Paul Goble
Staunton, March 22 – Mintimir Shaimiyev, the longtime president of Tatarstan, has laid down a broad challenge to Moscow not only by announcing his decision to resign from the leadership of the United Russia Party which he helped to found but also by reaffirming his belief that Russia must remain a federation in which all its indigenous nations have a voice.
Not surprisingly, Shaimiyev’s resignation from the leadership of United Russia has attracted the greater attention from Moscow analysts who have speculated about the possible impact of that step on the upcoming elections, but in reality, Shaimiyev’s views on federalism and support for the nations within Russia may have a greater impact.
That is because Shaimiyev and the republic he long headed and whose current leadership he formed has often served as the bellwether of attitudes and policies in the other non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation and also and perhaps equally importantly on the position of the heads of predominantly ethnic Russian regions as well.
On Friday, Shaimiyev announced his resignation from the leadership of United Russia and laid out his ideas in a major interview with the Tatar-language newspaper “Tatar gazite” (www.tatargazeta.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70:-q-q&catid=4:2010-11-04-15-26-09&Itemid=11. A Russian translation has now appeared (etatar.ru/20/39572).
Asked to evaluate his time in politics, the Tatarstan leader said that “our greatest success was raising the authority of our nation” because “we were able to radically change relations toward the Tatars,” often during periods of extraordinary political and economic changes and challenges.
Shaimiyev said that he did not have any major regrets about his time in office, although he conceded it was sometimes difficult to work when other Tatars demanded “freedom” and “independence” and suggested that he was “a weakling” in comparison with Chechnya’s Dzhokhar Dudayev.
He explained his relationship with United Russia in the following way: “I am the co-president of the Supreme Council of United Russia because I was one of the organizers of the party” rather than because he joined something that others had created. But now, Shaimiyev suggested, circumstances have changed.
“Unfortunately,” he said, neither United Russia nor any other party in the country supports “a multi-national and federative state system in Russia.” And consequently, “I do not intend to remain a co-president.” Others, who are in the presidium of that party can continue to work, “but I am in retirement.”
But Shaimiyev said he was disappointed that the party he helped found “cannot exert sufficient influence on the economic and political situation in the country.” Despite its dominance, it has not acted as “the center-right” party he backed. Instead, it has played with certain “leftist” ideas.
But Shaimiyev rejected the idea that Russia was facing the kind of political challenges now shaking the Arab world. “The situation with us is not like their situation. It is not surprising that peoples who have nothing to lose have begun” to act in this way. “In Russia the situation is different … In our history, there have been a sufficient number of revolutions.”
The Tatar leader then turned his attention to nationality problems and policies. Arguing that “the roots of this problem are deep,” Shaimiyev noted that he has “always said that … Russia needs a nationality policy more than other countries,” something that many in Moscow do not appear to understand.
Moscow must focus on these issues because “under conditions of democratic development,” it and the rest of Russia have no choice. “And one should not compare us with the United States,” “an entirely different world” whose residents called themselves Americans whatever their ethnic background.
“In our situation,” he said, it is “an absurdity” to declare that Tatars are “[non-ethnic] Russians of Tatar origin.” “If we want to live in a democracy, there must be a federation in the true sense … There cannot be democracy in a unitary Russia. My native language and my nationality are my right, given from birth, and no one can take them away from me.”
And Shaimiyev concluded with two further observations that challenge Moscow. On the one hand, he said that the law directing heads of republics to be called presidents is not indisputable. And on the other, he said that Moscow leaders have failed to consult with regional leaders the way Boris Yeltsin did in the early 1990s. The issue is not just “elections.”
This interview has sparked numerous commentaries in Moscow. Writing for Polit.ru yesterday, forexample, Mikhail Zakharov suggested that Shaimiyev’s declaration was an unwelcome “signal” to the leadership in the Russian capital, one that represents a threat of “sabotage” of the upcoming elections (www.polit.ru/event/2011/03/21/6aimiev.html).
Zakharov noted that the way in which Shaimiyev delivered his message is instructive of the Tatar leader’s political skills: in a Tatar language newspaper rather than in a Russian one in Kazan or in a central news agency. Nonetheless, he said, “in the center such signals are noted” if with a certain delay.
And Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa” today offered a survey of reaction. Yevgeny Minchenko, the director of the International Instituteof Political Expertise, said that Shaimiyev’s remarks showed that “there is a chance that Shaimiyev will try again to play a role in [Russian Federation] politics” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/40766/).
“It is obvious,” Minchenko noted, “that today there is dissatisfaction on the part of regional elites with the politicies of the federal center,” given Moscow’s ongoing centralization drive and its discounting of the role of national minorities, other than those in the North Caucasus.
Members of the Tatar diaspora in Moscow have told him, Minchenko continued, that “we do not understand, given that there are far more of us than representatives of other nationalities and that we made an enormous constribution to the establishment of Russian statehood why the Chechens have such a disproportionate influence.”
Aleksey Mukhin, the director general of the Center of Political Information, focused on another aspect of Shaimiyev’s critique. He noted that Shaimiyev’s “accusationthat the party has noface is a seirous thing which can be interpreted as an attack on the leader of the party and its senior functionaries.”
Vladimir Pribalovsky, the president of the Panorama Research Center, in turn said that Shaimiyev’s remarks only reinforced the Tatar leader’s reputation for political sophistication and care. Shaimiyev isn’t going into opposition; instead, he is seeking to preserve his power in the Kazan “tandem” of which he is a part together with Rustam Minnikhanov.
But Dmitry Orlov, the director generalof the Agency of Political and Economic Communications, suggested that no one should make too much of Shaimiyev’s remarks because his decision to leave the leadership of United Russia had obviously been agreed upon in advance with Moscow and reflected his lower status as a former republic head.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Power Vertical ‘No Panacea’ against Russia’s Disintegration, Academy of Sciences Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 22 – Despite the claims of Vladimir Putin and his supporters, the creation of a power vertical is “no panacea” against the possible disintegration of the Russian State, according to a legal specialist at the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Indeed, Mekhti Sharifov argues, the idea that unitarism will save Russia and ensure its greatness reflects a failure to understand that neither the Russian Empire northe USSR were ever “unitary states in the classical sense” (www.peoples-rights.info/2011/03/rossiya-i-nadnacionalnoe-setevoe-federativnoe-soobshhestvo/).
And in fact, the legal scholar suggests, the untrammelled pursuit of a unitary state to prevent the disintegration of the Russian Federation may by ignoring the diversity of the country and the need for horizontal as well as vertical ties create conditions that will lead to precisely the opposite outcome that its backers hope for.
“Ever more frequently,” Sharifov writes in a heavily footnoted, 5300-word article, “the question about the fate of the federation in Russia is being raised,” with “the crisis in federative relationsgiving many a basis to advance demans for the transformation of the country into a unitary republic.”
