroes and martyrs, crimes and holiness acts and "saints" of all specters of  Russian society, even if they arent´s so saint thus.

* Published in Portugues on April 13th 2016.

Theotokos and the "Third Rome" myth



(Theotokos of Vladimir: there are many copies of the original throughout the world.)

Our Lady is much venerated in Orthodox Christianity and her presence in the faith and cultures of these peoples are very striking.

The most common Our Lady´s icon in Orthodoxy is Theotokos, which in Greek means "Mother of God". Russia, the country with the largest Orthodox population in the world, received from ancient Byzantium this aspect of Christianity, artistic tradition, the form of government and many elements governing social order. Historically the Russians called their land "House of the Most Holy Mother of God", a reference to the nation as the holder of a Christian heritage, in it´s view legitimate, and clearly expressed in the "Third Rome" myth developed from the late 15th century. Theotokos is the Russia´s protective patroness.

But what is the relationship between the Mother of God´s picture and the "Third Rome"?

In fact Theotokos is one of the elements of historical tales and philosophic texts that have helped to create or have been used to legimitate the ideia that Russia was legitimate heir of Byzantiun, the "Second Rome" (with the city of Rome the "first").

According to historian Andrew Wilson in his book "The Ukranians. Unexpected Nation", the Theotokos icon that is related to the legitimationz of the kings´ power of the ancient Kievan Rus was brought from Constantinople to the Kiev region in 1134, having been manufactured around 1120. The Virgin of Vyshhorod (town near Kiev), as it was known at the time, was one of the main symbols of the Kievan king´s divine authority. This same icon is now known as Our Lady of Vladimir, or Theotokos of Vladimir.

(Pechersk Monastery, in Kiev, one of the main religious centers throughout Orthodox world, state museum and Russian Orthodox Church headquarters in Ukraine.)

After the schism between Rome and Constantinople in 1054 that gave rise to the Catholic-Orthodox division there were some attempts to establish autocephalous, ie, autonomy of the local Orthodox churches in relation to Kiev Patriarchate. These initiatives originated already in the same century of the schism when divergences among "regional" Orthodox leaders and those more loyal to Kiev began.

(Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, Russia, where Theotokos of Vladimir was taken.)

One of the division´s landmarks between a northern and a southern branch in Orthodoxy (and that in the future helped shape the identity distinction between Russia and Ukraine) was the Our Lady of Vyshorod´s capture by Kievan prince Bogoliubski in 1155 to the Dormition Cathedral in the city of Vladimir (and that would give a new name to icon). Bogoliubski tried to enthrone his protégé, Feodor, as city´s Metropolitan deepening the north-south divergences. Later Feodor was captured and taken to Kiev, beeing executed in 1169 probably for political and/or religious divergences. The icon´s theft and the prince´s attempt to enthrone an ally as a local Orthodox leader is a clear attempt to legitimaze Vladimir, in the north, as legitimate succesor of the Rus historical legacy removing these assigments from Kiev and making the city center of Slav Orthodoxy.

(Prince Bogoliubski, venerated in the Orthodox Church as a saint.)

The icon was trasnferred to the Moscow Kremlin in 1395, and it´s assigned to it the Moscovy principality´s victory in arresting the Mongol attack lead by Tamerlane. The city of Moscow, which led to the principality, has been founded by a "northerner", Yurii Dolgorukii, around 1150, which shows that from it´s origin this city and Kiev were in opposite poles on the legitimacy of the Kievan Rus´ legacy.

The shock of Constantinople´s fall in 1453 and the consequent attempt to legitimize the Moscovy´s new role were the main events that granted Russia the title of "Third Rome" and it´s Orthodoxy leadership claim. According to Wilson, the Russia sovereignty over "all Rus" would be and "invented tradition", thesis also held regarding of the Third Rome doctrine by the Harvard historian Marshall Tillbroke Poe.

Wilson states that this tradition is rooted in the transfer of the Our Lady of Vladimir icon to Moscow in 1395 and the first attempt by the King Simeon, the Proud, to take full control of the Orthodox Church of Rus. These events were aimed to make the kingdom guardion of Orthodoxy and the Kievan Rus legacy in the presence of Theotokos. The historian also lists some historical events that were decisive to the Muscovy´s power growth from 15th century: the Russian Orthodox Church autocephaly in 1448 fearing the Constantinople´s fall to the Muslims, the consequent rise of the Moscovite kingdom claims due this fall, and the final expulsion of the Mongols from the region in 1480. Soon after the establishment of the Church in Russia, the state began to publish a series of tales that legitimized the new Muscovy´s religious authority.

