I was pleased to speak in the Solzhenitsyn House, of all places . Many years of friendship and communication, through correspondence and by phone, connected me with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. My doctoral thesis of 1974 on the polyphony of the novel "In the First Circle" was one of the first in the United States dedicated to Solzhenitsyn. Later, I expanded my analysis to "Cancer Ward" and "August 1914", and, in 1979, I published the book Solzhenitsyn and Dostoesvsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel.[3]  In 2012 it appeared in the Russian translation. 
 
In the years of perestroika, while writing a book about reforms in the USSR, I transferred the polyphonic method, formulated by Mikhail Bakhtin[4] for literary criticism, to a survey of new thinking in the USSR. ​

[1] "The House of Russians abroad named after Alexander Solzhenitsyn" in Moscow is a unique complex for the study of Russian diaspora that combines a museum, archive, library, research facilities and educational center. It is named after its principal founder. See more https://moscow.arttube.ru/institution/The-house-of-Russian-abroad-named-after-Alexander-Solzhenitsyn_en/

[2] Ipatiev House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipatiev_House

[3] Vladislav Krasnov, Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel. Athens, Georgia, 1979. https://www.amazon.com/Solzhenitsyn-Dostoevsky-Study-Polyphonic-Novel/dp/0820304727

[4] Mikhail Bakhtin (1895 –1975) a Russian philosopher, literary critic, and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language. Some of his works are translated into English. Bakhtin, M.M. (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin

​
In the book, in my efforts to oppose the Western sovietologists who cheered for Gorbachev’s ‘reform communism’, I presented an alternative collection of the voices of glasnost that called, not for reviving communism, but for reviving the root system of pre-Soviet Russia and transforming the country on new non-Communist foundations. I made it just in time. My book called Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth[5] was released in 1991, so, before the collapse of the USSR. I was able to present a brand new copy to Boris Yeltsin at the First Congress of Compatriots in Moscow, immediately after he announced the replacement of the red flag of communism with the national tricolor one. In 2014 the book was published in Russian translation Новая Россия: от коммунизма к национальному возрождению.[6]
 
I recall that shortly after arriving in the US in 1974, Solzhenitsyn appealed to Russian émigrés to send him all kinds of memorabilia and artifacts of tsarist Russia that would help in recreating an objective picture of the Russian history that had been hidden, distorted or simply destroyed by the Soviet authorities. It became clear that he was not only a great writer, but also the first chronicler of our tortured history. Though I possessed no artifacts of the tsarist era, I considered it an honor to pass my own American papers to the Solzhenitsyn House for Russian Emigres Studies. My archive is currently being cleared by customs.
 
[5] Vladislav Krasnov. Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle Of National Rebirth (CCRS SERIES ON CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY SOVIET SOCIETY), Boulder, Colorado, 1991.
https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Byond-Communism-Chronicle-CONTEMPORARY/dp/0813383617

[6]  V.G. Krasnov Новая Россия: от коммунизма к национальному возрождению. Literaturnaya Rossiya, Moscow, 2014. https://www.labirint.ru/books/438669/

​Not the Ipatiev House, but Korolevskiye Nomera Hotel in Perm

With all due respect to Alexei Kazakov, who invited me to speak, I would like to shift your attention from Yekaterinburg to Perm: from the now non-existent Ipatiev House to the building in Perm that has survived and is currently known as the Korolevskiye Nomera Hotel.

Built shortly before the revolution by the merchant Korolev as a fashionable hotel, this building is known among the locals as the ‘Royal Rooms’ because it was once used by Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich Romanov, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas, who abdicated in his favor.
 
Some historians even call him the de jure Emperor Michael II, although he "ruled" for less than a day and was never crowned. It was from this building that Michael and his secretary, Nikolai Johnson, were abducted by a group of local Chekists[1] on the night of 12-13 June 1918, and probably shot.
 
No remains have ever been found. This atrocity in Perm, which took place five weeks before the murders at Yekaterinburg, resulted in the massacre of alleged “monarchists” in Perm and throughout Russia. It also opened a whole series of the fall of monarchies in Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and later in Spain. The Perm atrocity was the trigger that caused monarchies to fall like dominoes. In Perm, the tactics of the Bolsheviks aimed not only to terrify and intimidate their opponents, but also to cover up all traces of the crime.


[1] Chekist is an agent of the Cheka (ChK), generally an agent of Cheka and its descendants NKVD, KGB, and FSB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekist
 

‘Michael as the Game-Winner
 
The Bolsheviks were clearly aware that the former tsar Nicholas was a lost cause. As for Michael, he had not renounced the throne, but empowered the Constituent Assembly (hereinafter the CA) to make the final decision, meaning that, the opponents of Bolshevism could still win the game. However, having lost the popular vote in a country-wide ballot, the Bolsheviks forcibly disbanded the CA in January 1918. 

By the summer of 1918 the memory of the Bolsheviks suffering a crushing defeat in the elections to the CA was still alive: after all, the Bolsheviks gained no more than just a quarter of the votes in the most democratic of elections to be held at that time anywhere in the world. The Bolsheviks were painfully aware that the disbanding of the CA had led to mass demonstrations by workers. Maxim Gorky, the most popular “proletarian” writer whom the Bolsheviks had previously glorified as the ‘Storm Petrel’ of the Revolution, decisively condemned the disbanding of the CA. [1]  The Bolsheviks knew that it was not only the monarchists and liberal-conservative “cadets” who have opposed them, but also the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Anarchists, and Zionists, who, together, had elected a far greater number of CA delegates.[2]

The remains of neither Michael nor Johnson have been found so far and nothing is being done at a state level to find them. It can be said that the Bolsheviks succeeded in their tactics of portraying their opponents as retrograde “monarchists” and dismissing the democratic thrust of Michael’s one-day “rule”.

[1] Gorky wrote in the Novaya Zhizn newspaper: "On 5 January 1918, unarmed St. Petersburg democrats – workers and employees - peacefully demonstrated in honor of the Constituent Assembly. The best of the Russian people had lived for almost a hundred years with the idea of ​​the Constituent Assembly, as a political body that would provide Russian democracy with the chance to express the will of the people. ..     ‘Pravda’ lies when it writes that the 5th of January demonstration was co-organized by the bourgeois, the bankers, etc. and that it was the ‘bourgeois’… ‘Pravda’ lies, as it knows perfectly well that the ‘bourgeois’ had nothing to rejoice about over the setting-up of the Constituent Assembly, they have nothing to be happy about over the presence of 246 socialists of one party and 140 Bolsheviks."

Having fallen out with Lenin, Gorky was forced in 1921 to emigrate. After returning to the USSR in 1928, he became a hostage until his death in 1936. The circumstances of his death remain on the conscience of Soviet authorities. http://dugward.ru/library/gorkiy/gorkiy_nesvoevremennye_mysli.html

[2] According to Wikipedia, the defense of the Constituent Assembly became one of the slogans of the White Movement. By the summer of 1918, several Socialist-Revolutionary and pro-Socialist-Revolutionary governments had formed in the vast territory of the Volga Region and Siberia, which had begun an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. A number of CA members headed by Viktor Chernov moved to Samara, where they created the Committee of CA members, KOMUCH, and another part of the deputies created their own committee in Omsk. In September 1918 at the State Conference in Ufa, KOMUCH and other regional governments united, electing a provisional All-Russian Directory headed by a right-wing Socialist-Revolutionary N.D. Avksentyev. One of the tasks of the Directory was the restoration of the Constituent Assembly in Russia.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Всероссийское_учредительное_собрание
 
​
For me Michael has personal significance. I was born a couple of blocks from the Korolevskiye Nomera. One of the brutal memories of my childhood was the ban on entering this "terrible and sinister" building. It was forbidden even to ask what had happened there. Such attempts to kill a child's curiosity at its root played a role in my decision to go to the ends of the Earth to find out the truth.
 
By the time I returned to my native Perm twenty-nine years after my defection to Sweden in October 1962, I knew what had happened there. In September 1991, together with a group of relatives and friends, I nailed a memorial wreath to the wall of the hotel on No. 5, Karl Marx Street. In the presence of several journalists and former labor camp prisoners, the action was consecrated by a priest, the son of one of my childhood friends, who had gone through the GULAG himself. 

The author of the article is seen, in September 1991, nailing the first wreath prior to the installation, in early 1992, of the first memorial plaque to Mikhail and Johnson on the Korolevskiye Nomera building at No. 5 Karl Marx Street (now  again under its original name, Sibirskaya Str.) 
​

A couple of months later, I authorized my relatives to hang a new memorial plaque on the building to “Mikhail Romanov and Brian Johnson– innocent martures, murdered without trial or investigation".
 
Since then, in Perm, there has arisen a movement for honoring the memory of Michael and Johnson. First, the original name of the street was restored: it is no longer “Karl Marx Street”, but Sibirskaya (Siberian) Street. After all, it was part of Russia’s main highway to the expanses of Siberia. Then a collection of archival materials and other books were published, a film was made, a memorial cross erected, annual forums have taken place and, since 2007, annual religious processions have been held. At the request of the Perm regional branch of the Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIK)[3], Michael was officially rehabilitated in 2009, a year after the rehabilitation of Nicholas II.
 
I myself spoke at forums in Moscow, St Petersburg, Kronstadt, Murmansk and Varzuga, Lokot and Bryansk, Pskov, Sharya, and in the Crimea. I have also spoken in English at the Russian Cultural Center in the Russian Embassy in Washington. In 2011, I published a collection entitled "The Perm Cross: Michael Romanov"  («Пермский крест: Михаил Романов»)[4] in order to show that the veneration of Michael's memory is not a local "Perm eccentricity", but a search for historical truth, without which no pillar of power can stand for too long.


[1] About VOOPIK read
https://books.google.ru/books?id=1ZxqRHfRz-QC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=VOOPIK&source=bl&ots=37jvnPm006&sig=Ve59DflMdtx-hcGWfVawnrkyRVo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_hZD7u8TbAhVpIJoKHcyfBhwQ6AEISjAI#v=onepage&q=VOOPIK&f=false
 
[2] Vladislav Krasnov, «Пермский крест: Михаил Романов», Moscow, 2011 https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/home/dokumenty/krasnov-vladislav-georgievic/2006
​

I take this opportunity to thank the speakers here: Alexei Kazakov, Lyudmila Lykova and Alina Chadaeva, as well as the dozens of activists from Perm and other cities that voluntarily carry out this national history mission. Our resources are very limited and the Perm authorities have not yet bothered to create neither a museum, nor even a room with a staff worker, to keep track of the research and findings pertaining to the memory of the last legitimate ruler of tsarist Russia. Fortunately, from the early 1990s, Vyacheslav Dimov, a teacher at the Sergey Diaghilev Gymnasium, has created and selflessly runs the Virtual Museum of Mikhail Romanov, which collects all pertinent materials of the movement.[3]

[3] Online Museum of Michael Romanov (in Russian) Виртуальный Музей Михаила Романова, https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/home

Meeting of monarchists in Sologubovka on 16 March 2017
 
In March 2017, I was invited to participate in an activists’ meeting of the country’s monarchists, organized by Anatoly Stepanov, editor-in-chief of the patriotic site, the Russian People's Line (RNL), which has also carried my articles.[1]  The people who gathered there were quite notable, including several of my friends. They are well educated and deeply care about the future of our country. The meeting took place on 16 March (3 March old style), that is one hundred years to the day since Michael issued Manifesto in response to the unexpected abdication of Tsar Nicholas in his favor.
 
Alas, of all those gathered in the church building in Sologubovka, a village near St. Petersburg–and there were a good hundred of them–almost nobody mentioned Michael. The prevailing tone of the meeting was that Tsar Nicholas did not willingly abdicate, but rather was removed from the throne in a conspiracy by his generals. If so, then Michael’s manifesto, issued in response to the abdication, was not worth talking about.

[1] http://ruskline.ru/author/k/krasnov_vladislav_georgievich/

In my speech, I recalled some of the facts that the current neophyte monarchists somehow manage to ignore–trying to downplay historical events with hindsight [2]. Referring to Nicholas' words ‘All around me there is treachery, cowardice, and deceit’, they see them as a reference to the "conspiracy of his generals". This version of history is now being replicated on the national Kultura (Culture) TV Channel.[3] 
 
However, they forget that the Tsar himself appointed the people who supposedly indulged in these vices. Or was he just imagining it? After all, each of the five generals who recommended abdication was immersed in the same atmosphere of treachery, cowardice and deceit as their subordinates were. The inept conduct of an unnecessary war, magnified by the skillful anti-war propaganda of the Bolsheviks, financed from abroad, led to such a general mistrust of power that ‘treachery, cowardice and deceit’ seemed ubiquitous. Or were they just imagined as looming out from every corner?
 
As for the generals, I surmise they did aspire to work for the good of Russia, no less than did the Tsar himself. It is fitting here to quote from Solzhenitsyn's "Reflections on the February Revolution": “It was not in a material sense that the throne gave way, but, much earlier, it had given way in a spiritual sense, both its own and that of the government ... The February revolution had been lost by the authorities even before the revolution itself began”. TURMOIL in their minds led to TURMOIL in the country.


[2] Please refer to my summary article: 
ПРОПАВШИЙ БЕЗ ВЕСТИ ИМПЕРАТОР МИХАИЛ II 
(THE MISSING EMPEROR MICHAEL II)
https://www.academia.edu/32889723/ПРОПАВШИЙ_БЕЗ_ВЕСТИ_ИМПЕРАТОР_МИХАИЛ_II_

[3]   From 5 February 2018 on the channel "Rossia K" - the premiere of the documentary series "The Conspiracy of Generals" https://tvkultura.ru/article/show/article_id/220847/

​
‘Milestones’ are not noticed, and the lessons of 1905 are not learned 

Solzhenitsyn was right when he deduced that the crisis of the autocracy in February 1917 from events of the revolution of 1905, and possibly even earlier. By 1909, the revolution’s most thoughtful intellectual protagonists, including former Marxists, horrified by the cruelty and absurdity of bloody street battles, realized what had happened and published a collection of "Vekhi (Milestones)” («Вехи»),[1] condemning the violent tactics. Alas, the lessons of the "Milestones" were not mastered by the intelligentsia. The bet they placed on violence, as the fastest way to achieve equality in the country, continued to grow. In 1911 Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin was assassinated by the terrorist Mordko Bogrov (Мордко Богров). [2]

​
[1]  https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вехи_(сборник)

[2]   Mordko Bogrov. http://eleven.co.il/jews-of-russia-and-ussr/government-society-and-jews-1772-1917/10689/
​

I remember how, after the publication of "August 1914" in the United States, a campaign against Solzhenitsyn broke out with allegation of "anti-Semitism" seen in his portrayal of Bogrov as a Jew. At the conference on Slavic Studies in Washington, I spoke in Solzhenitsyn's defense against this slander,[3] especially since there are also positive images of Jews in his novel. The special absurdity of Bogrov’s crime was that Stolypin had actually done a lot to alleviate the legal status of the Jews, despite the resistance of the autocracy.
 
The monarchists in Sologubovka have a poor understanding of Russian history if they think that the 1917 revolution would not have occurred were it not for the ‘treachery’ of some generals. Such vague accusations are offensive to the honor of the heroes of the White armies, many of whom fought not for the monarchy, but rather, like Michael, set their hopes on the CA or some other democratic process in order to achieve reconciliation of society after their victory over the Bolsheviks.
 
At least one White army general, Vladimir Kappel (Владимир Каппель),[4] fought with the troops of the Samara KOMUCH, the Committee of the Constituent Assembly. Just about the only White general to have raised the flag for monarchy was General Ungern von Sternberg (Унгерн фон Штернберг), [5] who fought in Siberia and Mongolia. Brave and decisive man, he was also cruel and eccentric. However, even he had enough sense to have on the flag the name of Michael rather than Nicholas. With all due respect to the martyrdom of Nicholas II and his family, by and large, the White Army generals knew that the autocracy was a lost cause. Today’s Russian revisionists forget that the hurricane of anti-monarchism during World War I had swept away not only the autocracy in Russia, but also the Kaiser of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently, the monarchies in Italy and Spain. The age of the proletarian leaders, the duces, the fuhrers, the caudillos and the presidents, replaced them.

​
[3]   SOLZHENITSYN AND ANTI-SEMITISM: A NEW DEBATE. By RICHARD GRENIER/Published: November 13, 1985
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/13/books/solzhenitsyn-and-anti-semitism-a-new-debate.html?pagewanted=all

[4] Vladimir Kappel (1883 –1920), an outstanding commander, participant in the First World War and the Civil War. In 1918, being the head of the People's Army of the KOMUCH, general Kappel captured Kazan from the Reds. A legendary figure in the White movement, he started as a hero, and ended as a martyr. http://100.histrf.ru/commanders/kappel-vladimir-oskarovich/

[5]  Roman von Ungern-Sternberg (1885–1921), commander during the Civil War period, Major-General (1918). He graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School (1908), served in the Transbaikal and Amur Cossack troops. In the WWI he commanded a regiment. From the end of 1917, together with the ataman G.M. Semenov participated in the formation of the Special Manchu detachment against Soviet troops. In 1919 commanded the Asian Cavalry Division. In October 1920, he raided Mongolia, occupied by Chinese invaders. In February 1921 he stormed Urga, defeating the Chinese. Mongolia’s independence was restored.
http://irkipedia.ru/content/ungern_fon_shternberg_roman_fedorovich_istoricheskaya_enciklopediya_sibiri_2009

​Romanovs take pride in Michael
 
Unlike our home-grown neophyte monarchists, those people who have real grounds to consider themselves monarchists, and even heirs to the throne, these people identify their fate with that of Russia. With dignity and confidence they say that the Russian people are capable of choosing the form of governance that is optimal for our own, and for future generations.
 
Article 4, paragraph 2 of their Charter states:
 
2. "Members of the Romanov Family Association agree that all questions relating to the form of government in Russia and ... all dynastic issues can be resolved only by the great Russian people through "universal, direct, equal and secret ballot" in accordance with the Manifesto of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, signed after the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II ".[1]
 
The Manifesto of Michael was the basis for the rule of the country for almost nine months before the Bolsheviks forcibly dissolved the CA in January 1918. During that time, the country lived by the ‘Sovereign's word’ about universal ballot. In the churches, with the blessing of the Most Holy Synod, they sang hosannas to the Provisional Government.
 
Figuratively speaking, Michael legally ‘conceived’ the ‘embryo’ of the Russian democracy. Alas, as soon as the ‘baby’ was born in January 1918 and cried for not what the Bolsheviks had hoped for, it was strangled. Then, over the subsequent 73 years, all the might of totalitarian state was used to divert attention from this act of ‘state infanticide’, to dim or mock its significance. Please see my article "The contribution of Michael Aleksandrovich to the development of the constitutional system in Russia" («Вклад Михаила Александровича в развитие конституционной системы в России») published in the journal of the State Duma of the Russian Federation "Representative Power".[2]


[1]  The Romanov Family Association. http://www.romanovfamily.org/family_ru.html

[2] V.G. Krasnov Вклад Великого Князя Михаила Романова в развитие конституционной системы в России. Representative Power journal, 2010, No. 5, 6 (100, 101). http://pvlast.ru/archive/index.703.php  Read online via the following link: https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/home/dokumenty/krasnov-vladislav-georgievic/vklad-mihaila-aleksandrovica-romanova-v-razvitie-konstitucionnoj-sistemy-v-rossii
Bibliography on the topic can be found in my mailing "To the faithful supporters of the memory of Michael" on 5 December 2015 on Facebook. This letter is posted for members of this memorial group across the country. https://www.facebook.com/dimovromanov/posts/912586325445837
​

​My early response to Solzhenitsyn's “Reflections” 

On several occasions, I have already spoken about Michael at the Solzhenitsyn House. I also responded to Solzhenitsyn's essay “Reflections on the February Revolution”, when Rossiyskaya Gazeta reprinted it, in 2007, on the 90th anniversary of the February Revolution. [1] It was then I wrote an article, which appeared in 2008 in the Moskva (Moscow) journal,[2] edited by Leonid Borodin (Леонид Бородин),[3] a dissident and former prisoner of the "Perm 36 GULAG camp” («Пермь 36»).[4]
 
My emphasis was on solidarity with Solzhenitsyn in assessing the revolutionary process from 1905 to 1917. However, there was also a disagreement with him over the personality of Michael and his role in the history of Russia. Let me quote my argument:
 
"The slowness of the tsarist government in the early days of the unrest led to its escalation. The situation was further aggravated by the mutiny of the military units stationed in Petrograd. Within a couple of days of the start of the street lynching it became clear that this was a revolution that could be suppressed only by the army at the risk of unleashing a civil war. Tsar Nicholas could not afford such a risk, by virtue of his convictions or an awareness of his lost authority over the military commanders. Therefore, he abdicated in favor of his younger brother Michael, whose reputation in the army was much stronger. He was clearly counting on decisive military measures on the part of Michael.
 
 However, the Tsar didn’t know his brother very well. Michael was no less conscientious. The inevitable shedding of Russian blood, while an external war was being fought, held him back. (He) knew that autocracy could not be saved. Why did he not declare himself a constitutional monarch, as some Duma members advised? Should he not have tried to save the dynasty? This would have been a realistic option only a few days earlier. However, Nicholas had missed this opportunity for himself, and for both his son and for Michael. As he made his decision on 3 March 1917 (old style), Michael understood that not only the autocracy, but even the constitutional monarchy could not be saved at this point. He saw the only chance for victory over the external enemy in reconciliation with those who yesterday had demanded the abolition of the autocracy, and today the abolition of the monarchy in general."​

[1] "Reflections on the February Revolution" - an article by Alexander Solzhenitsyn on the February Revolution of 1917, first published in the Moscow (Москва) magazine in 1995, and then in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 27 February 2007. Originally written in 1980-1983 for the historical epic "The Red Wheel," the volume "March of the Seventeenth."
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Размышления_над_Февральской_революцией#cite_note-_038d33e89dbb3836-3

[2] Vladislav Krasnov. - "About Solzhenitsyn's Essay on the February Revolution," Moskva magazine. - 2008. No. 2. - pp. 167-180. See it in the collection “The Perm Cross: Mikhail Romanov", 2011, Moscow (Пермский крест: Михаил Романов), 2011, Мoscow. http://books.google.ru/books/about/Пермский_крест.html?id=SgyDtwAACAAJ&redir_esc= y.

[3] Leonid Ivanovich Borodin, writer and Soviet dissident. He was born on 14.04.1938 and died on 25.12.2011. Since the mid-1960s, he was a member of the social-Christian circle called the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSSCON). In 1967-1973 and 1982-1987 he was imprisoned in a labor camp. From 1992 he was the editor-in-chief of the Orthodox-patriotic magazine "Moscow". Major works: "Rules of the Game" (1973), "The Third Truth" (1981), "Parting" (1987), "Bozhepoliye" (1993). http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/bio_b/borodin_li.php
[4] https://nashural.ru/mesta/permskij-kraj/muzej-politicheskih-repressij-perm-36/

​Having signed the Manifesto on the transfer of power to the Provisional Government so that it could prepare the elections to the CA to resolve the question of the form of governance, Michael "had put the interests of the country above both those of the dynasty and of himself. He saw the only hope for the Romanovs in the voluntary return of their sovereign power to its source. In 1613 they (the Romanovs) had been elected to the throne by the people's will through the Zemsky Sobor. In 1917 they could regain their power through the expression of the people's will via the Constituent Assembly ... Having received the crown from the hands of the autocrat, Michael did not crown himself, nor he did renounce the throne either”. [5]
 
Now it is time to focus on my disagreement with Solzhenitsyn’s essay "Reflections on the February Revolution". One must remember that it was written between 1980 and 1983, and based on sources held by the Hoover Institution[6] in the USA. The materials available to him were thus very limited and this was not his fault.[7] This is especially true of information regarding Michael; in fact, most of the material about him was unavailable by 1995, when the essay was first published in Russia, nor even in 2007, when it was reprinted by "Rossiyskaya Gazeta".
 
Let's start with two important sources unknown to Solzhenitsyn. First of all, the Russian collection of archival documents “From The Throne to Golgotha: The Sorrowful Path of Michael Romanov” («От престола до Голгофы: Скорбный путь Михаила Романова») was published in Perm in 1996 with the participation of Lyudmila Lykova[8] whom I am glad to see at this forum.  Many of its documents were not available to Solzhenitsyn when he wrote his essay. Second, a major work of research was published in 1997 by a married couple from Great Britain, Donald and Rosemary Crawford under the title Michael and Natasha: The Life and Love Of Michael II: The Last оf The Romanov Tsars.[9] The book was based on a study of archival materials from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Perm, Austria and Great Britain, where Michael remained in exile from 1912 to 1914. The Crawford book was translated into several European languages, but to Russian only as late as 2008.[10]

[5] Quoted from the collection "The Perm Cross", pages 43 - 44.

[6] The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University by the former US President Herbert Hoover had gathered a gigantic library on the wars of the twentieth century and the communist regimes. http://www.voltairenet.org/article128840.html

[7] Solzhenitsyn's discoveries in Russian history while in the USA were eloquently described by his widow Natalia Solzhenitsyna for Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 15 February 2017. "Like many who were born and raised in the USSR at his time, he was also a victim of the Bolshevik mythology. People had it hammered into their heads that the Great October Revolution was carried out by the Great October, and the February bourgeois revolution was only a passing and insignificant event. Those who shook themselves off this idea (Solzhenitsyn, among others) absorbed and returned to the idea of ​​the "liberation", according to which in February Russia "reached the freedom desired by all generations, and all had been rightly rejoicing, gently fluttering this freedom, however, alas, only for only eight months, solely for the reason that the villains, the Bolsheviks, afterwards sank all those freedoms in the blood and turned the country to ruin ... ". https://rg.ru/2017/02/15/rodina-nataliia-solzhenicyna.html

[8] L.A. Lykova, V.M. Khrustalev and others “From The Throne to Golgotha: The Sorrowful Path of Michael Romanov” («Скорбный путь Михаила Романова: от престола до Голгофы»). Collection of articles and archival materials, Pushka, Perm, 1996.

https://www.livelib.ru/book/1000171997-skorbnyj-put-mihaila-romanova-ot-prestola-do-golgofy

[9] Michael and Natasha: The Life and Love of Michael II, the Last of the Romanov Tsars
By Rosemary Crawford, Donald Crawford. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97410.Michael_and_Natasha

[10]  Rosemary and Donald Crawford, Mixail i Natasha, Zakharov Publ., Moscow, 2008
http://www.zakharov.ru/knigi/katalog/mihail-i-natalya.html. Rosemary died holding a copy of the belated Russian translation in her hands. Following her will, Donald prepared a new version with an emphasis on the political significance of Michael.  Donald Crawford, The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II Paperback – 25 January 2012//https://www.amazon.com/Last-Tsar-Emperor-Michael-II/dp/1466445009. In the book published through his own publishing house, Crawford thanks the Permian guardians of Michael's memory and quotes Viktor Yevtukhov, the deputy minister of justice in saying that Michael provides a moral foundation for future statesmen. The book was translated into Russian by schoolchildren in the upper grades of seventeen secondary schools in the city of Perm on the initiative of Natalia Kurdina, the director of School No. 11 named after Pushkin.


