From: "Robert Bowie" <bowierobert@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Putin May Want Out (But Can't Get Out)
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007
Western diplomats and business persons who deal with Russians are often befuddled by the Russian ability to occupy two or more mutually exclusive positions simultaneously. This phenomenon has been treated frequently in scholarly works (Ju.M. Lotman's Besedy o russkoj kul'ture [Conversations on Russian Culture],Ronald Hingley's The Russian Mind, Raymond E. Smith's Negotiating with the Soviets, and many more). The psychological trait goes so far back in Russian history that its origins cannot be traced. Two books on Russian holy foolery (jurodstvo) emphasize that such contradictory behavior is characteristic of the genuine holy fool in Christ, and of the Russian people who both revile and revere him at the same time. The fool wanders marketplace squares or village streets during the day, naked or half-naked, behaving obscenely, laughing, throwing excrement on people. He disrupts Orthodox services by squealing or howling in the church. For this he is beaten, but he welcomes the abuse since he is "taking on the sufferings of Christ." The beaters, meanwhile, are often contrite; they don't like goat dung thrown on their heads, but they believe, simultaneously, that the fool's conduct verges on the sacred. In the dead of the night, however, the holy fool prays fervently, alone, weeping copious tears (see D.S. Likhachev and A.M Panchenko, "Smekhovoj mir" drevnej Rusi [The "Laughing World" of Ancient Russia]; see also Ewa Thompson, Understanding Russia: the Holy Fool in Russian Culture). What does holy foolery, ascendant in Russia's 16th century, have to do with modern Russian life? A lot. In fact, there has been a recrudescence of holy foolery since the fall of the U.S.S.R., and, this is not at all surprising. Study jurodstvo and you'll learn much of importance about Russians.
Another Russian characteristic trait, too often ignored by Westerners, is Russian vulnerability (ujazvimost'). Vladimir Yakunin, present head of the Russian railway system, has been quoted as follows: "Russians are very open, on the one hand, but they are also very vulnerable." At times in Russian history such feelings of vulnerability verge upon the paranoic. We are rapidly approaching such a time right now, with the whole country in flux, wondering how to make President Putin stay on, believing that only he can keep everything from falling to pieces, as so often has happened in Russian history.
In his biography of Tsar Alexander II (Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar), Edvard Radzinsky demonstrates an excellent understanding of the nebulous quality of the Russian mindset and of Russian vulnerability. In discussing the great writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (the epitome of the vulnerable), Radzinsky suggests what, at first sight, seems a preposterous scenario: that Dostoevsky was aquainted with Alexander Barannikov, one of the leaders of People's Will, the terrorist group that was to assassinate the tsar in Mar., 1881 (Barannikov lived in a room that shared a wall with Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg apartment). Furthermore, Dostoevsky, while hobnobing with Pobedonostsev and the most reactionary Russian political figures, simultaneously even sympathized with the cause of the terrorists. In other words, deep inside his psyche, Dostoevsky wanted the tsar killed and did not want him killed at the same time. For anyone who has read Dostoevsy's literary works and biography, this is by no means a fantastical scenario.
So what does all this have to do with Vladimir Putin? Let's return briefly to Alexander II. Certainly he, at times, maybe even on a daily basis, wished he could get away from it all and just enjoy life with his beloved mistress and their children. After all, beginning in 1866, when the first attempt was made on his life, any crazy in the country seemed to believe that he could take a potshot at the tsar. The most fanatical of the crazies, the People's Will terrorists, finally succeeded in blowing him up in 1881 (it was the seventh, or eighth or ninth, attempt on his life--historians have lost count). For years Alexander had been hunted like a wild animal. He felt perpetually vulnerable.
Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, with popularity ratings of 85%, loses little sleep over assassination attempts. So why would he want to go? Or, to ask a better question, why does he want to go and stay simultaneously (ah, there it is again)? He must certainly be sick of all the travel, of making ceremonial appearances all over the world. He must certainly be fed up with mediating power struggles within his own coterie. He is forced to hold huge amounts of information in his head at any given time, an exhausting task (recently he spent three hours on television, answering questions from the Russian people, and he performed in an exemplary fashion, using few notes). But he too feels vulnerable. He feels responsible for all of Mother Russia, its future course, and that responsibility certainly has to weigh heavily upon him. Has anyone ever considered stopping the haw-hawing over what President Bush once remarked? Has anyone ever considered that when Bush "looked deeply into Vladimir's eyes," he really did see the human being inside the Russian President? Wouldn't it be wonderful for him to go fishing with his "friend," President Bush in Siberia? Wouldn't it be great to say what Alexander III, son of the assassinated tsar, once famously barked when brought some important papers while fishing (the papers were from Europe and dealt with diplomatic issues): "Europe can wait, while the tsar of Russia catches fish"?
Now we come to the most important question, the one that is driving political scientists everywhere to formulate mad confabulations: will it be the tsar of Russia out there with Dubya catching fish, or will it be private citizen Vladimir Putin? The Russian President surely thrives on all the adulation; who could resist the rewards of being treated like a rock star? Furthermore, he still is young and vital, he still must take great satisfaction in what he has accomplished and still must assume that he can do a great deal more. The voice of the narod (the People) is out on the streets screaming, "Stay with us, Beloved One; be our Father!" Russian hysteria (akin to the hysteria of the nineteenth century, when everyone was out to murder the tsar, akin to the hysteria of 1905 and of 1917-1921) is on the rise. Even more vociferously screams the Voice of Russian History: "You must stay! And you must stay not in some subordinate role. That never works on the Russian Land. You must stay and be what you are right now: the supreme authority, the "tsar of all the Russias."
Will he leave? No way. He'll find a loophole somewhere, and he'll go on being the tsar. The man out there fishing with Dubya in Siberia some time next spring (barring a dire event, and Russian history has more than its share of dire events) will be "the tsar of all the Russias," Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He may be holding contradictory positions in his head, he may feel vulnerable, but he'll be there, taking off his shirt, flexing his muscles for the fascinated American ex-President.
Robert Bowie, PhD, is a private business consultant, specializing in the differences between Russian and American mentalities. His website is www.russianmindsetsconsultancies.com.