Russian Conservative Forum: Russia´s messianic tradition and conservative estrategy

          The picture above is the logo of the International Russian Conservative Forum, an event that brought together European political leaders in Russia in 2014 and 2015. At the center Our Lady carries Baby Jesus in her arms over the Bizantine symbol of the two-headed eagle. The eagle was adopted by the Grand Duke of Moscovy, Ivan III, and represents the union between spiritual and temporal power of Russia. The kingdom, which would become the Russian Empire during the reign of Ivan IV, the Terrible, atributted to itself the Bizantine Empire´s legacy. The Bizantines developed the harmony concept, the perfect marriage between Church and State, represented by the eagle´s two head united to the same body. At the proclamation and coronation of Ivan IV as czar in 1547, the rite openly declared that Russia was the "Third Rome", transforming the doctrine which circulated among Slavic kingdoms at least a century before as an element of the State power. And it was necessary that a "God-elected autocrat" to firmly govern his kingdom to fulfill it´s eschatological role. Russia was destined by God to protect and guide Christendom, which would have been betrayed by Rome´s heresy with the 1054 schism and defeated at Constantinople by the Muslims in 1453. God was source of his legitimicy, which would be susteined until the Revolution of 1917.

          To the feet of the two-headed eagle there are on one side the scepter, symbol of authority, and on the other the globe. The allusion in clear: Russia has the divine role not only to guide Christendom, but the whole world, the whole creation. Hence the figure of the sun background, the light, God, source of all things and under which all things submit. The sun holds and bless whole creation, having Russia the authority over the world as protector and guide of the Christendom. Lastly, Our lady, who is the main intercessor to God in Christianity and for whom the Russian Orhodox Christianity has particular and deep devotion, presents herself as the link between Russia represented by the eagle behind her and God who is in her arms in the Person of Jesus          

          The sinthesys of the picture is the world leadership by Russia, political and espiritual authority of the world, guided by God through the hands of Our Lady. 

          The International Russian Conservative Forum already has in his name it´s claim: to be Russian and international at the same time, highlighting the Russia´s role in leading a new world order built over the debris of the current order. When hosting an event of this, the country is assuming this role, following the example of the statement on the Forum´s mission:

"We see how many Euro-Atlantic countries really took the way of rejecting theirs roots, including Christian values which form the basis of Western civilization. Moral principles against any tradition identity - national, cultural, religious or even sexual. There is a policy that places a family and a homosexual union on the same level, [as if] faith in God or faith in Satan [were equivalent]. The excesses of the politically correct go so far that they are seriously discussing the creation of events aimed in propagating pedophilia. In many European countries people are ashamed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliation. The holidays can be cancelled or are presented as something embarrasing, hiding the essence of these holidays, their moral basis. And this model is trying to impose itself aggressively to everyone, the whole world. We are convinced that this is a straight path to degradation and primitivization, a deep demographic and moral crisis. What else can be evidence of a moral crisis if not the loss [of the population´s] capacity for self-reproduction [?]. An today almost all depeloped countries cannot grow even with the help of migration. Without the values established in Christianity and other world religions, without the moral norms that have been formed through thousands of years, people will inevitably lose human dingity. And we consider natural and correct to protect these values."* 

          Following this statement, the Forum´s website continues with a Vladimir Putin´s speech to the participants of the Valdai Club, in September 2013, where the President defends traditional values, says the State could be a partner in this defense and alerts to the threat of the loss of Western countries´ sovergnity. The Valdai Club is a think-thank linked to the Kremlin and turned to Russia´s foreign policy research, and every year it receives Putin´s participation.

(A meeting of the Forum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, March 21-22, 2015. This was the most publicized Forum´s photo by Western media.)

          The Forum´s mission is to create a new concept of human development in response to Western liberalism, integrate conservative political organizations and to strenghten comercial, cultural and spiritual ties historically established between Russia and Europe. Taken as a scientific congress, it´s target audience are Russian and foreign public, political and patriotic organizations, representatives of regional, national governents and universities, Russian scientists, experts in History, Sociology, Demography, Law, Economics, Finances and members of industry. The intention is to influence political and social organizations in Russia and abroad, as well as public figures from the areas mentioned above, writers and public personalities.