Reproaches by Solzhenitsyn to Nicholas and Michael
 
In this essay Solzhenitsyn admitted that "On the night of 1 to 2 March, the uprising in Petrograd meant that Russia was lost". What, then, could be expected from Michael on the morning of 3 March, that is, after all had been lost, as Solzhenitsyn himself admitted? After all, the avalanche of the revolution continued to grow with EVERY HOUR. It was no longer about the succession to the throne but about the threat of civil war. Not just the monarchy, but Russia herself had to be saved, not only from the turmoil of the civil war, but also from the advancing external enemy. And Michael did everything that was in his power, and what his Christian conscience allowed him to do. With his Manifesto of Non-Ascension to the throne, Michael managed, immediately, to stop the escalation of the revolution and to prevent a civil war, at least, until the October Coup.
 
As soon as the Manifesto came out, all parties, including the Bolsheviks, expressed their support for the idea of ​​a Constituent Assembly, and the shooting in the streets of Petrograd ceased.
 
Even Nicholas recognized this in his diary of March 16 (March 3rd of the old style): "(Chief of Staff) Alekseev came with the latest news from Rodzianko. It transpires that Misha (informal for Mikhail) has abdicated. His manifesto ends with a four-tail formula for the election of a constituent assembly within 6 months. God knows who put it into his head to sign such silly stuff. In Petrograd, the disturbances have ceased­­–if it would only remain that way."
 
Nicholas particularly disliked the “silly stuff” that the elections to the CA would be held on the broadest possible basis. However, the promise of "universal, direct, equal and secret ballot" was very much in the spirit of the times. Michael sensed the mood of the educated society in favor of the four-tail formula. If it were up to him, he would certainly not hold elections until the end of the war, because the chaos favors the anarchists and radicals. The cavalry commander knew that one should never change horses in a mid-stream. But he also knew that it was urgent to stop– not crush!–the revolt in the capital. If Michael had not signed this "stuff", he would have deprived his brother of the pleasure of stating: "In Petrograd, the disturbances have ceased” and to hope that “it would only remain that way."

Alas, on the same day that Michael’s Manifesto was published, a newspaper spread from the Left-liberal press immediately set the tone in the country by headlining it the same way as Nicholas’ "abdication". The headline was a lie: for if it was an outright "abdication", as it was strictly conditional. By it, Michael had immediately reduced the Bolsheviks' appetite for revolution and civil war, and thereby increased Russia's chances of ending the war victorious. When in a couple of weeks, the USA entered the war, the outcome of the war in favor of the Entente—and Russia-- was assured. 
 
However, although supporting the idea of ​​elections to the CA in principle, the Bolsheviks did not remove the slogan "To turn the imperialist war into a civil war!" Moreover, the Provisional Government, which Michael authorized to rule the country until the decision of the CA on the form of governance, lost the reins almost immediately.
 
Firstly, it was unable  (or did not try hard enough) to cancel Order No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet on the control of soldiers over officers, issued two days BEFORE the meeting on Millionnaya St.12, where Michael signed his Manifesto. It was this order that led to the Dual Rule in the country. As the Army disintegrated, the Bolsheviks were encouraged to attempt their coup to unleash a civil war to spur a world revolution. They achieved this goal in the October 1917 coup and then forcibly dissolved the CA in January 1918. The Provisional Government seemed in cahoots with the radicals. In violation of the spirit of the Manifesto, it started its rule by removing pro-monarchist and pro-law and order commanders from their posts, including the inspector-general of the cavalry, Michael. Therefore, all chances of for victorious outcome of the war were lost.
 
The idea of ​​the CA was so popular that Kerensky did not abolish it. Having proclaimed Russia a republic in September 1917, he relied on the anti-monarchist sentiments of the left-liberal intellectuals who were fomenting popular discontent. However, Kerensky billed it as only a temporary measure until the CA elections.
 
The Bolsheviks, too, even after the seizure of power in October, did not dare to stop the elections to the CA as they still believed in the illusion of their popularity at the voting booths. However, after finding, in January 1918, that they had suffered a crushing defeat, they decided to disperse the CA. When the Petrograd populace came out in protest, the Bolshevik squads dispersed the demonstrators by fire. Thus, in the hope for a world revolution, Lenin got the long-awaited pretext to unleash a civil war in Russia.
 
Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn arbitrarily links the two brothers in the one harness of incompetence, indecisiveness and weakness. Having reproached Nicholas over his inability to govern either the country or the army, Solzhenitsyn adds that Michael showed "the same emotional weakness and the same desire to FREE himself ... to be with his wife whilst between his two official posts." This is unfair to Michael. Since at the time of his writing many sources were unavailable to Solzhenitsyn, or anyone, he had to rely more on intuition and set stereotypes than facts.
 
This is especially true of the now available sources. In 2006, I was able to study the diaries and correspondence of Michael at the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF)[1] for several days. I left with a very favorable impression of him as a person, commander and statesman.
 
I say this with all respect to Solzhenitsyn, not only as a writer, but also as a historian. He made a bold and broad attempt to recreate the tragedy of Russia in the era of revolution, external war and civil war in his "Red Wheel" series at a time when the majority of Soviet historians were blinkered by Marxism-Leninism, limited by censorship and by fear.
 
His portrayal of Pyotr Stolypin[2] who was the Prime Minister of Russia and Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire from 1906 to 1911 was admirable and certainly more realistic than the official Soviet version. Solzhenitsyn retroactively introduced a whole chapter on Stolypin in "August 1914”. In a challenge to the official Soviet dismissal of Stolypin as a “reactionary” non-entity, Solzhenitsyn portrayed him as a statesman and a hero who aspired - despite constant risk to his life - to bring about peace both within the country and with its neighbors.  Solzhenitsyn realized that the revolutions of 1917 could not be understood without an analysis of the 1905 revolution. And he praised Stolypin's heroic attempt to lead the country out of revolutionary fever. No wonder the Bolsheviks hated him so much. In the United States, Solzhenitsyn could rely on the archives of the Hoover Institution, inaccessible at the time from the USSR. Having re-created a more realistic image of Stolypin, Solzhenitsyn showed that there was a viable alternative evolutionary path for Russia, more thoughtful and humane, with the stress on free enterprise and fairness within the country and peace-seeking attitude in foreign affairs.
 
However, Solzhenitsyn’s portrayal of Michael seems contradictory and biased. On the one hand, he writes: "If it is necessary to choose a fateful night in Russian history, if there was one that sealed the whole future of the country in just a few dark hours, conflating several revolutions at once, it was the night from the 1st to 2nd of  March 1917."
 
But then he contradicts himself: "The monarchy had ended with the abdication of Michael. It was more than his own abdication: he blocked all other possible successors to the throne, as he transferred the power to an amorphous oligarchy. His abdication turned the change of monarch into a revolution ...” If the fate of the country was sealed on the night of the 1st to 2nd of March, how can one believe that "The monarchy ended with the abdication of Michael "on the 3rd March?

[1] GARF http://statearchive.ru/index.html

[2] Pyotr Stolypin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Stolypin

Solzhenitsyn on the “emotional weakness” of Michael
​
It gets worse: "In the abdication of Michael, we can observe a mirroring of the emotional weakness (of Nicholas) and the same desire to FREE himself. Even the actions of the brothers are similar: almost in the same period for which Nicholas broke his journey in order to see his wife, Michael similarly went (from Gatchina) to Petrograd ... Just like Nicholas in Pskov, Michael lost his freedom in that Petrograd apartment. Being trapped in the same way, he was forced to abdicate, partly, simply because he chose to see the smart wife he so adored, as soon as possible".
 
These attacks are not based on historiography. Solzhenitsyn accuses Michael for petty selfishness in the fateful hour for Russia, implying his lack of patriotism. I think this is unacceptable for a historian. My admiration for the writer forces me to disagree with him on this issue.
 
There is no doubt that the lion's share of responsibility for the crisis situation in the country must be borne by the ruling tsar. Only a bold political maneuver could have led the way out of the crisis. Nicholas's abdication was such an attempt, but it was fatally late. Still, unlike the monarchists in Sologubovka, I believe that Nicholas deserves credit for obeying his Christian conscience: suppressing personal vanity and resentment, he chose a humiliating abdication. Alas, his abdication, first in favor of his sick son Alexei, and then his brother Michael, came TOO LATE, by at least a couple of days, and could not stop the revolution that threatened to turn into a civil war.
 
The task of stopping the roll-out of the revolution unexpectedly fell to Michael. And he did what he could. He entrusted the fate of the monarchy to the "will of our great people". He empowered the Russian people to collectively determine the form of governance by electing their representatives to the Constituent assembly by nation-wide universal, direct, equal and secret ballot. He also authorized the Provisional Government to defend the country and run its domestic affairs on the condition that it would prepare the electoral law and hold the election.

​Vladimir Khrustalyov
 
Meanwhile, Vladimir Khrustalyov, the chief history expert at the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF), published in 2008 his book "Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich," [1]  based on archival materials. Khrustalev’s book portrays Michael in much more flattering terms.
 
"By the will of circumstances and chance, Michael II was technically the last emperor on the Russian throne, even though the period of his reign was less than a full day­­-from the 2nd to 3rd of March 1917," writes Khrustalev. "Even after the  ‘abdication’ from ‘the supreme authority’ he had a good chance to acquire it’(p. 5), says Khrustalev in a clear allusion that, in case of the victorious outcome of war, the Constituent Assembly may have elected Michael as a constitutional monarch (p. 5).
 
As for Michael's personality, Khrustalyov provides several testimonies in another book, of which he was the compiler and editor, "Diary and correspondence of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. 1915-1918.” [2]  It was published in Russian in 2012 (Solzhenitsyn died in 2008). Here is the opinion of Colonel A.A. Mordvinov, who was adjutant (aide-de-camp) to Michael from 1904 to 1912 and could, better than anyone else, observe the behavior of his boss.
 
"Tall, slender, strong, with perfect features, with amazingly beautiful, radiant, slightly pensive, big eyes, he immediately drew attention. In his shy, kind smile, his simplicity of approach and a youthful sincerity you could sense throughout his straightforwardness… he involuntarily drew to him all those with whom he had contact. He was one of the few people of our time who managed… to keep all the chaste cleanliness of his body and thoughts right into maturity ...  "(p. 19).
 
  "In life, because of some inner need, he followed unconsciously the commandment- Be like the children! Despite whatever trials befell him later, he would probably have remained that way right into old age. "
 
"He really did not like (mainly out of politeness) to promote his own opinion (which he always had) and because of this… was shy to confront others. But in those matters that he deemed -correctly or not–part of his moral duty, he showed his usual persistence, which amazed me "(p. 21).
 
Another associate of the Grand Duke, Lieutenant-General A.A. Mosolov, wrote that Michael "was distinguished by exceptional kindness and trustfulness ... Brave and physically strong, the Grand Duke showed himself as a capable commander." According to Mosolov, Count Sergei Witte (1843-1915)[3], a Prime Minister who also had taught the Romanov brothers, "praised the ability of Michael to whom he gave lessons on the political economy. He emphasized his truthfulness and frankness ... “As to Michael’s elder brother, Witte gave him good marks for upbringing, but "Nicholas II did not shine at mental abilities "(p. 19).
 
The physical and moral stress under conditions of war, when one faces the questions of life and death hourly, makes a person look at the world in a new way. That's what particularly attracted my attention when, in February 2007, I spent several days working in the State Archive Library. I had ordered a folder from the archives of Michael's correspondence with his wife Natalia. In his long letter from the front-line, dated 22-23 January 1915, Michael writes: "I am grateful to fate that as a result of now being in not (quite) my normal living conditions, I have seen real life and the real attitude toward us from the people ... War and all this terrific horror, which it entails, involuntarily brings every sensible person to the most sad thoughts ... ".
 
Michael explains: "I feel a great anger at people in general, but mainly directed at those who stand at the top to allow all this horror to happen"(p.171).
 
Reading about Michael's anger toward the highest level of the autocratic power, to which he himself belonged, one may well remember Captain Solzhenitsyn's letters to his front-line friend Nikolai Vitkevich, in which, according to Wikipedia, he spoke bluntly about the leadership of ‘Pakhan’ (a slang for Father as Stalin expected people to call him), "compared the Stalinist rule with serfdom and spoke of the need to form after the war an "organization" to restore the so-called "Leninist" norms." For harboring such thoughts, still within the framework of the official ideology of "Leninism”, Solzhenitsyn was arrested on the front line to begin his descent to the hell of GULAG.
 
Michael continued to tell Natasha of his war-time insight: "If the issue of war were decided solely by the people, then I would not so vehemently rebel against this great disaster, but the fact is that the question of whether there is a war or not is always decided by the government, and in general, no one ever asks for an opinion of the people, as to what they would like to do".
 
Since the fortunes of the war soon turned against Russia, Natasha also had to make her own contribution to the home-front effort. She turned their palace in Petrograd into a medical infirmary. Michael continues: "I am even ashamed before the people, that is, in front of the soldiers and officers; in particular, I feel it when visiting hospitals, where one sees so much suffering - and you start to realize that you are complicit in the war, that, although you stand so high, you could not warn and protect your country from such a disaster."
 
Yes, Michael stood ‘high’, but not so high as to be able to influence the question of war and peace. But when the war began, he did not sit it out abroad, where he had been exiled by the will of his autocrat brother because of his morganatic marriage to Natalia. Nor did he seek any comfortable diplomatic assignment, such as overseeing the food or weapons supplies to Russia from abroad. No, as a man trained in military leadership and combat, he asked his brother to forgive his “sin” of morganatic marriage and let him serve the fatherland on the front line. And that’s what the Tsar did: he forgave Michael by giving him a very unusual and extremely challenging order to command the  new cavalry division that was just being formed from volunteers of war-like Muslim tribes of Northern Caucasus.
 
Michael accomplished his mission with flying colors. He proved to be a skillful commander. His division went down to history under its informal name as “Wild Division” (Dikaya diviziya, in Russian). This name originally implied the lack of discipline among its disparate horsemen from different tribes. After all, the division consisted of six regiments of different tribes of North Caucasus, such as the Kabardinians, Chechens, and Ingush each speaking its own language, but united by Islam and tribal customs. Each man was a skillful and brave fighter, but coordination with other units was weak. Gradually, Michael was able to train them to modern methods of warfare and observe discipline.
 
As the result, the Wild Division became one of the best fighting units of WWI. Michael was soon promoted to command a cavalry corps and then, before his abdication on March 3, 1917, he was elevated to Inspector General, overseeing all cavalry formations of the Imperial Army.  Moreover, he proved himself a brave warrior whom his Muslim subordinates especially admired for his horse-riding skills. He earned the St. George’s cross for personal bravery under fire. What makes this Russian general of the First World War cavalry particularly close to Solzhenitsyn, the artillery captain of World War II, is his determination to carry out his military duty to his homeland, but at the same time to preserve his conscience, common sense and care for his subordinates. The “Wild Division” remained loyal to the throne longer than many predominantly ethnic Russian troops that fell to the Bolshevik propaganda.

[1]  V.M Khrustalyov “Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich” «Великий князь Михаил Александрович». М: Veche, 2008 https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4181392

[2]  V.M Khrustalyov, comp. “Diary and correspondence of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. 1915-1918”, «Дневник и переписка Великого Князя Михаила Александровича. 1915-1918. Москва, ПРОЗАИК, 2012.

[3] Sergei Witte, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sergey-Yulyevich-Graf-Witte


Robert Massie

Khrustalyov also cites the book by Robert Massie "Nicholas and Alexandra"[1]: "With Nicholas and Alexis both removed, Michael was now the Tsar. There is an old Russian legend that when Tsar Michael II sits on the throne, Russia will win her eternal goal, Constantinople… If Michael had taken the throne and the allies had won the war, the ancient legend might at last have been fulfilled".

[1] Robert Massie, “Nicholas and Alexandra” «Николай и Александра», Moscow 2008.  https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4126758/


Something new from Natalia Chernyshova-Melnik
​
And here is a novelty. Natalia Chernyshova-Melnik, a knowledgeable and persistent explorer of Michael's memory, who took part in various forums in Perm and St. Petersburg, has just published her second book dedicated to Michael. The book is called in Russian "The Last Emperor: The Life and Love of Mikhail Romanov". I have not been able to read it, but its title and the description from the publisher speak for themselves: "de jure the last Russian emperor… he put his faith in the Constituent Assembly and the Russian people. He had the immense moral strength of the peacekeeper and the first citizen of free Russia, who called upon his compatriots to fulfill their public duty by participating in democratic elections. It is not his fault that it did not come to pass ...»[1]

[1] N.D. Chernyshova-Melnik, "The Last Emperor: The Life and Love of Mikhail Romanov" ПОСЛЕДНИЙ ИМПЕРАТОР: ЖИЗНЬ И ЛЮБОВЬ МИХАИЛА РОМАНОВА
https://www.moscowbooks.ru/book/920963/

Reporter in the Wild Division

While creating the portrait of Michael in “Reflections”, Solzhenitsyn does not even mention his outstanding, spectacular and unique role as a brave commander of the legendary Wild Division. And-what is especially importantly for a multi-ethnic Russia-Michael proved himself a virtuoso communicator with fellow Muslims, as well as the people of other faiths and different cultures. Solzhenitsyn, when he dismissed Michael, simply could not have known of the latest research, be it Khrustalyov's books or Oleg Opryshko's  “The Caucasian Equestrian Division” («Кавказская конная дивизия»), which was released in 2007[1]
 
Here is what a newspaper reporter wrote about Michael, when he visited the Wild Division in 1915 on the front line:
 
"An open gaze in his eyes is a property of a high and crystal-pure nature. Studying his gaze, one begins to understand the charm through which Grand Duke Michael inspires all those who have, at least once, seen him close-up. What is the secret of such powerful charm? The beauty of his noble soul shines though in everything, in every phrase, in every glance, in each gesture. This individual is sincerity itself personified; it is so harmoniously interwoven with his regal simplicity. (He) is not only a beloved commander who has covered both himself and his division with glory, but also a brave soldier who knows no fear "(p. 23)[2]
 
Not only military valor and friendliness with the Muslims distinguished the commander. He is also a devout Christian: "The Grand Duke appeals because of his modest and simple love-he is fully immersed in a fascinating simplicity-a love for Russia and everything Russian... And in his devotion the Grand Duke is reminiscent of the ancient Vasnetsov’s [3] Moscow, which, by the way, is always so close to the heart of His Majesty. (He) does not miss a single liturgy. The church itself harmonizes so closely with his appearance. The parishioners are a crowd of our gray heroes. In front of them stands a tall, slender and agile Grand Duke, who is completely immersed in prayer "(pp. 23-24).


[1] O.L. Opryshko, Кавказская конная дивизия. 1914-1917.Возвращение из небытия. Nalchik: "El-Fa", 2007. http://apsnyteka.org/1087-opryshko_kavkazskaya_konnaya_diviziya.html

[2] Страницы в скобках даны по книге: Владислав Краснов, «Пермский крест: Михаил Романов», Москва, 2011 https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/home/dokumenty/krasnov-vladislav-georgievic/2006

[3] Viktor Vasnetsov (1848 –1926) was a Russian artist who specialized in mythological and historical subjects. He is considered the co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic nationalistic painting (see also neo-romanticism), and a key figure in the Russian revivalist movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Vasnetsov
​

The division consisted of six regiments of the peoples from the North Caucasus: Kabardians, Circassians, Ingush, Chechens, Dagestanis and Tatars. All served voluntarily, because they were not subject to military service. "These highlanders, who highly value personal courage, with some purely Muslim fanaticism, idolize their leader. Between themselves they call the Grand Duke "Our Mikhailo" and write enthusiastic letters about him to their distant mountain villages".
 
A Cossack officer of the Wild Division, Sergei Kurnakov Сергей Курнаков[4], recalls his acquaintance with Mikhail: "I've never had to meet with grand dukes before. This one was absolutely charming. His clear blue eyes radiated confidence. His posture was straight and slender, but not arrogant and he had the body of a Roman gladiator". Kurnakov concludes: "What an honor it would be to give one’s life for such a person. No wonder the Caucasians adore him".

[4] According to Wikipedia in English, Kurnakov was from the Circassians. After the revolution, he emigrated to the United States, became a communist and an agent for Soviet intelligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Nikolaevich_Kurnakov 
http://ru.knowledgr.com/01583369/СергейНиколаевичКурнаков ​
​

An American reporter Stanley Washburn[5] saw the Tsar's brother in 1915, at the front-line. As Washburn points out, the Grand Duke was in uniform, but without any flashy insignia, simply a St. George’s cross on his chest. He wrote: "It's hard to imagine a more simple and democratic person". "(Living) very simply in a dirty village at the leading edge of the Russian front" (as a trench warrior), Michael "radiated the same unflagging optimism that made the Russian army stand out everywhere".
 
Michael's talents as a general were highly praised by others outstanding commanders, such as generals Alexey Brusilov[6], Petr Krasnov[7] and the commander of the Cavalry Corps, which included the Wild Division, General Huseyn Khan Nakhchivanski[8]. (He too who was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1919).
 
The French Ambassador Maurice Paleolog Морис Палеолог[9]wrote in his diary the impression of one of the participants in the meeting at Millionnaya: "During all these long and difficult disputes, the Grand Duke did not, for a moment, lose his calm and his dignity ... At this historical moment his patriotism, nobility and self-sacrifice were moving to behold".
 
Taking the Manifesto from Michael's hands, Kerensky exclaimed: "You have generously entrusted us with the vessel of your power. I swear to you that we will pass it to the Constituent Assembly without shedding a single drop from it".
 
It was not Michael's fault that neither Kerensky nor the Provisional Government kept their oaths. Instead, the handed over that "vessel of power" to the Bolsheviks for them to abuse.
 
"Can you point out at least one strong group of officials or minds working for the state, on which you can rely?" Michael asked his lawyer N.N. Ivanov before the abdication of Nicholas. And he answered that question himself: "I do not see any. Only bayonets all around. Bayonets and sabres.”
 
Neither was it Michael's fault that there was not a single social force in the country that was looking for a peaceful, non-violent way to overcome the Troubles. Ivanov recalls a conversation with him after his abdication, when, the innuendo might have spread that Michael failed to fulfill the Tsar's trust and assume the crown because he did not have the guts to fight. "Well, will you shake my hand then?" Michael asked. And then he answered himself: "I did the right thing. I'm happy that I'm a private person. I refused, so that there was no reason to shed blood".

While in the USA, Kournakov penned down his experience in the Wild Division in a book titled “Savage Squadrons”.
​
[5] Washburn, Stanley, 1878-1950. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Washburn%2C%20Stanley%2C%201878-1950

[6] General Alexey Brusilov, (born Aug. 31 [Aug. 19, Old Style], 1853, Tiflis, Russia—died March 17, 1926, Moscow), Russian general distinguished for the “Brusilov breakthrough” on the Eastern Front against Austria-Hungary (June–August 1916), which aided Russia’s Western allies at a crucial time during World War I.

[7] Pyotr Krasnov (1869, St. Petersburg – 16 January 1947, Moscow) – A Major-General of the Russian Imperial Army, ataman of the Don Army and a novelist. A prominent leader of the White movement. during the WWII he served as chief of the Cossack Forces of Nazi Germany. In violation of the Yalta agreements, together with thousands of Cossacks, he was forcibly handed over to Soviet authorities by the British and executed. See the book of Nikolai Tolstoy, Victims of Yalta
See also Julius Epstein, Operation Keelhaul; The Story of Forced Repatriation from 1944 to the Present. Hardcover – June 1, 1973
https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Keelhaul-Forced-Repatriation-Present/dp/0815964072

[8] Huseyn Khan Nakhchivanski (1863 – January 1919 in St. Petersburg), was a Russian Cavalry General of Azerbaijani origin. He was the only Muslim to serve as General-Adjutant of the H. I. M. Retinue. He was Grand Duke Michael’s superior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huseyn_Khan_Nakhchivanski.

[9] Maurice Paléologue (1859 –1944) was a French diplomat, historian, and essayist. He played a major role in the French entry into the First World War, when he was the French ambassador to Russia and supported the Russian mobilization against Germany that led to world war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Pal%C3%A9ologue
​

So, let's not blame Michael for a "lack of will," "political blindness," or "naivety." Let's not ridicule his Manifesto, as if dictated by the "Jewish Masons" and agents of either Germany or England. Michael carefully read the text compiled by the lawyers, then made minor corrections and made, perhaps, the most crucial addition: that he acted by ‘invoking the blessing of God’ upon the Russian people and himself. He acted in perfect harmony with his Christian conscience. He did not put the Manifesto to a vote but signed it with his name AUTOCRATICALLY. It was a heroic attempt to lead Russia out of TROUBLES, without compromising common sense, his Christian conscience, or the duties of the monarch.
 
Michael walked in the footsteps of his heavenly patron Saint Michael of Tver
(Святой благоверный князь Михаил Тверской)[1] who had sacrificed himself, surrendering to the mercy of Khan of the Golden Horde in order to avoid an internecine war with the Prince of Moscow Yuri Danilovich (Юрий Данилович).[2] Ever since 12 June 2007, the people of Perm have gone annually in procession to the chapel of Michael of Tver, in whose honor Michael was baptized, to commemorate the victimhood of him and his secretary Johnson on June 12, 1918.

​
[10] Holy Prince Michael of Tver was born in 1272 after the death of his father, Grand Duke Yaroslav Yaroslavich, brother of Alexander Nevsky. On the death of Grand Duke Andrei Alexandrovich (+ 1305), Michael, by right of the elder, had a claim to the Grand Duke's throne in the Mongol Golden Horde, but the Moscow prince Yury Danilovich did not obey him as he himself wanted the Grand Duke's title. Often visiting the Golden Horde to see the new Khan Uzbek (who had just converted to Islam and was known for his cruelty and fanaticism), Yuri  pleased the Khan by marreing his sister Konchaki and became a grand prince. However he did not settle down but began a new internecine war with Tver. Yuri’s army included Tatar troops sent by the Khan Uzbek. However, on 22 December 1317 the Tver people, led by Prince Michael, defeated Yuri. Among the prisoners was Tatar commander, whom Michail set free. Yuri slandered Michael in front of Khan, accusing him of poisoning Konchaki. Khan threatened to ruin the princely patrimony of Michael if he did not come to the Horde to answer the accusation. Not wishing to shed the blood of Russian soldiers in an unequal battle with Khan, saint Michael humbly went to the Horde, realizing that, by doing so, he risked death. https://days.pravoslavie.ru/Life/life2579.htm

[11] http://rushist.com/index.php/russia/1833-yurij-danilovich-knyaz-moskovskij
​

​As far as the world is concerned, Miсhael's attempt failed. It was not possible to prevent Russia's defeat in World War I, or to keep it from civil war. However, his effort has led to his ascent to Golgotha ​​of the Perm’s Black Cross. With him, Russia too has ascended the Cross of 2oth century Calvary.

Crawford on Michael
 
Speaking at a conference in Perm on 12-13 June 2008, Donald Crawford, who died in 2017, said: "We will never be able fully to understand what was lost along with his tragic life. But what we do know about him deserves to be remembered forever and to be held in high honour. All peoples need an integral historical memory. If there is one person who could serve as a bridge across the abyss separating tsarist Russia from New Russia, this would undoubtedly be Michael, the man with the greatest integrity and most consistent personality amongst the last Romanovs, the only one who still deserves everyone's attention and respect.” [1]

[1] The last autocrat" Report of V. G. Krasnov on the commemoration of Michael Romanov in Perm . In Russian  «Последний самодержец». Репортаж В. Г. Краснова о чествовании памяти Михаила Романова в Перми»
https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=monitor&id=12493. See “The Perm Cross: Michael Romanov”, p. 65

​The Life of St. Michael Alexandrovich?
 
