The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia turned to the new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with a request to give them an account of how she views Stalin’s personality. Moreover, in this rather firm demand, the idea was voiced that if Vasilyeva’s attitude towards Stalin is positive, then the fact of her appointment to the post of minister is a tragedy for Russia.
Why did the Jewish communities turn to Vasilyeva with this extraordinary demand? Why didn’t the Chechen, Ingush or Tatar communities apply? Why didn't the Russians make this demand? Where does such persistence and inquisitiveness come from among Jewish communities? Moreover, they appeal on behalf of the entire Jewish people. Are all Jewish people interested in Vasilyeva’s attitude towards Stalin or only certain groups of Moscow Jews? Did the Jewish front-line soldiers, hung from head to toe with orders and medals of the battles they fought under the banner of Stalin, also join this demand? Are they really joining this very brazen attack?
What could I answer if I were in Vasilyeva’s place? In Stalin, I see a man who made colossal efforts and, having defeated Himmler and Hitler, stopped the extermination of Jews all over the world, including Russian Jews. Stalin did not allow the crematorium ovens to blaze from Vitebsk to Vladivostok. I would also say that Stalin was the person through whose zeal and efforts the state of Israel was organized. Then the age-old religious dream of the Jews to restore their state came true. I think this is Stalin’s undoubted merit to the Jews. It seems to me that all Jews, both our Russians, and Israelis, and world Jewry, should at least twice a year - on the birthday and on the day of the death of Joseph Vissarionovich - come to his grave in the Kremlin wall and bring thanksgiving wreaths .
I see that with the appointment of Vasilyeva to the post of Minister of Education, her persecution began. Olga Yuryevna is surrounded by rings of hatred, lies, and defamation. And more and more new forces are involved in that campaign. These are also bright liberal bloggers who do not skimp on insults. These are also high-brow political scientists of the liberal wave. Entire newspapers and radio stations are participating in attacks on Vasilyeva. It seems that somewhere in the center that controls the entire liberal environment of the world, a decision was made to defame Vasilyeva. And all only because it is in resonance with new trends in Russian politics and ideology, when Westernism, which for many years made Russian public opinion a toy in the hands of Western political sorcerers, is being squeezed out of the Russian consciousness.
After the disaster of 1991, Russia painfully, with huge losses, returned to its traditional path of development. And in this regard, both historical vision and pedagogical education are key. The nature of history textbooks, which will be written not by Soros, but by Russian historians and thinkers, and the course of literature, which will be dominated by Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Bunin, are also fundamentally important. All this is extremely important for creating a new generation of Russians capable of building a full-fledged, powerful state out of today’s largely ruined, failed Russia.
Therefore, I would advise Olga Yuryevna Vasilyeva not to respond to attacks that are heard from one community or another, but to engage in the colossal work for which the president called her. The support of patriotic intellectuals is on her side.
Alexander Prokhanov
It is already clear that the new Minister of Education will be attacked by lies and provocations in two directions, creating two media stigmas. The first is Stalinism/great-power chauvinism/despotism, the second is clericalism/obscurantism/Orthodox Taliban. That is, they will mold Olga Vasilyeva into the image of a kind of obscurantist despot. However, this happened to all Russian statesmen who decided to preach enlightened conservatism based on traditional values and state rule in spite of liberalism-materialism-socialism. Pobedonostsev is a vivid example of this - it is difficult to find a figure more slandered by our freedom-loving intelligentsia.
The first false stigma against Vasilyeva has already been launched into the media space. Based on her lecture on Klyazma, she was indiscriminately accused of justifying Stalin’s repressions - words taken out of context were carried by dozens of handshaking media outlets and bloggers. Even the head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Borukh Gorin, was indignant at what did not happen and demanded the minister to explain what did not happen. This is a very significant and characteristic moment. This means they will hit hard and with all the artillery.
Meanwhile, Olga Yuryevna said something completely different, namely: 1) that it was Stalin in 1931 who began to return the topic of patriotism and great Russian history to state and public discourse; 2) and that the number of those repressed in the perestroika “Ogonyok” is greatly exaggerated, and you can only trust the research of real scientists Zemskov and others.
