Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 18 – The line has
been a Russian tradition for more than a century. Under Nicholas II, Russians
stood in line for his coronation. Under Stalin, they did so for his funeral and
often for food, under Gorbachev, for McDonald’s and under Yeltsin, for
humanitarian assistance, Igor Zalyubovin and Karina Bashayeva write.
And today, the two Snob journalists
say, “lines haven’t disappeared, but they have changed. Now, [hundreds of
thousands of] Russians stand for hours for spiritual nourishment” of various
kinds ranging from various art exhibits to the display of church relics (snob.ru/selected/entry/128077).
They provide statistics on the numbers,
the hours waited, and other details of these lines, but they fail to point to
the most important aspect of this largest public activity in Russia, one far
larger than any political demonstration for the regime or against it: the
creation of a specific civic space where people can share ideas, information
and rumors about what is going on.
As Olga Grushin described this
phenomenon in her 2010 novel The Line,
Russians are profoundly affected by lines independent of why they are standing
in them, with the experience itself reinforcing their understanding of what is going
on and how they should respond to it whether merely surviving or participating
in what they may sense is a chance for change.
And thus they may begin to ask more
than the two questions that Russians passing a line asked in Soviet times: “what
are they giving?” and “who’s last?”
Instead, they may ask more radical ones like those who stood in line for
physical food in 1917 even though they are now waiting for spiritual sustenance
instead.
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