The supporters of this view, the Moscow scholar points out, “assert that periods of the greatest glory of Russia were those when the country had a unitary form of state structure. However, history testifies to the reverse: the Russian Empire and the USSR were never unitary states in the classical sense.”
Before 1917, autonomy was “a form of the effective administration” of many non-Russian borderlands in the Russian Empire, a form adopted because “the autocracy recognized htat it is impossible to ‘administer in one and the same ways’ peoples as different as the Turkmens, Finns, and Poles, Sharifov says.
Such arrangements did not make the Russian Empire a federal state, but “one must not ignore the elements of federalism” which did exist, and the same thing is true, the Institute of State and Law expert argues, with regard to the USSR, “which was formed as a confederation but with time was transformed into a federative state.”
Paying attention to this aspect is important, he continues, because “excessive centralization of power and the unjustified unification of the system of state administration undermined the foundations of the state by provoking crises (the revolutions of 1905-06, 1917, and the Brezhnev ‘stagnation’) and the breaking away of national borderlands (Poland and Finland at the start of the 20th century and the republics of the USSR at its end).”
Efforts over the last decade to strengthen “the vertical of power” have “led to the deformationof the federal system,” creating a system which is “formally a federation but de facto a unitary state.” Nevertheless, these efforts have not had solved the problem – separatism -- that their authors pointed to as the reason for moving in that direction.
“The problem of separatism in the North Caucasus” in fact, Shafirov argues, “has entered a new stage.” Separatist challenges by the Chechens and Ingush remain “unresolved,” and they have been joined now by a new separatism challenge from the Circassians, at least in part in response to the growth of the power vertical.
Russia’s “federative structure is a weakly hierarchical structure which in the early stages of its establishment has not given visible results and requires significant resources,” again at least in part because the powers that be have failed to understand the nature of the challenge before them and have preferred to focus on separatism or “’the parade of sovereignties.’”
The “harsh” power vertical they have put in place, that is “a harshly hierarchical system of administration, is not effective as a long-term strategy since it requires significant resource support for its functioning,” and thus prevents Russia from addressing its most pressing problems domestically and internationally.
Federalism can provide a way out of this dilemma, Sharifov argues, by giving “a politicaland legal opportunity” to the regions for “participation in the adoption and realization of state-wide issues,” allowing both citizens and the subjects of the federation to play a role in both cases.
Unfortunately, he continues, “existing Russian legislation does not contain the institutional instruments through which the subject of the federation could participate in the formation of the state-wide expression of will,” thus limiting the utility of these structures for the state and indeed transforming them into a threat to it.
“The main cause of the failure of the course of strengthening the vertical of power lies in its lack of correspondence with the tendencies of the development of the state as a social-political institution,” Sharifov says, tendencies that require both vertical and horizontal “redistribution” of authority.
“The vertical redistribution of authorities presupposes the transfer of sovereign rights to super-national (international organizations) and subnational levels (civil society),” Sharifov argues, while “the horizontal redistribution requires the transfer of rights to regional and municipal organs of power.”
These two “vectors,” he suggests “can be combined in one term – federalism,” a concept which is “much broader than the term ‘federation.’” Federalism may exist even “without a federation.” Indeed, Sharifov shows in a survey of various countries, including the US, Israel, the European Union and China, it is a precondition of modernity in the post-industrial world.
Indeed, Sharifov insists, “democratization and the development of civil society on the one hand and the broadening of the authority of international organizations on the other is a manifestation of federalization respectively at the national and super-national levels” in the post-Cold War environment.
But in addition to federalism, there is a need for an ideological self-definition, he suggests, something Russia also lacks, thus putting it at a disadvantage domestically and internationally because “federalism and an ideological imperative are the two foundations of the formation of the basic players on the international arena of the 21st century.”
To get out of its current difficulties, ones that have left Russia at the level of many failed or failing states, Russia’s leaders must show the kind of political courage that has not been much in evidence and change directions both domestically and in their approach to international affairs.
Among the steps these leaders need to take domestically, Sharifov argues is the conclusion of a new federal treaty, the elimination of the ethnic basis of federal units while reducing the number of the federal structures, and the provision of a clear definition of the competence of all levels of the state.
Internationally, he says, Moscow must “distance itself from the political elites in post-Soviet republics who are inclined toward authoritarianism,” focus on improving the standard of human life, create firm ties “with the civil societies of the post-Soviet republics, and create its own analogues to the Euroregions with the CIS countries.
Sharifov does not hold out much hope that anyone in Moscow will take these steps anytime soon, but he suggests that if the leadership does not take them, the power vertical won’t save the country and Russia will fall further and further behind the rest of the world which is moving toward federalism and democracy domestically and internationally.
Staunton, March 22 – Despite the claims of Vladimir Putin and his supporters, the creation of a power vertical is “no panacea” against the possible disintegration of the Russian State, according to a legal specialist at the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Indeed, Mekhti Sharifov argues, the idea that unitarism will save Russia and ensure its greatness reflects a failure to understand that neither the Russian Empire northe USSR were ever “unitary states in the classical sense” (www.peoples-rights.info/2011/03/rossiya-i-nadnacionalnoe-setevoe-federativnoe-soobshhestvo/).
And in fact, the legal scholar suggests, the untrammelled pursuit of a unitary state to prevent the disintegration of the Russian Federation may by ignoring the diversity of the country and the need for horizontal as well as vertical ties create conditions that will lead to precisely the opposite outcome that its backers hope for.
“Ever more frequently,” Sharifov writes in a heavily footnoted, 5300-word article, “the question about the fate of the federation in Russia is being raised,” with “the crisis in federative relationsgiving many a basis to advance demans for the transformation of the country into a unitary republic.”
The supporters of this view, the Moscow scholar points out, “assert that periods of the greatest glory of Russia were those when the country had a unitary form of state structure. However, history testifies to the reverse: the Russian Empire and the USSR were never unitary states in the classical sense.”
Before 1917, autonomy was “a form of the effective administration” of many non-Russian borderlands in the Russian Empire, a form adopted because “the autocracy recognized htat it is impossible to ‘administer in one and the same ways’ peoples as different as the Turkmens, Finns, and Poles, Sharifov says.
Such arrangements did not make the Russian Empire a federal state, but “one must not ignore the elements of federalism” which did exist, and the same thing is true, the Institute of State and Law expert argues, with regard to the USSR, “which was formed as a confederation but with time was transformed into a federative state.”
Paying attention to this aspect is important, he continues, because “excessive centralization of power and the unjustified unification of the system of state administration undermined the foundations of the state by provoking crises (the revolutions of 1905-06, 1917, and the Brezhnev ‘stagnation’) and the breaking away of national borderlands (Poland and Finland at the start of the 20th century and the republics of the USSR at its end).”
