As these lines are being written, one of the state-run Russian channels is broadcasting an advertisement urging its viewers to purchase a celebratory medal in honor of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the USSR, to be commemorated next year. That she had no brother or sister in modern history, "he adds, against the backdrop of photographs of the first man in space, ice hockey team players celebrating and a medal-winning grandfather showing an album to his grandchildren. And just as television is snuggling up on "a country that is no longer on the map, but is in our hearts," a lawsuit is being filed in Moscow over the Russian prosecution's demand to close Memorial, an organization set up in late Perestroika to open archives, investigate Soviet totalitarian crimes, remember purge victims and purge victims. Act so that the crimes do not recur.
Like ornaments on the Christmas tree of the upcoming Novi Good, the advertisement on the one hand and the "Memorial" sentence on the other are two innumerable signs of Russia's current march into a future that is too reminiscent of its past. The West is again portrayed as an enemy; Russia demands increased dependence on it from the former Soviet republics, and has occupied parts of the "rebellious" Ukraine; Stalin is no longer portrayed as responsible for the murder of millions, but as a great leader, or at least not such a terrible one; The archives about the NKVD (secret police) are closed, and some are seriously considering reopening the Gulag; political opposition leaders are silenced, exiled or used as targets for assassinations; civil society organizations, including independent media, are closed or required to work under conditions that lead to their closure; Anyone who tries to serve as an alternative - political, cultural, moral - to the official discourse space, which is constantly shrinking by administrative instruction or legislation of the ruling party, which repeatedly falsifies its way often in parliament, is thrown out of the law.As in the performance of the artist Konstantin Bankovich, the hands of the clock with the caption "Russia" tick back.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kremlin, Photo: AFP
In fact, the first signs of a kind of "Sovietization" were already at the beginning of Putin's rule.
One of his first moves as president in the summer of 2000 was to restore the Russian national anthem to the tune of the USSR anthem. Putin (and, in fact, still transmits) a commitment to democracy, as early as 2005 the Russian president declared that "the disintegration of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century."
Billionaire associate Sergei Pogachev, an associate of Putin, said in 2006 the president saw masses of worshipers trying to break through police checkpoints to reach him and told his companion: "They are being beaten, but they want to kiss my hand. You are talking about democracy - they should czar".
This image says it all - and far beyond, because it also reveals the deception of "returning" to the USSR. How by nature can an "empress" celebrate her elimination? Just as alongside the creeping rehabilitation of Stalinism one can build churches, and speak in praise of the USSR alongside branding Russia as a defender of Christian values against the "rotting West". Russia is trying to return to an imaginary USSR - after all, From present-day Russia, it was a country based on a particular ideology, rather than a kleptocracy whose entire elite holds billions in that discredited West.
Russia is legitimizing itself through the illusion of historical continuity, in which the current tenant in the Kremlin is both following in the footsteps of Nicholas II and his killer regime.
This, of course, is historically absurd - the history of Russia in the 20th century is a history of revolutions and court upheavals - but the imaginary continuity is one of the ways in which the Russian government gains illegitimate legitimacy through clean democratic elections. As the "Memorial").
The result of all this is a hybrid creation of an autocracy with a democratic appearance, imperial ornaments and nostalgia for Stalin;
A hybrid, yet aggressive - just like the hybrid wars in which Russia has gained a great deal of experience.
So history does not repeat itself, but often just rhymes, as Mark Twain puts it.
It only makes her more interesting - and demands more alertness from the free world.
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