Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 18 – A century ago, the Russian
religious thinker Sergey Bulgakov wrote a seminal essay entitled “Karl Marx as
a Religious Type” in which he outlined the ways in which that self-proclaimed
atheist was in fact someone profoundly affected in his thinking by the
religious tradition of which he was a part.
Now, Vadim Shteppa, one of the leading Russian
regionalists, has published an essay entitled “Vladimir Putin as a Religious
Type” in which he traces the evolution of Putin from someone committed to
Russia’s integration into Europe to a leader who wants to restore a Russian
empire (slon.ru/russia/vladimir_putin_kak_religioznyy_tip-1035262.xhtml).
Shteppa argues that Putin’s references to Russian
religious philosophers like Ivan Ilin, Konstantin Leontyev and Nikolay Berdyaev
makes Bulgakov’s observations about Marx in which the philosopher “treated the
world through the prism of religiosity” especially relevant for an
understanding of Putin’s approach and policies.
The Russian president’s evolution on religion has been
striking. In September 2000, when asked
about his religious views, Putin said that he “believes in man” and “in his
good intentions. “We came in order to do good, and the main thing which we will
achieve by so doing will be comfort.”
Many people at the time made fun of Putin’s reference to
comfort, but “paradoxically,” Shteppa says, “it sounded not simply as an
inheritance of Soviet atheism but also completely within the framework of
European (or even more North European) norms” where talking about religion is
not done. In that context, “comfort” could be interpreted “as the absence of
religious conflict.”
Early on in his presidency, Shteppa continues, “Putin
made numerous absolutely European declarations.” Asked for his book, “From the
First Person,” if Russia needed to “search for a special path,” he responded
that there is no need as it has already been found: “the path of democratic
development.”
“Of course,” Putin said, “Russia is a more varied country
but we are part of West European culture ... Wherever our people live – in the Far
East or in the south, we are Europeans.”
With the passage of time, however, Putin’s rhetoric
changed and now has been completed replaced by the exact opposite. The Customs Union is “completely incompatible
with the European [Union].” And the recent placing of Iskander rockets in
Kaliningrad shows that Moscow now views Europe not so much as a model but as a
potential enemy.
The reason for this change is not that Europe has changed
but that Russia has and as a result, “it is today imply illogical” to equate
Russia and Europe. “If the EU is a
unique synthesis of a confederation and federation of various countries, then
Russia during these years has turned out to be only a nominal federation which
is being converted into a unitary state with a constructed single nation of
[non-ethnic] Russians.”
Such
states cannot be equal partners, all the more so because of the difference in
population: the EU has 500 million residents; Russia 140. But those mechanical differences are only a
manifestation of deeper philosophical ones, Shteppa argues, something that is
reflected in Putin’s speeches.
In his most recent message to the Federal Assembly, Putin
said that Europe had become indifferent to issues of good and evil. That is “an obvious shift from political language
to a religious-ethical one,” and reflects a shift away from European countries
where the main issue is the observation of norms preventing force to something
else entirely.
“From an historical point of view,” Shteppa suggests, “today
we are watching a certain strange rebirth of Byzantinism” in Russia, where
ceasaro-papism was the norm. (As an
aside, the regionalist notes that some forget that “Byzantium fell much earlier
than the West” and that it was destroyed “not by Western conquerors but by
those from the east.”)
And the reason Putin is turning to or making use of
religion is that his goal is to restore the empire. “A reborn empire cannot maintain the priority
of civic equality over a religious tradition.” To do so would be to make such
an empire “meaningless” and set the stage for its “destruction.”
Shteppa concludes by noting that Putin began his
political career by taking down the Soviet flag in St. Petersburg at the time
of the August putsch. But now that he is in the Kremlin, he appears to be
affected by its specific energy and that fact that “unlike in European
countries, only in Russia does the presidential residence remain a medieval
fortress.”
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