The Englishman, Crawford, is echoed by another Russian author. "We remember that, Michael, who lived in exile in Perm at one time, worried the Bolshevik leaders undoubtedly more than did Nicholas. He was a real emperor, with real authority among the troops. That’s why Michael II had to be destroyed as soon as possible." So writes hegumen Mitrofan Badanin, now elevated to the Bishop of Umba and the North Sea (Епископ Умбский и Североморский)[1] in his book "The Icon of the Grand Duke" («Икона Великого Князя»)[2]

[1] Mitrofan, Bishop of Severomorsk and Umba (Alexey Badanin)
http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3340985.html

[2] Hegumen Mitrofan (Badanin), "Icon of the Grand Duke" «Икона Великого Князя», "Ladan", St. Petersburg-Murmansk, 2011, p. 134.

He tells of the story of how the icon of the Kazan Mother of God was presented to Michael in memory of the miraculous rescue of the family of Emperor Alexander III from the wreckage of the imperial train at Borki station in 1888[1]. At a forum in Michael's memory that took place at his former palace on Angliyskaya Naberezhnaya 54 (‘English Enbankment’) in St. Petersburg in May 2010, the hegumen told how his grandfather had saved this icon from the plundering of the palace during the revolution. At great risk to his life, his grandfather had preserved it through the harshest years of Soviet persecution. Two years later, in 2012, at a forum in Murmansk, hegumen Mitrofan presented the participants with a book that reads as the life of a saint. After all, Michael was already canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) back in 1981.

[1] The crash of the Imperial train occurred on 17 (29) October 1888 near the Borki station. Despite there being numerous victims and heavy damage to the rolling stock, including the royal carriage, the Emperor Alexander III himself and his family members were not harmed. The saving of the imperial family in the church tradition was interpreted as miraculous. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Крушение_императорского_поезда

​"It seems that if Michael had the opportunity to leave us with his farewell instructions," writes the Hegumen on p. 150, "he would have repeated the words of his crowned brother and martyr, Nicholas, as recorded by Grand Duchess Olga: ‘Father asked us to convey to all those who remained loyal to Him, and to those whom they may have influence on, to ask that they do not take revenge for Him, because He forgave all and prayed for all, and asked that they neither take revenge for themselves, and that they remember that doing so would make the evil that is now in the world even stronger, and that evil will not conquer evil, only love can do so ... "

​In a recent interview, Bishop Mitrofan confirmed that he wanted "to uphold the spiritual essence of Michael as one of the best representatives of the, alas now disappeared, real Russia". He expressed his readiness to seek the canonization of Michael and "to study the available documents” for this purpose. Unfortunately, "Until recently, we had such an opportunity, but now, as we know, the archives have been closed for a hundred years". Therefore, "it is now difficult to resume the work of glorification of the martyrs".[1]

[1] "The Vicious Circle of the Bishop of the North Sea Mitrofan”. MARIA SENCHUKOVA, EPISKOP MITROPHAN BADANIN | 30 JULY 2017  http://www.pravmir.ru/zamknutyj-krug-episkopa-severomorskogo-mitrofana/

Solzhenitsyn, “Two hundred years together”
 
It is a pity that, on the centenary of the revolution, the nation-wide magazine “Rodina” distributed Solzhenitsyn's “Reflections” in a special issue without expressing any reservations over the article, as if, after 1983, when the essay was written in the USA, neither the archives nor the work of historians had brought anything new to our understanding of the revolution.[1]
 
Even Solzhenitsyn had found it necessary to turn to a most important factor of revolutionary events, which he had completely missed in “Reflections” in 1983: the role of Jews in the revolutionary events of 1917. In 2002, the publishing house of the Solzhenitsyn House "Russkiy Put’" published his two-volume work "Two hundred years together" «Двести лет вместе»[2] dedicated to Russian-Jewish relations after the Jewish population became a part of the Russian Empire under Catherine II. This work may well be the final and deepest penetration by the writer into the tragic history of Russia.
 
It is out of place to talk here about all aspects of the book. But it certainly contains the author’s much deeper insight into the February and October revolutions than in “Reflections”. As for 1917, Solzhenitsyn's attention is focused on the role of Jews in the leadership of the Bolsheviks.
 
I was glad that Solzhenitsyn turned to this subject - no matter how painful and controversial it may be – for, without such understanding, nothing can be understood either of what happened in Russia 100 years ago, or of what is HAPPENING in the WORLD NOW. I have already addressed this topic in my book«Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth», published just BEFORE the collapse of the USSR.[3] I sent a copy to Solzhenitsyn to his house in Cavendish, Vermont. I don’t know whether he read it, but, if he did, he couldn’t but have noticed that I paid much attention to the participation of the Jews in the revolutionary events. Alas, the Russian translation Новая Россия: от коммунизма к национальному возрождению appeared after the writer's death.[4]
 
I was convinced then, as I am now, that emancipation of the Russian  people from totalitarian Soviet ideology cannot be successful without understanding the role of the Jews in the 1917 revolution. Therefore, I dedicated Chapter 4, Russia and the Revolution, Chapter 5, Russophobia and Judeophobia, as well as the Conclusion to this topic.
 
Chapter 4 begins with a discussion of the debate that took place in the Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1989 between Vadim Kozhinov[5] and Benedikt Sarnov[6] on the topic "Who is to blame: Jews or Russians?" Alas, both Soviet debaters, however much they differed in their opinions, seemed to lose the strength of their voice, as soon as they approach the "sacred cow" of communism - Lenin. That is, their debating zest failed when faced with Lenin. Not to mention Karl Marx, who then stood at the head of the "holy trinity" of unquestionable ideological idols.
 
Among my sources was the collection "Russia and the Jews" («Россия и евреи»), which Solzhenitsyn quotes abundantly in the book "Two hundred years together", from the same 1978 YMCA Press edition that I used. This collection was not available in the USSR then and is still very little known now.[7]
 
I also included a few foreign authors who did not make into Solzhenitsyn's book. Among them is British rabbi Chaim Bermant,[8] who in the book “The Jews” [9] rejects the popular thesis that the Jews allegedly revolt solely because they are oppressed.
 
An American John Murray Cuddihy [10] explained the propensity of East European Jews for radicalism as being due to their feelings of inferiority in comparison to the more successfully assimilated Jews of Western Europe and the United States. Their interest in the class struggle and world revolution was dictated by the desire to rapidly become more Western than the “weak-willed” West, mired in the comforts of life. 
 
I’ve also included one American Communist, albeit one who was already disillusioned - David Horowitz (Дэвид Горовиц).[11] His participation in the “New Left” (Новые Левые)[12] movement during the Vietnam War he explained in his book "Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties" (Поколение разрушителей: размышления в ретроспективе)[13] by his upbringing. His parents, says Horowitz, were members of the US Communist Party, and even Stalinists. As such they voluntarily condemned themselves to the ghettos of self-isolation. They lived like monks in an ideological cocoon in the hope for a communist revolution in the US. Now Horowitz is an inveterate conservative and Zionist.[14]
 
In my 1991 book “Russia Beyond Communism” I also focused on the “Ideocidal ideology of Marx.” The cult of Karl Marx in the West, I argued, was chiefly responsible for both the ‘Marxophilia and Russophobia’ among many American sovietologists, not to mention the students of the ‘Destructive Generation’. These themes escaped the attention of the “fighters” against “Stalinism”, “Khrushchev's voluntarism”, “Brezhnev’s stagnation” and “deviations from Leninism.” “The West, where the idea of ​​a free market sprang up and flourished,” I wrote at the end of 1990, “did much more to ensure the freedom of movement of goods than for the free movement of ideas. And the most important reason was the reluctance to contain the spread (across the globe) of the virus of that expressly WESTERN (Marxist) idea that captured the intellectual monopoly over the minds of almost a third of humanity (p. 331.) ”
 
Solzhenitsyn quotes abundantly the authors of the collection “Russia and the Jews”, to which I have already referred. The primary author of the collection, I.M. Bikerman, admits that “The too-conspicuous participation of Jews in the Bolshevik satanism offends the eyes of Russian people and the eyes of the whole world”.[15]
 
He also quots D.S. Pasmanyk: “One can rightfully assert, as many Russian patriots do, as do even very progressive people, that Russia is now in agony under the rule of Jewish dictatorship and Jewish terror.”
 
Solzhenitsyn, summarizing the Jewish collection, eschews to ascribe to the Jews exorbitant guilt or merit: “No, the Jews were not the main driving force of the October coup. Moreover, it was not at all necessary for the Russian Jewry, who received freedom in February. But, when the (Bolshevik) coup had already taken place, the active young secularized Jewry easily and quickly jumped from one horse to another - and with no less confidence continued galloping with the same frenzy, but now in the Bolshevik race” (Vol 2, p. 100).


[1] Natalia Solzhenitsyna recalls: How "Reflections on the February Revolution appeared"
https://rg.ru/2017/02/16/kak-poiavilis-razmyshleniia-nad-fevralskoj-revoliuciej-solzhenicyna.html

[2] А.I. Solzhenitsyn “Two hundred years together”, «Двести лет вместе», Part I and Part II, Moscow, Russkiy Put, 2002. https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4184036/

[3] Vladislav Krasnov, Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle Of National Rebirth (C C R S SERIES ON CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY SOVIET SOCIETY) 1st Edition Monterey Institute of International Studies. Center for Contemporary Russian Studies, Westview Press, 1991

[4] Владислав Краснов. Новая Россия. От коммунизма к национальному возрождению. Из-во "Литературная Россия", Москва,2014. Ссылки в статье по этому изданию. https://www.labirint.ru/books/438669/

[5] Vadim Kozhinov (Вадим Кожинов) (1930-2001) — a prominent Soviet literary scholar who attacked Soviet scholarship from the position of the need for Russian national revival. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кожинов,_Вадим_Валерианович
See his books at https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/vadim-kozhinov/1940736/

[6] Benedikt Sarnov (1927 – 2014) was a Moscow literary critic, historian of Soviet literature, and writer. In 1990s he became Secretary of the Moscow Writers' Union, a part of Union of Russian Writers. He has published over twenty books, hundreds of articles and reviews, and continued to be active in the post-Soviet period. His recent books were about relationships of Stalin and Soviet writers/ He died in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedikt_Sarnov
 

[7] “Russia and the  Jews” Collection of articles Россия и евреи: Сб. статей. М.: Znatnov; third edition, amended in 2007 г.
http://www.libex.ru/detail/book831396.html Annotation: In the history of Russian-Jewish relations, there is nothing like this collection "Russia and the Jews". In 1923, the authors formed the "Domestic Association of Russian Jews Abroad" and published an appeal “To the Jews of All Countries!” included in a book published in Berlin in 1924. All authors are Jewish intellectuals, ardent opponents of Bolshevism. As patriots of Russia, they recognize the Jewish guilt for bloody violence. The collection had long been quoted, but not easily available until it was reprinted by Parisian publishing house YMCA Press in in 1978. The preface to the 2007 edition was written by the Russian nationalist Alexander Sevastyanov. The afterword belongs to the leading Israeli and Russian thinker of the left orientation, Israel Shamir.
[8] Chaim Bermant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Bermant

[9] Bermant’s book at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4002843-the-jews

[10] John Murray Cuddihy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray_Cuddihy. “The ordeal of civility: Freud, Marx, Lévi-Strauss, and the Jewish struggle with modernity” https://archive.org/details/ordealofcivility00cudd

[11] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Горовиц,_Дэвид

[12] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Новые_левые

[13] David Horowitz and Peter Collier  (Authors),‎ Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties
https://www.amazon.com/Destructive-Generation-Second-Thoughts-Sixties/dp/1594030820

[14] Horowitz as a Zionist https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/143008/reflections-diaspora-jew-zionism-america-and-fate-david-horowitz

[15] A. Solzhenitsyn, “Two hundred years together”, vol. II, Russkiy Put’, Moscow, 2002, p. 100. Citation from “Russia and the Jews” (pp. 15-16), Domestic Association of Russian Jews Abroad, Paris, YMCA Press, 1978, p. 211 [first edition, Berlin: OSNOVA, 1924]

Solzhenitsyn on the Declaration of Balfour
 
Solzhenitsyn did not fail to point out another parallel event that also turned 100 years old in November 2017, the Balfour Declaration, which greatly affected the mood of Russian Jewry at that time. It was largely ignored by Soviet scholars. But it has not lost its relevance even now.
 
“... The October Revolution coincided precisely with the Declaration of Balfour, the first real step towards the creation of an independent Jewish state. And what happened? Part of the Jewish generation went the way of Herzl and Jabotinsky. The other part ... could not resist the temptation and enrolled in the Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin gang. (This is exactly what Churchill was afraid of.) Herzl's way seemed at the time too extreme and almost unreal. The path of Trotsky and Bagritsky allowed the Jews to rapidly straighten up, immediately becoming not just an equal nation in Russia - but a privileged one.”[1] 
 
My old American friend Allan Brownfeld, a Jew by religion, but a convinced anti-Zionist and America patriot, wrote a well-documented analytical article on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which I hurried to translate into Russian.[2] According to Brownfeld, most of the British Jews, including the only Jew in the Balfour Ministry, did not support the Declaration. In fact, it was conceived as a British colonialist project proposed to Rothschild in the hope of recruiting Zionist zealots for the expansion of the Empire. Even now, Brownfeld writes, despite the enormous influence the Israeli lobby, most American Jews are skeptical about Israel. After all, Israel recognizes only Orthodox Judaism, whereas in the US most Jews belong to Reform or Conservative branches of Judaism.

[1] “Two hundred years together”, p. 111-112.

[2] Perevodika  - 100th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html
Nov 3, 2017 – “The 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration: It's time to remember the Jewish prophets” 100-летие Декларации Бальфура: Пора вспомнить еврейских пророков. Author: Allan C. Brownfeld. Переводчик: Владислав Краснов (W. George Krasnow) Аллан С. Браунфельд является национальным обозревателем и редактором журнала «Вопросы Иудаизма».

​Charles Bausman on the taboo in the US on the Jewish issue
 
But do American Jews have anything to do with the centenary of the February and October revolutions? It turns out they do. At least, so writes Charles Bausman, the American founder of the pro-Russian site “Russia Insider.” (https://russia-insider.com/ru) In his sensational article, Bausman calls on journalists to drop the taboo on the Jewish issue and avoid using euphemisms such as “Russophobic media”, “Wall Street bosses” and “neocon leaders”; simply call them Jews. These euphemisms hide the fact that the anti-Russian and anti-Putin campaign in the US is led mainly by Jews, alleges Bausman.
 
The article seemed so bold and timely that I immediately translated it into Russian and posted on the website of Perevodika.ru[1], then on RAGA in both languages (RAGA на обоих языках)[2].
 
According to Bausman, it was this taboo in the media of tsarist Russia on the eve of the revolution that led to a confusion in the minds and in the country. The taboo was reinforced with the stigma of “anti-Semite” against anyone who dared to identify the Jews in the leadership of the Bolsheviks, terrorists and left-wing extremists. This TABOO became all-powerful in the Soviet era, even though, since the Suez crisis in 1956, the condemnation of Zionists had become standard in Soviet propaganda. Bausman calls on Americans to avoid the bitter experience of Russia and call things by their proper names, that is, name Jews as Jews. Otherwise, one will not be able to understand either the geopolitics or the history of Russia, warns Bausman.
 
This warning is especially relevant now, Bausman writes, because USA media giants, led by Jews, are conducting a systematic campaign against Russia and President Putin, so harsh and all-encompassing that the world is now much closer to self-destruction than it ever was at the time of the Cold War. It's not just about Russia and the US, but also about the survival of mankind. It needs to be stressed that Bausman does not censure all Jews, but only the clique that seized the information, financial and university elite of the United States.
 
Bausman was not the first American to criticize the influence of Jews on US policy. In 2008, the book written by two prominent American professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” was subjected to such damnation by pro-Israeli journalists in the United States that its first run, in the form of an article, was in England. [3] Unfortunately, it has not yet been translated into Russian.[4]
 
Back in 1997, Albert S. Lindemann,[5] professor at the University of Santa Barbara, published a book, “Esau’s Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews”, the main thesis of which is that anti-Semitism does not exist by itself, and is sometimes a response to the behavior of certain groups within the Jewish population. [6] It too was ostracized in the US and was not translated into Russian.
 
Actually, there are quite a few alternative websites that resist the aggressive unipolar, anti-Russian and pro-Israeli policies of the United States. Here are a few: Veterans Today, founded by former US military and intelligence veterans, disaffected with the pro-Israel and anti-Russian orientation in US policy; Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation (FGF), a conservative Catholic organization dedicated to strengthening the basic Christian values ​​of Western civilization; Institute for Historical Review, and Center for Research on Globalization, operating in Canada in several languages. I have been a contributor to the first two.
 
The Jews themselves offer sharp criticism, not only of Zionism and Jewish bankers, but also of Jewish influence in general. One of the boldest books against the distortion of the fate of Jews in the Second World War was written by political scientist Norman Finkelstein. The title of the book, translated into Russian, speaks for itself “Holocaust industry: reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering” (Индустрия Холокоста: размышления на тему эксплуатации еврейских страданий).[7]
 
Finkelstein argues that the issue of the Holocaust is being abused by some Jewish organizations to extract money and other material benefits, as well as to justify the racist ideology of Zionist Israel. He was accused of anti-Semitism, and in 2007 was denied the post of permanent professor.
 
Nathaniel Kappner, the most vocal critic of Jewish dominance in the US, grew up in a devout Jewish family in New York, but then converted  to Russian Orthodoxy. Now he is a wandering Christian missionary. He sends out weekly video clips under the brand name RealJewNews [8], in which criticizes various aspects of US domestic and foreign policy that have fallen under the influence of Jewish bankers and propagandists. Another site, The Unz Review,[9] founded by a Jew, provides its pages to a variety of critics of Jewish domination in the United States. Among them is a former Soviet Jew and human rights activist Israel Shamir (Израэль Шамир)[10]. Having immigrated to Israel, Shamir became disaffected by both Israel and its American patrons and now is a champion of one-state solution with equal rights for the Palestinians.[11]


[1] “It’s Time to Drop the Jew Taboo” Пора отказаться от табу на еврейскую тему.
Author: Charles Bausman (Чарльз Баусман)[i] Translator: W George Krasnow (Владислав Краснов). http://perevodika.ru/articles/1197472.html

[2] Bausman in English and Russian http://www.raga.org/news/drop-the-jew-taboo

[3] “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501

[4] Although there is a good review of it, the author of the review Pepe Escobar writes that in the US anyone who "says that the Israeli lobby is there," also runs the risk of being accused of anti-Semitism. 04/06/2008. https://inosmi.ru/world/20080604/241772.html

[5] http://www.history.ucsb.edu/emeriti/albert-s-lindemann/

[6] Albert S. Lindemann, Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997
https://www.amazon.com/Esaus-Tears-Modern-Anti-Semitism-Rise/dp/0521593697

[7] Norman Finkelstein, “The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering”. In Russian «Индустрия Холокоста» available on https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=99778. Об авторе см.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Финкельштейн,_Норман

[8] “My Name Is Brother Nathanael Kappner. I'm A "Street Evangelist". I Grew Up As A Jew. I'm Now An Orthodox Christian.” http://realjewnews.com/

[9] The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection. A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media. https://www.unz.com/

[10] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шамир,Исраэль

[11] http://www.israelshamir.net/ru/ru.htm

Tsar Michael in Solzhenitsyn’s “GULAG”
 
Ironically, in his “Reflections on the February Revolution” Solzhenitsyn had been carried away by the Bolshevik-promoted superficial stereotype of Michael so much that he forgot even to mention the episode of his opus magnum “The Gulag Archipelago” in which he described his own encounter with a GULAG prisoner Mikhail Romanov. To be sure the prisoner was an imposter. Here is the scene of the new prisoner’s arrival:
 
“And who are you?”
    
 The newcomer smiled with embarrassment: “The Emperor, Mikhail.”
 
An electric shock ran through us all. Once again we raised
ourselves on our cots and looked at him. No, his shy, thin face
was not in the least like the face of Mikhail Romanov. And then
his age too . . .”
 
Here is not the place to retell the whole of this authentic GULAG story.[1] As it turned out, the prisoner was Viktor Alekseyevich Belov, born around 1915. As a child, he was told by his plain plain-origin parents that in 1916 they received a visit of a man with a long Russian beard who prophesized their son a special destiny. In 1943, in the heat of war, Viktor who had grown a good man and chauffeur for army generals and party bosses, including Nikita Khrushchev, had his own encounter with the same stranger.

In 1943 he had been visiting his mother. She was doing the laundry and had gone out to the hydrant with her pails. The door opened and a portly stranger, an old man with a white beard, entered the house. He crossed himself at the icon there, looked sternly at Belov, and said to him:

“Hail, Mikhail. God gives you his bless-
ing!” Belov replied: “My name is Viktor.” “But,” the old man
continued, “you are destined to become Mikhail, the Emperor
of Holy Russia!”
 
The stranger then told Viktor to prepare for 1953 when Soviet government would fall and he would become Emperor Mikhail.
 
Viktor took it seriously. So seriously, in fact, that soon after the war ended in 1945, not wishing to wait for the predicted year, he formed a group of a dozen adherents and wrote a Manifesto spelling out a number of reforms including the dissolution of hated collective farms and erasing the Red Kremlin. Soon “Emperor Michael” was arrested along with all would-be conspirators. All were condemned for long terms in the GULAG. They were lucky, because the interrogators, suspecting that Viktor was just a “holy fool”, refused to take the conspiracy seriously and saved them from a death sentence.
 
Unfortunately, Solzhenitsyn did not pursue the theme of “Holy Imposters” and told nothing about Viktor’s subsequent fate. One thing is clear, however. The Bolshevik strategy of obfuscation in respect to Michael’s death has backfired as it gave birth to a number of “pretenders to the thrown” whether real or imagined.[2]
 
Solzhenitsyn: Back to Historical Michael
 
Meanwhile, after returning to Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn did not stop his research on Russia’s history. In his 2002 book “Dvesti let vmeste” (‘two hundred years together’)[3]  he shows a more nuanced understanding of the revolution than in “Reflections.” Unfortunately, this important book has not been translated into English for the long 15 ears. Finally, in 2017 it became accessible in English as “The Crucifixion of Russia: A new English translation of Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together”. [4]
 
Here is how he treats the murder of Michael in Perm now: “In general, throughout the whole revolution in all its events, a nationalities issue came to the fore. The ethnic identification of all the conspirators and co-conspirators, starting from the murder of Stolypin, affected Russian feelings. But what about the murder of the Tsar’s brother,  Michael? Who are the murderers? Andrei Markov, Gavriil Myasnikov, Nikolai Zhuzhgov, Ivan Kolpaschikov - probably all of them ethnic Russians. Oh, how each person should think, whether he illuminates his nation with the ray of goodness or stabs it in the back with evil.” (II, p.92)

[1] https://archive.org/stream/thegulag2/The-Gulag-Archipelago%20vol1_%20I-II%20-%20Solzhenitsyn_djvu.txt
 
[2] There have been at least half-a-dozen pretenders appearing in places from Moscow to Paris, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Udmurtia and even Solovki, the notorious labor camp in the Far North. See, for instance, the story of Serafim Umilennyi (Seraphim the Blessed) who claimed that the drunken assassins failed to kill Mikhail letting him escape to Belogorsky Monastary in the Perm region. He was eventually arrested under a false name and imprisoned in Solovki where under the holy name of  Seraphim the Blessed he founded the underground catacomb Church to oppose Soviet-sponsored Moscow Patriarchy. https://www.otkrowenie.ru/статьи/соловецкая-сокровищница/михаил-второй-романов-соловецкий-серафим-умиленный/
 
[3]  Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Двести лет вместе (Dvesti let vmeste= two hundred years together) в двух частях.. Russkiy Put’, Moskva,  2002
https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4184036/
Read online http://book-online.com.ua/series.php?s=475

[4] “The Crucifixion of Russia: A new English translation of Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together” by Columbus Falco. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36499209-the-crucifixion-of-russia

The last phrase is thrown in the face of Solzhenitsyn’s contemporaries and descendants, all those who consider themselves Russian. Let's ask ourselves: Don’t we all, including monarchist and Orthodox activists, disproportionately pay more attention to the massacre in Yekaterinburg than to the crime in Perm, because in the first case, the blame can be put squarely on “non-Russians”: Latvians, Hungarians and, of course, Jews? Isn’t the latter also linked to the allegation of ritual nature of the atrocity?

​Such an approach to the key events in Russian history is flawed because it puts the cart before the horse. That is, before we find out WHAT happened, we ask ourselves secondary questions about relative guilt and merits of the victims and executioners. This can only lead us into a jungle of emotionality and mutual resentment.

As to WHAT HAPPENED - here too opinions differ, both in meaning, and in scale. Many will agree that the two revolutions in Russia in 1917, especially in October, are "Great" events, no matter whether we like it or not. But in what sense are they “great”-- in “good” or “bad”?

Patriarch Cyril and Alexander Tsipko: October Grandiose or Great?
 
Patriarch Kirill recently called the October Revolution "Grandiose" and thus attracted to himself the censure of the thoughtful analyst Alexander Tsipko[1]. Tsipko believes it is inappropriate for the Patriarch to use a nice word to label an event that caused such a large-scale persecution of Christians, as had not happened since the time of Nero. Still, I am inclined to think that, for the Patriarch, “grandiose” does not mean “commendable”. Rather, he probably had in mind such a "megalomanic" event on a truly colossal scale that it allowed to dispense with the lives of millions of Orthodox Christians as well as the believers of other faiths, including the Jews.
 
One might even call the October Revolution (or coup) not just Great, but the Greatest Ever, at least, since the time of Amenhotep IV, the pharaoh of ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh declared himself Akhenaten, the son of the Sun, subjugated the mighty priestly estate, and moved the country’s capital to a city he built. His religious reforms were truly revolutionary as they produced the most calamitous changes in the politics and religion of Ancient Egypt, but did not survive him. He only ruled for 17 years, from 1353 to 1336 BCE. His reign is called the “Amarna period”.[2]
 
The October Revolution was no less calamitous. For the system of societal values ​​in the USSR, like that in ancient Egypt, “was turned upside down, like a potter's wheel”, as the ancient papyri said. Didn’t we want indeed, according to Mayakovsky, “to change life all over, to the last button in our clothes”? Everything that used to be “good” for generations of Russians became “bad” in our time. Sacred no longer was old-fashioned “love”, as class struggle required “hatred.” The “trinity” we came to venerate was Marx, Engels and Lenin. Our experiment with the construction of a new model of human development has failed. But the heirs of “our classics” who are still among us might feel proud that “we beat the pharaoh”, both in the duration of the struggle for utopia inside the country, and the effect it produced beyond our borders.

The main difference between the October Revolution and the revolution of the Son of the Sun God was that it was conceived not as an internal Russian cause, but as the beginning of a world revolution. The Comintern immediately attempted to export the Revolution abroad, where it already had support. Isn’t that why we got stuck in Soviet experiment for much longer than necessary? After all, it wasn’t just a national project.
 
