Cadmian
New member
Πέρα από τις γκλαμουριές και την καλλιτεχνική ελευθερία, υπάρχει και μία σοβαρότερη διάσταση του ζητήματος που δυστυχώς περνάει στο ντούκου.
Pussy Riot: Punk Prayer
- Thread starter Costas
- Start date
Cadmian
New member
Αν βγούνε. Οι ρυθμοί είναι τόσο γρήγοροι που είναι πολύ εύκολο να εξαφανιστούν από το προσκήνιο, και χωρίς να χρειαστεί να εφαρμοστούν καγκεμπίτικες μέθοδοι. Ο δικηγόρος, αν διάβασες, δεν ήταν τόσο τυχερός να γίνει θέμα στα διεθνή νέα. Και απ' όσο έχω διαβάσει, δεν ήταν και ο μόνος.
SBE
¥
Και φυσικά μην ξεχνάμε ότι ένα μεγάλο μέρος του προβλήματος είναι οι διάφοροι καλλιτέχνες που τους έχει βαρέσει η φήμη στο κεφάλι και νομίζουν ότι επειδή πούλησαν πολλούς δίσκους κάποια εποχή έγιναν ειδικοί επί παντός επιστητού. Και καλά αυτοί που πάνε και φωτογραφίζονται με μαυράκια ορφανά. Οι άλλοι που ανακατεύονται με πολιτικά ζητήματα χωρίς να ξέρουν την τύφλα τους; Ή που το παίζουν σωτήρες του σύμπαντος κι όποιος τολμήσει να τους βάλει στη θέση τους δέχεται επίθεση;
Κλασσικό το παράδειγμα του Καναδού πρωθυπουργού και του Μπόνο.
Κλασσικό το παράδειγμα του Καναδού πρωθυπουργού και του Μπόνο.
bernardina
Moderator
Ήθελα να 'ξερα ποιο ζωντόβολο ορμήνεψε τα ακόμα μεγαλύτερα ζωντόβολα να μπουν και να -χμ- "τραγουδήσουν" μέσα σε έναν τόπο λατρείας μιας χώρας με παράδοση αιώνων στην Ορθοδοξία, τον τσαρισμό, τον σταλινισμό και τον πουτινισμό. Πού πάτε ρε Καραμήτρες (μετάφραση του pussy,χεχεχε) :devil: γυμνές μέσ' στ' αγγούρια; Εδώ κοτζάμ Σινέντ Ο' Κόνορ έσκισε απλώς μια φωτογραφία του πάπα και έφαγε τη χλαπάτσα της ζωής της (και δεν έχουν τις ματάρες της :laugh: ).
Μπράβο στο, σαΐνι τον ατζέντη τους, αν αυτός είχε τη φαεινή ιδέα.
Μπράβο στο, σαΐνι τον ατζέντη τους, αν αυτός είχε τη φαεινή ιδέα.
Cadmian
New member
Δεδομένου ότι δεν πήγαν να πουλήσουν δίσκους, βρίσκω την παρατήρηση σου λίγο άδικη. Η διαμαρτυρία οφείλει να είναι ηχηρή, κι αν μη τι άλλο η δική τους περίπτωση μπορεί να θεωρηθεί επιτυχής, γιατί πήρε τέτοια δημοσιότητα που δεν μπορούσε απλά να κουκουλωθεί με συνοπτικές διαδικασίες. Τ' ότι έχει εκτραπεί λόγω ΜΜΕ το αντικείμενο της διαμαρτυρίας -ρίξε μια ματιά στο άρθρο που λίνκαρα πιο πριν- είναι, δυστυχώς, η πραγματική τραγωδία της υπόθεσης.
Έτσι για το φολκλόρ, το κομμάτι των Pussy Riot δεν μου άρεσε καθόλου. Κι αυτό ως πρώην συνειδητοποιημένος πάνκης.
Και κάποια σχετικά άρθρα εδώ και εδώ, προ καταδικαστικής απόφασης.
Έτσι για το φολκλόρ, το κομμάτι των Pussy Riot δεν μου άρεσε καθόλου. Κι αυτό ως πρώην συνειδητοποιημένος πάνκης.
Και κάποια σχετικά άρθρα εδώ και εδώ, προ καταδικαστικής απόφασης.