Efforts over the last decade to strengthen “the vertical of power” have “led to the deformationof the federal system,” creating a system which is “formally a federation but de facto a unitary state.” Nevertheless, these efforts have not had solved the problem – separatism -- that their authors pointed to as the reason for moving in that direction.
“The problem of separatism in the North Caucasus” in fact, Shafirov argues, “has entered a new stage.” Separatist challenges by the Chechens and Ingush remain “unresolved,” and they have been joined now by a new separatism challenge from the Circassians, at least in part in response to the growth of the power vertical.
Russia’s “federative structure is a weakly hierarchical structure which in the early stages of its establishment has not given visible results and requires significant resources,” again at least in part because the powers that be have failed to understand the nature of the challenge before them and have preferred to focus on separatism or “’the parade of sovereignties.’”
The “harsh” power vertical they have put in place, that is “a harshly hierarchical system of administration, is not effective as a long-term strategy since it requires significant resource support for its functioning,” and thus prevents Russia from addressing its most pressing problems domestically and internationally.
Federalism can provide a way out of this dilemma, Sharifov argues, by giving “a politicaland legal opportunity” to the regions for “participation in the adoption and realization of state-wide issues,” allowing both citizens and the subjects of the federation to play a role in both cases.
Unfortunately, he continues, “existing Russian legislation does not contain the institutional instruments through which the subject of the federation could participate in the formation of the state-wide expression of will,” thus limiting the utility of these structures for the state and indeed transforming them into a threat to it.
“The main cause of the failure of the course of strengthening the vertical of power lies in its lack of correspondence with the tendencies of the development of the state as a social-political institution,” Sharifov says, tendencies that require both vertical and horizontal “redistribution” of authority.
“The vertical redistribution of authorities presupposes the transfer of sovereign rights to super-national (international organizations) and subnational levels (civil society),” Sharifov argues, while “the horizontal redistribution requires the transfer of rights to regional and municipal organs of power.”
These two “vectors,” he suggests “can be combined in one term – federalism,” a concept which is “much broader than the term ‘federation.’” Federalism may exist even “without a federation.” Indeed, Sharifov shows in a survey of various countries, including the US, Israel, the European Union and China, it is a precondition of modernity in the post-industrial world.
Indeed, Sharifov insists, “democratization and the development of civil society on the one hand and the broadening of the authority of international organizations on the other is a manifestation of federalization respectively at the national and super-national levels” in the post-Cold War environment.
But in addition to federalism, there is a need for an ideological self-definition, he suggests, something Russia also lacks, thus putting it at a disadvantage domestically and internationally because “federalism and an ideological imperative are the two foundations of the formation of the basic players on the international arena of the 21st century.”
To get out of its current difficulties, ones that have left Russia at the level of many failed or failing states, Russia’s leaders must show the kind of political courage that has not been much in evidence and change directions both domestically and in their approach to international affairs.
Among the steps these leaders need to take domestically, Sharifov argues is the conclusion of a new federal treaty, the elimination of the ethnic basis of federal units while reducing the number of the federal structures, and the provision of a clear definition of the competence of all levels of the state.
Internationally, he says, Moscow must “distance itself from the political elites in post-Soviet republics who are inclined toward authoritarianism,” focus on improving the standard of human life, create firm ties “with the civil societies of the post-Soviet republics, and create its own analogues to the Euroregions with the CIS countries.
Sharifov does not hold out much hope that anyone in Moscow will take these steps anytime soon, but he suggests that if the leadership does not take them, the power vertical won’t save the country and Russia will fall further and further behind the rest of the world which is moving toward federalism and democracy domestically and internationally.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Japanese Nuclear Disaster to Have Chernobyl-Like Consequences, Nikitin Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 21 – Responding to claims by a former Russian nuclear power minister that only the telephone is a safer technology than nuclear power plants, Aleksandr Nikitin of the Bellona Ecological Defense Center says that the Japanese nuclear disaster is certain to have Chernobyl-like consequences.
On the one hand, those with financial interests in the construction and operation of such plants will continue to deny the dangers they represent, the longtime environmental activist says. And on the other, the people living near such plants will in the case of accidents suffer in ways that will be hard to count.
Last week, Ekho Moskvy featured an interview with Yevgeny Adamov, former Russian nuclear power minister (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/klinch/757462-echo). His claims about the safety of this industry were so hyperbolic that the Bellona organization asked Aleksandr Nikitin to comment on them (www.bellona.ru/articles_ru/articles_2011/Nikitin-Adamov).
The former nuclear power minister asserted that “of all technical objects from the point of view of life of people and harm for health, the least harm comes from nuclear energy. Only the telephone is more secure,” a view that Nikitin dismissed as completely false both when accidents occur and especially long afterwards.
Harm from nuclear accidents, Nikitin said, involves “not only the number of dead and suffering at the time when incidents occur but also the influence these incidents will have on future generations of people and on the natural environment.” Chernobyl is still having a negative impact on both, and analysts have no way of measuring this in advance.
Nikitin also dismissed Adamov’s assertion that the incident in Japan shows that “atomic energy is the most secure” and that “not one individual” will lose his life now or in the future as a result of the accident. That is simply not the case, Nikitin countered, noting that the radiation will remain in the area for many decades harming people and the environment.
And Nikitin said that Adamov’s arguments about the increasing number of technical means to protect against nuclear accidents in fact undercut themselves. “With the growing number of technical means guaranteeing security,” the Bellona expert continues, “the reliability of the system as a whole falls” because it depends on each and every one of them.
Nikitin also dismisses Adamov’s arguments that nuclear power will be demanded by countries “because it is more secure than other technologies and more ecological than they.” That is not the case, and the former Soviet naval captain turned ecological investigator provides examples.
And the Bellona expert notes the recent decisions of Germany, China and “even Nicaragua” to use other forms of energy. More are likely to follow, he says, because the Japanese events will represent a shock to the atomic power industry equal to that which occurred after Chernobyl.
But however that may be, Moscow is continuing to promote the exploitation and building of atomic energy plants not only insider the Russian Federation but in Turkey and Belarus. As Bellona’s Andrey Ozharovsky notes, “the powers that be in Russia are ignoring the lessons of the catastrophe” in Japan because there is so much profit to be made.
Indeed, Orzharovsky says, it appears that the current Russian leaders will “recognize the danger of atomic energy” only if there is an accident within the Russian Federation, a tragedy that their own blind self-confidence in this form of power tragically makes more rather than less likely (www.bellona.ru/articles_ru/articles_2011/Putin-Medvedev-Lobby).
Staunton, March 21 – Responding to claims by a former Russian nuclear power minister that only the telephone is a safer technology than nuclear power plants, Aleksandr Nikitin of the Bellona Ecological Defense Center says that the Japanese nuclear disaster is certain to have Chernobyl-like consequences.