The intentions of the Bolsheviks, as well as the bifurcation in the awareness of Russian people, were precisely expressed by Alexander Blok:
 
-To stun the bourgeoisie
We'll start a fire
a worldwide fire,
to drench it
in blood-
The good Lord bless us!
 
These sentiments reflect the gigantomania of the violent Russian-Jewish excursion into the utopia of the 20th century. Vasily Grossman, a veteran of the Second World War and author of the book "Life and Fate" («Жизнь и судьба»), banned in the USSR, reasonably asked: And how is a class war better than a racial one?[3]
 
Well, probably, “better”, because it lasted for 73 years, and its apologists are not completely debunked, and never apologized. That is, October broke the records of the Great French and English “bourgeois” Revolutions, and that of the pharaoh Akhenaten, not to mention Hitler’s.
​
[1] Alexander Tsipko. "The dispute with Patriarch Cyril: the word "grandiose "is not applicable to the destruction program. Why didn’t my mate in the student hostel want to live in a system of Soviet absurdity?"
http://www.mk.ru/social/2017/12/19/spor-s-patriarkhom-kirillom-slovo-grandioznaya-neprimenimo-k-programme-unichtozheniya.html

[2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Эхнатон
​
[3] According to Alexander Etkind's book “Crooked Grief: The Memory of the Unburied”, Grossman's novel “Life and Fate” («Жизнь и судьба»), written in the 1950s but read in the USSR only in the 1990s, could only influence the post-Soviet imagination. After the collapse of the USSR, a former member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, Alexander Yakovlev, drew a parallel between the Soviet regime and Nazi Germany: “This was a full-fledged fascism of the Russian type. The tragedy is that we did not repent of it.” Yakovlev was the head of the Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression and knew full well that "rehabilitation" was by no means synonymous with repentance.
https://postnauka.ru/longreads/59446

Vladimir Buldakov
 
Among new historians, Vladimir Buldakov's book "The Red Troubles" («Красная смута») deserves praise precisely for the theme indicated in the subtitle: “The Nature and Consequences of Revolutionary Violence”.[1]
 
According a readers’ review, Buldakov's book is a "Mont Blanc of facts about the mutual brutality of the civil war", which, however, "does not abolish the simple consequence that, as a result, Russia was in the hands of ‘Others’. And it's not about ‘blood’ and the notorious Jewish percentage in the Central Committee and the Cheka and the savage brutality of non-Russians ... it was a war of all against all. But as a result, Russia turned out to be a springboard for the hastily formed Comintern, and the people of Russia were held hostage by the insane project of the world revolution”.
 
In an interview with Galina Sapozhnikova[2], Buldakov noted that “from its very beginnings Russia was in need of external management - so, according to the legend, with the help of Rurik, she managed to get out of her home-grown turmoil. The need for a leading higher independent power exists always and everywhere. But in Russia, the search for it has always concentrated not so much around faith, but around an ideal power”.
 
“So, are we romantics by nature?” Sapozhnikova asked. Buldakov replied: “We have a lot of excess emotions. We are always striving for an ideal.” In this way he paraphrased the saying about the Russian soul being so broad, generous and expansive that it needs to be narrowed down. However, Buldakov comforts the supporters of the “broad” soul: “Systemic crises are not at all a consequence and evidence of an inborn Russian foolishness. Quite the contrary. Civilizations were built by people disciplined and even limited, but not capable of asking themselves eternal questions. Against this background, the Russian looks ‘excessively talented’, as one who prefers a transcendent ideal to earthly orderliness”.
 
When asked about the “rebel gene” in Russian national character, Buldakov replied: “The question is not that simple. Individual rebellion is one thing. The other is collective rebellion, especially in Russia. We lived in a very sparse social space, lacking information. It was almost impossible for us to conduct a stable dialogue with each other and with the authorities, so this turned into enforced social silence. Discontent accumulates, people suffer, then explode.”
 
These are the features of the Russian national character – aside from and not so much as the alleged machinations of the Jews - that led to a huge preponderance of the Jewish ethnos in the administration of the apparatus of the new communist state.


[1] V.P. Buldakov. The Red Troubles. The Nature and Consequences of Revolutionary Violence  (Красная смута. Природа и последствия революционного насилия. — М.: ROSSPAN, 1997 — http://na5ballov.pro/lib/noveish/2242-buldakov-vp-krasnaya-smuta-priroda-i-posledstviya-revolyucionnogo-nasiliya.html
​
Second edition amended — М.: ROSSPAN; The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center Foundation, 2010. - 967 p. (Series "History of Stalinism") ISBN 9785824312638

[2] Interview with Galina Sapozhnikova "The Virus of Revolution. Why do revolutionary situations repeat themselves and can they be predicted?”
https://www.kp.ru/daily/25977.4/2911573/

Vladimir Bols​hakov and Pyotr Astafyev
 
Along with Solzhenitsyn, the topic of Russian-Jewish relations has long and fruitfully been explored by the former Soviet journalist Vladimir Bolshakov. After the death of Solzhenitsyn, he published the trilogy “Zionism and Communism. Roots of kinship and causes of enmity” («Сионизм и коммунизм. Корни родства и причины вражды»)[1], in which he gives his insight into the problems. The name of each book within the trilogy speaks for itself: (1) “With the Talmud and the red flag. Secrets of the World Revolution” («С талмудом и красным флагом. Тайны мировой революции»;[2]; (2) “Red Khazaria and Hitler. Who was protecting the Zionists” («Красная Хазария и Гитлер. Кто крышевал сионистов»);[3]; and (3) “The Blue Star Versus the Red. How the Zionists became the gravediggers of communism” («Голубая звезда против красной. Как сионисты стали могильщиками коммунизма»).[4]
 
I have no intention to discuss the works of Bolshakov here, but his desire to remain objective seems sincere. As he himself writes, “there is nothing personal” in his concept and “I am alien to anti-Semitism and Judophobia, and the problem of the relationship between Zionism and communism. The task of analysing Judaism and its varieties, I approach exclusively as a researcher.”[5]
 
After the publication of "Zionism in the Service of Anti-Communism" («Сионизм на службе антикоммунизма») [6] in 1972, Bolshakov abandoned this topic, “but not because it ceased to be relevant. Take, for example, a story about the notorious ‘Jackson-Vanik amendment’. It was adopted in protest against the ban on the departure of the Jews from the USSR ... Nonetheless, it continued to be applied until 2012, when it was replaced by the ‘Magnitsky Law’. This fact in itself points to the linkage of the times - the crusade of the Zionists against Russia began even before the establishment of Soviet power and still continues to this day.”
 
In the book “With the Talmud and the Red Flag. Secrets of the World Revolution” («С талмудом и красным флагом. Тайны мировой революции»[7]) he writes: “It was barely possible to find a more favorable moment to unobtrusively, and at the same time convincingly, emphasize the kinship between Zionism and Communism.”
 
No matter how one might view Bolshakov's anti-Zionist stand, his trilogy is full of finds. He discovered for himself - and for the country - the works of the Russian writer and philosopher Pyotr Astafyev (1846 - 1893) [8], who was one of the first to note that “the features that characterize Jewry and give it such great importance and power in modern day life are at the same time the basic principles of the victorious bourgeois class that has been formed over the last two centuries”.
 
“This force, unknown to the classical or the Christian world”, says Astayiev, “is purely social, but nonetheless has gained the upper hand over political, state and national forces, constitutes the strength of the bourgeoisie. The natural spiritual kinship with Jewry, the natural bearer of the same principles, accounts for its equally natural union with this new conqueror of the whole modern world - now give the Jewry that significance of world power that it never had before.” (pp. 38-39, “With the Talmud and the Red Flag")
 
Bolshakov is quick to point out that Astafyev’s view of the Jewish role in business is similar to that of Karl Marx, who wrote in the article “To the Jewish Question” that "The struggle against Jewry, therefore, is, first of all, a struggle against the bourgeoisie and its modern domination."


[1] Vladimir Bolshakov. "Zionism and Communism. Roots of kinship and causes of enmity” (Сионизм и коммунизм. Корни родства и причины вражды). 2016. https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/138031618/

[2] Vladimir Bolshakov. Electronic book. "With the Talmud and the red flag. Secrets of the World Revolution" (С талмудом и красным флагом. Тайны мировой революции.) https://www.litres.ru/vladimir-bolshakov/s-talmudom-i-krasnym-flagom-tayny-mirovoy-revolucii-2

[3] V.V. Bolshakov, "Red Khazaria and Hitler. Who was protecting the Zionists" (Красная Хазария и Гитлер. Кто «Крышевал» Сионистов?) Algoritm, Moscow, 2013
http://www.rumvi.com/products/ebook/красная-хазария-и-гитлер-кто-крышевал-сионистов-/9f578ec4-7ae1-42db-84da-1d5e728b01a8/preview/preview.html

[4] Vladimir Bolshakov. "The Blue Star Versus the Red. How the Zionists became the gravediggers of communism”
( Голубая звезда против красной. Как сионисты стали могильщиками коммунизма) https://www.litres.ru/vladimir-bolshakov/golubaya-zvezda-protiv-krasnoy-kak-sionisty-stali-mogilschikami-kommunizma-21619844/chitat-onlayn/

[5] Vladimir Bolshakov. Electronic book. "With the Talmud and the Red Flag. Secrets of the World Revolution” (С талмудом и красным флагом. Тайны мировой революции. https://www.litres.ru/vladimir-bolshakov/s-talmudom-i-krasnym-flagom-tayny-mirovoy-revolucii-2

[6] Vladimir Viktorovich Bolshakov. “Zionism in the service of anti-communism.”
(Сионизм на службе антикоммунизма. ) Politizdat, 1972.
https://books.google.ru/books/about/Сионизм_на_службе_ант.html?id=_j68AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y

[7]  Vladimir Viktorovich Bolshakov, "With the Talmud and the Red Flag. Secrets of the World Revolution” (С талмудом и красным флагом. Тайны мировой революции), p. 17 http://rubooks.org/book.php?book=1965&page=7:

[8] Pyotr Evgenievich Astafiev (1846 - 1893). In his philosophical and psychological writings, Astafyev appealed to the spiritual heritage of patristicism, and criticised European rationalism, especially the German absolute idealism and various forms of influence of the latter on Russian thought. http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/bio_a/astafev_pe.php

Bolshakov especially praises Astafyev for pointing out “the insecurity of patriarchal Russia that had to face the (double) onslaught of the bourgeoisie" and of Jewry. According to Astafiev, “the lack of will and perseverance, for the sake of utilitarian purposes, and the great emotionality” of Russian people make them especially vulnerable to such an onslaught. “In our national character lies almost contempt for all of this. Hence, we cannot compete against Jewish cohesion, its sobriety, moderation, practicality, the primacy of family relations, etc. We, in relation to the Jews, are the most defenseless race."
 
Bolshakov is quick to point out the special relevance of these words “after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia's transition to a free, that is, capitalist, economy, the Russian people really turned out to be the most defenseless.”[9]

[9] “With the Talmud and the Red Flag: Secrets of the World Revolution.”
http://rusinst.ru/docs/books/V.V.Bolshakov-Sionizm_i_kommunizm.pdf (с. 40)

Slyozkin echoes Astafiev and Solzhenitsyn

Astafiev’s lesson leads directly to the book by the American professor Yuri Slezkine, “The Era of Mercury. Jews in the Modern World” («Эра Меркурия. Евреи в современном мире»)?[1] The publisher describes it as follows: “This book by the famous historian, and Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Yuri Slezkine, explains the reasons for the astonishing success and unique vulnerability of the Jews in the modern world; it looks at Marxism and Freudianism as attempts to solve the Jewish question...” The book discusses the three main paths chosen by the Jewry of Russia in 1917: emigration to America in order to assimilate, emigration to Palestine in order to create the state of Israel, and resettlement throughout the cities of Russia to turn it into the USSR.
 
The book was published in English in 2004 under the title “The Jewish Century”. Its main thesis is "The modern era is the Jewish era, and the twentieth century is the Jewish century".[2] It's easy to agree with the publishers that this is “one of the most original and intellectually provocative books on Jewish culture for many years.” Slezkine brought the Jews out of the ghetto of exclusivity by conditionally dividing the whole of humanity into Apollonian people, named after Apollo, the Greek god of reason and the settled life, and the admirers of Hermes, the Greek god of craft, mediation, commerce and, it’s no secret, trickery. In the Roman Empire, Hermes expanded his territory under the name of Mercury.
 
The Russian title of the book by Slezkine «Эра Меркурия. Евреи в современном мире»[3] seems polemically directed against the current followers of Marx who would prefer to brand the neo-liberal economy of globalism as the age of Mammon, the Jewish god of gain.
 
As worshipers of Mercury, the Jews, according to Slezkine, are not alone. In the same group, he includes Armenians, Gypsies, Parsis (Zoroastrians) in India and expat Chinese. He thinks globally: “All these groups were secondary producers, specializing in providing goods and services to the surrounding agricultural or pastoral population. Their main resources were people, not nature; their main specialty was ‘foreign affairs’. They were descendants - or ancestors - of Hermes (Mercury), the god of all those who do not herd, do not cultivate the land and do not live by the sword; patron of intermediaries, translators and defectors; defender of skill, art and cunning”.[4]
 
Slezkine is well aware of the fate Jews in the USSR, as well as of their assimilation in America.[5] In this respect, his book complements Solzhenitsyn's book, which was published a little earlier. Alas, neither one nor the other has received the necessary attention of the Russian intelligentsia, neither have they provoked an open and benevolent debate on this hot topic.
 
In view of the ideologization of Soviet education, its dogmatism within the framework of pseudoscientific Marxism-Leninism, the very topic of different national characters and types of behavior was renounced as “reactionary” and contrary to the spirit of “proletarian internationalism.” But without this topic, one can hardly understand what happened in Russia in 1917! Hopefully, the writings of Astafyev, Solzhenitsyn, Slezkine, and Bolshakov will pave the way for further research and objective evaluation on a global scale.
 
Vadim Nesterov, in his review of Slezkine’s book, notes that his publishers recommended it as a kind of antipode to Solzhenitsyn's book "200 Years Together”.  However, Nesterov disagrees as the “antipode” book seems to confirm Solzhenitsyn's most controversial findings. Noting that “both authors consider in detail the problem of ‘Jews in the revolution of 1917’”, Nesterov finds that “Slezkine almost always does not refute, but confirms, the theses of Alexander Isaevich and often goes much further”. For example, “In 1918, 65.5% of all employees of the Cheka of Jewish nationality held ‘positions of responsibility’. Jews accounted for 19.1% of all investigators in the central apparatus and 50% of investigators of the counter-revolutionary activities.”
 
According to Nesterov, “Slezkine seems to provide deliberately arguments and facts to the benefit of anti-Semites: a story about the two most famous and symbolic acts of the Red Terror - the murder of Nicholas II and his family, and the killing of thousands of refugees and prisoners of war in the Crimea - were led exclusively by Jews.” The role of the Jews did not diminish in the management of the GULAGs. Nesterov praises Slezkine for acknowledging that “all senior posts in the infamous GULAG construction of the White Sea Channel were occupied by former inhabitants of the Pale of Settlement with scrupulous enumeration and unreserved disclosure of their pseudonyms…”[6]

[1] Yuri Slezkine. “The Era of Mercury. Jews in the Modern World” (Эра Меркурия. Евреи в современном мире.) Translated by Sergei Ilyin
https://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=1037608

[2] Yuri Slezkine. “The Jewish Century” Princeton University Press (2004). https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7819.html

[3] Yuri Slezkine, “The Era of Mercury. Jews in the Modern World” (Эра Меркурия. Евреи в современном мире). Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye, Moscow, 2007
http://www.rulit.me/books/era-merkuriya-evrei-v-sovremennom-mire-read-272095-1.html

[4] https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=251770&p=3

[5] Slezkine was not among more than three hundred thousand Soviet Jews who immigrated to the US legally. Probably, wanting to avoid the humiliating procedure of asking Soviet "authorities" for the permission to "reunite with his family in Israel," he did not take advantage of this "Jewish privilege" over other Soviet citizens. As a translator from Portuguese, Yuri, whose ancestors included both Cossacks and Jews, left the Soviet delegation in Lisbon in 1982 and went to America.

[6] Vadim Nesterov. “Jewish are the best and it’s been proven by science” (Евреи лучшие — доказано наукой). 23.05.2005,
https://www.gazeta.ru/2005/05/23/oa_158393.shtml

Slezkine also notes the disproportionately high participation of Jews in the apparatus of repression. Everyone who ended up in the clutches of the Cheka probably faced Jewish Chekists[7]. At the same time, he notes that during the Great Terror of 1937-1938, only one percent of Jews were arrested for political reasons, while 30% of Latvians who served the Soviet government suffered at the time.[8]
 
It is not remarkable that Eugenia Ginzburg (Евгения Гинзбург), who spent 18 years in Soviet prisons[9], suggested in her book “Steep Route” («Крутой маршрут»)[10] that one must distinguish ordinary Jews from “Yids” who worked in the Cheka or reported back there. According to some reports, Ginzburg wrote an even more “radical” anti-Soviet version of the "Steep Route" titled "Under the Canopy of Lucifer’s Wing".

[7] “Stalin's Willing Executioners”? - Red Ice www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/11nov/stalinsexec.html

[8] “The Jewish Century”, p. 273

[9] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гинзбург,_Евгения_Соломоновна

[10] For information about the novel https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Крутой_маршрут
​

Andrei Kurayev
 
Protodeacon Andrei Kurayev, an independent church figure, in his book “How they make you an anti-Semite” («Как делают антисемитом»)[1]  believes, like Bolshakov, that “the inescapable revolutionary maximalist enthusiasm of Jews has its roots in religion.”
 
On the other hand, he notes that “those authors who analyze Russian-Jewish relations with conclusions undesirable for their Jewish critics - Rozanov, Solzhenitsyn, Kozhinov, Shafarevich, Shulgin, Soloukhin - say a lot of bitter things about our Russian guilt and our Russian diseases.”
 
According to Kurayev, “Repentance and self-flagellation are two of the most obvious and profound features of Russian culture, not only at a high literary level, but on a domestic scale as well...”

[1] Andrei Kurayev “How they make you an anti-Semite” («Как делают антисемитом»), М., Odigitria, 1998 .
https://predanie.ru/kuraev-andrey-protodiakon/book/218537-kak-delayut-antisemitom/
My references are to this edition, although there is a new edition.


Dmitriy Filippov
 
One of the talented post-Soviet generation writers, Dmitry Filippov, attacks the topic of Russian-Jewish relations with both verve and sensitivity. He does not do this as a public advocate or a people's tribune, but as the author of a novel with a seemingly affirmative nationalist title, “I am Russian” («Я – русский») [1] Filippov lets his fictional hero, Andrei Voznesensky, whose name mimics the famous Soviet poet, speak on the issue. In the chapter “The Word about the Jews,” Andrei first spells out a long list of Jewish oligarchs in charge of Russia’s economy. Then, he hurries to point out, as Lydia Ginsburg did during Soviet era, that “Yids and Jews are not the same thing”.
 
Filippov makes his hero Andrei ponder: “Before blaming our misfortunes on Jews, let's dig deeper inside ourselves. Who is a Russian? An unemployed peasant who gets dead-drunk in a deserted village? Or a worker who works to the seventh sweat? A fat obnoxious traffic cop waiting for bribes on the roadside? Or a minor official toiling in corporate slavery? An effete party-goer dreaming of leaving Russia? A skinhead? Or Mandelstam, Pasternak, Brodsky, Lotman, Schnittke? (all names indicate outstanding Soviet cultural figures of Jewish origin.- Translator) Which one is more Russian?” The question is not trivial. Filippov lets his fictional character conclude with a call for introspection: “until we figure it out, the Eternal Yid will not leave my country.”
 
Filippov finds it necessary to remind the readers that “The meaning of the word ‘Yid’ has changed in the last hundred years. From the pejorative ethnonym for Jewry, it became the symbol of Golden Calf worshippers”.
 
According to him, “A Yid is a man without a homeland, without a conscience, without God. And it has nothing to do with either nationality or blood. A yid can be a Jew, a Russian, a Tatar, an American, a Frenchman, an Ethiopian ... Anyone. Rothschild is a yid! Yeltsin is a yid! Kissinger is a yid! Anyone who equates the idea of ​​equality with death is an Eternal Yid.”
 
Of course, Filippov’s reasoning (or rather, of his fictional hero) can be challenged, not only by those named "yids", but also by such analysts as Slezkine, Kurayev, Buldakov and Bolshakov, as soon as he starts fighting for "equality" with the help of revolutionary violence as advocated by one of the most zealous “yid-haters,” Karl Marx.


[1] Dmitriy FILIPPOV. Novel “I am Russian” (Роман Я – РУССКИЙ). М.: Literaturnaya Rossiya, 2015. According to the publishers, the author "focused on the urgent problems of today ... dealt with the misfortunes that attacked the country in the ‘nineties’. He describes the life of two generations that turned out to be infected by the energies of destruction."

https://litrossia.ru/books/item/8298-dmitrij-filippov-ya-russkij-roman
Read online http://okopka.ru/f/filippow_d_s/jarusskij.shtml
 
​
 Max Weber and the national character
 
It is clear that, in order to understand what happened to our country a hundred years ago, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the national and religious characters of both Russians and Jews. This is not easy to do, because for too long Soviet propaganda had rejected the very notion of a “national character” as “reactionary”, especially when laced with an admixture of the religious “opium” for the people. I know this from my own experience as a historian-ethnographer and participant in several expeditions of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
 
Only after I landed in the West, I was able to become acquainted with Max Weber's book “Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism.” [1] Its thesis is simple: the main reason for the difference in the high standard of living in some countries and the poverty in others is down to ethics. The countries of Northern Europe and America have succeeded in free markets capitalism chiefly due to the ethics of Protestantism with its emphasis on hard work, diligence, thrift, self-discipline, enterprise, sobriety and prudence, as well as family and individual responsibility. Since Protestantism prevailed there since the 16th century, it helped to foster a sort of national character, except connected not with ethnic origin or race, but rather with the characteristics of the prevailing religious denomination, whether Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism and other branches of Protestantism.
 
In his other works, Weber noted that the Russian Old Believers, Catholic Poles and Jews of the Russian Empire, acquired the same “business” qualities without going over to Protestantism, but simply because the unfriendly, and sometimes hostile, environment of the Empire compelled them to be more diligent, more enterprising, and sober. It fostered a greater individual responsibility. Not for nothing, on the eve of the revolution, Russian Old believers were among Russia’s richest entrepreneurs, generous charity givers and benefactors for the arts.
 
Weber's books were not published in the USSR. I am convinced that if the country had spent even a thousandth part of what was spent on propaganda of the "classics" of Marxism-Leninism to print and popularize Weber’s books instead, Soviet people would not have been so woefully unprepared for the challenges of the 1990s when Russia switched overnight to a market economy. Even now the Russians are suffering from of the “soviet” habit of dependency. While the government keeps on promising to stimulate small business, oligarchic monopolies reduce all these promises to naught. Far from getting rid of the old vices, like drunkenness and idle talk, many Russians continue to live a life of indolence and passive acceptance of what has befallen them.
 
We again have to remind ourselves of Astafyev's prediction (see above) that “the struggle of these people (Russians) against Jewry is absolutely impossible ... Other nations, for example, the French, the Germans, and the English – have some of the same inherent Jewish characteristics: formal reason, will, utilitarianism, in short, moderation and accuracy and diligence. In our national character lies almost contempt for all this.” Ivan Goncharov, [2] the author of “Oblomov”,[3] was painfully aware of this, when he juxtaposed a sincere, noble and kind, but inert and inept main Russian character Oblomov with that of Andrei Schtolz, a much more energetic and pragmatic Russian of German origin.
 
Alas, after the revolution, the German “business” component of both the Russian nobility and the merchant class was destroyed. (Remember the pogroms in the German districts of Moscow during the First World War!) The fate of the enterprising Russian Old Believers was also bitter: businessmen, benefactors and patrons of the art of tsarist Russia were replaced by atheistic Jewry semi-legal entrepreneurs subservient to the new secular faith of Marxism-Leninism and Soviet apparatus of political repression.


[1] Max Weber was a 19th-century German sociologist and one of the founders of modern sociology. Journalist, Anti-War Activist, Political Scientist, Sociologist, Literary Critic, Philosopher, Educator, Scholar, Economist (1864–1920). He wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1905.
https://www.biography.com/people/max-weber-9526066

[2] Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (1812 –1891) was a Russian novelist best known for his novels A Common Story (1847), Oblomov (1859), and The Precipice (1869). He also served in many official capacities, including the position of censor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Goncharov

[3] Oblomov is the second novel by Goncharov. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is the central character of the novel, portrayed as the ultimate incarnation of the superfluous man, a symbolic character in 19th-century Russian literature. He is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel he rarely leaves his room or bed. In the first 50 pages, he manages only to move from his bed to a chair. The book was is a satire of Russian nobility whose social and economic function was increasingly questioned in mid-nineteenth century Russia. The novel has been used to describe the ever-so-elusive 'Russian mentality' or 'Russian soul'.  The novel was popular when it came out, and some of its characters and devices have imprinted on Russian culture and language.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblomov

Avigdor Eskin on Solzhenitsyn
 
Another response to Solzhenitsyn's book deserves attention. A book by Avigdor Eskin (Авигдор Эскин)[1], called “The Jewish View on the Russian Question” («Еврейский взгляд на русский вопрос») was conceived as a mirror image of Solzhenitsyn's plan. What lures in the author is that he is a former Soviet dissident who fought for the right of Jews to learn Hebrew that was denied in the USSR. Once arrested for distributing Solzhenitsyn's works, Eskin now lives in Israel, but often appears on Russian television.[2]
 
Eskin says he wants to promote friendship between Russian nationalists and Israeli Zionists. As for the revolutions of 1917 in Russia, he asks a bold, albeit paradoxical question: “What are the causes of the joint Russian-Jewish fall into the sinfulness of communism and liberalism?” I am prepared to agree with him about the “joint fall”. However, I cannot agree when he seeks to associate communism with liberalism under one yoke. Even recognizing the fact that liberalism, as practiced by the adherents of the Provisional Government, cleared the way for a Bolshevik coup, liberal values ​​were, and still remain, contrary to the ideals and practices of the Bolsheviks.
 
Nevertheless, I might concede that Eskin's book is “the first serious attempt at a Russian-Jewish dialogue after the publication of Solzhenitsyn's book ‘Two Hundred Years Together’”, as the publishers proffer it. For that Eskin deserves a gratitude! Personally, I would, however, prefer to hear a whole polyphony of various Jewish and Russian voices, including liberals and honest Communists who are looking for the causes of this spectacular joint Russian-Jewish “fall into the sin of 1917”. 
 
Eskin is right in saying that Solzhenitsyn's personality goes beyond the accepted limits of the familiar word “writer”. It is also wrong to treat him merely as a political or social writer. “For who else was able to absorb and embody the whole of our twentieth century?” asks Eskin. This question still reverberates across Russia.
 