It would seem, what is so terrible here, where is the justification for repression? In fact, Vasilyeva encroached on what was sacred for entire generations of anti-statists and Westerners. She called the “sins” for which Russians have been called to repent since the times of Novodvorskaya and Korotich a lie. This is what should make Russians cringe when looking back at recent history. And now a government official says that there is no need to do this. For the first time, the Russian Minister of Education called tens of millions of repressed people a lie. For the first time, the Russian Minister of Education said that Stalin returned Russia's statehood and historical pride after many years of revolutionary revelry. It's a sign. For us, statists, and for them, anti-statists. There are extremely few of the latter among the people, but there are still many of them among the elite (in the same journalism), who are much more pleased to serve the oligarchy under the guise of freedom than to serve the country.
However, this is not the most dangerous blow. In the near future, I am sure, a wave of accusations against Vasilyeva of clericalism and alleged obscurantism will begin - and here you can find much more massive support in various strata of the people. One of the leaders of “oligarchic journalism,” Venediktov, immediately branded Vasilyeva an obscurantist and resigned from the Council under the Ministry of Education and Science—and that was also a sign, even a “black mark.” At the same time, Venediktov will be supported by many supporters of left-wing beliefs - communist-Bolsheviks, atheists, and various kinds of materialists. And this is extremely significant, since it takes us back to those times when liberalism and Marxism came from the same root - the desire to reject God.
Unfortunately, now, due to not always balanced statements of the Church and labeling by a number of supporters of the USSR, the false antagonism between supporters of a strong social state and Orthodoxy, science and faith continues. Such antagonism initially stems from a misunderstanding, firstly, of the differences between Trotskyist/revolutionary Bolshevism and the sovereign socialism of the Stalinist USSR, and secondly, a misunderstanding of the value of harmonious knowledge of the world simultaneously through religious and scientific consciousness. The point is not at all in Kurginyan’s desire to cross a hedgehog and a snake under the guise of USSR 2.0, but in the need to remove false oppositions between earthly and heavenly justice, in an attempt to stitch together the historical fabric of Russian history through the merging of the best experience of Tsarist Russia and the great Soviet experiment.
I would like to hope that the Ministry of Education under Olga Vasilyeva, as a specialist at the intersection of the Soviet and Orthodox, will try to begin education in this direction. However, with each such attempt, it will be attacked simultaneously from the liberal and communist wings - that is, anti-statists and Russophobes under the guise of “freedom fighters” and “fighters for justice.”
Unfortunately, Olga Vasilyeva, apparently, is an extremely emotional, direct and vulnerable person, and therefore it will be easy to piss her off and break her. Provocateurs have a much harder time with thick-skinned people. This woman has taken upon herself a huge cross, and it is the duty of the people and the leader to help her in this ministry. Perhaps for the first time, Russian education received a person with such a clearly statist, patriotic and religious thinking. And God grant that everything works out for her.
P.S. We are waiting for the same appointment and the same changes in the information policy of the Russian media. The need for this has become ripe and overdue.
Knowing Vasilyeva as a responsible high-class historian, as well as an excellent historian of the Church of the 20th century, including the persecution of the Church in Soviet times, we double-checked Vasilyeva’s words and found out that none of the high-profile quotes about Stalin attributed to her are correct.
Special thanks to Stalin
What was published in the media“Special thanks to Stalin.” This quote is attributed to Vasilyeva and is mentioned in several collections of her quotes.
What Vasilyeva said:Published:
“Special thanks to Stalin” are the words of Novaya Gazeta journalist Ivan Zhilin, and not Olga Vasilyeva, namely the subtitle of the report.
The Novaya Gazeta journalist quotes Vasilyeva, but takes it completely out of context and does not provide an explanation.
“Next she moved on to consider patriotism in the context of history.
Today's understanding of Russian patriotism, according to Vasilyeva, was formed in the 18th century. “The ideal of a political figure is, first of all, a tsar who cares about the welfare of the fatherland.”.
Special thanks to Stalin.
On February 4, 1931, at an all-Union conference of industrial workers, Joseph Vissarionovich uttered words that were the beginning of the rehabilitation of Russian history: “In the past, we could not have a fatherland. But now that we have overthrown capitalism, and we have people’s power, we have a fatherland, and we will defend its independence.”
In this form, cut off from the context, it turns out that Vasilyeva praised the Tsar and Stalin for their patriotism. Now let's look at the full text (it's amazing that in three days no one has yet transcribed this lecture in its entirety). Vasilyeva talks about the concept of “patriotism” in Russia, its first appearance, and how it peaked in the 19th century. And then she says that both the concept of patriotism and Russian history itself were erased from the life of the country from 1917 to 1934:
Said:
“The 17th year of the twentieth century is coming - one of the most tragic periods in the history of our state and very important for understanding patriotism and its role in the history of the 20th century. What are the Bolsheviks doing right away? The Bolsheviks reject all of the history that existed before 1717.