(Prince Ivan III, the firts of the Russian monarchs to receive the Filofei´s letters.)

In the late 15th century the Third Rome doctrine was circulating in Russian cities as Tver and Novgorod, and in the later the first expressed record of this term. It was from the reign of the Grand Prince of Muscovy, Vasili III (1505-1533), which started the penetration of the myth in the kingdom´s official circles. The first record that reaches the authorities comes from Filofei, monk from Pskov, near Moscow, who writes a series of letters for a Vasili´s representative in his city in 1523-24, to Vasili and then to his successor, Ivan IV, the Terrible. For the monk, Rome had fallen into heresy, and Constantinople had been punished by God with the Muslim rule in his attempt to unite the Orthodoxs with Rome at the Florence Council (1439). Thus Moscovy was the only rightful heir kingdom of Christianity and the natural Byzantium´s sucessor, since all other Christian kingdoms had fallen into enemies´ hands. According to Filofei, prophecies (of which he don´t indicate the source) state that there wouldn´t be a "Fourth Rome", being Muscovy with the mission of building an empire in order to protect and disseminate the true Christian Faith until the end of time. To fulfill this rule, the leader should be excepcionally skilled and inteligent able to guide the kingdom in an universal and escathological mission. Therefore, the king acted under inspiration of God himself, and his authority over the empire and his rule as church´s protector divinaly conferred. Muscovy bequeathed the Byzantium´s "divine authority", then Constantinople´s protector.

The "Third Rome" idea appears at first in an official text in 1547 at the Ivan IV´s coronation as Czar of Russia, which meaning is "Caesar", what gave to the leader imperial projection. The coronation´s text was written or inspired by then Metropolitan Makary, one of the Third Rome doctrine formulators at the time. In 1589, five years after Ivan´s death, the Russian Orthodox Church was elevated to Patriarchate in an agreement which Moscow left prevailed on Constantinople, since this was under Muslim occupation and depended of Russian resources.

(Saint Basil Cathedral in Red Square in Moscow, ultimate symbol of Russia, next to Spasskaya, the main tower at the Kremlin´s walls.)

With the taking of Kazan, capital of the khanate opponent of Russia, Ivan IV ordered the construction of the Saint Basil Cathedral, in Moscow, now the main symbol of the country. It´s oficial name carries the Theotokos´ identity: it calls Cathedral of the Most Holy Theotokos of the Moat. It´s structure forms a eight point star, number symbol of the Christ ressurrection. The star is also a reference to the Star of Bethlehem which guided the Magi to Jesus and the New Jerusalem as the guide of humanity. The Third Rome myth also calls Moscow New Jerusalem, a reference to it´s sacredness. The city´s urbanization centered on the Red Square and the Kremlin clearly shows, in the architectural plan, Moscow as guide of Russia and all Orthodoxy (see page 95).

After the Ivan´s reign, the Third Rome myth circulated only among Orthodox religious, especifically the staroveri, or "old belivers", religious group that denies as heretical the modernizing reform of the Russian Church in 18th century, there was no mention of the docrtine in state documents. The Russian kingdom (and later Empire) expanded without official references to the original messianism. Only in the mid-19th century the "Third Rome" returned to the intellectuals´ voices, especially from the 1860s with the publications of the Filofei´s letters. No coincidentally Alexander Dugin, main Kremlin´s ideologist and responsible for the Russian geopolitics redesign on messianic bases, considers the old belivers the keepers of the true Orthodox tradition and, therefore, of legitimate spiritual tradition of the Russian people.

The great popularization of the Third Rome myth led many intellectuals to promote a national mission, a specifically Russian messianism, like the Soloviev´s Christian universalism. The spread and rise of communism found resonance of it´s eschatological mission among intellectuals of the time, and until recent decades other movements emerged offering to Russia a new mission in the world, the conquest of Eurasia, the Artic and even space.

After dwelling for centuries the Dormition Cathedral inside the Moscow Kremlin, Theotokos was removed for restauration in the Bolshevik period and is now kept at State Tretyakov Gallery. Although no longer within the Kremlin´s walls, it still enjoys state protection. Legitimate or not, the Mother of God´s Picture, Our Lady of Vladimir, is still linked to the Russian power, which still believes having to fulfill a mission in the world, whether divine or human.

* Published in Portuguese on March 2nd 2016.