Έτσι είναι, απ' ό,τι λέει εδώ: http://obyavleniidoska.ru/nastoligra/140197/1/Alehin-ili-Kasparov
Пользуясь случаем, думаю нелишне напомнить читателям о правильном произношении фамилии Алехин, через «е», без точек над этой буквой (не Алёхин).
bernardina
Moderator
Σκέψου ότι για κάποιους ανθρώπους αυτός είναι ο χώρος λατρείας τους. Η διαμαρτυρία οφείλει να είναι ηχηρή, όμως εγώ πιστεύω στα όρια.
Και το κομμάτι τους είναι άθλιο -θα 'πρεπε να τις κλείσουν φυλακή για προσβολή της μουσικής :laugh::laugh:
Διαδώστε το community service ως μορφή εναλλακτικής έκτισης μιας ποινής. Ας ξεφύγουμε από το μεσαίωνα που τους χώνει όλους μαζί στους τέσσερις τοίχους.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_service
http://www.tovima.gr/society/article/?aid=298570
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_service
http://www.tovima.gr/society/article/?aid=298570
bernardina
Moderator
Σκηνές σαν την παρακάτω μάλλον δεν έχουν θέση πια στην εποχή μας
Εκτός από την οθόνη, έχεις δει ποτέ τέτοια σκηνή στην πραγματική ζωή; Αν είχαμε δει, θα είχε ένα ενδιαφέρον...
Το ότι είναι μια από τις πιο αγαπημένες μου ταινίες μάλλον δεν σημαίνει τίποτε :inno:
Costas
¥
Εννοείται ότι οι άλλες χώρες δεν σε υποστηρίζουν ποτέ γι' αυτό που κάνεις και είσαι αλλά για τα δικά τους συμφέροντα. Όλοι όσοι έχουν κάνει την οποιαδήποτε διαμαρτυρία ή ακτιβισμό, εάν έχουν υποστηριχτεί από ξένες χώρες, έχουν υποστηριχτεί για τα συμφέροντα αυτών των ξένων χωρών και για τις δημόσιες σχέσεις τους, και φυσικά οι χώρες αυτές έχουν καταπιέσει ανάλογα κάποιους δικούς τους πολίτες. Καλό να το θυμόμαστε, δε λέω, ειδικά αν έχουμε την τάση να το ξεχνάμε (προσωπικά, δεν έχω αυταπάτες ούτε για το ΗΒ, ούτε για τις ΗΠΑ). Αν όμως αυτή η σκέψη λειτουργεί ως κριτική των ενεργειών των διαμαρτυρομένων, τότε καήκαμε.
Βρήκα τούτο το λινκ κάτω-κάτω στα σχόλια του άρθρου που λινκάρισε ο Θέμης, αλλά παραθέτω και το κείμενο (chtodelat news):
Yekaterina Samutsevich: Closing Statement at the Pussy Riot Trial
Yekaterina Samutsevich, defendant in the criminal case against the feminist punk group Pussy Riot:
In the closing statement, the defendant is expected to repent, express regret for their deeds or enumerate attenuating circumstances. In my case, as in the case of my colleagues in the group, this is completely unnecessary. Instead, I want to voice my thoughts about the reasons behind what has happened to us.
That Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of the authorities was clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyayev took over as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be openly used as a flashy backdrop for the politics of the security forces, which are the main source of power [in Russia].
Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetic? After all, he could have employed his own, far more secular tools of power—for example, the state-controlled corporations, or his menacing police system, or his obedient judiciary system. It may be that the harsh, failed policies of Putin’s government, the incident with the submarine Kursk, bombings of civilians in broad daylight, and other unpleasant moments in his political career forced him to ponder the fact that it was high time to resign; that otherwise, the citizens of Russia would help him do this. Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more persuasive, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the pinnacle of power. It was then that it became necessary to make use of the aesthetic of the Orthodox religion, which is historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from God Himself.
How did he succeed in doing this? After all, we still have a secular state, and any intersection of the religious and political spheres should be dealt with severely by our vigilant and critically minded society, shouldn’t it? Here, apparently, the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of the Orthodox aesthetic in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had an aura of lost history, of something that had been crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present a new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project that has little to do with a genuine concern for the preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture.
It was also fairly logical that the Russian Orthodox Church, given its long mystical ties to power, emerged as the project’s principal exponent in the media. It was decided that, unlike in the Soviet era, when the church opposed, above all, the brutality of the authorities towards history itself, the Russian Orthodox Church should now confront all pernicious manifestations of contemporary mass culture with its concept of diversity and tolerance.