Trotsky was preparing a world revolution and a campaign against India, Lenin was preparing a campaign in Western Europe, and Lunacharsky, our People's Commissar of Enlightenment, already in November 1918 gathered teachers teaching history and said his wonderful thesis, which became a white thread, a terrible thread of Russian history in for two decades - a speech “On the teaching of national history in Soviet schools”, in which he said: “The teaching of history, eager to find good role models in the examples of the past, should be discarded.”
The People's Commissar had plenty of arguments, I will give the most important one: “the damned national school in Germany, where the Germans were the most skillful in teaching “patriotism”... a world massacre became possible.”
And the famous Pokrovsky school started working. In general, it is difficult to imagine that until 1934 inclusive, from 1917 to 1934, the word patriotism completely went out of use, public consciousness did not use this word, this concept was closed. And it is difficult to imagine that from 1917 to 1934 there was no teaching of history in universities, all faculties of St. Petersburg, Leningrad, then Moscow University were closed, and domestic history called into question the word Russia, “patriotism” and Russian history as such.
I'll give you a very striking example. 1931, the sixth volume of the Small Soviet Encyclopedia is published. I open the sixth volume with the letter “P”, patriotism, and I quote: “Patriotism is a biological concept.” The quote speaks for itself: “Patriotism is a biological feeling, it is inherent even in a cat.” The fury of Pokrovsky’s school was so great that in January 1929, Pokrovsky’s school and the academician himself officially declared the concept of “Russian history” to be unacceptable. Why am I talking about this? Because decades will pass, and in 1991 everything will repeat itself, but more on that later. What do historians of the Pokrovsky school do? They abolish the name Patriotic War of 1812.
Militsa Vasilyevna Nechkina was the only female academician who studied the Decembrists in Soviet times, and I was lucky enough to study with her as a graduate student. She went even further, further than her teacher. “There was no rise,” she quotes, “of patriotism in 1812. Armed with whatever they could find, the peasants defended only their property.” She suggests the heroes of 1812 Kutuzov, Bagration, Ataman Platov - they should not deserve the good memory of the people. Further more. In 1932, the People's Commissariat for Education made the fateful decision to remove the monument to Nikolai Raevsky from the Borodino field, because it had no artistic and historical significance.
By the way, in those same years, at the end of the 20s, Russian classical literature of the 19th century was subjected to defamation. Why? For great power. The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of September 5, 1931 is a milestone for historians throughout the country, including me. Why? Because it was on this day that history was restored to its rights. The dictatorship of Pokrovsky's school gradually waned, although all schoolchildren throughout the country studied for another two years from a textbook, a short course in history.
But the most turning point was February 4, 1931, when the concept of patriotism returned to public consciousness. What happened on February 4, 1931? There was an All-Union Conference of Socialist Industry Workers. Stalin speaks there, and in his speech he pronounces a thesis that becomes decisive for many decades: “In the past, we could not have a Fatherland,” I quote Stalin, “But now, when we have overthrown capitalism, and we have people’s power, We have the Fatherland, and we will defend its independence.” It is the understanding of the Fatherland and the understanding of patriotism, its rehabilitation, this is 1931, that returns the Fatherland as a synonym for pre-revolutionary Russia.
And in this full context, it is clear that there is no gratitude to Stalin, but there is a story about the process of abandoning Russian history at the early stage of Soviet history and the rehabilitation of history by Stalin - a fact is stated, and not an apology is given.
The number of those repressed under Stalin is greatly exaggerated
What was published in the media“The number of those repressed under Stalin is greatly exaggerated” - the headline was given by the Vedomosti newspaper, and is perceived as a quote from Vasilyeva.
What Vasilyeva herself said:
Vasilyeva did not utter such a phrase, but said that doctors of historical sciences Zemskov and Ivanova (works of the 1990s - early 2000s) always had more accurate information on the number of repressed people.
Here is a verbatim transcript of Vasilyeva’s words:
“I am often asked: “If you count the number of repressed people that Korotich gave us in Ogonyok, it is unclear who is left to live and work in the country.” So I want to say that there are two historians - one - the late Zemskov and Galina Ivanovna Ivanova, who work on losses, who are trusted by the historical community, both ours and our colleagues abroad."
