Moscow Oblast Must Be Subdivided for Russian Federalism to Succeed, Khodakovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 28 – That Moscow is an imperial metropolis, few would deny;and many who would like to see Russia become a genuine federation have speculated that this will only occur when the capital moves elsewhere and Moscow city becomes a region like all the others (cf. windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/08/window-on-eurasia-muscovy-must-become.html  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/09/moscow-oblast-could-become-center-of.html).

            But in a new article on the Region.Expert portal, Moscow regionalist Gleb Khodakovsky argues that such “a Moscow Republic” could not arise by “a mechanical unification” of the city and the surrounding oblast because the interests of the people in various parts of such an entity are so different (region.expert/podmoskovye/).

                Instead, he says, the key to transforming Moscow from an obstacle to federalism into an engine for it is to be found in Moscow Oblast, which is generally referred to slightingly as Podmoskovye, a region with 7.5 million people who need to recover their own distinct identities rather than remain mired as subordinate to Moscow city. 

            That residents of Moscow Oblast think of themselves that way is “not surprising considering the centralist and even hyper-centralist administrative model which has been adopted in Russia,” Khodakovsky says. But unless it is broken there, it will be very difficult to break for the country as a whole, forcing a choice between the current system and disintegration.

             He argues that it is possible to solve this problem by dividing Moscow Oblast into several oblasts which will “in this case begin to acquire” their own identities and will be able “to recognize their own regional interests, ones that are not connected directly with Moscow” but rather with each other and other neighbors as well.

            He suggests that the existing oblast should be subdivided into three new ones: one centered in Sergiyev Posad and possibly bearing the name Zalesskaya Oblast which would ultimately draw in districts from other oblasts, a second based on Serpukhov and reflecting the ancient principality of Chernigov, and a third around Kolomna.

            Each of these by virtue of history and geography has a distinctive identity which can be recovered and expanded upon, the analyst says. There are other possibilities as well: Mozhaysk for example could become an oblast center but more likely would become part of an expanded Smolensk Oblast reflecting its historical past.

            Other “configurations” are possible, Khodakovsky says; but “what is necessary in principle is their being split out from Moscow oblast, thereby reducing the weight of Moscow in a future federation and opening the way for the people in this region to have “at a minimum” five historical regions rather than one Kremlin-imposed place.

            And that will have an even greater and more positive consequence: The rulers in Moscow treat Podmoskovye the way they want to treat the entire country. Without the existence of that entity, the other regions will have a greater chance to escape from that Procrustean bed and Moscow will have less ability to force them into it. 

Moscow’s Failure to Condemn De-Communization within Russia Sparks Outrage from the Left

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 28 – Moscow has a long history of denouncing others for what it is itself doing, be it on the issue of the use of irregular forces or that of handling minority languages in schools.  But now that approach with regard to Soviet monuments and their fate is sparking anger among those who still identify with the USSR.

            In a comment for the communist Forum-MSK portal, Krstina Melnikova says that Russian officials and the Moscow media are quite right to condemn the destruction of Soviet war memorials in foreign countries but complains that unfortunately these same outlets are ignoring similar actions “in the very center of Russia” (forum-msk.org/material/news/15956119.html).

            In August, she writes, “in the small city of Sasovo in Ryazan Oblast,” a monument to a grieving Soviet mother bowing her head to the Banner of Victory and the casket holding the remains of a Red Army man who had died during the Great Fatherland War was taken down and in the most cynical way.

            The city authorities arranged for the local branch of the Union of Veterans of Military Operations to do the job and presented it as a victory for that group and for the city because the powers that be have promised to re-erect the statue – but not in the city but rather in the distance village of Kustareva out of everyone’s way. 

            Unlike with the taking down of statues in Berlin and Prague, the local Sasovo media
“did not devote great attention to this arbitrary action happening right under their noses, and the reaction of local people was limited to some posts on VKontakte.  But that reaction, to judge from the excepts Melnikova was extremely negative.

