Strange Russian songs

At the 27th of January there was a meeting within a club «The citizen of Russia» (a former name «The East – The West») under the direct of Candidate of Philosophy and broad-scoped specialist in the humanities Sergei Dvorjanov in the Moscow pub «Doolin House». Mr. Dvorjanov is used to gather various and the most striking persons, bring together unexpected and even eccentric intellectual standpoints in his club.

The last meeting theme was – «Russia: the East or the West». An eternal controversy about geographic orientation of Russian civilization has been burning still - from the period of heated discussion between Russian slavophiles and westernizes. And the tension of polemics in «Doolin House» confirmed the topicality of this theme. Young generation has responded to the call of club leader cheerfully. There were representatives from Eurasian Youth Union and their opponents from philosophical club «Polar owl». There were also representatives from the elder generation – leaders and members of different social and media projects, experts from religious and scientific fields.

The corresponding member of the Academy of geopolitical problems, leader of organization «Man – society - nature» A. Kutalo was announced as the main speaker. He gave an account of his position and referred auditorium to his books. Here is the main idea of speaker’s report: there is no fundamental opposition between the East and the West civilization ways. It’s only a narrow-minded conception we have to overcome «for the good of all generations living on earth».

For experts of this problem Mr. Kutalo arguments were like a notorious «convergence theory» with para-scientific rhetoric. And speaker’s bid for singularity of his conception was taken without special interest. It was obvious for many that there was an irreconcilable contradiction between the East and the West.

An authoress Natalya Makeeva spoke for Eurasian Youth Union. She recounted the gist of the Eurasian view on this problem: Russia a different kind of civilization, and it’s impossible in essence to add it up to neither the East nor the West. «Russia with its geographical location is the Eurasian State with complex national composition. And Russians are far from the most of European peoples because of their ethnic belonging. Russians are mixture of Slav, Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples», - authoress said. Mrs. Makeeva emphasized, that specificity of Russian civilization didn’t add up to neither «Asiatic» nor «European» cultures. And it’s impossible to pick out elements of different cultures and political traditions of Eurasian peoples, which historically have been mixed.

«Even when Russia came under massive western influence at the turn of 17-18 centuries, it took in only the most irrational components of European culture and converted enlightenment heritage in a fanciful and original vein», - Mrs. Makeeva insisted. Among all oriental cultural aspects the authoress marked out a Russian monarchy as a characteristic feature of «oriental despotism».

Answering the question about possibility of monarchy revival in modern political situation Natalya said: «The reconstruction of dynasty is very difficult question. But regardless of institutionalization actual realization of some analog of monarchy in Russia is unavoidably in the near hundred years at least».

The representative of Conciliar movement of Russia and coordinator of regional patriotic organizations close to orthodox parishes (he has kept his name secret) backed a member of Eurasian Youth Union up. He also noted that we had to study the history of Russia and empathize with our country’s fate to comeback to our national roots.

The most of auditorium has supported the position of Natalya Makeeva. But next speaker Emelyan Danilov from the club «Polar owl» tried to criticize eurazion ideas. From the Mr. Danilov’s point of view, the way of Russia is european western way, but our country has deviated from such way during its historical development: «The Golden Horde then Muscovy – these are factors because of which Russia has deviated from the way of european peoples which are close to Russians by its ethnic belonging. Reforms of Peter the First, which also have negative aspects, we must consider as the attempt to return to Russia’s origins. And these origins are in the West». But speaker also said that nowadays Europe also had deviated from its origins and turned into the part of «big America».

Answering the question from the member of Eurasian Movement Ilia Dmitriev about features of «authentic West», Mr. Danilov said: «Liberty, love, nihilism», - his words had perplexed the auditorium. As it turned out the speaker had taken Christianity without differentiation to its western and eastern traditions as a sources of such features. The solidity of his position has raised doubts, but his speech had positive effect in whole for acuteness of discussion.

At the end of the meeting orthodox bard Andrej Selivanov told about his experience of personal contact with his religious father and sang his own music compositions. As it turned out Andrej Selivanov held to the monarchy convictions and esteemed Grigori Rasputin.