Historian Galina Ulyanova explained to Pravmir the essence of the discussion: “The point is that in the early 1990s, during the second wave of de-Stalinization of public consciousness, an exaggerated idea was formed, not based on calculations, about the number of victims of Stalin’s repressions. This was due to the fact that until the end of the 1980s, the statistical data of the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD concerning the number of Gulag prisoners and special settlers were strictly classified.
The question of the number of victims is still debatable (very labor-intensive identification and processing of documents), while some figures were broadcast by the country's leadership in different periods, some by historians who were not immediately allowed into the archives.
The question of Stalin’s cannibalism is an axiom and, as far as it is presented in serious literature, the negative social and moral consequences of repression have not been questioned since the 20th Congress (1956).
Works of the largest researcher V.N. Zemskova, for example, begin with the words “Human life is priceless. The killing of innocent people cannot be justified - be it one person or millions. But the researcher cannot limit himself to a moral assessment of historical events and phenomena.” After 1990, the Memorial Society made a huge contribution to the study of repression, where very serious historians work, processing huge archives (and this work continues). If you are interested in how quantitative estimates of the extent of repression fluctuated, you can read.
Stalin, with all his shortcomings, is a state good
What was published in the media:“At a closed lecture on patriotism for members of the United Russia party, Olga Vasilyeva said that “Stalin, with all his shortcomings, is a state good, because on the eve of the war he took up the unity of the nation, revived the heroes of pre-revolutionary Russia and began promoting the Russian language and literature, which by and large score and allowed us to win the war.”
What Vasilyeva herself said“According to one of the listeners, in this lecture she made it clear that Stalin, despite all his shortcomings, was a state good, because on the eve of the war he took up the unity of the nation, revived the heroes of pre-revolutionary Russia and began promoting the Russian language and literature, which, by and large, allowed win the war. http://kommersant.ru/doc/2359275 »
The original source, the Kommersant report, does not quote Vasilyeva, but rather retells a review from one of the forum’s listeners:
If you study the history of the Church, you are not a scientist!
Olga Vasilyeva has always been known in the widest circles as an excellent historian, and especially a historian of the Church. Her name is one of the leading ones in the field of Church history of the 20th century; she has written many scientific works, monographs and articles. By the way, the Department of Church History is one of the strongest departments in the history department of Moscow State University. However, judging by the reaction of bloggers, now any disciplines related to the Church in one way or another do not have the right to be scientific - be it the history of the Church or the history of religions, analysis of the language of sermons or the study of the Church Slavonic language. Theology, a very respected and important scientific discipline in most European universities, is inconvenient to talk about. Here's an illustration:
Should-deification
This is no longer about Stalin, but it’s too striking an example to pass by. This case simply must be included in journalism textbooks - it shows well how emotional bias can create new words, on the basis of which entire complex structures are erected. The whole day of the appointment, netizens were horrified that for Vasilyeva the new stage of her life was deity. Entire concepts were built about how now conversations about religion and Orthodoxy would absorb the entire ministry and “priests will not be kicked out of schools,” and then it turned out that Vasilyeva said not “deification”, but “ought,” but a correspondent, wound up discussing religion minister, I heard something completely different from what was said and did not ask again.
Here is this story first-hand, from KP correspondent Roman Golovanov himself:
Yesterday, Komsomolskaya Pravda published my operational interview with the new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva. The conversation was recorded using the voice recorder built into the phone. Decoding the answer to the question “How did you find out about your appointment? What emotions did you experience? due to the quality of the connection, I misinterpreted her words. Instead of “should” (the necessity of what must happen) he indicated “deification”. Insured by a comment from an expert who explained the possible meaning of the term, the text was sent to print.
According to the results
We see how tendentious, careless and unprofessional the most authoritative media outlets work with quotes and primary sources. We then see how these incorrect quotes and phrases taken out of context come to social networks and shape our perception of the situation. I would like to wish both colleagues and readers to double-check the quotes as accurately as possible, and to the Minister of Education - calm work and a fair assessment of the cases.The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR) demanded that the new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva clarify her attitude to the Stalin era. As stated by the head of the FEOR public relations department, Borukh Gorin, “it is very important for the new minister to clarify his position and not leave room for ambiguity, because this is an important issue not only for the education of Russia, but also for the future of the country in general,” he said. Gorin explained that after the appointment of the new minister, “some quotes taken out of context” began to be used everywhere, which “do not add optimism” regarding the personality of the new minister.