“Many human rights activists of believed in the seventies that, should the USSR settle in the image and likeness of the West, then the messianic era will begin”, recalls Eskin only to conclude that “Solzhenitsyn always thought a few steps ahead. Even in his ‘Letter to the Leaders’ of 1973, he warns against repeating the mistakes of February 1917” (p. 76)
 
Moreover, Eskin defends Solzhenitsyn from scurrilous attacks of those who fail to see the writer’s ethical thrust. “How can you blame him for imperialism and chauvinism, if at the very first Solzhenitsyn called for ‘repentance and self-restraint’, for the capacity to reproach oneself first and not blame others?” (p.77)
 
Finally, Eskin throws a gauntlet to the Russians of today who failed to embrace Solzhenitsyn’s ideas when he was alive: “Solzhenitsyn departed this life misunderstood and lonely. Enraged to fanaticism, the democrats see in him now a reactionary cleric-chauvinist, a rabid Russian imperialist and even an anti-Semite. Chauvinistic patriots brand him for ‘Zionism’ and even draw a parallel between a rail-road car with Lenin in 1917 (allowed by the warring Germany to traverse its territory to foment trouble in Russia.-Translator[3]) and the coming-home train in which Solzhenitsyn traveled from Vladivostok to Moscow. Not a single functioning or creative organization in Russia has seen him as a mentor or a guide”. (p. 77)


[1] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Эскин,_Авигдор       

[2]  Avigdor Eskin  «Еврейский взгляд на русский вопрос», EKSMO, Moscow, 20015. Citations are available for this link https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/140710976/
 

[3]  Read “Lenin and the Russian Spark”. By Ted Widmer The New Yorker. April 20, 2017.  “A hundred years ago this week, a German train that had been secretly carrying Lenin and other revolutionaries ended its journey in St. Petersburg…The Germans who had sent Lenin were also hopeful. Soon after his arrival, a German diplomat in Sweden wrote a note to a colleague: “Lenin’s entry into Russia successful. He is working exactly as we would wish.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/lenin-and-the-russian-spark

Messianism among the Jews and the Russians
 
The Jews also have a heavy baggage of both glorious biblical traditions and humiliating modern disasters. It can be said that the Jews of Russia felt they were going through their national and religious crisis. Like the Russians, this crisis was rooted in the tradition of messianic consciousness, which presupposes a certain sense of superiority over other peoples. In Russia, messianism was manifested in the concept of the Third Rome on the ecclesiastical level, in the dream of conquering Constantinople from the Ottoman Empire on the political level, and in the popular tendency of the Russian holy fools to be inclined towards masochism for a just cause.
 
As for the Jews, they see their messianism embedded in the Torah, particularly in the legends about the ability of Jews to manage, not so much their own state, but rather the rulers of those nations who conquered and seemingly subjugated them.
 
Among them is the story of Josef[1] who was sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers, but then gained the trust of the Pharaoh. The exodus of the Jews from Egypt followed, under the command of Moses.[2] Then there is the story of Judith (Юдифь), who decapitated the Assyrian commander Holofernes[3], as well as the legend of Esther (предание об Эсфири), who charmed the Persian king so much that he rejected his general Haman allowing the Jews to kill all his soldiers. [4]
 
In the newer history, the Messianic tradition of the Jews was revived in the Ottoman Empire of the seventeenth century by Sabbatai Zevi, one of the historical Jewish false messiahs[5]. In the nineteenth century, Jewish messianism, now based on the ideas of the French Revolution and Socialism, flourished in Germany.
 
Ferdinand Lassalle (Фердинанд Лассаль),[6] a socialist born into an orthodox Jewish family, dreamed at first of becoming a Jewish messiah-avenger. "However, his aspirations and views rapidly changed ... life made him the messiah of the German working class, seemingly and exclusively against the Jews: ‘I do not like Jews at all, in fact I despise them’. Karl Marx, who despised the Jews even more, called Lassalle a ‘Negro’ Jew, i.e. the worst".[7]
 
Moses Hess (Мозес Гесс), the ‘communist rabbi’, forerunner of Marx and the first teacher of Friedrich Engels, wrote that "Jews are soulless mummies, phantoms stuck in this world.” He liked to “juxtapose the humane God of Christians with the nationalist God of Abraham". However, his opinion subsequently changed radically. [8]  (p.147)
 
An Israeli author, Peter Luchimson, notes in the preface to his book about the American Jewish writer Bashevis-Singer that "in communist circles, the attitude toward messianism was ‘just as recklessly zealous as the attitude of religious Jews to the image of the Messiah’. Luchimson cites the authority of Berdyaev that "the mass involvement of Jews in the October Revolution was largely due to the fact that Karl Marx was associated, amongst many of them, with the Messiah, and the communist society he painted was a real embodiment of the dream of the Jewish prophets about messianic (goals)".[9]


[1] Joseph is an important figure in the Bible's Book of Genesis and also in the Quran. Sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, he rose to become vizier, the second most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh, where his presence and office caused Israel to leave Canaan and settle in Egypt. In Rabbinic tradition, Joseph is considered the ancestor of another Messiah called, "Mashiach ben Yosef", according to which he will wage war against the evil forces alongside Mashiach ben David and die in combat with the enemies of God and Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_(Genesis)

[2] Exodus is a biblical legend about the enslavement of Jews in Egypt, their mass exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, the obtaining of a covenant between God and the chosen people, and the wanderings of the Jews before the conquest of Canaan. Narrated in the Pentateuch (Exodus, chapters 1 - 15).
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Исход

[3] Judith is a character in the Old Testament non-canonical book of Judit. She is a Jewish widow who saved her hometown from the Assyrians. She is a symbol of the struggle of the Jews against their oppressors. She is "beautiful and very attractive". After the Assyrian troops besieged her hometown, she dressed up and went to an enemy camp, where she caught the attention of commander Holofernes. When he got drunk and fell asleep, she decapitated him, and the town was saved.
 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Юдифь

[4] Haman obtained the king's consent to issue a decree for the extermination of the Jews. Upon learning this, Mordecai demanded that Esther should intercede before the king for her people. Esther, in fear of losing her position and life, appeared in front of the king and invited him to a feast prepared by her, during which she asked for the Jews to be protected. Learning the real truth, the king ordered Haman to be hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, and sent out a new decree confirming the right of the Jews to exterminate those who attacked them. The Jews rebelled and killed many enemies (about 70 thousand people), and the ten sons of Haman were subjected to the fate of their father.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Есфирь

[5] Sabbatai Zevi (1 August 1 1626, Smyrna, Anatolia, Ottoman Empire – 30 September 1676, Dulcinho, Rumelia, Ottoman Empire) was a kabbalist, one of the most famous Jewish false messiahs; leader of a mass movement of the seventeenth century that spread to  many Jewish communities and received its name from him - Sabbatianism, the heretical line of Judaism. This messianic movement almost ceased when Sabbatai unexpectedly converted to Islam. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шабтай_Цви

[6]  Ferdinand Lassalle (1825, Breslau-1864, Geneva) - German philosopher, lawyer, economist and politician.  https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Лассаль,_Фердинанд
On his messianism and relations with Marx, see V.V. Bolshakov, "With the Talmud and the Red Flag. Secrets of the World Revolution" https://public.wikireading.ru/79295

[7] Quotes from Jewish messianic figures are given by the pages of the book: Eugene Sarom, "Awake Russia", Omsk, Parsus, 2011 (The investigator’s file)
https://books.google.ru/books?isbn=9789471750

[8] About Moses Hesse see Vladimir Bolshakov, “With the Talmud and the Red Flag”. One of the founders of Zionism and “scientific communism”, the mentor of Karl Marx, Moses Hesse wrote "Rome and Jerusalem", which became the Zionist handbook, where he stated: "First comes race struggle, class struggle is secondary ... Every Jew must first of all be a Jewish patriot." (Moses Hesse, "Rome and Jerusalem", Tel-Aviv, 1979).
https://www.litres.ru/vladimir-bolshakov/s-talmudom-i-krasnym-flagom-tayny-mirovoy-revolucii-2/chitat-onlayn/

[9] Peter Luchimson. Preface to the book “The Last Devil. Life and work of Isaac Bashevis-Singer”
 - https://books.google.ru/books?isbn=5040490062  См. также https://www.livelib.ru/author/122117-pjotr-lyukimson

Is Karl Marx a Jewish Messiah or a German Atheist?
 
Undoubtedly, for many Jews, especially atheists, Marx was and remains a figure of the first magnitude. He can be called anti-religious, anti-Christian and, just as important, anti-Judaic and anti-Jewish “messiah”. It might be more appropriate to call him a false Jewish messiah. In the USSR, his messianic role was downplayed because of its sharply anti-Jewish line. Moreover, Soviet atheist propaganda wanted to replace the religious “opium for the people” with more modern “scientific” variety. In any case, it became a revelation for me when, shortly after my escape to Sweden, I found in the library of the University of Gothenburg his article about Jewish love of “huckstering,” “usury” and “money” in general. In a polemic with Bruno Bauer, young Marx addressed this problem head-on:
 
“Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew.
Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.
What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need,  self-interest.
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.
Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time”.[1]
Alas, in the country created according to Marx’s “scientific economy” blueprint, his criticism of the Jews was either not known at all or kept concealed.


[1] К. Мarx, “On The Jewish Question”  https://www.marxists.org/russkij/marx/1844/jewish.htm


Karl Marx as Dr. Frankenstein...

After moving to the USA and joining there a community of university professors and sovietologists, I noticed that my colleagues often condemned Stalin, and, on occasion, Lenin. But to touch Marx was considered somehow indecent and certainly politically incorrect.[1] Suspecting that Marx's calls to overthrow capitalism through the global revolution of the proletariat were not rooted in the OBJECTIVE LAWS OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT (OLSD), as we were taught in the USSR, but in his personality, I decided to investigate this topic further. As a result, in 1978 the conservative magazine “Modern Age" published my article "Karl Marx as Frankenstein: Toward a Genealogy of Communism". I then translated it into Russian for the émigré magazine “GRANI” [2]. The article was highly appreciated by Solzhenitsyn.
 
The basis for the article was the novel-myth of the young English writer Mary Shelley about Dr. Frankenstein’s attempt to create an artificial man in a laboratory. The attempt ended in the creation of the Beast about which his “father” was by no means happy. The Beast (under different pejorative names) eventually fled from the laboratory and Europe. Where to? To the vastness of Russia, where there was always a lot of room for European freaks. Because of the havoc created by the Beast, Dr. Frankenstein dedicated the rest of his life to the capture of his creation.

[1] See my debate with Professor Richard Pipes of Harvard University who dismissed the importance of Marxism in Soviet foreign policy. Richard Pipes's Foreign Strategy: Anti-Soviet or Anti-Russian? Wladislaw G. Krasnow. The Russian Review
Vol. 38, No. 2 (Apr., 1979), pp. 180-191
https://www.jstor.org/stable/128605?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Владислав  Краснов, Была ли стратегия США в Холодной Войне антисоветской или антирусской? О концепции профессора Ричарда Пайпса). 17.07.2015, Russkaya narodnaya liniya (Русская народная линия)

[2] Vladislav Krasnov – "Karl Marx as Frankenstein: Toward a Genealogy of Communism" “Modern Age”, WINTER 1978 - VOL. 22, NO. 1. pp. 72-82. See more at: https://home.isi.org/karl-marx-frankenstein-toward-genealogy-communism#sthash.MmTrb2DQ.dpuf. " See also КАРЛ МАРКС как д-р ФРАНКЕНШТЕЙН, ИЛИ ГЕНЕАЛОГИЯ КОММУНИЗМА, GRANI, No. 107, 1978. Also available at http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=697

Since Dr. Marx began his career as a romantic poet of militant atheist persuasion, in 1977, when I was teaching Russian Studies and Western Civilization courses at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, I conceived of the idea that his theory of creating a classless society in the ‘laboratory’ of the class struggle and world revolution, was spiritually akin to the fictional Dr. Frankenstein's attempt to create an artificial man. At the time, tension in relations between the USSR and the USA were exacerbated by a growing struggle for human rights, including the free departure of Soviet Jews - allegedly to Israel, but more often to the United States.
 
Among Russians, as well as other people of non-Jewish origin, it is customary to assume that some Jews often try to cheat, deceive and swindle non-Jews. With shame and a heavy heart Marx recognized the correctness of such observations. However, what Gentiles do not usually realize is that Jews sometimes cheat other Jews as well, as recently proved by American banker Bernard Madoff (Бернард Мэдофф)[3], who robbed even Israeli charitable associations. By and large, Jews are looking after their own and themselves. This was exactly the case with hundreds of Jewish Bolshevik in the USSR, especially during the Great Terror under Stalin, when the predominantly Jewish ‘guardians of Leninism’ were destroyed. The same happened during the Spanish Civil War. Even now, thousands of followers of Marxism throughout the world are digging their own graves.

[3] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Афера_Бернарда_Мейдоффа


Or is Karl Marx a patient for Sigmund Freud?
 
There is something of an existential psychological problem with the Jews, which affect non-Jews no less. If Marx had lived longer, he could easily have made it onto psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s couch[1]. The probable diagnosis would be the ‘Oedipus complex’.[2] I do not know how familiar Freud was with the teachings of Marx. But if he had bothered to immerse himself in them, he might have diagnosed Marx with a desire not just to surpass, but even kill Jacob, the Father of the Jews, if not Yahweh himself.
 
However, since his university years Marx was immersed more deeply in Greek philosophy than in Jewish religion, Freud might have concluded that he was a follower of Prometheus, who attempted a revolt against Olympus, ruled by Zeus, the Father of the Gods. The fans of Marx lovingly called him ‘Prometheus’, who allegedly endowed humanity with the ability to use the flame, including to set the fire of revolutions.
 
However, if one reads carefully into his youthful poems, written when he dreamed of the glory as a poet, one would understand that Marx was not moved so much by love for the poor, but rather by hatred for the rich, the Gods of the established world order. In terms of mythology, he is less similar to Prometheus the Fire-Bringer for the benefit of mankind than to the alternative ancient image of Prometheus as a God-Hater[3], a Lucifer and demiurge who wants to create a new type of humankind to shame the Olympic establishment. In these attempts Marx succeeded neither less, nor more, than Dr. Frankenstein.
 
In reproaching his contemporaries and radical colleagues for their messianic ambitions, didn’t Marx dress himself in the toga of the secular Messiah? At the same time, he relied on the allegedly scientific and objective law of social development (OLSD). As a result, the false messiah turned out to be not only anti-capitalist, but also anti-Christian, anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist (as Eskin would probably say). Some people have called Marx a self-hating Jew. Apparently  at least since the Age of Reason and French revolution, the “progressive” and “anti-clerical” Western intellectuals have become so enamoured of their own “reason” that they lost all common sense, forgetting, for instance that hatred, including self-hatred, can beget only more hatred and self-annihilation.
 
As for the Russians, they, suffering from their ingrained century-old complex of inferiority toward the West, merely followed the atheist Jewish Marxist shepherds, themselves a tiny minority of their small nation beyond the pale of settlement of the huge Russian Empire. The Russian turmoil and calamity of the 20th century grew out of the fermentation of the yeast of Jewish anti-Judaic heresy.


[1] Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.[4]
Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire... Freud's Jewish origins and his allegiance to his secular Jewish identity were of significant influence in the formation of his intellectual and moral outlook, especially with respect to his intellectual non-conformism, as he was the first to point out in his Autobiographical Study.[35] They would also have a substantial effect on the content of psychoanalytic ideas "particularly in respect of the rationalist values to which it committed itself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
 
[2]  Based on the ancient Greek myth of King Oedipus and the drama of the same name by Sophocles. Oedipus unknowingly kills his father Lai and marries his mother Jocasta. The understanding of the Oedipal situation as a key factor in neurotic diseases arose from Freud's self-analysis, which he conducted after the death of his father. Freud first writes about Oedipus in 1897 in a letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess: "I also found in my own example love for my mother and jealousy for my father ... and now I view this as a universal phenomenon of early childhood. And if this is so, then we can understand the enchanting power of King Oedipus."
       The explanation is given in Freud's book "Interpretation of Dreams" (1899). Freud introduced the term ‘Oedipus complex’ in 1910 in the article "On the special type of object selection in men": "A boy who starts to lust for his mother again and hate his father as a rival ... falls, as we say, under the influence of the Oedipus complex. He cannot forgive his mother for providing a service of sexual intercourse to his father rather than him, and regards it as an act of infidelity."
Since then, the term has come into use among psychoanalysts of the classical school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex
 
[3] See, for instance, the story of Sinister Sites – Rockefeller Center. February 21, 2009
https://vigilantcitizen.com/sinistersites/sinister-sites-rockefeller-center/
http://perevodika.ru/articles/17093.html или http://www.rospisatel.ru/rokfeller.htm

Now let’s go back to Michael
 
In the light of the above, regarding the painfulness of the national question in the era of the revolution, let’s return with Solzhenitsyn to Perm and to the murder of Michael Romanov, Russia’s de-jure last Tsar, and ask ourselves: Don’t we avoid talking about the Perm closely-guarded crime precisely because it was committed by a group of local Chekists, and that all of them, unlike the assassins in Yekaterinburg, were ethnic Russian?

Recently, an American historian Professor Michael Khodarkovsky (not to be confused with Mikhail Khodorkovsky) wrote an article for the New York Times, [1] where he accused Bishop Tikhon, the confessor of President Putin, of inciting ‘anti-Semitism’, for failing to reject the ritual version of the massacre in Yekaterinburg. The American was sensibly answered by Vladimir Arkhangelsky via his blog in the Russian nationalist newspaper "Zavtra"[2]. In search of historical truth, one cannot reject any single version, including the fact that the atrocity was committed at the instigation of the American banker Jacob H. Schiff[3], who financed it; and this was the essence of Archangelsky's reply to Khodarkovsky. In fact, that the story of the ritual murder was not invented by the Patriarchate, but comes from the primary professional investigator Nikolai Sokolov,[4] who worked on fresh tracks soon after  the July 16, 1917 massacre.
 
The article by Arkhangelsky confirms that the massacre in Yekaterinburg continues to attract much more attention in Russia and abroad than the potentially more significant – both for Russia and the West – crime committed in Perm. Archangelsky mentions in passing that "the text of the so-called abdication of Michael Romanov, to whom Nicholas II handed over power, contained the following words: ‘If such would be the will of our great Russian people.’” And then asks: "And what if these great people had wished to express their will not through the Constituent Assembly or through the Council of People's Commissars? It’s now that we say ‘the Great October Revolution’, but back in 1918 everything was unclear.”
 
Of course, it is possible to think in different ways about these atrocities that happened before the breakthrough of Admiral Kolchak's troops through the Ural Mountains. The Bolsheviks called this breakthrough ‘The Perm catastrophe.’ If the conditions had turned out to be favorable for Kolchak's forces, we would now be celebrating a very different anniversary.
 
One such variable was the degree of political maturity of the ‘great people’, as Michael so emphatically called the nation in his Manifesto. I have no doubt that Michael believed in the greatness of the Russian people. However, one cannot but admit that propaganda conducted by the Bolsheviks was most effective across Russia, and especially among the workers of the Urals. As early as the 1890s, the Russian intelligentsia, indulging in ‘legal Marxism’, seduced the workers into hatred towards the rich and the clergy who allegedly turned religion into ‘opium for the people’. No wonder John of Kronstadt,[5] a prominent cleric now canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, as early as before the revolution of 1905, had a prophetic vision of the ‘Black Cross’ overshadowing the Perm region that embraced then not just Perm but also Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk. He shared this vision with a visiting group of Orthodox believers from Kungur saying that the Black Cross cast a gloomy shadow over the whole of Perm region.
 
Recently, Maria Bashmakova, in her article "The Faith of the Red Petrograd", gave a detailed review of the state of Orthodoxy on the eve of the Revolution, not only in the imperial capital, but throughout the country. "As a rule, being a devout Christian, a person treated Orthodoxy as part of a certain order, a set of rituals, the execution of which had been bequeathed to him by the fathers and was unshakable", writes Bashmakova. However, observance of the ritual did not necessarily mean deep faith. Confirmation of this may be found in the memoirs of Ivan Bunin:[6] "The people themselves said of themselves: "we are like wood — both club and icon may come of it, depending on who is working on this wood: Sergius of Radonezh[7] or Yemelyan Pugachev [8]." Bashmakova reasonably concludes: "Naïve faith easily changes to naive atheism, as happened with the majority of peasants."[9]

In the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, Nina Pushkova describes how on the night of 12th to 13th June 1918, a group of Perm Chekists decided to “liquidate” Michael Romanov, who was exiled by the Cheka chief in Petrograd, Moisei Uritsky,[10] on the decision of the Council of People's Commissars. The atmosphere in the city was recalled by Markov, a participant in the murder: "... the time was not particularly calm. Especially worried were the devout old women who gathered near the churches. The priests were agitating against the Bolsheviks claiming they wanted to rob the churches. When the same ‘old ladies of God’ learned of Michael Romanov's stay in town, something like a pilgrimage began to the places where Michael was walking, just to get a glance at the future anointed by God".[11]
 
Pushkova continues: "The local Bolshevik, Gavriil Myasnikov, plotted the murder. He was a brute fostered in the ‘school of hatred’ of Yakov Sverdlov. The latter had often visited Perm preaching eradication of all human mercy and compassion among his local comrades-in-arms."
 
The reference to the ‘school of hatred’ of Yakov Sverdlov [12]  is not accidental, for he is considered to be one of the recipients of financial support from the firm of Jacob Schiff in New York[13]. It does not matter if there was an obvious Jewish trail in the Perm villainy. It is important that the Chekists' hatred for the Romanovs, and the whole traditional way of the Christian country, was nourished from the same source as Lenin, Sverdlov and Uritsky, regardless of whether they were Jews or not. They knew that "their goals [could] only be achieved through the violent overthrow of the entire existing social order." And accordingly, "Let the ruling classes shudder before the Communist Revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose except their chains. They will get the whole world instead."[14]
 
This Manifesto, dictated by Marx, was the trigger for the greatest number of mass massacres of the 20th century.
 
In addition to Myasnikov, in the conspiracy participated other chekists[15] A.V. Markov, V.A. Ivanchenko, I.V. Kolpashchikov and N.V. Zhuzhgov. Although his participation in the murder was minimal, Myasnikov was its main ideological inspirer. Later, when he joined the ‘Workers' Opposition’ to Lenin, he fled abroad and in 1935 published, in Paris, the book "The Philosophy of Murder: Or How I Killed Michael Romanov" ( Философия убийства: или Как я убивал Михаила Романова).[16]
 
According to his memoirs, he wanted to be ahead of the Bolshevik leaders in their desire to "remove Michael from circulation." In "The Philosophy of Murder" Myasnikov wrote: "No public group would ever be able to go for the murder of Michael ... I stand for it alone. It's hard ... Now I'm ready to kill. I am alone. I can talk about it to neither Lenin nor Sverdlov ... I must take upon myself a supreme responsibility."
 
Let's agree with Pushkova that it was a bit of puffery and self-admiration, for Myasnikov knew very well that "If something happened, the fierce Sverdlov would stand up for his faithful student ... he felt that it was Sverdlov who in a month or so would give a secret order to kill not only the Tsar and the Tsarina, but their children as well. Thus, began the bloody orgy of extermination on Russian soil".
 
Participants in the murder did not follow higher moral standards. "The attacker Zhuzhgov, e.g., appropriated to himself  the Grand Duke’s cigarette case, as well as his monogrammed tobacco container, a mouthpiece and a knife. In 1921 he was expelled from the police as a hopeless drunkard", notes Pushkova.
 
Within a week, essentially the same group of bandits attacked the Archbishop of Perm and Kungur, Andronicus (архиепископ Пермский и Кунгурский Андроник). [17] They knew that Michael went to the church where the archbishop served. It is also known that the archbishop stood for the Constituent Assembly. (In his diary, Miсhael also praised the way he conducted the church service). And "Zhuzhgov made Andronicus dig his own grave, buried him alive and only then did Zhuzhgov discharge into his head the entire clip of his pistol ..."
 
In September 1918, another 42 hostages were shot to quell all queries about the fate of Michael.[18]
 
The faith in violence as the only means for the oppressed to achieve fairness and justice replaced for many Russians -- but not for the majority -- the Christian faith that had held the sway for hundreds of years.
 
This commitment to violence is precisely what Eskin called "a joint Russian-Jewish fall into communism". Trotsky, Sverdlov, Uritsky and his comrades broke all the commandments of Moses, not because they forgot them, but because Marx's supposedly fool-proof ‘scientific’ theory demanded it. The ‘Orthodox Christian’ murderers, such as Myasnikov and Zhuzhgov, pulled the triggers of their guns charged with this theory. And the leaders of the proletariat, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev remembered to ‘love thy neighbour’ only when distributing—or receiving-- nomenklatura[19] privilege coupons.
 
Alas, not only Russians and Jews fell into this ‘sin’, but all the peoples of the Russian Empire, as well as the peoples of virtually all the countries that participated in the First World War. However, it is the Russians and the Jews, as the two nations claiming to be messianic, who must take the main responsibility, for in their ‘Titanic pride’, they soared high on the wings of Icarus, stayed up the sky for 73 years, only to painfully hit the ground in 1991, returning the country back to capitalism, arguably of the worse variety than under the tsars. We must not blame each other, but blame ourselves first. Is it not what we repeat every morning when we read the Lord’s prayer asing to  "… forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us"?


[1] “Reviving Old Lies to Unite a New Russia” by Michael Khodarkovsky.  The New York Times, JAN. 11, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/russia-jew-bishop-lies.html

[2] Владимир Архангельский. «Царское дѢло: что мы знаем о ритуальных убийствах, совершаемых в политических целях?» ЗАВТРА. Сообщество «Философия истории», 26 января 2018
http://zavtra.ru/blogs/tcarskoe_dlo

[3] See the biography of Schiff https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шифф,_Джейкоб and in English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff

[4] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_family
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Соколов,_Николай_Алексеевич_(следователь). On the problems of the investigation: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Расследование_обстоятельств_гибели_царской_семьи and on the intervention of Jacob Schiff - Investigator Nikolai Alexeyevich Sokolov, who investigated the murder of the Tsar's Family, died in France. https://rusidea.org/25112307
 
[5] The English version of Wikipedia does not agree with the Russian one on John of Kronstadt, the English stressing his “anti-Semitism” while the Russian elaborates on his good deeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Kronstadt https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иоанн_Кронштадтский
 
[6] Ivan Bunin (1870 – 1953) was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose and poetry. He was a revered by anti-communist white emigres, European critics, and his fellow writers, who viewed him as a true heir to the tradition of Tolstoy and Chekhov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Bunin
 

[7] Sergius of Radonezh (1314 –1392), also transliterated as Sergey Radonezhsky or Serge of Radonezh, was a spiritual leader and monastic reformer of medieval Russia. Together with Seraphim of Sarov, one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most highly venerated saints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergius_of_Radonezh
 
[8] Yemelyan Pugachev was the leader of the Peasants' and Cossacks’ Rebellion of 1773-75 that took place in Russia after Catherine II seized power in 1762. A disaffected ex-lieutenant of the Russian army, he organized insurrection of Yaik Cossacks against a background of peasant unrest and war with the Ottoman Empire. After initial success, Pugachev assumed leadership of an alternative government in the name of the assassinated Tsar Peter III and proclaimed an end to serfdom. The rebellion was a serious challenge to the Empress Catherine II.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugachev%27s_Rebellion
 

[9] Maria Bashmakova, “The Faith of The Red Petrograd” (Вера красного Петрограда) http://www.fontanka.ru/longreads/vera/ See "The close dependence of the Church on the state, affirmed from Peter I, led to a close connection between the state and the Church, with the tsar being the ‘supreme head’, and the Holy Synod, headed by the chief procurator, representing ecclesiastical power and authority."
 