          The 2015 event took place on March 21-22th at Holiday Inn Hotel, in Saint Petersburg, and was organized by the Russian National Cultural Center - People´s House, organization dedicated in promoting Russian culture. The initiative came from Rodina party, of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. According to an official statement from the British government, members of right and far-right from Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Italy, United Kingdom and Sweden has attended the meeting. There wasn´t, however, participation of politicians of the Russian government. Participants were mainly political parties and military and political leaders who align themselves with the Forum´s proposal, such as Ataka from Bulgaria, Golden Dawn from Greece, Fuerza Nuova from Italy and the European political organization Alliance for Peace and Freedom. (Freedom Party from Austria, which had signed a cooperation agreement with Putin´s United Russia and had confirmed it´s presence at the Forum decided at last minute not to go.) These parties have simpathy for Russia and the Kremlin´s leadership. Among the Forum´s participants there was also people of neo-Nazi and antissemitic profile.

          In the end of the meeting was published the Participant´s Resolution, that begins with the declaration of regret to the destruction of "tradition European values". The text presents seven points defended by the members: 1) the creation of a "free, multipolar, progressive world order" (main Forum´s objective), the defense of the countries´ sovereignty and conservatism as the best form of existing social activity; 2) promoting, through the parties and the European Parliament, Christian values and propagate them to the masses, improving relations with the West and the end of the "Cold War" promoted against Russia; 3) the creation of a collective security system in Europe outside NATO, which became a tool of a dictadorship, departure of US troops from the continent and rejection of interventions by Western forces in other countries; 4) Russia is the legitimate successor of the Soviet Union and Russian Empire and now it´s integral part of the European traditions and it´s extended family; 5) Europe and Russia have their own path and must be freed from the US power. The main example of this is the conflict in Ukraine, that Forum sees as an internal problem, but considers that part of it´s territory was artificially separeted from Russia, is inhabited by Russians and asks the West to stop supporting Kiev gonverment; 6) the condenation of the sanctions against Russia and that also undermines Europe, and the desire to estimulate trade between the two regions to turn them back again into the center of humanity´s progress; 7) finally, the most important task is to estimulate the population growth by returning population to traditional values, and also intervene more rapidly to improve people´s urban life and health. The Resolution ends by asking participant organizations to act in a coordinated way to achieve these goals.

          The document sometimes repetes that the Forum´s members are "conservatives" and in the objectives it´s clear the references to the Russia´s special role in the world (the Russia-Europe duality repeatedly mentionated reinforce this idea).

          The fact that the Forum use a logo of strong religious load doesn´t necessarely means the divinization of the event or it´s messianic pretension (the same could be said, for example, about the flag of my country, Brazil, whose Positivist motto "Ordem e Progresso" - Order and Progress - inscribed in it doens´t makes this country and active agent in promoting Positivist philosophy through world, which promisses a new age of peace and progress for mankind). However, it´s symbology and performance is inserted into Russia´s messianic tradition. As I´ve commented in other post in this blog, today´s Russia continues to reproduce this tradition aiming to create a new world order over the rubble of the actual one. Whether under tzars´ divine authority, under the divinization of the Party and Communist triunphalism or under eschatology of the present Eurasian Movement, Russian messianism remains alive in planetary political projects focused in the formation of a new humanity, a new world created in the image and likeness of it´s social planners

          The International Russian Conservative Forum is only one of the Kremlin´s various investiments to achive this goal. It´s strategy is revealed in the conservative and nationalist narrative where elements of revolutionary tradition (anti-conservative, therefore) are mixed up, such as fascists, neo-Nazis and right-wing extremist, whose common point isn´t exaclty in values, but pro-Russia and anti-US feeling. The ignorance of this event´s mission by the great majority of people shows that this isn´t a plan with peoples´ consent, muche less of divine one.

* Translated from Russian to Portuguese with Google Tradutor with adpatations by the author, and to English by the author.

** Published in Portuguese on October 13th, 2017.

Messianic dreams: the conquest of Eurasia, the space and the Arctic



Russia is the world´s largest country in area and includes, in addition to ethnic Russians, dozens of ethnic groups organized in a great federation, at least officially

The Russia´s geographical vastness is subject of many studies and reflections of the country´s intellectuals. Since 19th century where developed some group of ideas relating Russia´s geography and it´s destiny as a people.

Marlene Laruelle, professor and researcher at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasiatic Studies of The George Washington University, in US, published in 2012 an article that deals with metanarratives, discourses announcing the Russian people predestination to the territorial conquer and the realization of an ideal future.