“Any attempts to treat the Stalin era with greater understanding, as is often the case: the time was like this and so on, scare me very much, because I believe that the Stalin period was deadly for Russia. An entire class of people was destroyed, free thought and post-revolutionary enthusiasm were destroyed, which were replaced by fear of terror,”- Interfax quotes him as saying from a representative of the FJR.
Olga Vasilyeva was appointed to the post of Minister of Education last Friday, August 19. After this, the media started talking about her statements in favor of Stalin. Thus, in 2013, Vasilyeva, at a lecture before members of United Russia, noted that Stalin, despite all his inherent shortcomings, was still a blessing for the state, since before the start of the Great Patriotic War he was able to unite the Soviet people. She also noted measures to promote the Russian language in the USSR, initiated by Stalin. In addition, statements attributed to Vasilyeva, including those about the exaggerated scale of victims of Stalin's repressions and approval of Stalin as the leader of the state, became widespread.
Comment by Alexander Prokhanov:
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia turned to the new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva with a request to give them an account of how she views Stalin’s personality. Moreover, in this rather firm demand, the idea was voiced that if Vasilyeva’s attitude towards Stalin is positive, then the fact of her appointment to the post of minister is a tragedy for Russia.
Why did the Jewish communities turn to Vasilyeva with this extraordinary demand? Why didn’t the Chechen, Ingush or Tatar communities apply? Why didn't the Russians make this demand? Where does such persistence and inquisitiveness come from among Jewish communities? Moreover, they appeal on behalf of the entire Jewish people. Are all Jewish people interested in Vasilyeva’s attitude towards Stalin or only certain groups of Moscow Jews? Did the Jewish front-line soldiers, hung from head to toe with orders and medals of the battles they fought under the banner of Stalin, also join this demand? Are they really joining this very brazen attack?
What could I answer if I were in Vasilyeva’s place?
In Stalin, I see a man who made colossal efforts and, having defeated Himmler and Hitler, stopped the extermination of Jews all over the world, including Russian Jews. Stalin did not allow the crematorium ovens to blaze from Vitebsk to Vladivostok. I would also say that Stalin was the person through whose zeal and efforts the state of Israel was organized. Then the age-old religious dream of the Jews to restore their state came true. I think this is Stalin’s undoubted merit to the Jews. It seems to me that all Jews, both our Russians, and Israelis, and world Jewry, should at least twice a year - on the birthday and on the day of the death of Joseph Vissarionovich - come to his grave in the Kremlin wall and bring thanksgiving wreaths .
I see that with the appointment of Vasilyeva to the post of Minister of Education, her persecution began. Olga Yuryevna is surrounded by rings of hatred, lies, and defamation. And more and more new forces are involved in that campaign. These are also bright liberal bloggers who do not skimp on insults. These are also high-brow political scientists of the liberal wave. Entire newspapers and radio stations are participating in attacks on Vasilyeva. It seems that somewhere in the center that controls the entire liberal environment of the world, a decision was made to defame Vasilyeva. And all only because it is in resonance with new trends in Russian politics and ideology, when Westernism, which for many years made Russian public opinion a toy in the hands of Western political sorcerers, is being squeezed out of the Russian consciousness.
After the disaster of 1991, Russia painfully, with huge losses, returned to its traditional path of development. And in this regard, both historical vision and pedagogical education are key. The nature of history textbooks, which will be written not by Soros, but by Russian historians and thinkers, and the course of literature, which will be dominated by Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Bunin, are also fundamentally important. All this is extremely important for creating a new generation of Russians capable of building a full-fledged, powerful state out of today’s largely ruined, failed Russia.
Therefore, I would advise Olga Yuryevna Vasilyeva not to respond to attacks that are heard from one community or another, but to engage in the colossal work for which the president called her. The support of patriotic intellectuals is on her side.
“Special thanks to Stalin.” This quote is attributed to Vasilyeva and is mentioned in several collections of her quotes.
What Vasilyeva said:
“Special thanks to Stalin” are the words of Novaya Gazeta journalist Ivan Zhilin, and not Olga Vasilyeva, namely the subtitle of the report.
The Novaya Gazeta journalist quotes Vasilyeva, but takes it completely out of context and does not provide an explanation.