On the one hand, those with financial interests in the construction and operation of such plants will continue to deny the dangers they represent, the longtime environmental activist says. And on the other, the people living near such plants will in the case of accidents suffer in ways that will be hard to count.
Last week, Ekho Moskvy featured an interview with Yevgeny Adamov, former Russian nuclear power minister (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/klinch/757462-echo). His claims about the safety of this industry were so hyperbolic that the Bellona organization asked Aleksandr Nikitin to comment on them (www.bellona.ru/articles_ru/articles_2011/Nikitin-Adamov).
The former nuclear power minister asserted that “of all technical objects from the point of view of life of people and harm for health, the least harm comes from nuclear energy. Only the telephone is more secure,” a view that Nikitin dismissed as completely false both when accidents occur and especially long afterwards.
Harm from nuclear accidents, Nikitin said, involves “not only the number of dead and suffering at the time when incidents occur but also the influence these incidents will have on future generations of people and on the natural environment.” Chernobyl is still having a negative impact on both, and analysts have no way of measuring this in advance.
Nikitin also dismissed Adamov’s assertion that the incident in Japan shows that “atomic energy is the most secure” and that “not one individual” will lose his life now or in the future as a result of the accident. That is simply not the case, Nikitin countered, noting that the radiation will remain in the area for many decades harming people and the environment.
And Nikitin said that Adamov’s arguments about the increasing number of technical means to protect against nuclear accidents in fact undercut themselves. “With the growing number of technical means guaranteeing security,” the Bellona expert continues, “the reliability of the system as a whole falls” because it depends on each and every one of them.
Nikitin also dismisses Adamov’s arguments that nuclear power will be demanded by countries “because it is more secure than other technologies and more ecological than they.” That is not the case, and the former Soviet naval captain turned ecological investigator provides examples.
And the Bellona expert notes the recent decisions of Germany, China and “even Nicaragua” to use other forms of energy. More are likely to follow, he says, because the Japanese events will represent a shock to the atomic power industry equal to that which occurred after Chernobyl.
But however that may be, Moscow is continuing to promote the exploitation and building of atomic energy plants not only insider the Russian Federation but in Turkey and Belarus. As Bellona’s Andrey Ozharovsky notes, “the powers that be in Russia are ignoring the lessons of the catastrophe” in Japan because there is so much profit to be made.
Indeed, Orzharovsky says, it appears that the current Russian leaders will “recognize the danger of atomic energy” only if there is an accident within the Russian Federation, a tragedy that their own blind self-confidence in this form of power tragically makes more rather than less likely (www.bellona.ru/articles_ru/articles_2011/Putin-Medvedev-Lobby).
Window on Eurasia: National Districts of Russian North, Born in Violence, Now Face a Sad End, Local Writer Suggests
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 21 – Moscow’s drive to amalgamate the autonomous districts that some of the numerically small peoples of the Russian North have has prompted one writer there to recall that these peoples actively and violently resisted Soviet ethnic engineering in the 1920s and 1930s, an implicit warning that at least some of them might mount a similar resistance now.
Writing in ”Nyar”yana vynder,” a newspaper in the Nenets Autonomous District, Irina Khanzerova notes that Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous districts last year marked their 80th anniversaries, often with tears because “no one knows” whether they will have the chance to celebrate any future ones (nvinder.ru/?t=sm&d=11&m=0003&y=2011&n=9).
And precisely because of these doubts about the future, she writes, people are again reflecting “about the past and -- what is the main thing -- the future of the Northern autonomies” as these small and isolated communities seek to answer the question “what is the dawning day preparing for us?”
Describing her article as being about “a path from the past into the past,” Khanzerova notes at after 1917, the Soviet authorities created national districts in order to “ease the task of administration” by a profess of divide and rule and thus assist the communists in their efforts to do away with the traditional way of life of the peoples of the North.
But this “process of ‘dividing up,’” the Nenets journalist continues, “did not take place without resistance despite what we are told. Across the territories of the numerically small peoples broke out a wave of uprisings,” as the various peoples attempted to defend their way of life against the outsiders.
Consequently, Khanzerova argues, “no one today has the right to assert that the establishment of national districts in the near Arctic tundra took place quietly and happily and that the peoples living on the borderlands of a great state only awaited the coming of the new power.” Instead, “the new ‘happy autonomy’ was built on the bones of our grandfathers.”
She surveys the history of resistance in four of these districts: the Khanty-Mansiisk AO which was created in 1930 and still exists, the Evenk AO which was created in 1932 and disbanded in 2007, the Dolgan-Nenets AO which existed from 1931 to 2007, and the Chukotka AO which was established in 1930 but faces an uncertain future.
In the Khanty and Mansi areas, the population, who were earlier called Ostyaks, did not accept Soviet power, and the Mansi writer Yeremey Aypin notes that “in the folklore of the Siberian peoples in the 1920s appeared many legends and stories celebrating the former taiga life” as “better and freer” than the one the Soviets imposed.
In 1934, Khanzerova recounts, the Ob Khanty refused to meet their labor norms. Their children were seized and confined in Soviet orphanages, and many disappeared into the taiga. But in one district town, the NKVD surrounded and shot “approximately 300 people,” apparently a small fraction of the total number of executions there.
Soviet efforts to create an Event district took almost a decade because of local resistance. After Moscow called for that, a group of 60 Evenks seized the port of Ayan, thereby acquiring “a large quantity” of arms. And they were forced out only when the GPU dispatched one of its most notorious punitive detachments.
In 1932, a rising took place in Chumikan, After its defeat and in protest against Soviet efforts to regulate their lives, a group of Evenks left the RSFSR for China. Those who remained were subsequently shot as Chinese “spies.” Today, Khanzerova notes, “there are some 30,000 Evenks” in the Chinese district of Hingan.
When Soviet power arrived in the Taymyr, it immediately set about creating the GULAG. After an ethnographer talked about the shamans as “brakes” on the development of the Soviet system, “the ‘builders of a new world’ arrested all shamans and their assistance” and had them shot. Later 500 of their supporters were sent into the GULAG as punishment.
Chukotka, because of its enormous size and small population, was not subjected to full Sovietization until somewhat later. As a result, resistance took place not so much in the 1920s as in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1949, for example, Khanzerova writes, there was an uprising among the Chukchi but it was quickly suppressed.
To prevent a repetition, the Soviets carried out another form of ethnic engineering: they introduced detachments of Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians and ethnic Russians from Novgorod and Pskov oblasts to overwhelm the local population, reducing it to a minority on its own land from time immemorial.
Thus, Khanzerova concludes, “nowhere in the northern expanses of Russia did the establishment of autonomous national districts take place peacefully and without blood.” Instead, that experiment organized by Moscow cost these peoples dearly. Now that Moscow is making new plans, few expect things to be different.