Implementing this thoroughly interesting political project has required considerable quantities of professional lighting and video equipment, air time on national TV channels for hours-long live broadcasts, and numerous background shoots for morally and ethically edifying news stories, where the Patriarch’s well-constructed speeches would in fact be presented, thus helping the faithful make the correct political choice during the difficult time for Putin preceding the election. Moreover, the filming must be continuous; the necessary images must be burned into the memory and constantly updated; they must create the impression of something natural, constant and compulsory.
Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of the media image that the authorities had spent such a long time generating and maintaining, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to unite the visual imagery of Orthodox culture and that of protest culture, thus suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it could also ally itself with civic rebellion and the spirit of protest in Russia.
Perhaps the unpleasant, far-reaching effect from our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. At first, they tried to present our performance as a prank pulled by heartless, militant atheists. This was a serious blunder on their part, because by then we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out their media assaults on the country’s major political symbols.
In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. The whole world now sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, the world sees Russia differently from the way Putin tries to present it at his daily international meetings. Clearly, none of the steps Putin promised to take toward instituting the rule of law have been taken. And his statement that this court will be objective and hand down a fair verdict is yet another deception of the entire country and the international community. That is all. Thank you.
Σύμφωνα λοιπόν με τη δήλωσή της, ο συγκεκριμένος ναός δεν είναι ένας οποιοσδήποτε ναός αλλά ο χώρος όπου ιερουργεί ένας πρώην Καγκεμπίτης, καρντσάσι του "πιστού" προέδρου της Ρωσίας Βλαντιμίρ Πούτιν.
Είναι σίγουρο ότι της την έγραψε τη δήλωση ο ατζέντης της (εξ ορισμού άντρας, αυτός...), για να πουλήσει κάνα δίσκο από τη φυλακή; Εγώ πάντως, σαν φιλότεχνος, πιστεύω πως οι καλλιτέχνες/καλλιτέχνιδες σκέφτονται πολιτικά, όπως και οι άλλοι άνθρωποι, και πιστεύω πως οι συγκεκριμένες αξίζουν κάθε αλληλεγγύη ενάντια στη νεοτσαρική Ρωσία και στα ελληνικά εξαρτήματά της. Ακολουθεί κι ένα κείμενο για το φιλόχριστο ρωσικό κατεστημένο (παίζει και η Μονή Βατοπεδίου, βεβαίως-βεβαίως):
Βρήκα τούτο το λινκ κάτω-κάτω στα σχόλια του άρθρου που λινκάρισε ο Θέμης, αλλά παραθέτω και το κείμενο (chtodelat news):
Yekaterina Samutsevich: Closing Statement at the Pussy Riot Trial
Yekaterina Samutsevich, defendant in the criminal case against the feminist punk group Pussy Riot:
In the closing statement, the defendant is expected to repent, express regret for their deeds or enumerate attenuating circumstances. In my case, as in the case of my colleagues in the group, this is completely unnecessary. Instead, I want to voice my thoughts about the reasons behind what has happened to us.
That Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of the authorities was clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyayev took over as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be openly used as a flashy backdrop for the politics of the security forces, which are the main source of power [in Russia].
Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetic? After all, he could have employed his own, far more secular tools of power—for example, the state-controlled corporations, or his menacing police system, or his obedient judiciary system. It may be that the harsh, failed policies of Putin’s government, the incident with the submarine Kursk, bombings of civilians in broad daylight, and other unpleasant moments in his political career forced him to ponder the fact that it was high time to resign; that otherwise, the citizens of Russia would help him do this. Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more persuasive, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the pinnacle of power. It was then that it became necessary to make use of the aesthetic of the Orthodox religion, which is historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from God Himself.
How did he succeed in doing this? After all, we still have a secular state, and any intersection of the religious and political spheres should be dealt with severely by our vigilant and critically minded society, shouldn’t it? Here, apparently, the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of the Orthodox aesthetic in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had an aura of lost history, of something that had been crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present a new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project that has little to do with a genuine concern for the preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture.
It was also fairly logical that the Russian Orthodox Church, given its long mystical ties to power, emerged as the project’s principal exponent in the media. It was decided that, unlike in the Soviet era, when the church opposed, above all, the brutality of the authorities towards history itself, the Russian Orthodox Church should now confront all pernicious manifestations of contemporary mass culture with its concept of diversity and tolerance.
Implementing this thoroughly interesting political project has required considerable quantities of professional lighting and video equipment, air time on national TV channels for hours-long live broadcasts, and numerous background shoots for morally and ethically edifying news stories, where the Patriarch’s well-constructed speeches would in fact be presented, thus helping the faithful make the correct political choice during the difficult time for Putin preceding the election. Moreover, the filming must be continuous; the necessary images must be burned into the memory and constantly updated; they must create the impression of something natural, constant and compulsory.
Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of the media image that the authorities had spent such a long time generating and maintaining, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to unite the visual imagery of Orthodox culture and that of protest culture, thus suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it could also ally itself with civic rebellion and the spirit of protest in Russia.
Perhaps the unpleasant, far-reaching effect from our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. At first, they tried to present our performance as a prank pulled by heartless, militant atheists. This was a serious blunder on their part, because by then we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out their media assaults on the country’s major political symbols.
In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. The whole world now sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, the world sees Russia differently from the way Putin tries to present it at his daily international meetings. Clearly, none of the steps Putin promised to take toward instituting the rule of law have been taken. And his statement that this court will be objective and hand down a fair verdict is yet another deception of the entire country and the international community. That is all. Thank you.
Σύμφωνα λοιπόν με τη δήλωσή της, ο συγκεκριμένος ναός δεν είναι ένας οποιοσδήποτε ναός αλλά ο χώρος όπου ιερουργεί ένας πρώην Καγκεμπίτης, καρντσάσι του "πιστού" προέδρου της Ρωσίας Βλαντιμίρ Πούτιν.
Είναι σίγουρο ότι της την έγραψε τη δήλωση ο ατζέντης της (εξ ορισμού άντρας, αυτός...), για να πουλήσει κάνα δίσκο από τη φυλακή; Εγώ πάντως, σαν φιλότεχνος, πιστεύω πως οι καλλιτέχνες/καλλιτέχνιδες σκέφτονται πολιτικά, όπως και οι άλλοι άνθρωποι, και πιστεύω πως οι συγκεκριμένες αξίζουν κάθε αλληλεγγύη ενάντια στη νεοτσαρική Ρωσία και στα ελληνικά εξαρτήματά της. Ακολουθεί κι ένα κείμενο για το φιλόχριστο ρωσικό κατεστημένο (παίζει και η Μονή Βατοπεδίου, βεβαίως-βεβαίως):
Costas
¥
[China Hand]
So You Say You Want a Pussy Riot?
The Pussy Riot sentences (and the original prosecution) were misguided and excessive.
Putin undoubtedly found the band’s 90-second escapade of punk calisthenics in the Church of the Savior offensive and a personal insult. The Russian Orthodox Church is a major political prop for Putin and he probably thought he could reassure the church of his steadfastness as defender of the faith as well as score political points with conservative Russians with a heavy-handed slapdown.
But now the band has become an international cause celebre and lodestar for domestic and international opponents of Putin.
In an interesting blurring of the line between journalistic objectivity and human-rights agitprop, the armchair revolutionaries at the Guardian chose to create a video for the band’s latest release showing the women looking at turns gorgeous, defiant, and adorable.
That, combined with criticism of the sentence from the Obama administration and other human rights worthies, may be enough to convince Putin to keep the women in the can to serve their full term.
After all, if the sentences were commuted in response to the Russian Orthodox Church’s expressions of “foregiveness” and Putin’s own political calculations, it will be seen as a victory for the band—and inspiration for copycats and excuse for foreign meddling-- and not a welcome display of mercy by the administration.
However, it remains to be seen if shifting the terms of debate to the free-speech rights of punk rock provocateurs and away from Putin’s close and unhealthy ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (which the Pussy Riot outrage was designed to highlight) will accelerate the erosion of his power.
Here’s something I wrote last November on Putin’s religious strategy on the occasion of the visit of a treasured relic, the Girdle of St. Mary, to Russia. The massive turnout to adore the relic implies that there is more political capital for Putin in championing the church than appeasing the followers of Pussy Riot:
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
One thing that’s pretty clear is that religious movements are, for the most part, conservative and have served as bulwarks of authoritarianism (and a shield against challenges to the wealth and power of the privileged) at least since the days of the Social Democrats.
Authoritarian atheism, after a brief, 20th century heyday under Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, is perhaps headed for the dustbin of history.
Religion is too good for business, billionaires, and bosses, both in liberal democracies and post-Communist states.
Modern plutocracies have rediscovered the fact that there’s nothing like appeals to religious identity to split the electorate and marginalize those obstreperous liberal activists whose political views usually combine irreligious sentiments with enthusiasm for democracy and a nasty penchant for economic justice.