Today's understanding of Russian patriotism, according to Vasilyeva, was formed in the 18th century. “The ideal of a political figure is, first of all, a tsar who cares about the good of the fatherland.”
Special thanks to Stalin.
On February 4, 1931, at an all-Union conference of industrial workers, Joseph Vissarionovich uttered words that were the beginning of the rehabilitation of Russian history: “In the past, we could not have a fatherland. But now that we have overthrown capitalism, and we have people’s power, we have a fatherland, and we will defend its independence.”
In this form, cut off from the context, it turns out that Vasilyeva praised the Tsar and Stalin for their patriotism. Now let's look at the full text (it's amazing that in three days no one has yet transcribed this lecture in its entirety). Vasilyeva talks about the concept of “patriotism” in Russia, its first appearance, and how it peaked in the 19th century. And then she says that both the concept of patriotism and Russian history itself were erased from the life of the country from 1917 to 1934:
Said:
“The 17th year of the twentieth century is coming - one of the most tragic periods in the history of our state and very important for understanding patriotism and its role in the history of the 20th century. What are the Bolsheviks doing right away? The Bolsheviks reject all of the history that existed before 1717.
Trotsky was preparing a world revolution and a campaign against India, Lenin was preparing a campaign in Western Europe, and Lunacharsky, our People's Commissar of Enlightenment, already in November 1918 gathered teachers teaching history and said his wonderful thesis, which became a white thread, a terrible thread of Russian history in over two decades - a speech “On teaching national history in Soviet schools”, in which he said: “Teaching history, thirsty find good role models in the examples of the past , must be discarded."
The People's Commissar had plenty of arguments, I will give the most important one: “the damned national school in Germany, where the Germans were the most skillful in teaching “patriotism”... a world massacre became possible.”
And the famous Pokrovsky school started working. In general, it is difficult to imagine that until 1934 inclusive, from 1917 to 1934, the word patriotism completely went out of use, public consciousness did not use this word, this concept was closed. And it is difficult to imagine that from 1917 to 1934 there was no teaching of history in universities, all faculties were closed: St. Petersburg, Leningrad, then Moscow University, and domestic history called into question the word Russia, “patriotism” and Russian history as such .
I'll give you a very striking example. 1931, the sixth volume of the Small Soviet Encyclopedia is published. I open the sixth volume with the letter “P”, patriotism, and I quote: “Patriotism is a biological concept.” The quote speaks for itself: “Patriotism is a biological feeling, it is inherent even in a cat.” The fury of Pokrovsky’s school was so great that in January 1929, Pokrovsky’s school and the academician himself officially declared the concept of “Russian history” to be unacceptable. Why am I talking about this? Because decades will pass, and in 1991 everything will repeat itself, but more on that later. What do historians of the Pokrovsky school do? They abolish the name Patriotic War of 1812.
Militsa Vasilievna Nechkina was the only female academician who studied the Decembrists in Soviet times, and I was lucky enough to study with her as a graduate student. She went even further, further than her teacher. “There was no rise,” she quotes, “of patriotism in 1812. Armed with whatever they could find, the peasants defended only their property.” She suggests the heroes of 1812: Kutuzov, Bagration, Ataman Platov - they should not deserve the good memory of the people. Further more. In 1932, the People's Commissariat for Education made the fateful decision to remove the monument to Nikolai Raevsky from the Borodino field, because it had no artistic and historical significance.
By the way, in those same years, at the end of the 20s, Russian classical literature of the 19th century was subjected to defamation. Why? For great power. The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of September 5, 1931 is a milestone for historians throughout the country, including me. Why? Because it was on this day that history was restored to its rights. The dictatorship of Pokrovsky's school gradually waned, although all schoolchildren throughout the country studied for another two years from a textbook, a short course in history.
But the most turning point was February 4, 1931, when the concept of patriotism returned to public consciousness. What happened on February 4, 1931? There was an All-Union Conference of Socialist Industry Workers. Stalin speaks there, and in his speech he pronounces a thesis that becomes decisive for many decades: “In the past, we could not have a Fatherland,” I quote Stalin, “but now, when we have overthrown capitalism, and we have people’s power, we have there is a Fatherland, and we will defend its independence.” It is the understanding of the Fatherland and the understanding of patriotism, its rehabilitation, this is 1931, that returns the Fatherland as a synonym for pre-revolutionary Russia.