These discourses pervade the Russian culture and express the messianic sense of it´s itellectual elite. In the Laruelle´s article, the highlighted metanarratives are based on the Russia´s geographical expansion in three distinct vectors: to Eurasia, into space and to the Arctic. These are vectors expansion beyond it´s actual borders towards the neighbouring peoples, to high and to the north. They are called Eurasianism, Cosmism and Arctism.

The three discourses have spread unobtrusively in the Soviet period and gained strong momentum in the post-Communist period, when multiplied studies that began to explain politics issues not from the Marxist materialism perspective, but by culture and civilizations. These concepts brought to the fore new analisys on the relationship of the Eurasia´s peoples with their local geography. It would be the relationship between the people and their physical environment the cause of their unique culture. Besides the book of the American Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, that was a great sales success in Russia, two works of the political scientist Alexander Panarin, The Revange of History and The Ortodox Civilization in Globalized World have became reference in the culture/civilization study. The civilization perspective states that differences among peoples are, ultimately, cultural, and that their cultures are incompatible with each other. Thus conflicts have cultural roots, and not political or economic. Likewise political and economic models couldn´t not be implemented homogeneously in different cultures.



In the Eurasian metanarrative, it´s up to Russia to reject the Western model and creat it´s means of development through the neighbouring territories integration "destined" to belong to the Russian sphere. The Russian model would be "imperial", with emphasis on collective rights (of nations), whereas the Western model is "republican", based on individual rights. Eurasianism gains a more agressive discourse with Alexander Dugin, who remodelates the fundamentals of the classic Eurasianism of the Russian émigré of the 1920s. His statement is that it isn´t geography, but geopolitics that determines the Russia´s role in the world. Using classics of the European geopolitics, nazifascists currents, study of religions and occultism, Dugin says that Russia is the "center" of the world, the civilizational core of earthly powers (terulocracies) as opposed to the maritime powers (talassocracies), whose dispute dates to Antiquity. The Russia´s mission would be to win maritime powers, led by the US, and take the lead of the world from Eurasia.



In the cosmic metanarrative, the Russia´s future wouldn´t be on Earth, but in the conquest of space. Cosmism combines predestination with technology and immortality. Instead of man´s ascension to Heaven, where there´s eternal life, it´s on the rise and the conquest of physical space that the human being, through technological support and in new living conditions, would be able to get rid of suffering and achieve immortality. According to some ideologists, the Russians are a deeply spiritual people and tend to verticality, in search of God, the Heaven´s things, in contrast to the West, very materialistic and prone to horizontality. Cosmism is characterized, therefore, for a projection of Russian´s religious mission in the immanent world. This mindset permeated the Soviet scientific circles that sought to achieve the spacial conquest utopia and at the same time beat the US in this race. Currently, Cosmism is a strong presence in the social imaginary of the Russian people, as in the literature works.

In the arcticist metanarrative is up to Russia the conquer the Arctic. This perspective is common among Russian nationalists, who inherited the Red Arctic concept from Soviet times, and that has deeply affected popular culture. The messianic dream is to conquer an hostile region using resources and means that only the Russians would be able to mobilize. Nationalists consider the Arctic region domain as necessary to reestore the Russia´s greatness and compensate the territorial loss of the south by the end of the USSR. Another foundation for the Arctism is in the occult and racialism. Dugin, for example, state that the Russian people is the purest of the Aryans descendant and currently would be forming a new civilization whose destination is the Arctic domain. The spread of Aryanims and neopaganism contributes to strenghten the march northward since they consider the Slavs and their ancient pagan culture descendant from Aryans. After the end of the USSR, the Russian historiography, education and popular imagination were flooded by the racial and neopagan conception of the ancient history, and it´s content has been used by nationalist movements of racial and xenophobic profile to oppose the presence of "colored people" in Russia, as the Caucasus inhabitantes and the Chineses.

Finally, it´s important to note that the three metanarratives described herein are related to modernity, especifically to the technical progress: the economic integration in Eurasianism, the aeroespace advance in Cosmism and the use of natural resources in Arcticism. Laruelle doesn´t explicitly mention, but should be noted that the three movements sought to realize themself in the former USSR. The communists realized, at the same time, the territorial expansion throughout the globe, the conquest of the space and the Artic exploration. If the communist messianism failed in it´s final goals and and the fullfilment of an "ideal society", Russia still seems impregnated and determined to assert the mission says belong to it. Now it´s Eurasianism that seeks to assert itself, but in Russia in economic crisis and incrisingly hostile to the rest of the world.

* Published in Portuguese on June 18th 2015.

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.