16.01.2025, Aleksandrovskoye.
The conflict in Ukraine did not lead Russia to a disastrous collapse only because Russian cultural codes begin to work in certain situations, philosopher, political scientist, and the leader of the Essence of Time movement Sergey Kurginyan said on January 11 in his author’s program Destiny.
According to Kurginyan, comparing Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine with the Great Patriotic War is a grave mistake. The USSR had a morally and physically strong population, which was prepared for the coming war in a variety of ways over several years. In post-Soviet Russia, however, a society with excessive consumer demands was formed against a backdrop of the degradation in the military-industrial complex, manufacturing, and virtually all basic spheres of life.
Residents of post-Soviet Russia live in a world that is completely different from the Soviet world. Since the late Soviet and post-Soviet elite has been living, for a long time, under the illusion that by dismantling the Soviet Union, Russia would be integrated into Europe, the special military operation could have either had a moderate success or could have ended in a horrific failure. However, it did not end in failure for several reasons.
First and foremost, life in a criminal state, such as post-Soviet Russia, requires a certain amount of willpower. “If you behave as obedient sheep in a highly criminal state, you’ll be slaughtered,” Kurginyan explained, emphasizing that this applies to the middle class, the upper classes, and the lower classes.
Kurginyan shared his observations once made in a hotel in Madeira.
“When you step out into the courtyard of this hotel and say ‘good morning.’ An Englishman responds and it sounds like a sheep bleating. Saying – ‘good maaarning,’ ‘good maaarning.’ A Russian, who is just a look-alike, growls like a wolf, saying ‘good morrrning,’ yes. And it seems as if he will feel secure only if an AK-47 machine gun is resting under his lounge chair,” Kurginyan said.
Secondly, years of efforts to turn Russians into respectable bourgeoise have yielded no results.
“For over thirty years, they’ve been trying to turn Russians into respectable bourgeoises. Sometimes, this process would begin right in childhood. They’ve been trying and trying, spending an enormous effort on developing consumerism,” Kurginyan said. The result, however, is close to zero, although some people do prefer “to keep wandering from one restaurant to another.”
“When it starts to smell like trouble, danger, or something nasty; certain broken, or not so broken, codes get activated. And a conflict is unfolding, and because of it – I’m here now, discussing this, and I’m not being killed or executed. And what we have here in Russia is the Essence of Time movement and not Banderites. That‘s what saved us!” Kurginyan emphasized.
This isn’t the first time these codes have been activated, the philosopher noted. He recalled that great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, discussing the Patriotic War with Napoleon, wrote in his Eugen Onegin:
The storm of 1812 has not yet broken out,
Napoleon hadn’t challenged yet the nation’s greatness
nevertheless, Alexander Pushkin writes:
What helped us then, who knows
He does not mention Kutuzov* here:
The people’s fury,
Barclay*, or winter, or the Russian God.
* Translator’s notes:
Mikhail Kutuzov, field marshal of the Russian Empire and supreme commander during Patriotic War of 1812 (also known as French invasion of Russia), who defeated Napoleon
Mikhail Bogdanovich Prince Barclay de Tolly, field marshal of the Russian Empire who was prominent in the Napoleonic Wars
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