And in this full context, it is clear that there is no gratitude to Stalin, but there is a story about the process of abandoning Russian history at the early stage of Soviet history and the rehabilitation of history by Stalin - a fact is stated, and not an apology is given.
The number of those repressed under Stalin is greatly exaggerated
“The number of those repressed under Stalin is greatly exaggerated” - the headline was given by the Vedomosti newspaper and is perceived as a quote from Vasilyeva.
What Vasilyeva herself said:
Vasilyeva did not utter such a phrase, but said that doctors of historical sciences Zemskov and Ivanova (works of the 1990s - early 2000s) always had more accurate information on the number of repressed people.
Here is a verbatim transcript of Vasilyeva’s words:
“I am often asked: “If you count the number of repressed people that Korotich gave us in Ogonyok, it is unclear who is left to live and work in the country.” So I want to say that there are two historians - one - the late Zemskov and Galina Ivanovna Ivanova, who work on losses, who are trusted by the historical community, both ours and our colleagues abroad."
Historian Galina Ulyanova explained to Pravmir the essence of the discussion: “The point is that in the early 1990s, during the second wave of de-Stalinization of public consciousness, an exaggerated idea was formed, not based on calculations, about the number of victims of Stalin’s repressions. This was due to the fact that until the end of the 1980s, the statistical data of the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD concerning the number of Gulag prisoners and special settlers were strictly classified.
The question of the number of victims is still debatable (very labor-intensive identification and processing of documents), while some figures were broadcast by the country's leadership in different periods, some by historians who were not immediately allowed into the archives.
The question of Stalin’s cannibalism is an axiom and, as far as it is presented in serious literature, the negative social and moral consequences of repression have not been questioned since the 20th Congress (1956).
Works of the largest researcher V.N. Zemskova, for example, begin with the words “Human life is priceless. The killing of innocent people cannot be justified - be it one person or millions. But the researcher cannot limit himself to a moral assessment of historical events and phenomena.” After 1990, the Memorial Society made a huge contribution to the study of repression, where very serious historians work, processing huge archives (and this work continues). If you are interested in how quantitative estimates of the extent of repression fluctuated, you can read.
Stalin, with all his shortcomings, is a state good
“At a closed lecture on patriotism for members of the United Russia party, Olga Vasilyeva said that “Stalin, with all his shortcomings, is a state good, because on the eve of the war he took up the unity of the nation, revived the heroes of pre-revolutionary Russia and began promoting the Russian language and literature, which by and large score and allowed us to win the war.”
What Vasilyeva herself said
The original source, the Kommersant report, does not quote Vasilyeva, but rather retells a review from one of the forum’s listeners:
« According to one listener, in this lecture she made it clear that Stalin, despite all his shortcomings, is a public good, because on the eve of the war he took up the unity of the nation, revived the heroes of pre-revolutionary Russia and began promoting the Russian language and literature, which, by and large, made it possible to win the war.
http://kommersant.ru/doc/2359275 »
If you study the history of the Church, you are not a scientist!
Olga Vasilyeva has always been known in the widest circles as an excellent historian, and especially a historian of the Church. Her name is one of the leading ones in the field of Church history of the 20th century; she has written many scientific works, monographs and articles. By the way, the Department of Church History is one of the strongest departments in the history department of Moscow State University. However, judging by the reaction of bloggers, now any disciplines related to the Church in one way or another do not have the right to be scientific - be it the history of the Church or the history of religions, analysis of the language of sermons or the study of the Church Slavonic language. Theology, a very respected and important scientific discipline in most European universities, is inconvenient to talk about. Here's an illustration:
Should-deification
This is no longer about Stalin, but it’s too striking an example to pass by. This case simply must be included in journalism textbooks - it shows well how emotional bias can create new words, on the basis of which entire complex structures are erected. The whole day of the appointment, netizens were horrified that for Vasilyeva the new stage of her life was deity. Entire concepts were built about how now conversations about religion and Orthodoxy would absorb the entire ministry and “priests will not be kicked out of schools,” and then it turned out that Vasilyeva said not “deification”, but “ought,” but a correspondent, wound up discussing religion minister, I heard something completely different from what was said and did not ask again.