“Just how long the last of the Mohicans -- the Nenets AO, the Yamano-Nenets AO, the Khanty-Mansiisk AO, and the Chukotka AO -- will remain is something that today only the supreme power can say,” the Nenets writer says. “And its position [on this question] unfortunately is well known to us.”
Staunton, March 21 – Moscow’s drive to amalgamate the autonomous districts that some of the numerically small peoples of the Russian North have has prompted one writer there to recall that these peoples actively and violently resisted Soviet ethnic engineering in the 1920s and 1930s, an implicit warning that at least some of them might mount a similar resistance now.
Writing in ”Nyar”yana vynder,” a newspaper in the Nenets Autonomous District, Irina Khanzerova notes that Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous districts last year marked their 80th anniversaries, often with tears because “no one knows” whether they will have the chance to celebrate any future ones (nvinder.ru/?t=sm&d=11&m=0003&y=2011&n=9).
And precisely because of these doubts about the future, she writes, people are again reflecting “about the past and -- what is the main thing -- the future of the Northern autonomies” as these small and isolated communities seek to answer the question “what is the dawning day preparing for us?”
Describing her article as being about “a path from the past into the past,” Khanzerova notes at after 1917, the Soviet authorities created national districts in order to “ease the task of administration” by a profess of divide and rule and thus assist the communists in their efforts to do away with the traditional way of life of the peoples of the North.
But this “process of ‘dividing up,’” the Nenets journalist continues, “did not take place without resistance despite what we are told. Across the territories of the numerically small peoples broke out a wave of uprisings,” as the various peoples attempted to defend their way of life against the outsiders.
Consequently, Khanzerova argues, “no one today has the right to assert that the establishment of national districts in the near Arctic tundra took place quietly and happily and that the peoples living on the borderlands of a great state only awaited the coming of the new power.” Instead, “the new ‘happy autonomy’ was built on the bones of our grandfathers.”
She surveys the history of resistance in four of these districts: the Khanty-Mansiisk AO which was created in 1930 and still exists, the Evenk AO which was created in 1932 and disbanded in 2007, the Dolgan-Nenets AO which existed from 1931 to 2007, and the Chukotka AO which was established in 1930 but faces an uncertain future.
In the Khanty and Mansi areas, the population, who were earlier called Ostyaks, did not accept Soviet power, and the Mansi writer Yeremey Aypin notes that “in the folklore of the Siberian peoples in the 1920s appeared many legends and stories celebrating the former taiga life” as “better and freer” than the one the Soviets imposed.
In 1934, Khanzerova recounts, the Ob Khanty refused to meet their labor norms. Their children were seized and confined in Soviet orphanages, and many disappeared into the taiga. But in one district town, the NKVD surrounded and shot “approximately 300 people,” apparently a small fraction of the total number of executions there.
Soviet efforts to create an Event district took almost a decade because of local resistance. After Moscow called for that, a group of 60 Evenks seized the port of Ayan, thereby acquiring “a large quantity” of arms. And they were forced out only when the GPU dispatched one of its most notorious punitive detachments.
In 1932, a rising took place in Chumikan, After its defeat and in protest against Soviet efforts to regulate their lives, a group of Evenks left the RSFSR for China. Those who remained were subsequently shot as Chinese “spies.” Today, Khanzerova notes, “there are some 30,000 Evenks” in the Chinese district of Hingan.
When Soviet power arrived in the Taymyr, it immediately set about creating the GULAG. After an ethnographer talked about the shamans as “brakes” on the development of the Soviet system, “the ‘builders of a new world’ arrested all shamans and their assistance” and had them shot. Later 500 of their supporters were sent into the GULAG as punishment.
Chukotka, because of its enormous size and small population, was not subjected to full Sovietization until somewhat later. As a result, resistance took place not so much in the 1920s as in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1949, for example, Khanzerova writes, there was an uprising among the Chukchi but it was quickly suppressed.
To prevent a repetition, the Soviets carried out another form of ethnic engineering: they introduced detachments of Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians and ethnic Russians from Novgorod and Pskov oblasts to overwhelm the local population, reducing it to a minority on its own land from time immemorial.
Thus, Khanzerova concludes, “nowhere in the northern expanses of Russia did the establishment of autonomous national districts take place peacefully and without blood.” Instead, that experiment organized by Moscow cost these peoples dearly. Now that Moscow is making new plans, few expect things to be different.
“Just how long the last of the Mohicans -- the Nenets AO, the Yamano-Nenets AO, the Khanty-Mansiisk AO, and the Chukotka AO -- will remain is something that today only the supreme power can say,” the Nenets writer says. “And its position [on this question] unfortunately is well known to us.”
Window on Eurasia: Medvedev’s Offer to Resettle Japanese in Russian Far East Angers Nationalists and Regionalists
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 21 – President Dmitry Medvedev’s suggestion at a meeting of the Russian Security Council that Moscow should consider offering Japanese the chance to resettle in the underpopulated areas of the Russian Far East has outraged both Russian nationalists at the center and Russian activists in that region.
At the end of last week, Medvedev said that in the wake of the problems Japan has been having with the tsunami and nuclear power plant, “we now ought to think about the use in the case of necessity perhaps of part of the labor potential of our neighbors especially in the under-populated regions of Siberia and the Far East” (www.utro.ru/articles/2011/03/18/963182.shtml).
This notion was broached earlier in the week by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the outspoken leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, who said bluntly that “the Japanese islandsare unsuitable” for life because of the potential for cataclysms and that “Russia is an order of magnitude more stable in this regard” (www.utro.ru/articles/2011/03/14/961890.shtml).
Arguing that “the threat of disappearance hangs over the Japanese nation,” Zhirinovsky suggested that the government of the Russian Federationshould begin condultations about “resettling the residents of the islands on the territory of our country,” where, he suggested they could “learn Russian and be assimilated” and thereby gain Russian citizenship.
There is plenty of room for them in the Russian Far East, the LDPR leader suggested, even in terms of housing. Consider Magadan oblast alone, Zhirinovsky said. There, the population has declined from 400,000 to 160,000, but the housing stock has not, allowing Russia to “accept an enormous number of people.”
Not surprisingly, the idea of allowing for Japanese settlement on Russian territory, especially with the assistance of Moscow, has outraged many Russian nationalists (www.za-nauku.ru//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3952&Itemid=35) as well as xenophobic groups like DPNI (www.dpni.org/articles/lenta_novo/21291/).
But this notion has generated particular anger among the Russian population of the Russian Far East, some of whose members are suggesting that Medvedev has so far exceeded his authority that he should be impeached and warning that such an immigration program could lead Siberians to demand independence.
In a blog post picked up by the Globalsib.com news agency on Saturday, Sergey Kornyev, a Siberian regionalist who opposes independence for Siberia and the Far East, said that Medvedev’s proposal is so dangerous and outrageous as to constitute treason and that it should lead to his impeachment by the Federal Assembly (globalsib.com/9903/).