[10] Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky (Russian: Моисей Соломонович Урицкий; January 14, 1873–August 30, 1918) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia. After the October Revolution, he was Chief of Cheka of Petrograd City. Uritsky was assassinated by Leonid Kannegisser, a Jew and military cadet, who then fled into the British embassy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moisei_Uritsky
 
[11] Quoted from the article by Nina Pushkova, "Murder on a bright night. How the Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov was killed" (Убийство в светлую ночь.  Как был умерщвлен великий князь Михаил Романов). The newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, No. 27542 of 10 November 10 2017.
http://www.mk.ru/social/2017/11/09/ubiystvo-v-svetluyu-noch.html
 
[12] Yakov Sverdlov (1885 –1919) was a Bolshevik party organizer and chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. He was born in Nizhny to Jewish parents Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov and Elizaveta Solomonova. His father was a politically active engraver who produced forged documents and stored arms for the revolutionary underground. Yakov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902, and then the Bolsheviks supporting Lenin. He was active fighter in the 1905 revolution while living in the Urals, including Perm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Sverdlov
 
[13] More about Jacob Schiff helping the Bolshevik revolution in Russia read a well-researched article “Wall Street & the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution” by Kerry Bolton. October 28, 2013
https://www.counter-currents.com/2013/10/wall-street-and-the-november-1917-bolshevik-revolution/  Or in Russian: "By order of the secret forces: How supporters of the version of the ritual murder imagine the death of Nicholas II”, 29 November 2017. https://www.znak.com/2017-11-29/kak_storonniki_versii_o_ritualnom_ubiystve_predstavlyayut gibel_nikolaya_ii
 
[14] https://www.marxists.org/russkij/marx/1848/manifesto.htm

[15] Chekist is an agent of the Cheka (ChK), generally an agent of Cheka and its descendants NKVD, KGB, and FSB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekist

[16] G.I. Myasnikov “Philosophy of murder, or Why and how I killed Mikhail Romanov” (in Russian) pub. B. I. Belenkina and V. K. Vinogradova //Minuvsheye: Hist. al. - [Iss.] 18. - M.: Atheneum; St. Petersburg: Feniks, 1995. -
https://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?t=book&num=1006

[17] Archbishop Andronicus (Vladimir Nikolsky) (1870-1918) - from July 1914 the bishop of Perm and Solikamsk; in 1916 he became bishop of Perm and Kungur; in April 1918 elevated to the archbishop. During WWI, he led clerical assistance to the wounded and soldiers’ children. He was killed on 20 June 1918. https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/home/dokumenty/dokumenty-materialy-sledstvia/kommentarii/64

[18] The newspaper "Izvestiya of the Perm Gubernia Executive Committee" on 11 September 1918 gave a list of the hostages who were shot by decree of the Gubcheka: https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/putevoditel/istoriko-publicisticeskij-ocerk/5-k-rasstrelu-zaloznikov

[19] The nomenklatura (Russian: номенклату́ра; Latin: nomenclatura) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the communist party of each country or region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura

​
The Rabbis repent
 
As soon as I wrote the paragraph above, I received an email that the Israeli rabbi Yosef Tzvi ben Porat had already apologised to the Russian people, saying: "We are to blame for everything and we must know why we are being driven away. We created Marxism and Leninism. We captured Russia. We killed 30 million educated Russians. We are wise men and sat down to rule over them."[1] 
 
In fact, it turns out, Ben Porat has made such statements on videos for at least two years; moreover, he believes that revolutionary atheist Jews provoked Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Ben Porat is not alone. Yosef Mizrachi,[2] the American rabbi of the Orthodox denomination has been making similar statements. Of course, the American mega media[3]  strongly impede access to information that undermines their monopoly on political correctness.
 
[1] See the message of 13 March 2018. http://communitarian.ru/news/v-rossii/pokayanie-ravvina-pered-russkim-narodom-my-zakhvatili-rossiyu-ubili-30-mln-obrazovannykh-russkikh_13032018  Unfortunately, in the translation from Hebrew to English there are some errors that have crept in, like "Hellenism" instead of Leninism.

[2] Yosef Mizrachi is a Sefardi Haredi rabbi and founder of DivineInformation.com, an Orthodox Judaism outreach organization, based in Monsey, New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Mizrachi

[3] From 1990 to 2010, the number of major media corporations in the US declined from 50 to 5. https://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/mind-control-theories-and-techniques-used-by-mass-media/


Mikushevich on Mayakovsky
 
Recently, Vladimir Mikushevich (Владимир Микушевич)[1] recalled in the TV Kultura broadcast that, once, Boris Pasternak mentioned that Vladimir Mayakovsky was somewhat similar to Stavrogin in Dostoevsky's novel “The Possessed” (literally in Russian “The Devils”) [2]. Comparison of the Bolsheviks with ‘demons’ is not new. But Mikushevich put a well-founded emphasis on the heroic figure of Mayakovsky, whom Stalin once called "the best and most talented poet of our Soviet era" (and I quite agree with Stalin on this score! ).
 
Mikushevich believes, however, that even though Mayakovsky's rebellion was against God the Father, it was also in the name of God the Son. This could be accepted, but only with the proviso that good intentions are not always justified. Calling himself ‘The Thirteenth Apostle’, Mayakovsky put on himself the mantle of Russian theomachic messianism. Who does not remember these lines of Mayakovskuy’s poem "The Left March"?
 
Down with the law which for us
Adam and Eve have left.
We shall run to death
The Nag of the Past.
Left!
Left!
Left!
 
For Myasnikov, Zhuzhgov, Sverdlov, and other murderers, who acted "for ideological reasons", it was not at all important that Michael was a kind man and cavalier of the Cross of St. George, that he chose to be addressed as citizen Romanov, and that his secretary Johnson asked Uritsky not to separate him from his friend thus putting his own life in jeopardy.
 
Turn Left and March!
Away with verbal rhetoric!
Shut up, you speakers!
Comrade Mauser[3]
has the floor.
 
In this revolutionary atmosphere when violence was openly glorified, the murderers of Perm, or any “Left marchers” for that matter,  could hardly see Michael’s Manifesto, which granted “our great Russian people" universal ballot for elections to the Constituent Assembly, as something more than a "verbal trickery " and a target for “Comrade Mauser."
 
As fate decreed, Mayakovsky later visited Perm and stayed at the same Korolevskiye Nomera hotel.In 1930, thouroughly disillusioned by Communist experiment, the ‘Thirteenth Apostle’ of Revolution turned the Mauser on himself. (Actually, there is a suspicion it was not a suicide)
 
“To get the bourgeoisie, we'll start a fire, a worldwide fire, and drench it
in blood- the good Lord bless us!” was chanted by twelve armed ‘apostles’ of the World Revolution, marching through the streets of the revolutionary Petrograd in Alexander Blok’s eerie poem "The Twelve". Now we know how it all ended.

[1] Vladimir Mikushevich, Soviet and Russian philosopher, poet, and translator translator https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4293282 See in Russian
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Микушевич,_Владимир_Борисович

[2] Vladimir Mikushevich, «Master of the Game». 12 and 14 February 2018. https://tv.mail.ru/moskva/channel/1139/80900210/

[3] Mauser was a German  semi-automatic pistol popular in WWI and Civil War in Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser

Letter to Putin
 
Having lost faith in the ability of the Perm authorities to promote Michael's memory as a defender of the fatherland and a hero peacemaker, I took advantage of the all-Russia press conference of President Vladimir Putin on 15 June 2017 to ask him a question on behalf of the citizens of Perm:
 
15 June 2017
One hundred years ago on 16 March 1917, Michael Alexandrovich Romanov signed the Manifesto, according to which the people had the right to determine the form of government by popular elections to the Constituent Assembly. Having been defeated in the elections, the Bolsheviks disbanded the Constituent Assembly. After August 1991, Russia rejected a one-party communist dictatorship. In 1993 the principle of popular elections was laid down in the current Constitution. The Association of the House of Romanov recognizes the Manifesto of Mikhail as the last legal act of the Russian Empire. When will the memory of Michael, as the "Tsar"-Democrat, who paved the way for the current constitution of Russia, be recognized and honoured at the highest level? Sincerely, V.G. Krasnov, the city of Perm, where Michael was executed without trial.
http://moskva-putinu.ru/#page/form
Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA www.raga.org
I still haven’t had any reply.


Saints Boris and Gleb: a curious precedent
 
The disproportion of attention of the Russian public to Nicholas, at the expense of his younger brother, is so great that one has to ask: did the Russian public overcome the turmoil in their minds sown a century ago, which led to fratricidal civil war and purges, to the system of denunciations and ‘patriotism’, instilled by slave labor in the system of the GULAG? Why do we still wage a civil war between the two royal brothers who have long since reconciled with each other, forgiven each other, forgiven us sinners, and were both canonized by the Orthodox Church outside Russia in 1981? But didn’t Russia go mad, when, nearly a hundred years ago, almost the entire country lost its mind through the educational program of ‘likbez’ and submitted herself to the OBJECTIVE LAW OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT (OLSD) through violent revolution and class struggle?
 
I hope this is not the case. After all, the deeper roots of Christian faith, as well as other faiths, nor simple decency, were not fully extinguished. However, three generations of brainwashing not only created a flawed information base, but also influenced the mentality of Russians[1]. The revolution was probably indeed the greatest in history, if three generations of citizens lived in a system of values ​​radically different from all surrounding countries and from Russia’s own past. Few people are now ready to follow Lenin’s ‘precepts’, but his slogan WHO WILL BEAT WHOM is still widely perceived by many as reasonable, especially if the MIGHT is on your side. But isn’t it better to try to resolve the conflict through reconciliation and compromise, rather than relying on might?
 
However, the compromise seems alien to our modern mentality and is even perceived as a "bourgeois" or "western" influence. At the same time, we forget that, historically, Russian people have always sought CONSENT, that is, a compromise, or, as they say now, a "consensus" - when both sides win something. That’s how it was at the veche, and at the communal village gatherings, and in the Cossack circle, and at the Zemsky Sobor. And in the Constituent Assembly, for sure, a compromise could have been found, despite its trend in favor of the left-wing radicals.
 
Instead of compromise, the Bolsheviks led the country along an extremely Western, even anti-Russian path. They boasted that Marxism-Leninism was based on the ideas of German philosophy, on the experience of French revolutionary socialism and the British labor movement. Under the influence of an inferiority complex among both Russian and Jewish Bolsheviks, the country rejected its own traditions, both the New and the Old Testament, and went to the most ‘progressive’ extremist West for wisdom - and got stuck in this ‘WEST trap’ [Translator’s note: the Russian word западня meaning ‘trap’ has the same root as the word Запад meaning ‘West’] for almost 73 years! Judging by the present illusions of the noisiest part of the Russian intelligentsia, Russia has not yet escaped from the ‘West trap’.

[1] Vladislav Krasnov, “Russian mentality or Western states of minds.” About Ronald Hingley's book “The Russian Mind” («Русский склад ума или западное состояние умов. О книге Рональда Хингли «Русский склад ума»),журнал «Континент», №17, 1978  The Continent Magazine, No. 17 http://magazines.russ.ru/continent/2013/152/18k.html
 
Glazunov and Putin
 
The corrosiveness of the Soviet mentality is apparent even among those who cannot be suspected of sympathizing with the Marxist experiment in Russia. In the summer of 2009, Ilya Glazunov[1] held a remarkable dialogue at his exhibition. President Putin was invited to the Gallery of Ilya Glazunov in Moscow, and the artist kindly became his guide. Their comments when they passed in front of the painting "Eternal Russia" were captured on video:
 
"But Boris and Gleb, [2] although being saints, had given the country away without a fight," said Putin, looking at the canvas where the saints were depicted. "They just lay down and waited to be killed. This cannot be a good example for us...”
"I absolutely agree with you," said the artist, hurriedly.[3]

[1] I personally knew Glazunov and wrote "In memory of Ilya Glazunov, a visionary artist” http://www.raga.org/novosti/pamyati-glazunova-krasnov

[2] Boris and Gleb (Old Slavic: Борисъ и Глѣбъ, Russian: Борис и Глеб, Boris i Gleb; Ukrainian: Борис і Гліб), Christian names Roman and David, respectively, were the first saints canonized in Kievan Rus' after the Christianization of the country. Their feast day is observed on July 24 (August 6).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_and_Gleb

[3]  See. Andrei Rublev's Museum. Published on 31 Jul. 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc_UVNTAThg

Vladimir Krupin

This conversation touched the famed Russian writer Vladimir Krupin [1] so much that I am moved to quote his indignant letter in full:
      
"Why does Putin not understand the meaning of the martyrdom of princes Boris and Gleb? This issue is complicated because the head of the government speaks at the artist's exhibition as if we were at a time when Cross processions were banned. Boris and Gleb are the first Russian saints. They are holy because they lived in God's way and fulfilled God's will, obeying the elder in the family.
         All of us, sinful, still have to grow up to understand the greatest feat of the first Russian saints Boris and Gleb. Why did these humble, innocently killed people, after their martyrdom, appear to the holy and blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky before the Battle on the Neva and the battle on Lake Peipus? Why did they come to help Dimitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo field? ...
        These are the vestiges of the Bolshevik or even Chekist thinking that call us to fight to the last breath. I hope that all of us will live long enough to witness when our authorities will finally understand that the country entrusted to them is not just a state, but Holy Rus…"
 
[1] Vladimir Krupin (b. 1941) is a major Russian writer, religious author and educator. A member of the Village prose movement and noted for his folklore-rooted style, he is best known for his 1980 Novy Mir-published satirical novel Zhivaya Voda (Aqua Vitae) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Krupin

Arseniy Zamostyanov
 
Responding to this episode was a journalist of the independent patriotic site “Pereprava” (meaning Crossing from Soviet mentality to New Russia).
 
Arseny Zamostianov says he has no intention to "mock Putin". He resists the "all-powerful fashion (among the intelligentsia) to scold Putin." He is convinced that, in this exchange, neither Putin nor Glazunov "indulged in hypocrisy or prevarication. Glazunov has been consistent in glorifying the feats of arms all his life, Putin - as an athlete, officer and politician – wants to project himself as the winner….”
 
Nevertheless, the young journalist thinks it was his Christian duty to explain to Putin that, "the holiness of Boris and Gleb was manifested in the fact that they ‘gave everything up without a fight’. True, not quite ‘everything’, but everything that is worldly and material”.
 
He made clear that disparaging remarks, made by Putin and Glazunov, about Saints Boris and Gleb are typical for whole generations of Russians raised in the Soviet era: "Humility. How difficult it is for a proud modern man to adapt this quality. From others, we demand humility every day …. Boris and Gleb became saints because they refused to transgress the Christian commandment of humility. They did not cling to life. Instead they prayed for us to warm our hearts".[1]
 
When I was teaching Russian studies in the United States, one of my sources was the book by Oxford professor Timothy Ware "The Orthodox Church"[2]. Timothy (Timofei) converted from the Church of England to Orthodoxy and later became a monk and bishop named Kallistos. He explained his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy thus: by glorifying Boris and Gleb in Kievan Rus, Orthodoxy, more than other denominations, approached the essence of Christianity through self-deprecation (kenosis) in imitation of Christ.[3] "Humility goes above pride”, says a Russian proverb rooted in the New Testament. In the opinion of Bishop Kallistos, the spirit of Christian humility inspires classical Russian literature from Fyodor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy.

​Professor Ware’s book has become the standard introduction to the Orthodox Church across the English-speaking world. Orthodoxy continues to elicit great interest among Western Christians, and Professor Ware asserts that an understanding of its standpoint is necessary before the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches can be reunited. 
 
Returning to the episode in the Glazunov Museum, no one expects that our warriors and politicians necessarily behave like Saints Boris and Gleb. However, Russia needs now, like never before, to honor ALL HER SAINTS, that have shone in the Russian Land. We need not to denigrate any of them.


[1] ARSENIY ZAMOSTYANOV АРСЕНИЙ ЗАМОСТЬЯНОВ| 6 AUGUST 2017. Boris and Gleb: "They lay down waiting to be killed?” http://www.pravmir.ru/boris-i-gleb-legli-i-zhdali/

[2]  Timothy Ware, “The Orthodox Church”, 2nd ed. (Pelican, 1993). See his memories of the transition to Orthodoxy “Strange Yet Familiar: My Journey to the Orthodox Church”-Bishop Kallistos (Ware)
http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/ocrc/2009/06/strange-yet-familiar-my-journey-to-the-orthodox-church-bishop-kallistos-ware/

[3] See the definition of Kenosis (Greek κένωσις - devastation, exhaustion, κενός - emptiness): a Christian theological term meaning the Divine self-emptying of Christ through his incarnation up to his voluntary acceptance of suffering and death on the Cross. The term is taken from Phil. 2: 7: "Self-emptied [εκένωσεν] Himself, taking the form of a slave ..." Biography of the Bishop: http://kallistosware.blogspot.ru/

​Four-image icon
 
The idea of ​​comparing the martyrdom of Nicholas and Michael with that of Saints Boris and Gleb came to me while studying Michael’s diaries and correspondence in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. I shared this idea with the writer on the Romanov theme Alina Chadayeva (Алина Чадаева)[1] and her son Andrei Avdeyev (Андрей Авдеев).[2]. Being a talented enamel artist, Andrei had already created a series of enamel icons for a number of Russian churches and gave me the image of Archangel Michael as a present.

[1] О Чадаевой см. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Чадаева,_Алина_Яковлевна
[2] Об эмали Авдеева см. http://andreyavdeev.com/

We consulted the rector of the Church of St. John the Theologian in St. Petersburg, Father Gennady Belovolov, the creator and director of the Museum Apartment of St. John of Kronstadt (Музея-квартира Святого Иоанна Кронштадтского)[2]. He had already responded enthusiastically to the Perm initiative of honoring Mikhail Alexandrovich as a saint. In May 2010 he organized a forum in the Grand Duke’s palace in St. Petersburg. In conversation after the Forum, Father Gennady has given his blessing to make a sketch of the Four-image Cross Icon. The icon painter and enameller Andrei painted it in 2012[3].
 
[3] https://blagovest.cofe.ru/bez-rubriki/Vserossiyskiy-Batyushka-Ioann-Kronshta-B

[4] DIARY OF THE ARCHPRIEST GENNADY BELOVOLOV
 http://otets-gennadiy.livejournal.com/12465.html
https://sites.google.com/site/dimovromanovperm/home/dokumenty/krasnov-vladislav-georgievic
​

​
Vladimir Guschik
 
I suspect that the less-than enthusiastic attitude toward Michael in present-day Russia is rooted in the same thing as the denigration of Saints Boris and Gleb. A drastic change in the mentality of the Russian people occurred during the 73-year-old distortion of Russian history and culture by Soviet propaganda. It changed not only politics and the economy, but the whole system of moral values. After all, it used no stops to glorify the "Greatest Revolution in the History of Humanity." As Lenin put it, "Anything that contributes to the victory of socialism is moral." Lenin’s attitude to morality echoed that of Karl Marx. As one German socialist put it, “The moment anyone started to talk to Marx about morality, he would roar with laughter.”[1]
 
This change was no less radical than the reform of Amenhotep IV in Ancient Egypt, or the anti-clerical extremism of the Great French Revolution. At least, the Russians, including our Jews, can claim the palm of primacy, for the ancient Egyptians and the French ‘Enraged Ones’ (“Enragés” ) were confused for no more than 15 years, while our folks marched in the wilderness for almost 73 years only to arrive back at CAPITALISM of an even more dubious variety.
 
I concluded my speech at the Solzhenitsyn House with the words of Vladimir Guschik (Владимир Гущик),[2] the Bolshevik commissar of the Gatchina Palace, where Michael was kept until he was deported to Perm. After fleeing to the ‘bourgeois’ Estonia, Guschik wrote: "Remembering this man, I think: With what kind of bright impulse will you, Russia, wash away his innocent blood? Having torn down this beautiful man, what will you give in return? Will you atone for the pure blood of the Last Michael?"


[1] The German socialist and philosopher Karl Vörlander recalled: “The moment anyone started to talk to Marx about morality, he would roar with laughter.”
https://isreview.org/issue/82/marxism-morality-and-human-nature

[2] Vladimir Guschik later emigrated to bourgeois Estonia. He worked as an editor of the literary magazine "Panorama," maintaining relations with Nicholas Roerich. Since the spring of 1940, he was a secret Soviet intelligence agent in Estonia watching the local White Guards and carrying out economic espionage in favor of the USSR. On 4.01.1941 he was arrested and charged with serving in the White Army, having contacts with anti-Soviet circles and writing counter-revolutionary works. At the beginning of the war, he was taken from the Tallinn prison to the city of Kirov. He was sentenced to death, a penalty that was later commuted to ten years in prison. He died of lung sarcoma in 1947. http://russianestonia.eu/index.php?title=Гущик_Владимир_Ефимович


Mausoleum not only of Lenin
 
At the meeting in Sologubovka, I have already suggested a compromise version of the evaluation of the October Revolution. Say, let's reject the "Leninist path" of historical nihilism, when we destroy monuments that are not to the liking of the new authorities. Let Lenin rest where his fans laid him down, for they still exist in Russia and abroad. However, in order to consolidate society, it is necessary to recognize the drastic changes that have occurred since 1991. A concession to the opposition, which Lenin did not tolerate in his lifetime, is also necessary. Now let him endure it in eternity. It is easy and inexpensive to do so, if we convert Lenin's Mausoleum to a Mausoleum of the Revolution by including in it such exhibits from the opposition as the Manifesto of the Abdication of Nicholas II and the Manifesto of the Non-Renunciation of Michael II. Let the citizens of Russia see firsthand what the dispute was "all about".
 
As for Lenin, let him stay. Let his admirers know that his eternal sleep is enhanced by his favorite documents, such as Order No. 1 which abolished subordination in the army thus assuring Russia’s defeat in WWI. Let his admirers know that the decree of the Council of People's Commissars on the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly advanced Lenin’s goal of civil war. If the Communist Party of the Russian Federation considers these exhibits insufficient, let them place in the Museum the words of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" calling for violence. Of course, the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation may need to make an exemption because call for violence is unconstitutional. In view of the unreliability of the Internet age, it is better to carve these documents in marble, observing the style of the Sumerian ziggurat. Such peace-loving compromise gestures would signal the beginning of the atonement of the "pure blood of the Last Michael" inside the country.

Self-immolation
 
As for the subject of foreign policy, the peacemaker Michael had something to say. Recently, President Vladimir Putin unequivocally announced to the whole world that Russia is ready to repel any threat to its sovereignty, even thermonuclear. Putin is well aware of the high risk of self-immolation of the entire planet. He can be understood even when he says "Why should we have such a world if Russia won’t exist in it?" (Зачем нам такой мир, если в нем не будет России?)[1]. Any country has the right to ask such a question. Therefore, the Leninist excitement for beating on one’s chest “WHO WILL BEAT WHOM” should give way to mutual concessions as long as the risk of nuclear self-immolation hangs over the Earth. Only by mutual concessions it is possible to remove this threat to the existence of our beautiful planet.
 
Canadian professor Michel Chossudovsky (Мишель Чоссудовский) writes that the question of whether or not to be at war is being decided now by the bosses of the Western media, who, in advance, try to portray the real aggressor as a victim, in order to deceive the world’s public opinion. He left no doubt that the main threat comes from the United States. [2]  

Another brave critic of US foreign policy, Nathanael Kappner[3], a New York Jew who converted to Russian Orthodoxy and is now an independent video commentator, blames the American neocons, who are mostly Jewish former Trotskyists, for driving Rex Tillerson out and pushing President Trump to a war with Iran. Where this kind of extremism is leading to, Russia already knows. It's time to remind the whole Planet about this.
 
At the height of the Cold War, Albert Einstein wisely warned us by saying: "I do not know what kind of weapons they will be fighting with in World War III, but in World War IV they will be fighting with sticks and stones". I think that this warning would have been supported by both the cavalry general Mikhail Romanov and artillery captain Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Each of them fought bravely and with dedication in the defense of their country in the First and Second World wars respectively. And each of them had also enough courage to fight for civil peace and justice.
 
Dr. Vladislav Krasnov, former professor and head of the Russian Department of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, head of the Association of Americans for Friendship with Russia RAGA (www.raga.org). The author of the book Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth («Новая Россия: от коммунизма к национальному возрождению») https://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4184036/

1 April 2018, Moscow             
© W.G. Krasnow, 2018
Translated by © Marina George, 21 May 2018   
 
[1] Putin, 7 March 2018 http://www.rosbalt.ru/russia/2018/03/07/1687307.html

[2] Michel Chossudovsky. “Central to an understanding of war, is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. A good versus evil dichotomy prevails. The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims. The public is misled”. Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2012 book)
https://www.globalresearch.ca/towards-a-world-war-iii-scenario-breaking-the-big-lie/5348384  Global Research, March 09, 2018

[3] Brother Nathanael, “Tillerson Out, Neocons In!” March 20, 2018 - “I mean, when neocon Jews and their shills lie, we’re not really upset, and nobody bats an eye.” http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1279

All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org

​Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:29 pm
​
Well the time is approaching, coming close to zero hour. I'm on round two of trying to obtain my Russian visa, first time shot down due to minor technicalities. Sooo, hopefully, by the 17th or so I should have it in hand and will be on my way to SVO. A couple days in Moscow, maybe a side-trip to St Pete then down to Rostov for the trip to Donetsk. Russell Bentley has agreed to meet us at the border to help me get in, my friend Sergey should have no problem since he is Russian. May be a bit of an ordeal for me. We are looking at 2-3 days there to do some documentation that we plan to put on Sergey's channel on YouTube (Real Russia Channel).

Seems like we are on the verge of WW3 with the Zionist republicrats spoiling for war with Russia. I am embarrassed and ashamed to be an American. What a horrible time.

​Fri May 18, 2018 12:48 pm

Okay, just got back from 23 days in Russia and had a very successful trip which included meeting Russell Bentley in Donetsk and Vladislav in Moscow! Really, all want very well considering how many chances there were for things to go wrong. I would have never gotten into DPR had it not been for the help of Russell Bentley BTW. Had long conversations with FSB both going in and coming back out. Luckily, I had been pre-cleared going in or else I never would have made it. We made several good videos which I'll include here:

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

"Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the country's parliament, speaking about Russia's success in the defense sector, relations with the US and NATO, social and economic development of the country, as well as Moscow's plans concerning the technological advance in big data, AI and cryptocurrency."

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201803011062103713-putin-address-federal-assembly/​

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​Although lately Western scholars have begun to pay attention to various manifestations of the rise of ethnic Russian nationalism as distinct from official "Soviet patriotism" [1] they have virtually ignored the phenomenon of Il'ia Glazunov, a Soviet painter who is also a foremost protagonist of that nationalism. [2] The chief reason for this lack of scholarly interest lies in the fact that not only has Glazunov been a controversial figure but he was also accused of Russian chauvinism, anti-Semitism, and of being a KGB agent.[3] As a result, a sort of taboo has been raised around his name. Convinced that this taboo prevents us from a better understanding of what is going on in the USSR, I intend to break it by presenting below my analysis of a unique Soviet source, namely, the two books of uncensored comments offered by Soviet visitors at Glazunov's art exhibits which took place in Moscow and Leningrad in 1978 and 1979 respectively. In defiance of the authorities, the two books of comments had been photo stated and leaked into samizdat circulation before they reached the West where they were published as a tamizdat publication under the title, Khudozhnik i Rossia.[4]

* This paper was first presented (in Russian) at the national convention of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages on December 30, 1982, in Chicago.