            Two, she cites, are especially instructive on attitudes from this part of Russian society.  “We all well remember,” the first wrote, “what a storm of public anger arose in Russia when the Estonian authorities shifted the Bronze Statue from the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery at the city’s edge …. But here, in Sasovo, our own local authorities have acted practically the same as the foreign politicians.” And here there has been no reaction.

            In some ways, he continued, the Russians have acted even worse. “The people of Tallinn wanted to shift the monument to the edge of the city, but our talented successful managers without hesitation moved the Grieving Mother to a distant place where it would be surrounded by wild beasts.”

            It may be “out of place,” he concluded, to remind those behind this shameless act that the Duma has been considering a defense ministry proposal to impose a five-year prison sentence on those who demolish or desecrate wat memorials. At present, these officials seem to think they can do anything they want.

            The second writer is even more brutal in his assessment of the demise of Sasovo statue. He says that such things are taking place across Russia and says it is no accident because the bourgeoisie in Russia and the bourgeoisie internationally are all the same and opposed to the Soviet people and its triumphs.

            Haven’t you noticed, he asks rhetorically, “for whom Putin has been dedicating statues in recent times? To the tsars!” or to anti-Soviet types like Kappel, Denikin, the White Finns and Putin’s favorite writer as he himself admits Ivan Ilin who worked with the Nazis. You don’t suppose this is an accident?

            What is needed, Dmitry Chorny, who describes himself as “a citizen of the USSR,” is “a new, reborn GULAG in which the bourgeoisie will exculpate its guilt before the Soviet fatherland by rebuilding socialist industry. When that happens, all this de-communization will cease, you can be certain,” just as it should be.

Preparation of New Encyclopedic Dictionary on ‘Islam in the Russian Federation’ Delayed by Gaps, Controversies

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 28 – A new encyclopedic dictionary on “Islam in the Russian Federation” which was supposed to appear this year won’t come out until 2020 at the earliest because of serious gaps in the historical record, problems with access to key documents, and intensifying controversies among various Muslim groups.

            Damir Mukhetdinov, the first deputy head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Russia, made that announcement at an international conference in Kazan on “Islam in a Multi-Cultural World” which ended yesterday. He and other scholars explained this delay was more or less inevitable (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340631/).

                Among the serious problems that have interfered are longstanding and even intensifying conflicts in interpretation among various ethnic groups within the region and between Muslim scholars and Russian ones and the fact that politicians routinely put out stories that come to be accepted as fact because they circulate on the Internet but have no historical basis at all. 

            Perhaps not surprisingly, the description of the state of Islam and Muslim organizations since 1991 has been especially difficult because so many different Muslim institutions have arisen and so many articles and books have been published.  As a result, Mukhetdinov says, the encyclopedia even when it does appear will limit its biographic articles to only a few people.

            Entire historical eras and large regions in many cases remain completely unstudied, historian Akhmad Makarov, who is on the editorial board of the new encyclopedia.  In the Volgograd region, for example, there is almost nothing about the Muslim community there between the end of the 15^th century and the 1970s. 

            The situation with regard to the mountain peoples of the North Caucasus is better, but there are many controversies among peoples and Muslim groups who are often fighting not over facts but over the historical myths they believe to be true.  And there are important figures and movements that have not received proper historical study.

            Among the most important of these, Aleksandr Yalbulganov of the Higher School of Economics says is the jaded movement at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries.  In many cases, its key works remain unstudied because they are in Arabic script which many scholars cannot read.

            Arabist Yefim Rezvan, the deputy director of the Kunstkamera, adds that an increasing problem is that many people believe what they read on the Internet and fight hard for positions that are simply not true.  They do not have the time or resources to gain access to better historical treatments and distrust those who use them.

            He notes that the current project is the third such enterprise in the last 30 years. The two earlier ones were the encyclopedic dictionary Islam issued at the end of Soviet times, and the series, “Islam on the Territory of the Former Russian Empire” which has been published by the St. Petersburg Institute of Eastern Manuscripts under the direction of Stanislav Prozorov.