#6038
[Second Issue of the Day]
#10
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002
From: Andrew Gentes <katorzhnik@yahoo.com>
Subject: Reply to Lavelle/6036
In his "Untimely Thoughts" posted today on the List Peter Lavelle writes regarding the closure of TV6: "The concept of freedom of speech is one issue that the west -- because of its importance in the west -- can identity or differ itself from Russia. Everything else about Russia remains, to one degree or another, a mystery."
I rather dislike the notion that Russia is little other than a mystery wrapped inside an enigma, since this perpetuates the view that we in the West have little choice but to throw up our hands in despair when it comes to trying to figure out why that country is the way it is.
In his piece Lavelle correctly notes that the TV6 episode is not so much about free speech as it is about law. Yet contrary to Lavelle's just quoted statement, it is possible to understand why Russia continues to demonstrate such a different approach to law than the West.
First, its autocratic tradition allowed tsar, gensek, and, now it seems, president, to always be above the law. Even when Nicholas II promulgated a constitution, he went on to ignore both it and the Duma which he simultaneously created as soon as the revolutionary ferver of the time subsided. The eventual result as we all know was his forceful overthrow and execution. Second, the state/society relationship in Russia has always weighted the former over the latter. This inverts the relationship in the West, and certainly in the United States, where the rights of individuals over those of the community are guaranteed by our Constitution.
Finally, my second point hints at perhaps the most fundamental distinction between the legal traditions in Russia and the West, and concerns the limited influence of the Enlightenment on Russia. Sure, Catherine the Great toyed with a legislature and had epistolary love affairs with Voltaire et al. But when she felt her personal authority threatened after the French Revolution, she proved herself one of history's greatest despots, increasing exponentially both serfdom and Siberian exile. Even more significantly, Enlightenment ideas had virtually no impact on the narod--the people for whom these ideas really mattered--largely because of the existence of what Abbott Gleason and others have characterized as the "two Russias"--the privileged, narrow stratum of elites, and everyone else.
If one devotes some thought to the subject and does a bit of secondary reading instead of necromancing, as it seems so many pundits are wont to these days, then Russia become much less of a "mystery" than Lavelle suggests. And perhaps this demystification, more than anything else, will indirectly promote the salubrious developments which both Lavelle and I jointly wish to occur.
==
Andrew Gentes 570 266-4664
History/PoliSci 214 Pine Crest
Mansfield University Mansfield, PA 16933
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