Paul Goble
Staunton, May 24 – Many in the West have long assumed that if Russians hope for a better future, they will eventually achieve it. But a new exhibit in the Kremlin shows that Russians have been hoping for a better future for at least 500 years but also that Viktor Chernomyrdin was right in saying that despite that, things have turned out like always.
In a Novaya gazeta commentary, Moscot actor Aleksey Mokrousov says that the exhibit in the Kremlin about the time of troubles highlights “the eternal hopes of Russian society for a better future” and the very real difficulties the Russian people have faced in trying to achieve that (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/05/24/kreml-v-ozhidanii-rassveta).
Entitled “The Twilight of the Dynasty,” itself a politically charged name at the present time, the exhibit shows art and artifacts from the time of troubles when one leader succeeded another as the country made the transition from one form of rule to another and when hopes were raised only to be dashed.
Sergey Ordenko, one of the organizers of the exhibit, says that “the loss of stability in the state hardly brings anyone anything good” even if those who cause that to happen are seeking a better future, clearly a message that the Putin regime wants its subjects to accept at the present time.
The organizer of the exhibit adds that the False Dmitry “strove to be a European more than was appropriate under the circumstances. Who knows how history would have turned out if he had been a little more thoughtful” and avoided challenging so directly “the traditional way of life” Russians had led up to that time?
That this exhibit in the Kremlin should provoke such questions, of course, is one of the reasons why art by its very nature is dangerous, especially to those ruling from that fortress who don’t want anyone to challenge their power for any reason, let alone in the name of a better future for the Russian people.
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