I think the Russians under Putin have broken the code. Via RIA Novosti:
A remarkable procession is currently taking place in Russia…
The Belt of the Virgin Mary, otherwise referred to as the Precious Sash, or Cincture, of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos – the holy treasure of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece, is travelling abroad for the first time. The Belt is travelling in style. It flies in a private jet, chartered by the tour’s organizer – the influential St. Andrew Foundation, and is accompanied by six Vatopedi monks. In St. Petersburg, it was welcomed by none other than Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city, Governor Alexander Misharin and the region’s bishop, Metropolitan Kirill, met the relic with the guard of honor before a procession of some 15,000 people took it to the cathedral.
The numbers are stunning indeed. In St. Petersburg, estimated one million people came to venerate the Belt in three days and nights, according to the local media. People stood in line for twelve to fourteen hours to be able to kiss the silver box containing the piece of camel wool fabric believed to have been woven and worn by the Virgin Mary, and take a small band blessed on the relic. In Yekaterinburg it was 300,000, in Krasnoyarsk – 100,000. The relic has already been to the country’s Far East – in Vladivostok, and the Far North – in Norilsk, beyond the Arctic Circle. Volgograd and Stavropol in the South are in the days to come. And it is hard to imagine what kind of crowds will gather in Moscow when, by the end of November, the relic arrives in the capital before leaving Russia for good.
According to the Vatopedi Monastery, the Virgin Mary dropped the belt from heaven for St.Thomas:
According to the Sacred Tradition and the history of our Church, the Most Holy Theotokos [Virgin Mary] three days after she fell asleep she rose from the dead and ascended in body to the heavens. During her ascension, she gave her Holy Belt to the Apostle Thomas. Thomas, along with the rest of the holy Apostles, opened up her grave and didn't find the body of the Theotokos. In this way the Holy Belt is proof for our Church of her Resurrection and bodily ascension to the heavens, and, in a word, at her metastasis.
From AFP, the socio-political angle:
Clerics said they hoped the relic would help more Russian women become mothers as the influential Russian Orthodox Church is actively promoting motherhood to help the government curtail a population decline.
Church officials in several cities plan to take the relic to pregnancy centres that counsel women contemplating an abortion, the Russian Orthodox Church said.
“This event is of huge significance especially when it comes to strengthening people’s faith,” Father Kirill, a spokesman for the Saint Petersburg diocese, told AFP.
“And the fact that this is such a singular relic helping women is especially important for our city and our country, where the demographic situation leaves much to be desired.”
Russian leaders have called the shrinking population a matter of national security.
The country’s latest census released earlier this year showed that the country’s population had shrunk by 2.2 million people since 2002 and now stands at 142.9 million.
There are also photos of Putin and Medvedev solemnly observing the reliquary. Putin chose to appear in his Action Man uniform (no tie, unbuttoned collar), inviting the question of whether his expression is one of stunned reverence or sullen challenge to a potential rival.
All joking aside, Vladimir Putin has jettisoned the official atheism of the KGB and has established the Russian state as a vigorous promoter of the Russian Orthodox Church--and vice versa, as Michael Binyon wrote for The Humanist in 2008:
Putin … is fervently and ostentatiously observant in his religious beliefs. As a result, the Russian Orthodox Church, now richer and more powerful than at any time for almost a century, has been at the centre of all state ceremonies, is a strong supporter of Putin’s policies and has resumed its traditional role as the spiritual arm of the Russian state. Restored churches can be seen everywhere. There are now some 28,000 parish churches in Russia, 732 monasteries and convents and thousands of priests training in seminaries. Putin delivers speeches at major religious festivals; in return the Patriarch acts as his agent in extending his control over all sectors of society. Church and Communist Party have become almost interchangeable.
As reported by Ministry Values in 2010, President Medvedev is equally forthright about playing the religious card:
An icon of Jesus hidden in a Kremlin gate used by Soviet leaders but bricked over in the 1930s during communist times was restored on Saturday to public view.
Russian President Medvedev, on the day that marks the Virgin Mary being taken into heaven, said the "Saviour Smolensky" icon, which depicts Jesus holding open the New Testament, with Russian saints below him, will provide moral support to Russia.
"Now that we've got the icon back, our country secures an additional defense."
The “influential St. Andrew Foundation” cited in the Novosti report—the outfit that sent the private jet to pick up the belt—is a religious foundation run by Vladimir Yakunin, a member of Putin’s inner circle and reputedly a veteran of the KGB’s First Directorate. He is also president of the gigantic state-owned Russian Railways.
Presumably, Yakunin is there to lock up the support of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy for Putin and whatever subsequent strongman craves well-financed, pervasive, and activist backing from the conservative church.