Kornyev outlined five reasons for that conclusion. First of all, he noted, “the president has agreed with the idea of massively introducing in the border regions of Russia citizens of a state which up to now is formally in a state of war with Russia, has territorial claims against it, and which in 1918-1925 occupied a significant part of Siberia and the Far East.”
When Japan was in occupation of that region, Kornyev points out, it attempted to assimilate the Russian population by introducing Japanese laws, renaming cities and streets “and so on,” an indication, the blogger implies, of what a new and massive Japanese presence in that area might mean.
Second, the blogger says, Medvedev by speaking of “the insufficient population” of Siberia and the Far East thus recognized “before the entire world that Russia has ‘excess land.’” That acknowledgement will only make it more difficult forMoscow to conduct talks “with allcountries which have or may have territorial claims against Russia.”
Indeed, Kornyev argues, “many abroad are certain to understand [medvedev’slatest] declaration as an official request for the dividing up of Russia in view of its insufficiently dense population.”
Third, “by this declaration,” he continues, “the President has provoked China, a neighbor, peaceful relations with which is the single guarantee of the securityand integrity of Russia. If Russia has ‘extra land’ for Japan, then why not for China? Why should China tolerate a situation where Japanese will populate areas China itself has claims on?”
According to Kornyev, “Provoking awar with China is the most terrible crime that a leader of Russia could commit.”
Fourth, he points out, “by this declaration, the President has objectively called forth the growth of separatist attitudes among the peoples of Siberia and the Far East who populated this land before Russia.” That is because these people know the fate that the Ainu have suffered under the Japanese, a fate that could be theirs if Medvedev’s proposal is accepted.
“In essence,” Kornyev argues, “the President has said that for Russia, the lands of these peoples is ‘superfluous.’ If [this land] is ‘superfluous, so perhaps it out to return the land to these people in order that they can order it more wisely?”
And fifth, he says, Medvedev’s remarks will give support to those who want to “accuse the leadership of Russia in the conscious genocide of the civil population which is living inthese regions. Any resettlement measure must be preceded by consultations with the residents of the regions involved and a careful social-economic evaluation.”
Kornyev says that “we are waitinguntil one of the parties represented in the State Duma will attempt to start the official procedure of impeachement on the basis of charges of state treason and an attack on the territorial integrity of Russia.” In advance of the December elections, the decision on this point is critical.
That is because, in advance of the Decemberelections, it “willallow us to find out if there is in the Duma atleast one party which itself is not a party of state treason.”
Staunton, March 21 – President Dmitry Medvedev’s suggestion at a meeting of the Russian Security Council that Moscow should consider offering Japanese the chance to resettle in the underpopulated areas of the Russian Far East has outraged both Russian nationalists at the center and Russian activists in that region.
At the end of last week, Medvedev said that in the wake of the problems Japan has been having with the tsunami and nuclear power plant, “we now ought to think about the use in the case of necessity perhaps of part of the labor potential of our neighbors especially in the under-populated regions of Siberia and the Far East” (www.utro.ru/articles/2011/03/18/963182.shtml).
This notion was broached earlier in the week by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the outspoken leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, who said bluntly that “the Japanese islandsare unsuitable” for life because of the potential for cataclysms and that “Russia is an order of magnitude more stable in this regard” (www.utro.ru/articles/2011/03/14/961890.shtml).
Arguing that “the threat of disappearance hangs over the Japanese nation,” Zhirinovsky suggested that the government of the Russian Federationshould begin condultations about “resettling the residents of the islands on the territory of our country,” where, he suggested they could “learn Russian and be assimilated” and thereby gain Russian citizenship.
There is plenty of room for them in the Russian Far East, the LDPR leader suggested, even in terms of housing. Consider Magadan oblast alone, Zhirinovsky said. There, the population has declined from 400,000 to 160,000, but the housing stock has not, allowing Russia to “accept an enormous number of people.”
Not surprisingly, the idea of allowing for Japanese settlement on Russian territory, especially with the assistance of Moscow, has outraged many Russian nationalists (www.za-nauku.ru//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3952&Itemid=35) as well as xenophobic groups like DPNI (www.dpni.org/articles/lenta_novo/21291/).
But this notion has generated particular anger among the Russian population of the Russian Far East, some of whose members are suggesting that Medvedev has so far exceeded his authority that he should be impeached and warning that such an immigration program could lead Siberians to demand independence.
In a blog post picked up by the Globalsib.com news agency on Saturday, Sergey Kornyev, a Siberian regionalist who opposes independence for Siberia and the Far East, said that Medvedev’s proposal is so dangerous and outrageous as to constitute treason and that it should lead to his impeachment by the Federal Assembly (globalsib.com/9903/).
Kornyev outlined five reasons for that conclusion. First of all, he noted, “the president has agreed with the idea of massively introducing in the border regions of Russia citizens of a state which up to now is formally in a state of war with Russia, has territorial claims against it, and which in 1918-1925 occupied a significant part of Siberia and the Far East.”
When Japan was in occupation of that region, Kornyev points out, it attempted to assimilate the Russian population by introducing Japanese laws, renaming cities and streets “and so on,” an indication, the blogger implies, of what a new and massive Japanese presence in that area might mean.
Second, the blogger says, Medvedev by speaking of “the insufficient population” of Siberia and the Far East thus recognized “before the entire world that Russia has ‘excess land.’” That acknowledgement will only make it more difficult forMoscow to conduct talks “with allcountries which have or may have territorial claims against Russia.”
Indeed, Kornyev argues, “many abroad are certain to understand [medvedev’slatest] declaration as an official request for the dividing up of Russia in view of its insufficiently dense population.”
Third, “by this declaration,” he continues, “the President has provoked China, a neighbor, peaceful relations with which is the single guarantee of the securityand integrity of Russia. If Russia has ‘extra land’ for Japan, then why not for China? Why should China tolerate a situation where Japanese will populate areas China itself has claims on?”
According to Kornyev, “Provoking awar with China is the most terrible crime that a leader of Russia could commit.”
Fourth, he points out, “by this declaration, the President has objectively called forth the growth of separatist attitudes among the peoples of Siberia and the Far East who populated this land before Russia.” That is because these people know the fate that the Ainu have suffered under the Japanese, a fate that could be theirs if Medvedev’s proposal is accepted.
“In essence,” Kornyev argues, “the President has said that for Russia, the lands of these peoples is ‘superfluous.’ If [this land] is ‘superfluous, so perhaps it out to return the land to these people in order that they can order it more wisely?”
And fifth, he says, Medvedev’s remarks will give support to those who want to “accuse the leadership of Russia in the conscious genocide of the civil population which is living inthese regions. Any resettlement measure must be preceded by consultations with the residents of the regions involved and a careful social-economic evaluation.”
