#21 - RW 12-10-04 - RW Home
Moscow News
www.MN.Ru
December 8-14, 2004
Russia's Bearded Conscience
By Oleg Liakhovich

In last month's interview with The Financial Times, Anatoly Chubais, chairman of the Unified Energy System of Russia and former head of the Presidential Administration, while talking about the ups and downs of Russian privatization, politics, and the infamous loans-for-shares auctions, had suddenly switched into a bizarre mode of sorts. "You know, I've re-read all of Dostoevsky over the past three months. And I feel nothing but almost physical hatred for the man. He is certainly a genius, but his idea of Russians as special, holy people, his cult of suffering and the false choices he presents make me want to tear him to pieces", the newspaper quoted Chubais as saying

Huh? What exactly was that? Can you imagine, say, Condoleezza Rice, going postal in the middle of an interview the same way, ranting about her desire to shoot Walt Whitman or Mark Twain in the head for America's imaginary troubles? However, considering Russia's traditional literary-centered mentality, Chubais's outburst seems almost normal. As does just one of the many responses to his revelations. A young Moscow journalist, known for his eccentric ways, had lashed out at Chubais in his popular blog, quoting the Dostoevsky piece as damning evidence of Chubais's guilt and calling to a Utopian "future government of Russia" to publicly execute the blasphemer. So, what exactly makes one of the top figures in contemporary Russia and a 26 year-old bohemian drunkard so strangely alike? Why this centuries-old Russian obsession with writers? It must be their beards. Like the Biblical Samson's hair, the beards of assorted Great Russian Writers hold the secret of their ongoing influence on the Russian mindset. And, like Samson beating the crap out of the Philistines, Russian writers sure have a tradition of taking themselves seriously. Even more so does their flock. From Vladimir Lenin who practically outlawed Dostoevsky after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, to Anatoly Chubais, the high and mighty are apparently always aware of their eternal competition - the writer, the undying Bearded Conscience of Russia.

Instead of good old Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Russian intelligentsia always went for "Gospels" according to Fyodor (Dostoevsky), Leo (Tolstoy), Ivan (Turgenev), and two Nikolais (the gloomy poet Nekrasov, and the dreary social critic Chernyshevsky), with an odd dozen others thrown in for good measure. The Russian Orthodox Church itself has fallen into this trap, excommunicating Tolstoy for heresy, thus promoting him to an almost martyr's fame, further broadening the gap between the literary-centered intellectuals and the state religion.

Ultimately, the Church failed to connect with both the aristocracy and the intelligentsia alike, remaining an isolated caste. Its official status notwithstanding, its true flock for the most part consists of illiterate peasant masses. The Writer became the new priest, the new prophet - although a false one at times - a sort of Rasputin-type holy man for the educated. Even Alexander Pushkin, that mischievous marvel of Russian poetry, whose name has virtually become synonymous to literary and social frivolity (and who, incidentally, did not have a beard, sporting a pair of really mean sideburns instead) hasn't escaped this fate, becoming an almost political idol not unlike the Bronze Horseman himself - an icon either liberal or ultra-statist, depending on the commentators' particular agenda of the week.

By no means the chief culprit of Russia's many sorrows in the past two hundred years or so, Russian literature has certainly bitten off more than it could ever hope to chew, not to mention digest. The idea that art and literature can exist for mainly entertainment purposes has never really caught up in Russia, leading to numerous excesses ranging from comic to tragic - from small-time hack-writers imagining themselves to be the nation's Living Conscience to tyrants imprisoning or killing true literary geniuses, such as prose-writer Isaac Babel or poet Osip Mandelstam for their alleged political crimes. There's nothing wrong with entertainment per se, it's the taste and sophistication of the "entertainee" that count, allowing him to choose his entertainment material discriminatingly. As for the preaching, leave it to the Church. Get a shave, Tolstoevsky.