In 2010, European CEO breathlessly pegged him as “the man to watch” as a potential successor to Putin:
This ex-KBG spook is discreet, bright and endowed with a potentially huge powerbase. Vladimir Yakunin has a neighbouring lake-side dacha with prime minister (and former president) Putin. He’s often mentioned in the same breath as other successors to his all-powerful boss…
He’s patently bright and has certainly proved himself able and willing to move with the times. After the Soviet Union collapsed he moved into banking and business before being appointed as deputy transport minister in 2000. Many ex-KGB personnel were able to take advantage of new industry licences and Yakunin, along with some physicist friends, were no exception. In time they established Bank Russia, which later financed Putin’s re-election campaign in 2004.
Yet it would be a mistake to label this discreetly influential man as just another power-hungry party apparatchik or ex-KGB “siloviki”, the unflattering term given to describe the network of ex and current state-security officers. He has a fascination with Russia’s religious legacy and has helped launch a foundation that encourages reconciliation of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Yakunin’s “fascination with Russia’s religious legacy”, and his evolution from amoral KGB apparatchik to creepy, "values"-promoting bigot is reflected in remarks like this:
The head of the Council of Trustees of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation and JSC Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, believes tolerance to homosexuality is harmful.
"I think traditional family values and childbearing should not be substituted with some notorious imitations invented by the homosexual propaganda which could be only arbitrarily called attributes of a democratic society," he said at the opening ceremony of the 15th World Russian People's Council held on Wednesday in Moscow.
Yakunin told that he wanted to address this issue in his speech delivered at the Berlin forum last year, but he was warned that "this country will hardly understand you; and you may have troubles here."
"Nothing of the kind. There was not a single protest made and not a single person left the room because I mentioned that the propaganda of homosexuality was the same pollutant for the social environment as other pollutants were for the natural one," he said.
Getting back to the Cincture of the Virgin Mary, another version of the relic is held by the Jacobite Syrian Church in Homs—yes, Homs, ground zero of the anti-Assad rebellion-- under considerably less glamorous conditions.
The reliquary, and a history of Syria’s girdle and religious art showing its bestowal on St. Thomas, can be viewed on a very interesting Flickr feed by Rhoneil Victor de Leon.
On its website, the Cathedral of St. Mary in Homs claims its belt is the one that Mary dropped to St. Thomas from heaven, was brought to Syria in 476 and hidden in the church, and was rediscovered in 1953.
Remarkably, a piece of the Homs belt resides in Jacksonville, Florida at the Mother of God Zunoro Syrian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch of Damascus arranged to bestow a section of the belt on the new church. The relic was first adored at a sister church in Paramus, NJ, before taking up permanent residence in Florida in 1998.
Any competing claim for the Homs belt is not addressed on the Mt. Athos website, which plausibly traces the provenance of its belt back to the Byzantine Empire in the 12th century and its donation to Mt. Athos by Emperor John the 6th Katakouzinos (1347-1355).
So You Say You Want a Pussy Riot?
The Pussy Riot sentences (and the original prosecution) were misguided and excessive.
Putin undoubtedly found the band’s 90-second escapade of punk calisthenics in the Church of the Savior offensive and a personal insult. The Russian Orthodox Church is a major political prop for Putin and he probably thought he could reassure the church of his steadfastness as defender of the faith as well as score political points with conservative Russians with a heavy-handed slapdown.
But now the band has become an international cause celebre and lodestar for domestic and international opponents of Putin.
In an interesting blurring of the line between journalistic objectivity and human-rights agitprop, the armchair revolutionaries at the Guardian chose to create a video for the band’s latest release showing the women looking at turns gorgeous, defiant, and adorable.
That, combined with criticism of the sentence from the Obama administration and other human rights worthies, may be enough to convince Putin to keep the women in the can to serve their full term.
After all, if the sentences were commuted in response to the Russian Orthodox Church’s expressions of “foregiveness” and Putin’s own political calculations, it will be seen as a victory for the band—and inspiration for copycats and excuse for foreign meddling-- and not a welcome display of mercy by the administration.
However, it remains to be seen if shifting the terms of debate to the free-speech rights of punk rock provocateurs and away from Putin’s close and unhealthy ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (which the Pussy Riot outrage was designed to highlight) will accelerate the erosion of his power.
Here’s something I wrote last November on Putin’s religious strategy on the occasion of the visit of a treasured relic, the Girdle of St. Mary, to Russia. The massive turnout to adore the relic implies that there is more political capital for Putin in championing the church than appeasing the followers of Pussy Riot:
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
One thing that’s pretty clear is that religious movements are, for the most part, conservative and have served as bulwarks of authoritarianism (and a shield against challenges to the wealth and power of the privileged) at least since the days of the Social Democrats.
