The whirlwinds of history need to be turned in the right direction. Boris Akimov Posting in CHAT: Russia Is Russia a special civilization going its own way, or is Russia some kind of sub-Europe, the goal of which is to enter this very European house? Blinken, the US secretary of state, once said of the confrontation between Russia and the West that “we are back in the whirlpool of history.” This is a very wise remark. And this is a very stupid remark. Yes, I understand that he was raised according to Fukuyama's "end of history" theory. The theories are untenable and impracticable. Of course, we never got out of the “whirlwind of history.” We have always been there since our expulsion from Paradise and we will always be there until the Apocalypse finally puts an end to the human element. The very expression “whirlwind of history” is very true. Every moment, every “here and now” is the epicenter of this whirlwind. All the events of our history - a thousand years ago, a hundred years ago and so on - are twisted in this very “here and now”. Each present moment is the result and at the same time an integral part of this very storm. There are no breaks, no voids - everyone and everything is connected by a single thread of history and flows into the flow of current events. And all this “here and now”, all current events, literally tomorrow, in a month, in a year, will become history, that part of the storm that shapes the next moments. Only by realizing this can we systematically and intelligently influence the future. Try to build a future that will seem important and necessary to yourself, your family, your country, and the world. One day I attended a wonderful lecture on the history of iconoclasm in Byzantium. She was amazing for two reasons. It was first read by an incredibly erudite Byzantine scholar, sprinkled with direct quotes from the letters of the Apostle Paul and the correspondence of the Byzantine emperor and the Pope. And at the same time, his main job was as follows: he was one of the leaders of the Federal Penitentiary Service (!). A separate text could be written about this paradoxical phenomenon, but this is not what we are talking about now: the Byzantine scientist, working with the main sources, convincingly showed how the events of the 8th-9th centuries caused a civilizational split in Europe. , the fruits of which we reap again and again, including now. All of us who were present at the lecture then felt our personal connection with the emperor, the pope, Charlemagne and the events of those years. Today, the words “civil war” are increasingly used in relation to events in Ukraine. And not only in the sense that residents of the same Russian civilization found themselves in opposite trenches. We can talk about civil war, even in its cold phase, when we discuss the behavior of some Russian citizens who have taken radically anti-patriotic positions. Before our eyes, a cold civil war is unfolding in the information space and within Russian society itself, and sometimes within one family. When I studied at the university, at the department of “conflictology,” we were told that significant intersocietal or interstate conflicts, once flared up, over time, for various reasons, turn into a burning state. And they can remain in this decay for years and even centuries. But there is always a historical probability that, under a certain influence of natural or specially created conditions, a spark, and then a flame, will again burst out from under a completely prosperous life. The storm of time has now led us to a state of cold, and inside Ukraine to a hot phase of civil confrontation. If we take as a basis all these discussions about the universal interconnection and the teachings of conflictology about burning conflicts, then the formulation of a certain hypothesis clearly arises, which will claim to explain the ontological causes of our present. What is this conflict, where did it come from and why has it been burning all these years? There was an episode in the history of Russia that, it seems to me, is greatly underestimated by us today. This is the Time of Troubles of the early 17th century. Well, imagine the picture: the state has actually ceased to exist, a civil war has been going on for several years now, complex and confusing from our distant point of view, but then very specific and completely destructive. At the same time, Moscow and part of the country are occupied by the Poles, and the other part is controlled by the Swedes. In the south there are attacks from the Crimea. And it’s just full of all sorts of dashing people who form gangs. At one time there was talk about the accession of the Polish prince Vladislav to the Moscow throne, and then about the complete annexation of the Russian kingdom to the Polish state under the rule of Sigismund. We all know, more or less without details, how it ended. Minin and Pozharsky, Zemsky Sobor, Romanovs. In fact, it was an incredible experience of civic consciousness and preparedness. In fact, it was Russian civil society that then showed itself and rebuilt its state. Did this civil society have a choice? Certainly. Instead of the Russian kingdom of the early Romanovs, there was an alternative in the person of False Dmitry, Prince Vladislav and other figures of the Time of Troubles, who proposed taking a different - Western - path. And the most radical option of this path is an actual merger with Poland and recognition of the religious authority of the Pope. But the civil society of that Russia chose its own path and won. The Time of Troubles in this context shows us a fundamental point. Even then, at the beginning of the 17th century, in Russia there were different ideas about the future of the country. And people with weapons in their hands were ready to fight for these ideas. What is this if not a civil war? At the heart of this conflict lies the same ideological confrontation that is familiar to us even in modern times: Russia is a special civilization going its own way, or Russia is a kind of sub-Europe, the goal of which is to enter this very European house. The church schism of the 17th century and the confrontation between the Old Believers and the “correct Orthodoxy” that came from the territory of annexed Ukraine. Prince Golitsyn, favorite of Queen Sophia, failed reformer of Rus' in the Western style in European clothes - back in the pre-Petrine era. A military conflict between the Moscow archers and young Peter, who spends all his time in the German settlement with his new friends. The Europeanization of Russia and the emergence of a political elite that speaks French and considers its people to be strangers. The rebellion of Pugachev, who declared himself Peter III, against whom the regular army had been fighting for several years. Decembrists seeking to turn Russia into Europe. And behind them stands Russian revolutionary terror - starting with the death of Alexander II in 1881 and ending with the death of Stolypin in 1911. Globalism and radical liberalism of the Bolsheviks, directed against the ideas of “patriarchal Russia”. State Emergency Committee and Yeltsin in 1991 and the Supreme Council and Yeltsin again in 1993. But in some complex phenomenon - and the civil opposition in Russia, of course, is a complex phenomenon - it is impossible to draw any unambiguous diagrams. The situation and ideological cover here can be very different, and often mixed. Almost all the moments of confrontation that I described above can be turned differently. Only European-style reforms, according to Peter, could prevent the weakening and colonization of Russia by strong European powers. Suvorov, sent by Catherine the Great to suppress the uprising of the Russian people who did not want to live like a European, was himself a truly devoted subject of the idea of a strong and independent Russia. Among the Decembrists there were those who wanted Russia to find itself, turn to the aspirations of the Russian people, and reform the elite that had formed under the influence of exclusively Western culture. Among the Bolsheviks there were many nobles, officers and other representatives of the “old world” who saw in the Reds the only force capable of defending the independence of the country. Finally, in both 1991 and 1993, people found themselves on different sides of the barricades, indivisible only on the basis of whether they were for the Reds or for the Whites. Everything is much more complicated and confusing. But this does not deny the main thing - the very essence of this conflict of civilizations, apparently immanent in the Russian space. I did not make this entire short excursion into the history of civil wars in Russia in order to propose reforming textbooks on the history of the country and proposing a new historical concept - for example, the “Concept of a multi-stage civil confrontation.” in Russia. " Although, why not. In the meantime, the most important thing that I would like to see in Russia in the near future: we, as a society, must realize that somewhere near us a…
