Chronological separatists: how the attempts to abandon part of the country’s history ended

Their stamp (thesis) is called “1991”: “The USSR is criminally collapsed, which means that the current Russian Federation is illegitimate.” Some of these chronoseparatists, draping red flags, take their logic to the extreme: “Those who took the oath in the Russian army betrayed the Soviet oath.” I didn’t start a dossier, but I think you’ll remember the gallery of heroes who proudly dropped: “I swore the oath only once! The tricolor is a White Guard and Vlasov (ROA army of General Vlasov) rag!” And respect/delight from the audience: “Here is a man of principle!”

A stamp entitled “1917”: “Russia no longer exists. Atheism, regicide, Freemasons, collapse of empire, culture. The red flag is a symbol of genocide of the Russian people.”

A kind of aestheticism: “I chose a flower for myself in this kiosk, I ignore the others.” The origins of this syndrome, the first drawing of a boundary across the history of Russia, is the Slavophile rejection of Peter’s reforms. Yes, there have always been people who were dissatisfied with some event in the history of the country, with someone’s rule. But those were only a few. And the criticism of these few grumblers was not total. In essence, we are all not devoid of the gift of critical perception: we compile ratings, anti-ratings of historical figures, episodes in the history of the country. But… the Slavophile rejection of Peter’s reforms for the first time rose to the point of constructing in the dreams, and then in the brains of a huge number of fellow citizens and subsequent generations of Russians, another, parallel, “ideal pre-Petrine Rus’.”

I had the opportunity to argue with fans of “alternative history”. This fashion blossomed in the 1970s, starting with the Anglo-Saxons. Hundreds of books have been published, and now games. In general, Tolkien’s Middle-earth is an “alternative fantasy” taken to the limit. Our first “alternatives” were precisely the Slavophiles with their pre-Petrine “Middle-earth”.

The diagnosis of the most insightful Konstantin Leontyev: “The Slavophiles of the era of Aksakov and Kireevsky are dreamers.” They idolized pre-Petrine Rus’, the rural community, with absolutely no idea what it was, until the Prussian Haxthausen studied and explained for the first time to the “Slavic-Oblomovs” the essence and mechanism of action of the Russian community. It was an all-Russian sensation.

Actually, all these discussions about the “Russia that could have been” are a kind of thought test, a “Mantoux for dreamers.” It reveals the attitude towards the country’s development defects.

And here two reactions are possible. Reaction number 1: “What and how to fix here?” Reaction number 2: “What would have happened if this or that event had not happened?” Hard-working reformers Speransky, Witte, Stolypin corrected the vices in “this country.” But Nicholas II hid from them, fled to another country – the pre-Petrine “Brotherhood of the Rings”. He dressed not only courtiers, but also current ministers in the costumes of the era of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (the name of the heir is from the same opera), undermined Peter’s main achievements: the army and navy…

During the period when the descendants of those dreamers worked as Parisian taxi drivers, historians of the USSR explained “what would have happened if it had not been…”: without Peter’s reforms, the sovereign state of Russia would simply have disappeared. The famous historian Arnold Toynbee testifies: “Starting from the 17th century, the West experienced continuous progress in technology, the development of which posed a challenge to the rest of the majority of humanity. He had no choice but to master Western technology or submit to the powers that owned it. Russia, faced with such a problem, was the first to maintain its independence by adopting a broad program of technological transformation along Western lines. The pioneer of solving the problem was Peter the Great. It’s fortunate for Russia that Peter turned out to be a born technocrat who had the power of the Moscow Tsar.”

Ivan Solonevich and his followers of the 21st century (he has polemicized with them more than once, I will not list them here) have brought the denial of Peter, post-Petrine Russia to the limits of madness. Like the break point on the function graph, they have the year 1689 (the beginning of Peter’s independent reign) as the first “break point of Russia.” And then: 1917, 1991…

Nowadays the term “bifurcation point” has come to us, but the essence is in the reaction, the program of action of a certain part of fellow citizens: “My country is not this, but that!” More precisely, in the traditions of the “Slavic-Oblomovs,” for the majority this is a “program of inaction.” In “this country” they do not undermine bridges and military registration and enlistment offices, they walk peacefully with the flags of the “that” country. (Although, if you meticulously trace the line of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, Kostomarov, Kulish… it turns out that the Slavophiles still have something to do with Ukrainization, and, ultimately, with today’s arson of relay cabinets and military registration and enlistment offices.)

For all “electoral patriots – chronological separatists” I would formulate the “Golitsyn-Chicherin law”.

Chicherins. In 1472, Sophia Paleologus’s cicerone, Atanasio (Athanasius), came to Russia. Cicerone is a translator of important people, a term from Cicero, in the original language – Chichero. The descendants of Afanasy are the Chicherins: governors, generals, scientists… The outstanding philosopher and historian Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin taught law to the crown prince. And his nephew Georgy Chicherin joined the RSDLP in 1905. Since 1918 – People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. He created the People’s Commissariat from scratch (if not less!) and led the country out of the most total isolation in its history. He concluded the first international treaties of the RSFSR, and was the head of the delegation at the historic Genoa Conference. He concluded the famous Treaty of Lausanne, which confirmed the status of the Black Sea Straits. But, according to some information, the great-grandniece of the People’s Commissar is rock singer Yulia Chicherina: two Golden Gramophones (the highest musical award), the Muz-TV national award, author and performer of all-Russian hits, heroine of Timur Bekmambetov’s videos and films. I remember that somewhere in the early 2000s, my students became interested: what was on the teacher’s player? It turned out to include: “Heat”, “My Rock and Roll”, “Tu-la-la”… But no one suspected the connection between the loud rocker and the philosopher and people’s commissar, who were well-versed in Russian history. Yes… it turned out to be a dynasty!

The Golitsyn princes in “Free Topic” are also not out of friendship (with the author), but through service: field marshals, diplomats, scientists, heads of government of Russia…

But here they are all collected as a necessary positive example. The “Golitsyn-Chicherin Law” illustrates the unity of Russian history. It shows the limitations, if not the wretchedness of the “chronological separatists,” who proudly and loudly declare: “For me, Russia simply does not exist after such and such a year! Those who took the oath after such and such a year are traitors! Unlike us, the principled ones!”

But these people served pre-Petrine, Petrine and post-Petrine Russia, the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation. And they served successfully, despite the difficulties of the era. People’s Commissar Georgy Chicherin was slandered, imprisoned, and replaced at his post by his deputy Maxim Litvinov. Since 1917, many of the Golitsyns were repressed and died in camps. During the NEP era there was an opportunity to leave, but the oldest in the family (an informal, but very significant “title” in ancient families) Vladimir Mikhailovich is the same city mayor who dragged Moscow into the twentieth century (the first power plant, telephone, tram, sewerage system), and in In 1931, having accurately predicted and described the causes and details of the future death of the USSR, he announced at a family meeting: “We remain in Russia. We will work and serve wherever we can.” They weren’t accepted into the institutes, and if they accidentally missed out, they were expelled; They were allowed access to higher education only after the Great Patriotic War. And in 2007, the world’s leading geophysicist, academician Georgy Sergeevich Golitsyn, receiving an order from the hands of President Putin, to the due answer “I serve Russia!” added: “Like all generations of Golitsyns for 600 years.”

Yes, the “law” needs to be formulated! It will be approximately: “The boundaries of one’s own understanding, suitability, and professional relevance should not be passed off as beyond the chronological boundaries of the Fatherland.”