ON RUSSIAN "RUSSIANNESS"

(This entry continues where the previous entry Nationalism Versus Internationalism left off.)

We have talked about it a lot already. Although there may be some impressions to the contrary, the Russians have never been racist or anti-foreign per se in all their history, which, as I’ve been saying again and again, officially started with a complete foreigner: the Viking Prince Rurik becoming the founder of Russia’s first royal dynasty, lasting until early 17th century and superseded by the Romanovs, also of foreign descent, in 1613. Even before Peter the Great, there had been a long-standing tradition of hiring capable foreigners for highly skilled jobs, and the early Russian regular army, the Reiters, included countless thousands of foreign soldiers, particularly in commanding positions. Most of these, attracted by the lavishness of their Russian upkeep, preferred to settle down in Russia, and became Russified. We shall discuss shortly what constituted “Russification.”

Yes, there was a strong prejudice against foreign, particularly Western nations, suspected (justly) of plotting to do harm to Mother Russia, but this prejudice seldom transferred to foreign individuals, never turned into a full-blown xenophobia, even in times of war. My early ancestor Iacobus Michniewicz, a Polish nobleman in the retinue of "Tsarina" Marina Mniszech, wife of the impostor Tsar False Dimitri I, arriving in Moscow in 1606, had the lifesaving wisdom to renounce Catholicism, and to convert into the Russian Orthodox Faith… (oops, I am giving away the store!), which was the only reason why he was spared the gruesome fate of his Catholicism-proselytizing brethren, when the anti-Polish uprising began, and, being now fully accepted into the Russian fold as a Russian, even received a couple of Russian estates, to compensate him for the loss of the Polish ones, as a result of his “apostasy.”

What is most remarkable about this story of my Polish ancestor is that for a large part of his subsequent life, Russia was at war with Poland, and the Poles were bitterly hated all across Russia. Yet no one would ever hold his native Polishness against this recent Polish invader, as he was treated as a 100% Russian from then on.

So, here is the secret of Russian Russianness. You don’t have to be born a Russian, to be a Russian. You can be a 100% German, like Catherine II the Great, or a Tatar, like Nikolai Karamzin’s paternal ancestor Kara Murza, or a Turk, like Vasili Zhukovsky’s mother, or a Negro, like Alexander Pushkin’s maternal ancestors, but none of this will matter, as long as you have been properly baptized by the Russian Orthodox Church,--- for it is your Russian Orthodox religious allegiance, consecrated by the Russian Church (not to be confused with Eastern Orthodoxy in general, which has no such upshot!), which makes you a 100% Russian, and this is it.

In other words, Russian nationalism centers around the Russian Orthodox Church, which alone determines “Russianness” as such. Those modern-day Russian ‘skinheads’ and ‘fascists,’ who beat up and kill foreign-looking victims, are not Russian at heart, in the proper sense of the word, but a bunch of ignorant, bigoted degenerates, who have no respect, no knowledge, no understanding of what it means to be a true Russian. Would they have harmed a Pushkin in their midst? Probably! Thus they are the worst kind of unforgivable criminals, who sin against Russia’s national spirit, and against Russia’s God!

But harming a non-Russian (that is, a non-Russian Orthodox) foreigner who does not carry a sword against Mother Russia is an equally dire offense. For the sake of the Russian national soul, I sincerely hope that all such xenophobic crimes are going to be answered with the strongest punishment permitted by law, and that this law will be further strengthened to impose the maximum possible penalty in all such cases.

Getting back to the question of being a proper “Russian,” as opposed to being a citizen of this multinational Empire, which oftentimes implies different ethnicities and different religions, all non-Russian citizens of the multinational Russian empire, are accepted as protected minorities, on the condition of their unquestionable loyalty (no ‘dual citizenship,’ thank you!) to the Russian State. In the absence of the latter, that is, of loyalty to the State, all the rest are essentially endangered species, marked for eventual extinction. The recently introduced definition of ‘Russians Abroad’ is a curious trend of reestablishing the superpower reach, which the Soviet Union strove to establish by adopting its internationalist, “Marxist” posture in the early stages of the Soviet power, and then, rather unsuccessfully, tried to shed, or transform, throughout the later part of the Soviet history, eventually resulting in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This post-Soviet international outreach by Russia is far more organic and natural, no longer based on the overly ambiguous Bolshevik deception, but on the true nationalist principles, and on the primacy of the Russian Church, as the unifying force, and it strongly reinforces Russia’s adherence to the Third Rome Doctrine, rooted in the 500+ years of the historical tradition determining the development of the Russian nationhood.

Those in the West who do not understand the significance of my description are contributing to the further decline of Western Civilization in general, and of America’s standing in the world, in particular. As a matter of fact, in order for America to survive as a Great Power (notice my use of the indefinite article!), she must, before it may be too late, reconsider and reevaluate the basic concepts of American nationalism, American nationhood, dual citizenship, and such. A proper understanding of one’s own national identity will result in greater respect for other people’s nationalism, and will hopefully help clear the poisoned air of international relations. Otherwise, the doomsday “writing on the wall” has surely been written…

…But can this culturally illiterate generation of the great American nation still read? I sincerely hope so!