1 See, for instance, Edward Allworth, ed., Ethnic Russia in the USSR: the Dilemma of
Dominance (New York: Pergamon, 1980); John Dunlop, The New Russian Revolutionaries
(Boston: Nordland, 1976), and The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1983); Alexander Yanov, The Russian New Right (Berkeley:
Institute of International Studies, 1978); Albert Boiter, "Conflicting Views of Russian
Nationatism," Slavic Studies, (Japan) No. 29, 1982, pp.123-133.

2 Allworth's Ethnic Russia has only one passing reference to him. John E. Bowlt dismissed
him as "A Reliable Soviet Citizen" (the title of his article) in Art News, October 1977, pp.
109-110; and S. Frederick Starr responded to the cancellation of Glazunov's 1977 show with
an article, "Soviet Painter Poses a Question" (Smithsonian, 8, pp. 101-104, December 1977)
in which he declared him a neo-Stalinist but allowed that he is also "as much mystery as his
painting." However, as early as 1972, Abraham Rothberg recognized Glazunov as an
"exceptional" phenomenon in Soviet art and put his name next to Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, and
the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny in his book, The Heirs of Stalin: Dissidence and the Soviet
Regime, 1953-1970 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), p.366.

3 See, for instance, John Barron, KGB: the Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents (New York:
Bantam, 1974), p. 145; and Frederick C. Barghoorn, "Four Faces of Soviet Russian
Ethnocentrism," in Ethnic Russia, p. 6l.
​
4 Khudozhnik i Rossiia, published by "Grad Kitezh," Gesellschaft fur Forderung russischer
Kunst. D-4000 Dusseldorf, West Germany, 1980 (henceforth will be referred to, in the text,
as Kitezh).

The main focus of my analysis will be on Glazunov's art as a social (that is, cultural, ideological, and political), rather than an artistic phenomenon; hence, special attention will be paid to the impact of his art on the Soviet public in the context of the rise of ethnic Russian self-awareness. I intend to steer clear of offering a judgment on Glazunov from either the aesthetic or ethical viewpoint, and do neither expect to make him a less controversial figure, nor to clear him of all charges.

Il'ia Sergeyevich Glazunov was born into the family of a historian in 1930 in Leningrad. During the siege of Leningrad by the Germans, the eleven year-old boy witnessed how most of his relatives, including his father, died of starvation. He himself barely survived thanks to being evacuated to a village in the Novgorod oblast' where he first came in contact with traditional Russian peasant culture. He studied at the prestigious Repin Art Institute in Leningrad. Ironically, his first recognition came from abroad in 1956 when he was awarded a Grand Prix at an international show in Prague. In a response to this award, he was honored with his first personal exhibit in Moscow in February 1957. Since then he has been an enfant terrible of Soviet art.
​
Dominated by a starkly realistic portrayal of the starvation in besieged Leningrad, his first exhibit immediately came under attack from the stalwarts of socialist realism who accused him of a lack of patriotism, heroism, and party spirit. In a letter published in Vecherniaia Moskva (Moscow Evening News), party hacks of the Union of Soviet Artists dubbed his art "dubious spiritual food," incompatible with the "ideational-aesthetic" requirements of the party. They also denounced him for infusing his Russian themes "with mystical and even churchly adumbration." [5] Glazunov's own teacher at the Institute, Academician B. Ioganson, joined the chorus of his detractors. As a result, he barely managed to graduate from the Institute, and upon graduation was sent to teach at a provincial high school.

Had it happened under Stalin, the young artist would have been doomed to obscurity, or worse. However, in the atmosphere of the post-Stalin thaw, Glazunov was able to bounce back as his non-conformism has attracted the attention of the restless young generation.[6] Moreover, he was defended in the Soviet press by a number of art critics, and even by the high-ranking official writer Nikolai Tikhonov. During the 1960s, his art evolved along the themes of Russian national heritage.

Still, although Glazunov was allowed to hold personal exhibits abroad (in Poland, 1960 ; Italy, 1963) in order to promote a "liberal" image of the post-Stalin regime, his second personal exhibit in Moscow in 1964 again came under attack of the official critics, and was closed after only three days. Only in 1967 did the party bureaucrats decide that they had him broken, and he was made a member of the Union of Soviet Artists.

5 Ibid., p. 6.
6 I personally met Glazunov on the premises of a Moscow University dormitory on the Lenin
Hills around 1958. Accompanied by his wife, Nina, and Evgenii Evtushenko, he was
desperately trying to show some of his pictures in students' private rooms. Together with a
number of other dissidents, I helped him move pictures from one room to another. Although
all of us felt the excitement of conspiring against the authorities with the "forbidden" artist,
the acquaintance remained, on my part, a chance encounter.
​

For Soviet ​propaganda purposes, he was frequently sent abroad (Vietnam, 1966; Laos, 1967; France, 1968; Chile, 1973, etc.) and gradually established himself as a "court painter" for both Soviet and foreign dignitaries (Leonid Brezhnev, Urho Kekkonen of Finland, Otto Jens Krag of Denmark, King Carl Gustav of Sweden, Indira Gandhi, Salvatore Allende, etc.). For himself, he continued to portray scenes and characters from Russian history and to illustrate the works of the classics of Russian literature, especially those of his favorite author, Dostoevskii. [7]
​
If the party bureaucrats had thought that they had him broken, they were bitterly disappointed when in June 1977 he defied them by cancelling his largest-ever personal show, planned to be held in the Central Exhibition Hall (Manege) in Moscow. Glazunov cancelled the show because his sponsors refused to display a number of his works which he considered indispensable, including his opus magnum, the huge, 10 by 20 foot canvas, "The Mystery of the 20th Century."

1. The Three Most Controversial Pictures

In "The Mystery," which he has called "a work of philosophical realism," Glazunov apparently aims at portraying a spiritual dilemma of our age by juxtaposing such major political and cultural figures as Lenin, Trotsky, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso with the more sinister figures of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, and Stalin. Stalin seems to dominate this century by occupying center stage. Significantly, Stalin is portrayed as lying in state on a bier floating in a sea of blood. Even more indicative of Glazunov's philosophical trust is a sympathetic portrayal of Tzar Nicholas II and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Tzar is portrayed as holding in his arms the murdered crown prince, Aleksei, with a Russian church tumbling in the background. The innocence of the martyred prince is emphasized by a halo. Such was the beginning of the bloody bacchanalia of the 20th century, the artist seems to be saying. Solzhenitsyn, with a zek number on his chest, is placed at the right flank of the picture, whereas, at the left, Glazunov places his own self-portrait. Thus, the affinity between the two, in their roles of principal witnesses of the age, is suggested. The only bright spot in the picture is the white-clad figure of the Savior which hovers over it all.

In spite of the obvious "anti-Soviet"[8] implications of "The Mystery," to everybody's surprise, Glazunov not only eluded punishment but was allowed to hold the exhibit a year later.

​7 See Glazunov, Pisate/' i khudozhnik: proizvedeniia russkoi klassicheskoi literatury v
illiustratsiiakh Il'i Glazunova (Moscow: Izobrazitel'noe Iskusstvo, 1979). Introduced by
Vladimir Soloukhin, this is the last book on Glazunov that was published in the USSR after
the Moscow Exhibit. Previous publications, all in small editions, include the following
collections: 1. Iazykova, Il'ia Glazunov (Moscow: Izobrazitel'noe Iskusstvo, 1973); Vasilii
Zakharchenko, Il'ia Glazunov: Fotoal'bom (Moscow: Planeta, 1978).
8 The term "anti-Soviet" is used in this article not in a strictly juridical sense but as a label
which Soviet propaganda often uses in order to censure certain ideological, ethical, and
aesthetic attitudes even when these do not necessarily challenge Soviet political system or
violate Soviet laws.
​

When the exhibit was opened on June 3, 1978, "The Mystery" was not there, but nonetheless, Glazunov managed to show two other highly controversial pictures, "The Return" and "To Your Health!"

The theme of "The Return" is the story of the prodigal son. It depicts a young man, clad only in jeans, kneeling before a Christlike figure with features of a Russian peasant. Behind the "son'''s back, and in the foreground of the picture is a macabre scene of rural desolation, misery, sacrilege, debauchery, crime, barbed-wire, and death symbolized by a table on which a severed head is served on a plate. The scene seems to be presided over by the devilish grin of a half-concealed figure in which one may recognize Lenin. Behind the "father," and receding into the upperleft background, there are easily recognizable figures of Russia's past, including Sergei of Radonezh, the foremost Russian saint, the saintly prince Aleksandr Nevskii, Suvorov, Dostoevskii, Pushkin, Lomonosov, Chaikovskii, Peter I, a Russian beauty, and several others. The symbolism of the picture is clear: the salvation of today's "prodigal" Soviet Russia is in the return to her historical, cultural, and spiritual roots buried in the past. The only other exit from the dead-end of Soviet life seems to be suggested at the bottom where another young man seems to be escaping from under barbed-wire into a trough over which three huge, fat, obnoxious swine are standing. The swine are shown as if they were coming from a modern metropolis, symbolized by a sky-scraper. This may suggest that the "son" has rejected not only the misery of Soviet existence but also the m'aterialist alternative to it, be it at home or abroad, Just as ominous and unappealing is the upper right corner of the picture where a black sky is pierced by a sort of missile or space craft soaring under a bright red sail.

In "To Your Health!" Glazunov portrays a typical Russian muzhik who could be a kolkhoznik or a factory worker. Shabbily dressed in a padded laborer's jacket decorated with a medal which shows that he is a veteran of World War IT, he sits in front of a collage of Soviet propaganda posters and appears to be ready to down a glass of vodka. The only zakuska he has is a loaf of bread and a cucumber lying on a newspaper whose headline reads, "Today in the World." He has led a hard and far from prosperous life but his indomitable spirit is evinced in his mischievous and ironic smile. The main effect of the picture is produced by the sharp contrast between the reality of the muzhik and the boastfulness of the posters. The latter include the Marx-and-Lenin tandem, appealing for unity of the communist movement; an African calling for liberty and equality; a Vietnamese soldier proclaiming communist victory; a triumphant Soviet cosmonaut; two happy Soviet workers congratulating each other because a tractor is now doing their heavy manual work; and the hammer-and-sickle emblem of the USSR, proclaiming pride of Soviet citizenship, with a superimposed Soviet passport refracted in the glass of vodka. The suggested message is crystal clear: whatever achievements Soviet propaganda can boast of, they are paid for by the Russian muzhik, the veritable Soviet work-horse in war and peace.[9] It is a Soviet variant of the old Russian saying about serfdom: "While one works with a plough, seven are waiting with a spoon (Odin s soshkoi, semero s lozhkoi)." The picture raises the question whether the Soviet government cares for his health.

9 Since one of the posters proclaims, "I am a citizen of the Soviet Union," the Russian muzhik
may be understood as an everyman, that is the exploited working person of any nationality of
the USSR.

The above three paintings indicate Glazunov's preponderant ideological thrust, characteristic of his art. It is quiet obvious that his art is not only contrary to the dogmas of socialist realism but has strong, thinly veiled, "anti-Soviet" implications. In any event, it is a far cry from anything the Soviet government has ever tolerated, much less allowed to be shown in public. Why such an exception for Glazunov? One plausible explanation is that Glazunov's popularity at home and reputation abroad are such that the government simply could not afford another scandal of forcing an established artist into open dissidence. Another possible explanation is that Glazunov may have enjoyed the support and protection at the highest levels of the KGB, Army, and Party apparatus. The third explanation (which dose not exclude the other two) is that the government decided to use his exhibits as a sort of opinion poll in order to gauge the strength of Russian nationalism as a cohesive bond for the regime, in the event they might need to repair or replace entirely the official internationalist ideology.

In any case, the Moscow exhibit cannot be explained away as a mere slip on the part of the ideological watchdogs. For one thing, it was shown for a full month as announced. Moreover, fifteen months later, it was followed by an identical exhibit in Leningrad which was also shown for a month, from September 28 through October 27, 1979. The latter was held in spite of the efforts of the Cultural Department of the Leningrad party organization, headed by G. Pakhomova, to have it cancelled or, at least, shown without the most controversial pictures. Only after Glazunov again threatened to cancel the exhibit, was the local party organization overruled by someone higher-up, and the exhibit shown in full. [10]

2. The Two Books of Comments

In the West, both exhibits created sensations, not only because they were allowed to take place at all, but also because they attracted the largest crowds ever in the history of Soviet art. Whereas the Moscow exhibit had some 600,000 visitors, the Leningrad exhibit was seen by nearly a million people.[11] On both occasions, visitors were allowed to write down their opinions in special comment books (knigi otzyvov) as is customary in Soviet exhibition halls. Thanks to the Kitezh publication, the contents of these two comment books are now available in the West. Needless to say that in the absence of public opinion polls, these books are unique documents which offer Western scholars a rare opportunity to peep into the minds of Soviet people, a largely terra incognita for outsiders.

There are about 1,465 entries in the Moscow book and 622 in the Leningrad book. Together, they represent well over two thousand comments which are perhaps the largest statistical body of opinion on Soviet art available in the West. It should be kept in mind, however, that the source does not easily lend itself to statistical analysis for which it was not specifically intended. For one thing, the majority of entries are anonymous. By spot-checking, I estimate that about 57 percent of all entries in the Moscow book are anonymous, and the corresponding figure for Leningrad approaches two-thirds.

​10 Khudozhnik, p.153.
11 Ibid., p. 15. These figures are especially significant because, according to the Kitezh
publishers, the exhibit commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union attracted
only 50,000 people in three months.

Although the majority of the signed entries are signed by a single person, there are many entries signed by a group of people, or else refer to some unnamed "friends" and "colleagues" who are said to share the same opinion. No attempt was made to quantify entries according to sex, age, profession, or by counting the number of signatures. Nonetheless, if we consider each entry as an act of civil expression, the totality of comments is certainly reflective of a general trend of public opinion.

A most striking feature of both books is the spontaneity, directness, and passion of expression. It is as if the volcano of public opinion, dormant for over sixty years of Soviet power, had suddenly erupted and the people who had been mute for too long suddenly acquired the gift of speech. Although the overwhelming majority of comments are positive, there is not a trace of that obligatory unanimity which has been a hallmark of Soviet propaganda. Leaving no one indifferent, the exhibits introduced a degree of polarization which is highly uncharacteristic of Soviet society. The comments themselves are widely divergent in size, form, content and tone. They range form one-word remarks, such as "Great," "Thanks," and" Agree," to lengthy essays and even poems about the virtues, or faults, of Glazunov and his works. Their language is remarkably free from the usual cant of Soviet propaganda.

Having divided all entries into three categorise, "Postive," "Negative," and "Others,"[12] I have obtained the following results :

That the majority of comments were "Positive" is hardly surprising, but the margin of difference is. In Moscow, eight out of every ten visitors liked Glazunov, and in Leningrad more than two-thirds did. In both cities, only two out of ten visitors disliked Glazunov's art.

3. Why Did Some Dislike Glazunov?

As far as motivation [13] for positive and negative comments is concerned, I was able toquantify only the latter category. The results are as follows:

12 Since some entries include both positive and negative remarks, the main criterion for their
classification was the prevalent tone. Admittedly, this is a rather subjective criterion, but
the unusual degree of polarization of opinion reduced the number of undecided entries to a
minimum. As to the "Other" category, it consists mostly of entries in which the focus of
concern is on organizational matters. Most frequently, the authorities are criticized for the
failure to advertise the exhibit and otherwise popularize Glazunov's art.
13 In unclear cases, the motivation was decided according to the prevalent argument.

As we can see, the majority of all negative comments, 232 (54.6%) out of 425, were aesthetically motivated; nearly a third (32.2%) was dominated by various ideological considerations, while 56 raised objections to Glazunov on ethical grounds.

Let me now illustrate each category. An example of the "Ideological" motivation can be seen in a lengthy entry signed, "Kasatkin, K. B., military." Kasatkin scorns Glazunov for failing to "notice" that "the teachings of Marx-Lenin (sic!) have been triumphant in our country for sixty years." Reproaching Glazunov for his preoccupation with the theme of Russian past and his failure to glorify the Soviet army, he argues that "the Great Patriotic War and many other things are incomparably dearer to us visi tors than the old Russia relegated to the past." He also reproaches the artist for his "neutrality" in the "intense battle which goes on in the modern world, the battle of two systems." Paraphrasing Gorky, Kasatkin asks a pointed question: "With whom are you, painter Glazunov?" He ends up with a threat reminiscent of the Stalin era: "Not only your future but also the fate of your past work depend on how you answer this question."[14] Another visitor does not object to Glazunov's Russian theme but reproaches him for the "sadness and pessimism" with which he treats "our days" ; and then indulges in wishful thinking, "if you could imbue your talent with a deep party spirit, the result would be excellent !"[15] An anonymous Moscovite wishes Glazunov "to love our Soviet power. This is very much lacking in his portrayal of today's life. Our days and life are brighter than he depicts.,,16 Kislova, a woman from Leningrad who says she is writing "in the name of the Kirov factory workers" is "upset and shaken by Glazunov's attitude to the Soviet system, and people." She berates him for seeing "nothing bright and beautiful (in Soviet life)" and for preaching a "return" to the past. She calls it "blasphemy" that he dared to show a Soviet passport refracted in a vodka glass [17]

Although the above examples are typical of the 137 (6.6 percent of 2087) negative comments which are dominated by ideological viewpoints close to the official, they are just about the only ones that rely on such cliches of Soviet propaganda as "the teachings of Marx-Lenin," "party spirit," and "Soviet system." Apparently, such cliches are considered so trite that even the most dogmatic of Glazunov's detractors avoid using them lest they undermine their own arguments.

As far as the negative comments with an ethical motivation are concerned, I counted 57 of them. None specifically intimates Glazunov's alleged KGB-connection but many vaguely allude to some kind of deal with Soviet authorities.

14 Khudozhnik, pp.79-80.
15 Ibid., p.133.
16 Ibid., p. 138.
17 Ibid., p. 191.

An anonymous Moscovite writes, "One cannot be a people's leader and a prophet, if one had eaten well from the masters' table."[18] Another anonymous visitor, a student of the Mukhina Institute of Industrial Arts in Leningrad, makes it clear that he is "not against a return to the past and religion" but nonetheless asks," ... how could they allow your exhibit to take place? How did you manage it ?" [19] Yet another visitor points out the similarity of Glazunov's moral dilemma with that of Evgenii Evtushenko. [20] In some instances, visitors condemn Glazunov for his moral compromise but seem ready to forgive him because his art works wonders. As one such visitor put it poetically,

The majority of the negative comments, 232 (54.6 percent) out of 425, appear to be aesthetically motivated. Often authored by Glazunov's professional colleagues and other people in the art world, they are as vituperative as the positive ones are enthusiastic. The most frequent epithets are: "charlatan," "banality," "cheap imitation," "mass-culture," "profanation," "self-promotion," "weakness in composition," and "lack of professionalis-m. "Only rarely is Glazunov accused of not following the precepts of "Soviet art" or "socialist realism." An entry, signed "The graduate students of Moscow University," enjoins Glazunov to overcome various artistic "deviations" in order to promote "socialist realism." [22] An anonymous visitor accuses Glazunov of pushing "banality" (poshlost') in the guise of "pseudopatriotism." "Nothing more abhorrent has ever happened in Soviet art," says he. [23] Since this visitor is one of the very few who resorts to the phrase "Soviet art," one may suspect that his main objection to Glazunov is ideologically motivated and he simply uses an aesthetic argument to disguise his pro-Soviet bias. [24]

4. Why Do So Many Love Glazunov?

As stated earlier, the great majority of all comments, 1,602 (76.7 percent) out of 2,087, are positive. Although I was unable to break them down according to preponderant motivations, it is obvious that the overwhelming majority of them are inspired by Glazunov's Russian theme which can be defined as a longing for a return to Russia's historical, cultural and religious heritage.

18 Ibid., p. 88.
19 Ibid., p. 166.
20 Ibid., p. 82.
21 Ibid., p. 157.
22 Ibid., p. 98.
23 Ibid., p. 174.
24 It is noteworthy that whereas in Moscow only 49.4 percent of all negative comments are
aesthetically motivated, their share in Leningrad is 61.9 percent. The respective figures for
ideologically motivated comments are 38.6 percent and 23.3 percent. This marked increase
of the share of aesthetic comments at the expense of ideological ones may suggest a greater
artistic inclination of people from Leningrad. It may also suggest that Glazunov's
detractors, for whatever reason, after being routed in Moscow, got better organized to mount
an attack on him in Leningrad and chose aesthetic arguments as the most effective.

Not only are these comments most numerous but they are also most intensely enthusiastic and even ecstatic. Reading them is like being swept away by an avalanche of feeling or a torrent of passion. They come down on one wi th such a force that one realizes that they must have been pent up for quite a while only to find an unexpected release. In many entries, enthusiasm turns into rhapsody; in fact, about 28 visitors were somoved that they wrote their comments in poetry.  In addition, there are dozens of entries in which quotations from the Russian classics are used to underscore one point or another. Many others were moved to use the forms of expressions that are more characteristic of old Russia than modern life. Thus, to express gratitude, they do not simply say "Thank you" (Spasibo) but "We bow low before you" (Nizko tebe klaniaemsia). These entries abound with such epithets as "genius," "magician" (mag), "sorcerer" (charodei), "Russian knight" (bogatyf), Il'ia Muromets, and Elijah the Prophet. Among other typical comments that echo the Russian theme are: "Bard of the Russian soul" ; "Russian in every things" ; "Thank you for restoring our national self-awareness" ; "For the first time I felt proud to be a Russian" ; "In everything one can read the Russian truth (russkaia pravda)." But, if we were to choose the one description that best sums up the Russian theme, it must be the lead line of many a Russian fairy-tale, "Here is the Russian spirit, here one senses the true Rus'."

Although most comments refer to the exhibit as a whole, quite a few are focused on sundry variations of the Russian theme (there are "thank you" notes for the portrayal of the "Russian woman," "Russian muzhik," and even "Russian eyes") or praise individual works, most notably "The Return" and "To your Health." The pivotal role of these two pictures is frequently emphasized, as in this comment by V. lanushin:

... Il'ia Glazunov is a genuine Russian artist, a true patriot of his long-suffering Motherland. One could be proud of his work even if h~ had created nothing but "To Your Health," and "The Return," in which his attitude to both the past and the present of our Motherland and to the Russian people is clearly expressed.[25]

Another visitor writes that, thanks to the two pictures, Glazunov "has earned immortality." [26] "The Return" is an apotheosis of our life," says yet another.[27] A comment signed "A Russian woman" says that in "To Your Health!" Glazunov "revealed the Russian soul. How mighty is the Russian man who holds on his shoulders almost the whole globe."[28] As can be expected in an art show, the Russian theme is intimately intertwined with the theme of Russian art. In fact, the exhibit is often seen as a "celebration (prazdnik) of Russian culture," and Glazunov is compared with such giants of the Russian history genre as Vasnetsov, Surikov and Repin. Among the more modern painters, he is sometimes compared with Mikhail Vrubel', Mikhail Nesterov, Boris Musatov, Boris Kustod'ev, Pavel Kuznetsov and Nikolai Rerikh. But most frequently, Glazunov is compared with the medieval icon painter Andrei Rublev. The implicit meaning of that comparison is that what Rublev did for the liberation of the Russian spirit from the Tatar yoke, Glazunov is doing for the restoration of Russian culture from under the yoke of "foreign" Marxist ideology.

​25 Ibid., pp. 53-54.
26 Ibid., p. 26.
27 Ibid., p. 39.
28 Ibid., p.51.

Similarly, many visitors compare him with Dostoevskii. One, perhaps on account of Glazunov's use of the Biblical parable in "The Return," sees him as "a psychologist comparable in stature with Dostoevskii." [29] Another, referring to the cathartic impact of his art, paraphrases Dostoevskii (and, one might add, Solzhenitsyn) by saying that "Art will save the world." [30] There are also some who allude to Glazunov's affinity with Soviet ruralist writers (derevenshchiki), most notably the late Vasilii Shukshin, "because in the art of both, there are the same roots." [31]

As the majority of utterances about Glazunov's art are chiefly inspired by his themes rather than technique, one visitor attempts to explain it philosophically: "since in any creative work (art, science, literature) unexpectedness is the main thing, the success of this exhibit is understandable and deserved. Whenever there is an elan vital (tvorcheskii moment), the technique recedes into the background." [32] This visitor is no other than Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev, the son of the acmeist poets, Anna Akmatova and Nikolai Gumilev, who was executed in 1921. Though he had been imprisoned under Stalin, Lev Gumilev managed to establish himself as a Soviet anthropologist.

Disagreeing with those critics who have denounced Glazunov for turning his back on Soviet reality, a certain Marenich argues that "our roots contain in them a promise of our greening tomorrow."

Your paintings do not lead to pessimism or a loss of faith, because they tell of the greatness of victory which has been bought at such a terrible cost; they tell of the enormity of the heroic deeds of our fathers who have preserved for us our Rus'. Your pictures inspire noble feelings, dignity, and moral earnestness which are becoming a force in our age of disbelief. Who is going to win? The invincible power of evil or we, the people?! All depends on us, and each must give his answer. You have already given your answer to us, through your work. Let everyone answer this question about your place in the 20th century art. Who are you: the great artist of the past who picked up Rublev's fallen brush, or a prophet of a new age of Renaissance ?! [33]

Although comments like the above are seemingly apolitical, their unmistakable thrust is against the official ideology based on Karl Marx's teachings about class struggle. For one thing, if they mention any struggle at all, it is a struggle against evil, not imperialist oppressors or a class enemy.