Here is this story first-hand, from KP correspondent Roman Golovanov himself:
Yesterday, Komsomolskaya Pravda published my operational interview with the new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva. The conversation was recorded using the voice recorder built into the phone. Decoding the answer to the question “How did you find out about your appointment? What emotions did you experience? due to the quality of the connection, I misinterpreted her words. Instead of “should” (the necessity of what must happen) he indicated “deification”. Insured by a comment from an expert who explained the possible meaning of the term, the text was sent to print.
According to the results
We see how tendentious, careless and unprofessional the most authoritative media outlets work with quotes and primary sources. We then see how these incorrect quotes and phrases taken out of context come to social networks and shape our perception of the situation. I would like to wish both colleagues and readers to double-check the quotes as accurately as possible, and to the Minister of Education - calm work and a fair assessment of the cases.
"Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, who served in this post for four years, was dismissed on Friday, August 19. Olga Vasilyeva, an official from the presidential administration, was appointed in his place. In the Kremlin, she was in charge of issues of patriotic education; in general, Vasilyeva’s career is closely connected with church topics. Meduza talks about the new Minister of Education.
Olga Vasilyeva received three degrees. The first - conducting and choral, then - historical at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute; she also graduated from the Diplomatic Academy with a degree in International Relations.
In 1990, at the Institute of History of the USSR she defended her dissertation on the topic “The Soviet State and the Patriotic Activities of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Great Patriotic War.” In 1999, he completed his doctorate on a similar topic at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She worked there from 1991 to 2002, including heading the Center for the History of Religion and Church. Vasilyeva said that she chose the theme of the church because she had a religious family, and she was baptized immediately after her birth in 1960.
After leaving the Russian Academy of Sciences, she became the head of the department of religious studies at the Russian Academy of Public Administration. In addition, she taught at the Sretensky Theological Seminary, where she was invited by the rector of this educational institution, Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov),
Who is called the confessor of Vladimir Putin. Vasilyeva met him in 2000 or 2001 - at a conference in Hungary.
Later she got a job in the White House Department of Culture, and in - became deputy head of the presidential administration’s department for public projects. Now she is also listed as a professor at the Department of State-Religious Relations at RANEPA.
The Department for Public Projects appeared in the Kremlin administration only in 2012. It is headed by Pavel Zenkovich, deputy head of Vladimir Putin's campaign headquarters in the last presidential election. The Kremlin website notes that among the tasks of the AP unit is the preparation of proposals “to strengthen the spiritual and moral foundations of Russian society, to improve the work on the patriotic education of youth.”
As Kommersant wrote in 2013, one of the most successful management projects in which Vasilyeva worked, in the first year of its existence, was the exhibition “Orthodox Rus'. Romanovs" in Manege. Its visitors, in particular, were told how the Romanovs “defeated internal and external enemies,” and the Decembrists planned to plunge Russia into "bloody chaos of turmoil". Vladimir Putin spoke positively about this exhibition...
At a closed lecture on patriotism for members Olga Vasilyeva of the United Russia party said that “Stalin, despite all his shortcomings, is a state good, because on the eve of the war he took up the unity of the nation, revived the heroes of pre-revolutionary Russia and began promoting the Russian language and literature, which, by and large, made it possible to win the war.”
Vasilyeva is the author of dozens of publications about the church. She chooses the following topics: “ "Church Stalinism": legends and facts”, “Church and power in the 20th century”, “State-church relations of the Khrushchev period”, etc.
Olga Vasilyeva was a member of the working group to develop a standard for teaching history in schools, and also gave a lecture to young history teachers at the Tavrida forum. She regularly speaks to governors, social science teachers, and employees of the internal policy department of the presidential administration on the topic of patriotic education. In 2013, she presented the report “Value Aspects of V.V.’s Policy” to the heads of departments of social sciences at Russian universities. Putin."
Olga Vasilyeva’s boss, head of the AP department for public projects Pavel Zenkovich, spoke of her as "amazing expert". “[She] worked as a teacher, a university lecturer, a department head, and knows all the processes from the inside. She is her own person in the field of education and science,” Zenkovich said.
A Vedomosti source close to the current leadership of the ministry called the new education minister an “extreme conservative.” “This is just a guard,” the publication’s interlocutor commented on Vasilyeva’s appointment..."...
"The new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva stated that her appointment to this post is "deification"
her activities.
“In terms of emotions - deity, if you understand. The deity of what you do,” she said in response to a question from Komsomolskaya Pravda about what emotions she experienced after her appointment...
http://www.novayagazeta.ru/society/74142.html
Does servility and worship of leaders cause turbulence in the brain?