Authoritarian atheism, after a brief, 20th century heyday under Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, is perhaps headed for the dustbin of history.
Religion is too good for business, billionaires, and bosses, both in liberal democracies and post-Communist states.
Modern plutocracies have rediscovered the fact that there’s nothing like appeals to religious identity to split the electorate and marginalize those obstreperous liberal activists whose political views usually combine irreligious sentiments with enthusiasm for democracy and a nasty penchant for economic justice.
I think the Russians under Putin have broken the code. Via RIA Novosti:
A remarkable procession is currently taking place in Russia…
The Belt of the Virgin Mary, otherwise referred to as the Precious Sash, or Cincture, of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos – the holy treasure of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece, is travelling abroad for the first time. The Belt is travelling in style. It flies in a private jet, chartered by the tour’s organizer – the influential St. Andrew Foundation, and is accompanied by six Vatopedi monks. In St. Petersburg, it was welcomed by none other than Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city, Governor Alexander Misharin and the region’s bishop, Metropolitan Kirill, met the relic with the guard of honor before a procession of some 15,000 people took it to the cathedral.
The numbers are stunning indeed. In St. Petersburg, estimated one million people came to venerate the Belt in three days and nights, according to the local media. People stood in line for twelve to fourteen hours to be able to kiss the silver box containing the piece of camel wool fabric believed to have been woven and worn by the Virgin Mary, and take a small band blessed on the relic. In Yekaterinburg it was 300,000, in Krasnoyarsk – 100,000. The relic has already been to the country’s Far East – in Vladivostok, and the Far North – in Norilsk, beyond the Arctic Circle. Volgograd and Stavropol in the South are in the days to come. And it is hard to imagine what kind of crowds will gather in Moscow when, by the end of November, the relic arrives in the capital before leaving Russia for good.
According to the Vatopedi Monastery, the Virgin Mary dropped the belt from heaven for St.Thomas:
According to the Sacred Tradition and the history of our Church, the Most Holy Theotokos [Virgin Mary] three days after she fell asleep she rose from the dead and ascended in body to the heavens. During her ascension, she gave her Holy Belt to the Apostle Thomas. Thomas, along with the rest of the holy Apostles, opened up her grave and didn't find the body of the Theotokos. In this way the Holy Belt is proof for our Church of her Resurrection and bodily ascension to the heavens, and, in a word, at her metastasis.
From AFP, the socio-political angle:
Clerics said they hoped the relic would help more Russian women become mothers as the influential Russian Orthodox Church is actively promoting motherhood to help the government curtail a population decline.
Church officials in several cities plan to take the relic to pregnancy centres that counsel women contemplating an abortion, the Russian Orthodox Church said.
“This event is of huge significance especially when it comes to strengthening people’s faith,” Father Kirill, a spokesman for the Saint Petersburg diocese, told AFP.
“And the fact that this is such a singular relic helping women is especially important for our city and our country, where the demographic situation leaves much to be desired.”
Russian leaders have called the shrinking population a matter of national security.
The country’s latest census released earlier this year showed that the country’s population had shrunk by 2.2 million people since 2002 and now stands at 142.9 million.
There are also photos of Putin and Medvedev solemnly observing the reliquary. Putin chose to appear in his Action Man uniform (no tie, unbuttoned collar), inviting the question of whether his expression is one of stunned reverence or sullen challenge to a potential rival.
All joking aside, Vladimir Putin has jettisoned the official atheism of the KGB and has established the Russian state as a vigorous promoter of the Russian Orthodox Church--and vice versa, as Michael Binyon wrote for The Humanist in 2008:
Putin … is fervently and ostentatiously observant in his religious beliefs. As a result, the Russian Orthodox Church, now richer and more powerful than at any time for almost a century, has been at the centre of all state ceremonies, is a strong supporter of Putin’s policies and has resumed its traditional role as the spiritual arm of the Russian state. Restored churches can be seen everywhere. There are now some 28,000 parish churches in Russia, 732 monasteries and convents and thousands of priests training in seminaries. Putin delivers speeches at major religious festivals; in return the Patriarch acts as his agent in extending his control over all sectors of society. Church and Communist Party have become almost interchangeable.
As reported by Ministry Values in 2010, President Medvedev is equally forthright about playing the religious card:
An icon of Jesus hidden in a Kremlin gate used by Soviet leaders but bricked over in the 1930s during communist times was restored on Saturday to public view.