Not all who admire Glazunov's Russian theme are as optimistic as Marenich. The architect Kliucharev thinks that Glazunov came too late and therefore his art is but "a requiem" to ethnic Russia. Like many other visitors, he points out that Glazunov is "the only Russian artist who has raised the national theme." [34]

29 Ibid., p. 26.
30 Ibid., p. 62.
31 Ibid., p. 105.
32 Ibid., p.75.
33 Ibid., p. 79.
34 Ibid., p. 52.

This melancholic note is echoed by an anonymous visitor: "All this is Russia! Thank you. But we are now almost speechless (bezgolosye). And all this is very difficult, for one man !" [35] Such comments, and there are quite a few of them, seem to confirm the opinion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that ethnic Russians, in spite of their numerical predominance among the Soviet ruling elite, feel that they are just as oppressed and dispossessed culturally as any minority. That is why their attitude to Glazunov was perhaps best summed up in a pun on the artist's name that was made by one of the visitors: "Glazu-nov, a russkomu serdtsu mit' (New to the eye, and dear to the Russian heart).[36]

The Russian theme is most frequently complemented by, and intertwined with, the theme of spiritual and religious revival. However, even though there are numerous references to Christ and Holy Russia, they usually lack a specifically Orthodox meaning, and there are no traces of interdenominational bickering.[37] One entry symbolically signed, Vera, Nadezhda, and Liubov' (Faith, Hope, and Charity), says: "People! Love each other! Because God is with us."[38] It is followed by another entry which echoes the same theme. Levin, a medical doctor, says that seeing the exhibit, "One feels a deep faith in Christ, the Savior of our poor fatherland." He reproaches the sponsors for not showing "The Mystery" and for deliberately limiting access to the comment book, because "otherwise people would have written even more."[39] An entry signed, "A group of like-minded students," says: "Many Christian thanks. 'The Return' is a work of genius." In an oblique reference to "The Mystery," these students regret the absence of "other works" on display.[40] Another entry reads: "In the name of a group of young believers, members of Moscow's Baptist community, I thank the painter for the brilliant depiction of the redeeming essence of Christianity." The author then condemns the "baseness and horror of a world which lacks faith," as depicted in "The Return," and promises to recommend Glazunov to all believersY Judging by a laconic "Thank you from the Old Believers! You show a great and acute perception of Rus'," Glazunov's art stands above the deepest sectarian division of the Russian church.[42]

One anonymous author reproaches Glazunov for not going far enough in his allegedly messianic Russian theme. He particularly reproaches him for failure to portray among those "to whom we are to return," (a reference to the group of Russian personalities portrayed behind the father figure in "The Return") Nikolai Fedorov, a 19th-century Russian philosopher who thought that a literal resurrection of the dead should be a common task of all the living. Without Fedorov, the visitor argues, "Russia's mission, her 'idea,' would remain without content, or rather, her orthodoxy would not be really fulfilled." [43] This is just about the only reference to Russian Orthodoxy, and even then its meaning is rather unorthodox.

35 Ibid., p. 59.
36 Ibid., p. 24.
37 I have found only two entries (Ibid., pp. 73 and 120) in which the respondents welcome a return
to the "roots" but do not accept the idea of restoration of religion.
38 Ibid., p. 53.
39 Ibid., p. 78. This suggests that some people felt inhibited from expressing their pro-
Christian and pro-religious sentiments, and thus are under-represented in the comment books.
40 Ibid., p. 38.
41 Ibid., p.110.
42 Ibid., p. 77.
43 Ibid., p. 91.

Despite the intensity of Russian nationalistic sentiments provoked by the exhibits, there are few comments which seem to extoll Russia above other nations and blame foreigners for her misfortune or otherwise interpret Glazunov's art in chauvinistic and xenophobic terms. Even then, the principal target of accusation appears to be the present "alien" masters of Russia, albeit usually disguised among "other" foreigners. A certain Vladychenko writes:

​Now the Tatars, then Germans, then Frenchmen, and all kinds of other 'Swedes' have been subjugating us.... A talented Russian had to endure a lot, at times giving his life, in order to make it! Still, we are united with you, Il'ia Glazunov, not just by blood and fate, but by Faith; we believe that the Russian people would never succumb to a spiritual slavery under foreigners.... No one, who is not spiritually dead, can look at your pictures with indifference.[44]

More frequently, however, the impact of Glazunov's art seems to encourage a respect to other nationalities and humility toward one's own. As one visitor sums up his conclusion, "It is obvious that one ought to welcome the expression of national dignity and cultural grandeur of (all) peoples populating our Earth. Even more, one should welcome a Rebirth of Russian Culture, because we, the Russians, for too long have been brutally destroying everything that is native to US." [45]

Although it must be presumed that the majority of positive comments were made by ethnic Russians (or, the Eastern Slavs whose names are often indistinguishable from the Russian ones), there were also visitors of other nationalities among Glazunov's admirers. In the Moscow book alone, I counted at least thirty names which appear non-Russian. Among them, there are seven foreigners (two from Czechoslovakia and Hungary each, one from Bulgaria, one Spaniard, one in the English language), three appear to be Soviet Armenians, three suggest a Moslem origin, and the rest seem to belong either to Soviet Jews or Germans.Typical of these comments is the one written by Kabakhan Shtanchaeva, a graduate student at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Science who apparently is of Moslem origin:

I would call this exhibit a hymn to spirituality and beauty. The spiritual might of his images is tremendous. The ethical intensity of his work is so strong that upon leaving the exhibit, one feels a state near catharsis.[46]

5. Does Glazunov's Art Encourage Anti-Semitism?

In view of the charges of anti-Semitism made against Glazunov, I paid special attention to those comments which could be interpreted as hostile to the Jews. In the Moscow book, I found two overtly judophobic statements. One is anonymous: "After sixty years of the kike power (zhidovskoe zasilie), finally one begins to smell Rus'! Long live the Russian state !" [47]

​44 Ibid., p. 45.
45 Ibid., p. 185.
46 Ibid., p. 43.
47 Ibid., p.41.

It is apparent that, whoever this anti-Semitic visitor is, he equates the Soviets with Jewish power and sees Glazunov's art as the beginning of a revival of ethnic Russia (Rus') at the expense of a waning influence of the Jews in the Soviet Union. Certainly, when he proclaims "long live," he does not mean the present Communist system but an envisioned ethnocentric Russian state. The other anti-Jewish statement is contained in the collection of poems that a certain Ivan Rukavitsyn attached to the Moscow comment book as a token of his appreciation. One of his poems, "The Secret Train," blames "godless Jews" in general, and Moisha Sverdlov" and "Lev Bronstein" (Trotsky) in particular, for the execution of the last Tzar's family. Like the anonymous commentator, he seems to equate the Soviets with Jewish power. [48]

In the Leningrad book, I found just one judophobic statement. It is written in the form of a reply to the preceding comment by "L. Abramova, an editor of the publishing house Khudozhnik RSFSR," who had reproached Glazunov for creating "such a repulsive portrait of the Russian muzhik" (if she is referring to the protagonist of "To Your Health !" she is expressing a pro-Soviet view). Thinking that anyone bearing such a last name must be Jewish, the irate anti-Semite mistakes her for a man and uses the following abusive sentence: "You, damned kike, want to impose on us your shit! Such editors should be chased out of their chairs." [49]

There are, however, among the negative comments, about half a dozen entries which express fear that Glazunov's emphasis on the ethnic Russian self-awareness may encourage judophobia or fascism. One anonymous visitor calls Glazunov pogromshchik, and then says: "Your ideology is transparent, and it is frightening because of its simplicity." "You are for Russia without ... ," he goes on, and puts the three dots in lieu of the intended "Jews." [50] A Leningrad painter, Rakhimova, says that the exhibit "reminds me of the official 'art' of Germany during the 40s." [51] Her statement is apparently intended to suggest that Glazunov's Russian theme may degenerate into the racist and anti-Semitic art of the Nazi era in Germany. "The Family of Ivanovs" sees in Glazunov, "a reaction, deep crisis, and deviation from the national-democratic tradition. If allowed to develop, it may lead to fascism." [52] The reference to "the national-democratic tradition" suggests a closeness to the official line that Soviet power represents the fulfillment of national aspirations of all "progressive and democratic" Russians. Another anonymous commentator reproaches Glazunov for playing up "base feelings, and that's how fascism begins." [53] There is, finally, an enigmatic remark: "It seems to me that you are a genius, but why did you castrate Sherling ?" [54] This is apparently a reference to Iurii Sherling, a Jewish musician, for whom Glazunov designed first sets of a Yiddish-language play performed in Moscow. The remark is possibly intended to suggest that Sherling's Jewishness was diminished after his collaboration with the Russian nationalist.

​48 Ibid., p. 7l.
49 Ibid., p. 162. In addition to the three openly judophobic comments, one may suspect that some
other judophobes could have concealed their true feelings under the mask of russophilism.
However, their number cannot be significant if we keep in mind that the two comment books
are distinguished by an unprecedented degree of spontaneity and that several people were not
afraid to express anti-Soviet sentiments.
50 Ibid., p. 33.
51 Ibid., p. 172.
52 Ibid., p. 82.
53 Ibid., p. 177.
54 Ibid., p. 38.

The above few comments expressing a fear that Glazunov's art may degenerate into fascism and anti-Semitism are greatly outnumbered by positive, even enthusiastic comments signed by the people whose names betray their Jewish origin. Thus, M. L. Rabinovich, a student of piano, calls Glazunov "Great artist, great thinker, great humanist, great man and great citizen." [55] Iulii Naumovich Kantor simply says, "Thank you that you are." [56] Rafael Abramovich Zak, from the city of Omsk, thanks Glazunov "for the joie de vivre (radost' bytiia) which you give us" and says that he especially liked the picture "The Russian Venus." [57] Engineer Tepelbaum says that "a palace should be built to house 1. S. Glazunov's exhibit." [58] Engineer L. Vaisman's only regret is that "The Mystery" was not shown. [59] Roza Markovna Shrug calls Glazunov "an artist of genius," thanks him for the "aesthetic pleasure afforded by the exhibit" and volunteers to pose for him.[60] R. Slutsker, a 27-year old woman engineer from Sverdlovsk, writes: "Today is one of the happiest days in my life, and I feel proud to be your contemporary. You have filled my life with light." [61] Economist Ia. R. Kogan calls Glazunov an "outstanding painter of our time." He is impressed by the "refined brush work and emotional charge" that emanates from his portraits.[62] Engineer V. Vaisberg says: "Finally, I have seen a genuine, original, non-standard, humane, philosophically thinking, and most talented Russian artist. There is no question that today you are Russia's best painter." [63] Lastly, E. Khaikin calls Glazunov "a nationalist of genius." [64]

This last comment seems to sum up the attitude of those Soviet Jews who feel that the ethnic Russian nationalism, as distinct from the "Proletarian Internationalism" which has plenty of room for official anti-Semitism, is just as legitimate as Jewish Zionism or the exodus movement of Soviet Jews. It may be difficult for the unassimilated Soviet Jews to feel the same excitement about Glazunov's Russian theme as the ethnic Russians feel but this does not mean that they do not appreciate it objectively and spend their time worrying that the revival of Russian nationalism would threaten their existence.

55 Ibid., p. 63.
56 Ibid., p. 134.
57 Ibid., p. 63.
58 Ibid., p. 120.
59 Ibid., p. 57.
60 Ibid., p. 90.
61 Ibid., p. 126.
62 Ibid., p. 195.
63 Ibid., p. 185.
64 Ibid., p. 191. Other positive comments were signed by such names as M. G. Krol' ; Neimark ;
Galina Gennadievna Rubinshtein; Tatiana Toints; r. A. Miller; Vladimir Semenovich
Vol'man. These may belong to people with a Jewish connection.

6. Does "Soviet Patriotism" Mix With Russian Nationalism?

Among the positive comments there are some which seem to conform to the official line that the Soviet state is but the fulfillment of the national aspiration of ethnic Russians and that, therefore, "Soviet patriotism" is inseparable from ethnic Russians' pride over their past achievements. One such comment dubs Glazunov as "a great Soviet-Russian Phenomenon" and describes him as "a Leninist and Internationalist, affirmed in paintings of a genius, depicting the long-suffering Vietnam, Chile and other peoples of the progressive movement." It is signed "Bordiukov, Major-General of the Tank troops, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War."[65] Another visitor underscores that Glazunov is "our Russian Soviet painter," and supports that claim by a reference to Glazunov's portrayal of the workers of BAM (the Baikal-Amur railroad, the current darling of Soviet propaganda campaign). This entry is signed: "Sotnikova Engelina (sic! from Engels, not an angel), Senior Investigator for Especially Important Cases, the Chief Directorate of Internal Affairs, Lt. Col. of militia."[66] Engineer-electrician Pilipikov sees in Glazunov's art in general, and in "The Return" and "To Your Health !" in particular, "an example of implementation of the party-spirit (Partiinost') in art, in the sense of Lenin's insistance of an honest fulfillment (by an artist) of his duty before the people."[67] These three comments are rather exceptional in that they attempt, rather clumsily, to present Glazunov as "a Soviet-Russian phenomenon." Moreover, at least in Pilipikov's case, one may suspect that such comments could have been written tongue-in- cheek and in order to provide an alibi for the suspect artist.

There are, perhaps, half a dozen comments of this kind but they are greatly outnumbered by those who see Glazunov's art in explicitly non-Soviet and even anti-Soviet terms. The teacher of art, Kuranov from Moscow, courageously signed his name under the statement that Glazunov's exhibit is "an account of the sixty years of Soviet power during which our demagogues have been shouting slogans from the high platforms, while the low masses (nizy) were and remain deprived of all rights."[68] Referring to "The Return," an anonymous visitor says that "the pigs are the Fathers of the Capital who still continu~ to destroy the architecture of Moscow, the most national city of Russia." He interprets the skyscraper between the pigs as a symbol of modernity "which denies and defies the right of the Russian people to retain a national school in architecture."[69] Another visitor writes that Glazunov "is the only genuine painter who is not subservient to the ruling elite."[70] Several comments criticize the sponsors of the exhibit for not showing "The Mystery" and engineer Bakuev expresses a sentiment of many when he accuses the authorities of concealing Glazunov's art from the people "so that he is better known in the West than among us, Soviet citizens." [71] Protesting against the policy of tearing down ancient architectural monuments, medical doctor Zaitseva issues to the authorities this warning: "You have no right to kill the soul of the people, to obliterate its history with bulldozers. Who knows what fate may yet befall our country and how the Russian muzhik may serve it. Not for nothing, even Stalin, at the end of the war, raised his first toast for this long-suffering muzhik."

65 Ibid., p. 44.
66 Ibid., p. 66.
67 Ibid., p. 67-68.
68 Ibid., p. 122.
69 Ibid., p. 110.
70 Ibid., p. 89.
71 Ibid., p.123.

Her advice is: "We should do as they have done in Poland: to restore our history from ruins !" [72] Others, as engineer Stepanov, warn the authorities that, should they decide to punish Glazunov, "We, the inhabitants of Russia, will not let them hurt you! We shall raise our voice in your defense (and assist you) in every way possible, by words, deeds, letters, etc ... "[73]

Finally, a female student from Leningrad University writes that Glazunov gave her "a new strength, a new faith. This is a rebirth of Russia, as foretold: 'Russian would rise from her sleep ... '" She is quoting, of course, from Pushkin's famous poem to Chaadaev, and everyone in the Soviet Union knows how it ends: " ... and on the ruins of tyranny, our names
will be written."[74]

7. Conclusion

In an interview with Western reporters during his Moscow exhibit, Glazunov enjoined them to take his exhibit "as a new way of looking at art" in the USSR. Complaining of their preoccupation wi th well-established dissidents, most of whom dislike him, he used the matryoshka-doll metaphor to explain his relative position within the spectrum of public opinion inside the USSR. The Westerners, said Glazunov, only know of "the government on the outside and the dissident physicist, Andrei Sakharov, on the very inside, and they ignore all the other dolls, one outside the other, in between."[75] A few years later, when it became a.pparent that the dissident movement had virtually come to an end in consequence of emigration, persecution, and Sakharov's exile, Glazunov repeated the charge that the West ignores "all the other dolls." "Diplomats and foreigners who come here think dissidents are mostly Jewish and that they want to leave," said Glazunov, and then defined the position of his supporters and himself: "Another kind of dissident wants to stay."[76] The main significance of the two comment books consist precisely in the fact that, in addition to whatever they say about the state of Soviet art, they shed a great deal of light on political attitudes of "all the other dolls," that is on the wide spectrum of public opinion that is suspended "in-between" the government and those dissidents "that want to leave." In the light of this Soviet "home-made" opinion source, one can clearly see that the "in-between dolls" are far from satisfied with the current official approach to Russia's national heritage. Craving for a restoration of national self-awareness, they harbor in themselves the kind of dissidence that has the best chance to win a broad popular support and thus succeed.

72 Ibid., p. 129.
73 Ibid., p. 56.
74 Ibid., p.185.
75 Craig Whitney, "Unbridled Artist Proving Popular At Soviet Show," The New York Times,
June 18, 1978, p.121.
76 David K. Willis, "Currents of Nationalism, Dissent Beneath Crust of Communist Conformi-
ty," reprinted as "Soviet Memorandum" in Christian Science Monitor, March, 1981. It is
important to remember that, in spite of being an exception among Soviet painters, Glazunov
represents a very broad current of discontent which has ranged from the underground
activities of Igor Ogurtsov's All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of People
(See Dunlop's The New Russian Revolutionaries) to Vladimir Osipov's samizdat magazine
Veche, the ruralist writers and the movement for the preservation of national monuments, of
which Glazunov is one of the founders. Best known abroad through the writings of Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, this current of dissent can be described as the National Rebirth Movement.

It is apparent that a substantial majority of ethnic Russians, although it may not be as large as the over 75 percent who favor Glazunov's art, feel that they are dispossessed of their national heritage and deprived of their ethnic identity, a feeling that must be especially bitter to them as they are often thought, by outsiders, to be the Herrenvolk among the peoples of the USSR and a contender for world hegemony. In fact, they are but the silenced majority of the USSR. As they penetrate all layers of Soviet society and have their in-closet adherents at all levels of power, they constitute the greatest potential for a peaceful transformation of Soviet society, perhaps, along the lines suggested by Solzhenitsyn in his Letter to Soviet Leaders.

The two comment books contain substantial evidence that the prevailing nationalist sentiments among ethnic Russians are strictly defensive in character and respectful of other nationalities. Their overwhelming concern, no matter how viscerally expressed, is with the survival, not expansion or Russification of others. An element of chauvinism, though present, does not seem to be stronger than in any other nation with a long history of competing with super-powers. In difference from others, it seems to be motivated, not by a belief in racial or religious superiority, but by a feeling of exclusivity based on a record of long-suffering. Although an element of anti-Semitism is also regrettably present in a few comments, it is not as prominent as one would expect in a country known for its history of both official and popular judophobia. However, unlike the official Soviet anti-Semitism which is chiefly focused on the Jewish religion, Zionism, and the state of Israel, the comment books give vent only to the popular variety of judophobia which seems to be chiefly concerned with the role of the Jews in the October Revolution and in the establishing of the "internationalist" Soviet state. What these judophobes seem to be ignorant of, is that that State has been hostile not only to Russian nationalism but to Jewish and any other nationalism as well. Although some Soviet Jews apparently feel that the rise of ethnic Russian nationalism a la Glazunov may threaten their well-being in the USSR, many more realize that his art undermines the official ideology which shackles all peoples of the USSR, including the Jews.

Therefore, if Soviet leaders had indeed commissioned their trusted party scholars to analyze the two comment books in lieu of taking an open poll, they must have been greatly alarmed by the results. The fact that the official attitude to Glazunov - to tolerate but not to favor - has not since changed suggests that they simply do not know how to cope with the swell of ethnic Russian self-awareness and just hope that time is on their side and the problem will go away.

In his lead article, "Russian Nationalism," in the collection The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy, Adam Ulam concedes that Solzhenitsyn, whose views "it has become fashionable in certain Western circles to deride," "has one very perceptive insight: the hold of Soviet Communism can be loosened only if it is shown to be incompatible with Russian nationalism" (emphasis supplied).[77] This is exactly what the two comment books show. In any case, my analysis of this unique Soviet source supports those Western scholars who, like Donald Treadgold, have held the opinion that "In Russia, the whole heritage of Orthodox Christianity, the liberal aspirations of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the entire precommunist corpus of village tradition, ceremony, and the arts, and other elements have been subjected to prohibition of scholarly study, direct attack, or grotesque and deliberate distortion by state fiat.[78] It also lends support to their argument that ethnic Russian nationalism does not have to be antagonistic to other nationalities of the USSR and must be viewed as an ally of the free world.

The fact that the Soviet government has been able to create and maintain a semblance of symbiosis between communism and Russian nationalism is due, at no small degree, to the unwillingness of the West to admit the legitimacy of Russian nationalism for unfounded fear that it may develop into an alternative worse than communism.

77 Adam Ulam, "Russian Nationalism," in The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy, ed.
Seweryn Bialer (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981), pp.13-14.

78 Donald Treadgold, "Alternative Western Views of the Sino-Soviet Conflict," in The
Sino-Soviet Conflict: A Global Perspective, ed. Herbert Ellison (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1982) p. 352.

The dark forces in Washington are daily steering the world in an ever more dangerous direction. The US war machine’s massive anti-Russian propaganda campaign to revive the Red Scare of the McCarthy era has now sunk to the lowest depths by the invasion of Russian diplomatic property in America after Washington’s militarists failed to trigger an invasion of Russia itself.

Having already become a pariah internationally through its disastrous interference in other countries, America has now become a laughing-stock at home in the eyes of the world. On 31 August 2017 the FBI turned its campaign to softer domestic targets – the Russian diplomatic compounds in Washington and the US Consulate in San Francisco – in order to conduct ‘searches’ there. When they find nothing, as with their ‘investigations’ of alleged Russian ‘hacking’ and ‘invasions’, they will no doubt plant some fake ‘evidence’. One video posted on RT showed a man climbing a ladder to check whether there was anything hidden inside a ventilation system! It is farcical.

Washington is now operating in full Soviet-style dictatorship mode under the auspices of the US State Department, revealing its modus operandi as a flagrant violation of the basic norms and principles of international law by closing the Russian Consulate and Trade Mission in San Francisco and its two annexes in Washington and New York on 31 August 2017, and by even invading and searching the private homes of diplomatic staff.

These actions are a blatant violation of Articles 22 and 24 of the Vienna Convention (1) on Diplomatic Relations, which is incorporated in the United Nations Treaty Series, Vol. 500. (2) This agreement, formally signed by the US, is fundamental to the conduct of foreign relations and ensures that diplomats can conduct their duties without threat of influence or interference. It is universally called the principle of ‘diplomatic immunity’. Former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon put it precisely: “The international law lays it down really clearly. The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says that any diplomatic and affiliated premises in a foreign country are inviolable (3); and any incursion on that territory is therefore seen as an attack on the country that is hosting that diplomatic mission.” She describes it as a parade of power to reassert America’s global dominion. Russia’s RT website called it “illegal, meaningless clownery” (4).

Whatever became of Trump’s promise to improve relations with Russia? Instead, America has now begun to treat Russians and Russian property in the US in a manner reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews. In an overseas context too, America used neo-Nazis to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine, and is still training them, and refused (with Ukraine and Canada) to sign the UN anti-Nazism declaration of November 2014 (5). Hillary Clinton bizarrely attempted to compare President Putin with Hitler, while Russia did more than any other country to eliminate Hitler and Nazism in the Great Patriotic War and still celebrates that triumph on 9 May every year as its most important secular holiday – the Day of Victory (День Побе́ды).

1) https://www.rt.com/op-edge/401858-us-search-russian-diplomatic-missions/
2) http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
3) http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf
4) https://www.rt.com/news/401842-trade-mission-dc-closed/
5) https://ukraineantifascistsolidarity.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/us-canada-and-ukraine-vote-against-un-resolution-condemning-glorification-of-nazism/

SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Arthur Noble is Emeritus Professor of German at two European universities. He has published books in German, English and French and contributed numerous articles to academic periodicals. He writes regularly for the British Church Newspaper on current affairs and is an active musician.

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

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This Fall marks the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.  Although few commentators today are likely to glorify that event or its aftermath, most will assume that the revolution was a regrettable necessity, which swept away a repressive and stagnant ancient regime.  Such a view is false.  Culturally and spiritually, that lost pre-revolutionary Russia was a treasure house, and indeed a birthplace of the modern West.  The grim view we hold of Russia’s old Christian world is one of the last triumphs of Soviet propaganda.

That is nowhere more true than in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is so often portrayed as a haven of obscurantism and anti-Jewish hatred.  In fact, most of the episcopate strove to discredit and suppress antisemitic propaganda.  Meanwhile, the country was in the midst of a general spiritual revival, with rising levels of literacy among peasants and a publishing boom in devotional literature.  The church made serious inroads among industrial workers through a series of charismatically led reform movements preaching a kind of social-gospel activism.  The legendary St. John of Kronstadt was only the most celebrated of many locally famous holy men and women.

The church boasted a thriving cultural life, as most intellectuals and artists were suffused with its imagery and traditions, even if they rejected its political authority. Many proclaimed themselves Bogoiskateli, “God seekers.”  In 1915, Sergei Rachmaninoff produced in his choral “All-Night Vigil” one of the greatest musical accomplishments in modern religious history. Nikolai Berdyaev was a groundbreaking philosopher, a radical pioneer of Christian existentialism.  The Orthodox Russia that entered the war looked as if it were beginning an epoch of cultural achievement equal to any in its storied past.

​Historians commonly draw a sharp division between such achievements of the old order and the dazzling triumphs of modernism, which they commonly associate with the revolutionary world.  In this view, 1917 represents a watershed, a glorious transition to modernity.  Again, that is a pernicious myth.  Well before this date, Russian artists and musicians were already key pioneers of modern literature, art, music, and design, and they drew overwhelmingly on Christian traditions.  However radical it might appear in retrospect, experimental modernity was rooted in a thoroughly Orthodox thought-world of angels, apocalypse, and icons.

Already in 1916, Russia had produced the greatest urban apocalypse of the era.  Andrei Bely’s novel Petersburg resembles the work of Joyce in its daring experimentation, and in its enormous influence on later literature.  The book depicts pre-war St. Petersburg as a society on the verge of explosions, literal and metaphorical, a city living at the end of the world.  It is also a city under the eye of angels, where the devil walks the streets.  The statue of a horseman is a pervasive symbol, obviously suggesting one of the four horsemen of Revelation.  Only in whispers can Bely’s characters discuss the real issue at hand: “the Second Coming of Christ.”

​Although Bely apparently never met the Moscow-born painter Wassily Kandinsky, the work of each man often echoed the other’s interests in angels and imminent judgment.  In 1912, Kandinsky edited the pivotal manifesto Der Blaue Reiter Almanach, which cultural historians regard as an epochal movement in European modernism, bringing together the most innovative German and Russian artists of the day.  But we lose the religious significance of the name when we translate it “The Blue Rider.”  It actually refers to a bluehorseman, and the movement was born as a protest against a gallery’s decision to reject a Kandinsky painting of the Last Judgment.  That Orthodox-framed cosmic finale lay at the heart of European modernism.

​Another angel-obsessed member of the school was Russian painter Natalia Goncharova who in 1910 created her stunning image of the Archangel Michael, the leader of the heavenly hosts.  Although an advanced modernist, her work draws heavily on Russian icon traditions.  In 1915, she designed sets for Sergei Diaghilev’s planned ballet Liturgy, which was to feature such ancient images as the six-winged seraphs, with music based on Orthodox liturgical themes.

Mentioning Diaghilev suggests the enormous Russian contribution to modernist music, as avant-garde Europeans venerated such titanic innovators as Igor Stravinsky and Alexander Scriabin.  But Stravinsky in particular was a devout Orthodox believer, who famously remarked that “Music praises God.  Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church’s greatest ornament.”  Obviously, Stravinsky did not return to Bolshevik Russia after 1917, nor did many of the key modernists.  The gullible modernists who did choose Bolshevik rule usually ended up silenced or murdered.

When we struggle past the Bolshevik myths, we must give full credit to that old Christian Russia for inventing the modern West, and the modern mind.      

This article first appeared in the September 2017 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture (www.chroniclesmagazine.org).

Philip Jenkins is in 2013 the Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University in the United States, and Co-Director for Baylor's Program on Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion

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All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​