Kornyev says that “we are waitinguntil one of the parties represented in the State Duma will attempt to start the official procedure of impeachement on the basis of charges of state treason and an attack on the territorial integrity of Russia.” In advance of the December elections, the decision on this point is critical.
That is because, in advance of the Decemberelections, it “willallow us to find out if there is in the Duma atleast one party which itself is not a party of state treason.”
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Window on Eurasia: ‘Russky’ and ‘Rossiisky’ are ‘Identical,’ Russian Nationalist Argues
Paul Goble
Chattanooga, March 4 – In a comment that will enflame passions among non-Russians living in the Russian Federation and annoy those in Moscow seeking to promote a supra-ethnic civic identity, Andrey Savelyev, the leader of the Great Russia Party, argues that there is no difference between the ethnic “Russky” and the ostensibly non-ethnic “Rossiisky.”
Responding to an article by Vyacheslav Nikonov on these two terms and the reasons they are not the same (www.russkie.org/index.php?module=fullitem&id=20961), Savelyev, who is also a Moscow State professor, says there is nothing in the one that is not in the other and vice versa (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2011/02/28/net_nichego_rossijskogo_chto_ne_bylo_by_russkim/).
People like Nikonov, Savelyev continues, “who never occupied themselves with the question of Russian identity somehow are trying to promote themselves” as experts. “First they become leaders of a government financed structure and then they begin to thing that this structure must do something.”
“In fact,” Savelyev says, “an individual of Russian culture whatever his ethnic origin is called both in Russia and beyond its borders an [ethnic] Russian. This is the definition of Russianness. Russian identity is not only an origin from Russian parents; it is much wider than simply ethnic origin.”
“’To be born a Russia is too little: one must be one; one must become one,’” as Igor Severyanin wrote, Savelyev quotes with approval, addthing that “in this sense, the creation of a Russian man is the mastery of Russian culture.” And that puts paid to any idea that the ethnic and the non-ethnic terms are different in meaning.
“There is nothing [non-ethnically] Russian that is not [ethnically] Russian and vice versa,” Savelyev insists. And that is true even though on the territory of Russia “live other peoples” because all but a tiny minority of them know the Russian language and are part of Russian culture.
The fewer than five percent who don’t, Savelyev says, “undoubtedly are not [ethically] Russian or [nonethnically] Russian.” Instead, they are representatives of their own ethnos and nothing more than that.” If there is “nothing [ethnically] Russian” in their identities, then it follows that there is nothing non-ethnically Russian either.
The rights of these peoples should be respected, the Moscow State scholar says, but there is no reason to play games with Russianness as Nikonov “and other ‘Kremlin dreamers’” are inclined to do because they “do not understand that in so doing they are destroying any identity whatsoever.”
The only people who think that “Rossiisky” is separate from “Russky” are those who “are separating themselves from Russian history, fromt the Russian people, and,” Savelyev says, “in the final analysis from the Russian state.” That is because the state is “[ethnically]Russian; there is nothing there Tatar, nor Udmurt, nor Chechen, nor Yakut.”
Moreover, it is through this ethnic Russianness that Russians are connected with the broader European culture. “Small peoples, and except for the Russian, all the remaining peoples living in Russia are small must understand that they enter into world culture only by the mediation of Russian culture.”
In fact, Savelyev says, “to the extent that [these small peoples] are Russian, it is to that extent that they belong to all-human culture.” And if they refuse to be part of the Russian culture, then their fate will be to remain “in the framework of their ethnically archaic enclaves.” They have that choice, but it is not an attractive one, he implies.
It is of course possible, the Moscow State professor continues, that people like Nikonov want to form ust such a community of “[non-ethnic] Russians,” a community that “will consist of those intelligents like himself with advanced thought who donot understand the meaning of the word [ethnic] Russianorthe values of Russian culture and Russian identity.”
Nikonov and his like can “choose any identity they like” and rest assured that their “civil rights” will not be threatened in any way. But there is one thing that is obvious, he and his friends are not part of the “[ethnic] Russian world.” To that, Savelyev says, he and they have “no relations” whatsoever.
Chattanooga, March 4 – In a comment that will enflame passions among non-Russians living in the Russian Federation and annoy those in Moscow seeking to promote a supra-ethnic civic identity, Andrey Savelyev, the leader of the Great Russia Party, argues that there is no difference between the ethnic “Russky” and the ostensibly non-ethnic “Rossiisky.”
Responding to an article by Vyacheslav Nikonov on these two terms and the reasons they are not the same (www.russkie.org/index.php?module=fullitem&id=20961), Savelyev, who is also a Moscow State professor, says there is nothing in the one that is not in the other and vice versa (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2011/02/28/net_nichego_rossijskogo_chto_ne_bylo_by_russkim/).
People like Nikonov, Savelyev continues, “who never occupied themselves with the question of Russian identity somehow are trying to promote themselves” as experts. “First they become leaders of a government financed structure and then they begin to thing that this structure must do something.”
“In fact,” Savelyev says, “an individual of Russian culture whatever his ethnic origin is called both in Russia and beyond its borders an [ethnic] Russian. This is the definition of Russianness. Russian identity is not only an origin from Russian parents; it is much wider than simply ethnic origin.”
“’To be born a Russia is too little: one must be one; one must become one,’” as Igor Severyanin wrote, Savelyev quotes with approval, addthing that “in this sense, the creation of a Russian man is the mastery of Russian culture.” And that puts paid to any idea that the ethnic and the non-ethnic terms are different in meaning.
“There is nothing [non-ethnically] Russian that is not [ethnically] Russian and vice versa,” Savelyev insists. And that is true even though on the territory of Russia “live other peoples” because all but a tiny minority of them know the Russian language and are part of Russian culture.
The fewer than five percent who don’t, Savelyev says, “undoubtedly are not [ethically] Russian or [nonethnically] Russian.” Instead, they are representatives of their own ethnos and nothing more than that.” If there is “nothing [ethnically] Russian” in their identities, then it follows that there is nothing non-ethnically Russian either.
The rights of these peoples should be respected, the Moscow State scholar says, but there is no reason to play games with Russianness as Nikonov “and other ‘Kremlin dreamers’” are inclined to do because they “do not understand that in so doing they are destroying any identity whatsoever.”
The only people who think that “Rossiisky” is separate from “Russky” are those who “are separating themselves from Russian history, fromt the Russian people, and,” Savelyev says, “in the final analysis from the Russian state.” That is because the state is “[ethnically]Russian; there is nothing there Tatar, nor Udmurt, nor Chechen, nor Yakut.”
Moreover, it is through this ethnic Russianness that Russians are connected with the broader European culture. “Small peoples, and except for the Russian, all the remaining peoples living in Russia are small must understand that they enter into world culture only by the mediation of Russian culture.”