Russian President Medvedev, on the day that marks the Virgin Mary being taken into heaven, said the "Saviour Smolensky" icon, which depicts Jesus holding open the New Testament, with Russian saints below him, will provide moral support to Russia.
"Now that we've got the icon back, our country secures an additional defense."
The “influential St. Andrew Foundation” cited in the Novosti report—the outfit that sent the private jet to pick up the belt—is a religious foundation run by Vladimir Yakunin, a member of Putin’s inner circle and reputedly a veteran of the KGB’s First Directorate. He is also president of the gigantic state-owned Russian Railways.
Presumably, Yakunin is there to lock up the support of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy for Putin and whatever subsequent strongman craves well-financed, pervasive, and activist backing from the conservative church.
In 2010, European CEO breathlessly pegged him as “the man to watch” as a potential successor to Putin:
This ex-KBG spook is discreet, bright and endowed with a potentially huge powerbase. Vladimir Yakunin has a neighbouring lake-side dacha with prime minister (and former president) Putin. He’s often mentioned in the same breath as other successors to his all-powerful boss…
He’s patently bright and has certainly proved himself able and willing to move with the times. After the Soviet Union collapsed he moved into banking and business before being appointed as deputy transport minister in 2000. Many ex-KGB personnel were able to take advantage of new industry licences and Yakunin, along with some physicist friends, were no exception. In time they established Bank Russia, which later financed Putin’s re-election campaign in 2004.
Yet it would be a mistake to label this discreetly influential man as just another power-hungry party apparatchik or ex-KGB “siloviki”, the unflattering term given to describe the network of ex and current state-security officers. He has a fascination with Russia’s religious legacy and has helped launch a foundation that encourages reconciliation of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Yakunin’s “fascination with Russia’s religious legacy”, and his evolution from amoral KGB apparatchik to creepy, "values"-promoting bigot is reflected in remarks like this:
The head of the Council of Trustees of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation and JSC Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, believes tolerance to homosexuality is harmful.
"I think traditional family values and childbearing should not be substituted with some notorious imitations invented by the homosexual propaganda which could be only arbitrarily called attributes of a democratic society," he said at the opening ceremony of the 15th World Russian People's Council held on Wednesday in Moscow.
Yakunin told that he wanted to address this issue in his speech delivered at the Berlin forum last year, but he was warned that "this country will hardly understand you; and you may have troubles here."
"Nothing of the kind. There was not a single protest made and not a single person left the room because I mentioned that the propaganda of homosexuality was the same pollutant for the social environment as other pollutants were for the natural one," he said.
Getting back to the Cincture of the Virgin Mary, another version of the relic is held by the Jacobite Syrian Church in Homs—yes, Homs, ground zero of the anti-Assad rebellion-- under considerably less glamorous conditions.
The reliquary, and a history of Syria’s girdle and religious art showing its bestowal on St. Thomas, can be viewed on a very interesting Flickr feed by Rhoneil Victor de Leon.
On its website, the Cathedral of St. Mary in Homs claims its belt is the one that Mary dropped to St. Thomas from heaven, was brought to Syria in 476 and hidden in the church, and was rediscovered in 1953.
Remarkably, a piece of the Homs belt resides in Jacksonville, Florida at the Mother of God Zunoro Syrian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch of Damascus arranged to bestow a section of the belt on the new church. The relic was first adored at a sister church in Paramus, NJ, before taking up permanent residence in Florida in 1998.
Any competing claim for the Homs belt is not addressed on the Mt. Athos website, which plausibly traces the provenance of its belt back to the Byzantine Empire in the 12th century and its donation to Mt. Athos by Emperor John the 6th Katakouzinos (1347-1355).
Costas
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Ο ατζέντης τους διαβάζει Καντ! Λέει η δεύτερη, η Τολοκοννίκοβα (καλά, η Αλιόχινα δήλωσε απλώς: "κάναμε κίνηση ματ!" ) (chtodelat news)
Pussy Riot is happy that we have been able to spur a truly collective action, and that your political passion was so strong that it overcame the barriers of language, culture, lifeworlds, and economic and political status. Kant would have said that he saw no other reason for this Miracle besides the moral principle within humankind. Thank you for this Miracle.
) (chtodelat news)Pussy Riot is happy that we have been able to spur a truly collective action, and that your political passion was so strong that it overcame the barriers of language, culture, lifeworlds, and economic and political status. Kant would have said that he saw no other reason for this Miracle besides the moral principle within humankind. Thank you for this Miracle.