Pussy Riot

[Slivkin, Yevgeniy A.]

Thank you, Vladimir.
I agree to discontinue the public discussion. I actually felt reluctant to start it from the beginning. You know, when the late Viktor Nekrasov back in the 1970’s was making a speech in Babiy Yar, someone from the crowd yelled to him that he had forgotten that Jews were not the only ones who were buried there. Nekrasov answered: “Yes, but only the Jews here were killed for being Jews”. Demagogues often refer to Stalin’s purges as the Holocaust of the Russian Orthodox people. Yet the Russian Orthodox victims were not killed for being Russian Orthodox (in the vast majority of cases), but for being Trotskyites, German spies, Japanese spies, saboteurs, potential assassins of comrade Stalin, you name it. That is the main thing I wanted to make clear.

Best wishes,

Yevgeny Slivkin    


________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] on behalf of Vladimir Orlov [v.orlov05 at GOOGLEMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 5:46 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Pussy Riot

Sorry Seelangers for appearing here too often,
but I have already made my bed and now I have to lie on it.

Maybe because the beginning of this polemics was in Russian, the
following aspect is not obvious enough,
so let me please repeat it.

1) The accusing formulation of Pussy Riot is 'hooliganism'. You can
check it out. That is, no linkage to Bolshevism or to any form of
oppression against the church is provided by Russian justice. I mean
it.
Significantly, there IS a law article that sounds разжигание
религиозной вражды (fomentation of the religious strife, don't know if
my translation is exact or not), but this is NOT what activists of PR
are accused for. (Thankfully.) Indeed, the accuracy and the extent of
real justice demonstrated by the law in Russia awaits to be seen.
However, only the court decision could provide the valid argument in
the debate whether PR deserves to be defended, or not, in my opinion.

NB: Yevgeniy had noted hat PR's collaborators will be accused by that
article. Lets see what will really happen.

2) Ivan Esaulov makes a direct link between Holocaust and the tragedy
of Orthodox church under Soviet regime. As seems, many people do not
share this view. But many people do.

May I please provide the following example: wearing swastika and
singing Nazi songs is not prohibited by the law in many countries.
These include Engand, for instance.
But does it say that you are alowed to make Nazi protest in an English
synagogue interrupting the service, forced out by the security and
escaping afterwards, without being prosecuted?

I bet this whole story would have followed by the great lawsuit,
irrespective that Nazi ideology is not illegal in this country -- and
irrespective to what some people might think, even if they support
these so-called 'liberal activists'.

In conclusion I will say that many people (myself including) do not
see PR as 'liberal'. Liberalism is something different -- which,
sadly, does not exist in today's Russia. But this is a matter of a
different discussion.

PS:
Re Svitlana Kobets.

In my view, that is a very interesting observation. PR themselves,
however, do not associate themselves with this yurodivy tradition,
described by Likhachev. As many people in Russian media say, PR demand
Christian mercy, but they never asked for forgiveness. Nonetheless, it
would have been better for them to mention something like you showed,
indicating that the church has already undergone through these
practices without any special harm for it.

PPS:
Re Yevgeniy Slivkin.

Спасибо Вам за замечание,
я, разумеется, могу сообщить Вам много возражений. В первую очередь --
нельзя полностью доверять изданию грани.ру, спонсируемому Борисом
Абрамовичем (против которого возбуждены уголовные дела уже, кажется, в
пяти странах). Другие издания не дают информации о вовлечённости РПЦ
(что, конечно, вполне вероятно, я понимаю). В любом случае, я думаю,
надо дождаться сначала, кого в действительности арестуют по этой
статье, и потом уже делать выводы.

Если нужно, я готов продолжить нашу дискуссию публично,
но я надеюсь, Вы согласитесь, что в этом нет необходимости (если её не
обозначат специально).
Разумеется, мне было важно и интересно услышать Ваше мнение.

Regards,

--
Dr. Vladimir Orlov
PhD in Musicology (Cantab)
http://cambridge.academia.edu/VladimirOrlov
Trustee of Cultural and Artistic Affairs, Russian Cambridge Foundation
www.russiancambridge.org
+7 8332 375760 (home)

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