In fact, Savelyev says, “to the extent that [these small peoples] are Russian, it is to that extent that they belong to all-human culture.” And if they refuse to be part of the Russian culture, then their fate will be to remain “in the framework of their ethnically archaic enclaves.” They have that choice, but it is not an attractive one, he implies.
It is of course possible, the Moscow State professor continues, that people like Nikonov want to form ust such a community of “[non-ethnic] Russians,” a community that “will consist of those intelligents like himself with advanced thought who donot understand the meaning of the word [ethnic] Russianorthe values of Russian culture and Russian identity.”
Nikonov and his like can “choose any identity they like” and rest assured that their “civil rights” will not be threatened in any way. But there is one thing that is obvious, he and his friends are not part of the “[ethnic] Russian world.” To that, Savelyev says, he and they have “no relations” whatsoever.
Window on Eurasia: Religion as Organized by the Kremlin Unlikely to Play an Integrative Role in Russia, Experts Say
Paul Goble
Chattanooga, March 4 – On the day the Kremlin created a Commission on Inter-National and Inter-Religious Relations, experts at a Moscow conference on the social role of religion expressed skepticism that religion by itself could play an integrative role in the multi-religious and mutli-national Russian society.
Indeed, in the words of Professor Ekaterina Elbakyan of the Moscow Academy of Labor and Social Relations, “to speak about the integrating role of religion in poly-ethnic and multi-cultural societies is not serious.” Instead, she argued, “it is necessary to seek a different basis for integration, for example, law” (www.ej.ru/?a=news&id=10434).
And another expert, Aleksandr Verkhovsky of the SOVA analytic center, said that the creation of this new commission could be valuable as religious leaders have a role to play in helping individuals and groups overcome conflict situations. But that is not the only thing that can happen when religious leaders get involved.
He pointed to certain negative consequences of such intervention by religious figures of the kind included in the new commission, including giving “certain ethnically charged conflicts … a religious coloration,” that could have the result of making existing conflicts even more difficult to resolve.
However that may be, the creation of the new commission is clearly an important event for what it says about thinking in the Kremlin. Its composition does not follow the “traditional” religions list that the Moscow authorities have normally followed, leaving out several key players from the Muslim community and including instead Catholics and others.
At the same time, the new group is dominated by the Moscow Patriarchate with Father Vsevolod Chaplin playing the main role. At the commission’s first session, he stressed that “peacemaking work is especially important when inter-ethnic relations are being tested and when the unity of our people without which our future is unthinkable is being attacked from inside and out” (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=39714).
But if the Kremlin and its commission were confident religious groups could play a positive role from above, speakers at the Moscow conference were not. Zhan Toshchenko, a candidate member of the Academy of Sciences said that achieving moral political unity was only possible from below (www.blagovest-info.ru/index.php?ss=2&s=3&id=39639).
Andrey Sebentsov, another expert, argued that in Dmitry Medvedev’s “conception of modernization … the role of religion had been reduced to a minimum.” But in practice, he continued, the Russian Orthodox Church has dominated his thinking and led him to adopt “the Orthodox position” on many issues.
What is needed instead, Sebentsov said, is for the government to find “a common language” with religious leaders of all faiths rather than allowing itself to be captured by just one of them, at least if there is to be any hope that religious groups will play a positive role in overcoming conflict rather than making the current situation worse.
Father Yakov Krotov added another dimension to this discussion. He suggested that the social role of religion in Russia had been put in doubt by what he called “the contemporary ‘religious revolution’ in which faiths have been subject to “privatization” by one or another religious leader, something he said only honest dialogue could prevent.
Meanwhile, Ruslan Kurbanov, a researcher at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, pointed to yet another problem with groups like the new commission: The Kremlin may confuse the loyalty of particular figures with religious tolerance more generally and thus find itself in even more difficulty (religion.ng.ru/society/2011-03-02/6_islam.html).
Chattanooga, March 4 – On the day the Kremlin created a Commission on Inter-National and Inter-Religious Relations, experts at a Moscow conference on the social role of religion expressed skepticism that religion by itself could play an integrative role in the multi-religious and mutli-national Russian society.
Indeed, in the words of Professor Ekaterina Elbakyan of the Moscow Academy of Labor and Social Relations, “to speak about the integrating role of religion in poly-ethnic and multi-cultural societies is not serious.” Instead, she argued, “it is necessary to seek a different basis for integration, for example, law” (www.ej.ru/?a=news&id=10434).
And another expert, Aleksandr Verkhovsky of the SOVA analytic center, said that the creation of this new commission could be valuable as religious leaders have a role to play in helping individuals and groups overcome conflict situations. But that is not the only thing that can happen when religious leaders get involved.
He pointed to certain negative consequences of such intervention by religious figures of the kind included in the new commission, including giving “certain ethnically charged conflicts … a religious coloration,” that could have the result of making existing conflicts even more difficult to resolve.
However that may be, the creation of the new commission is clearly an important event for what it says about thinking in the Kremlin. Its composition does not follow the “traditional” religions list that the Moscow authorities have normally followed, leaving out several key players from the Muslim community and including instead Catholics and others.
At the same time, the new group is dominated by the Moscow Patriarchate with Father Vsevolod Chaplin playing the main role. At the commission’s first session, he stressed that “peacemaking work is especially important when inter-ethnic relations are being tested and when the unity of our people without which our future is unthinkable is being attacked from inside and out” (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=39714).
But if the Kremlin and its commission were confident religious groups could play a positive role from above, speakers at the Moscow conference were not. Zhan Toshchenko, a candidate member of the Academy of Sciences said that achieving moral political unity was only possible from below (www.blagovest-info.ru/index.php?ss=2&s=3&id=39639).
Andrey Sebentsov, another expert, argued that in Dmitry Medvedev’s “conception of modernization … the role of religion had been reduced to a minimum.” But in practice, he continued, the Russian Orthodox Church has dominated his thinking and led him to adopt “the Orthodox position” on many issues.
What is needed instead, Sebentsov said, is for the government to find “a common language” with religious leaders of all faiths rather than allowing itself to be captured by just one of them, at least if there is to be any hope that religious groups will play a positive role in overcoming conflict rather than making the current situation worse.
Father Yakov Krotov added another dimension to this discussion. He suggested that the social role of religion in Russia had been put in doubt by what he called “the contemporary ‘religious revolution’ in which faiths have been subject to “privatization” by one or another religious leader, something he said only honest dialogue could prevent.
Meanwhile, Ruslan Kurbanov, a researcher at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, pointed to yet another problem with groups like the new commission: The Kremlin may confuse the loyalty of particular figures with religious tolerance more generally and thus find itself in even more difficulty (religion.ng.ru/society/2011-03-02/6_islam.html).
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