War of memes: why Z-war won't end with peace

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin, who became fluent in French much earlier than in Russian, talked and wrote in a very gallicised version of the Russian language. And since his legacy became *the* standard, Russian grammar looks so French

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin also created the registers of Russian language. Before Pushkin Russia didn't have the standard literary language. It had spoken vernaculars and it had the sacred language - old Church Slavonic. It also had many writers and authors who experimented with different registers

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

XVIII century Russian writers mostly perceived the Old Church Slavonic as the high status language and spoken vernaculars as the low status ones. So they tried to use as much of the Old Church Slavonic vocab and grammatical structures as possible, just to write in high style pic.twitter.com/Yja95jem2w

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin made a different choice. He made a clear distinction between the spoken vernacular and the sacred language, basing his version of literary Russian on the former. Spoken Russian =/= Old Church Slavonic, and it was a spoken vernacular that became a foundation for his work

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Old Church Slavonic elements were kept as a certain register of Russian language. Wherever Pushkin wanted to write a poem in a religious style, he used the Old Church Slavonic grammar or vocab. Wherever he wanted to stylise it after an "archaic" text, he did the same

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Since Pushkin's language became the standard Russian, the registers he created became uniform. Whenever a modern Russian hears Old Church Slavonic words or grammar structures, he perceives them as either "religious" or "archaic". Thus they are heavily used in historical novels

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

When modern Russian hears elements of Old Church Slavonic he perceives it as the "language of the bygone age". That might not be historically correct. In reality Old Church Slavonic was never a spoken tongue. But we perceive it as "old spoken tongue" because Pushkin decided so

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

The impact of Pushkin on the Russian language illustrated the process of the vernacular bifurcation. Previously, there used to be many vernaculars and many authors trying to create literary languages out of them. But in a centralised state, only one will become the standard pic.twitter.com/7IvsKHfOKq

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

The state will choose one model and impose it, extirpating all other variations. If it deals with un-printed rural vernaculars, the process will go smoothly. If it deals with printed ones, that's more problematic. But the real problem is when someone works creates an alternative pic.twitter.com/MqYUqcMEOI

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That explains political significance of Taras Shevchenko. Russia, Ukraine, Belarussia had tons of quite different vernaculars. If Russian state succeeded in imposing uniformity, they all would accept a model provided by Pushkin. Shevchenko created an alternative pic.twitter.com/hKAHfHlx2Q

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

This alternative wasn't simply linguistic or cultural. It was also political. Pushkin endorsed Russian imperial tradition. Shevchenko rejected it. Consider the attitude of these two authors towards the Russian imperialism

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin was super hawkish. During the Polish rebellion of 1830 he wrote: "We can only pity the Poles. We are too strong to hate them and this war will be the war of annihilation or at least it should be" "Poles should be strangled, our slowness is painful" pic.twitter.com/pGgv9oBHb6

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin celebrated the genocides of the Caucasian war: "I'll sing about you, the hero, Oh Kotlyarevsky, the scourge of Caucasus ! Wherever you went like a storm Your advance like a black plague, Destroyed, exterminated the tribes" pic.twitter.com/B5dyoVUtGC

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin accepted Russian imperial identity as his own identity. He fully endorsed Russian imperialism and any criticism of it triggered him. Consider his poem "To the slanderers of Russia" against the French politicians who supported the Polish rebellion of 1830 pic.twitter.com/7FFfOQVqFk

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin's legacy is not just relevant. It's literally the most relevant meme in Russia. Whatever Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky wrote can be edgy contrarianism. Whatever Pushkin wrote is objective truth. See how Russian star Bezrukov reads Pushkin as a justification of the current Z-war pic.twitter.com/f9dTub2oSt

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

While Pushkin celebrated Russian militarism, Shevchenko criticised it. He sympathised with the mountaineers fighting against the Russian conquest, lamented the losses of Russian conscripts. While human misery meant nothing to Pushkin, it was highly important for Shevchenko

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Some of Shevchenko's poems sounds as sarcastic responses to Pushkin, the same ways as some Pushkin's poems were more or less sarcastic responses to Mickiewicz. These three Slavic poets operated within the same argumentative network, but hold very different political views pic.twitter.com/ByP1dkTR1d

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

What determined the difference in their political positions? Some could assume that Mickiewicz's and Shevchenko's criticism of Russian imperialism was motivated by them belonging to the defeated and suppressed cultures. I would argue that the difference goes far deeper

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Ukraine was different from Russia not only in using different spoken vernaculars. While Eastern Ukraine fall under the Russian rule in the 17th c, its integration into Russia started only under Catherine II in the late 18th c. Thus Russian and Ukrainians memes evolved differently pic.twitter.com/stPcun2RNH

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Cultural differences between Russia and Ukraine include different understanding of personal agency, personal dignity and collective action. In Russia these ideas were thoroughly extirpated by the Russian state over the centuries. In Ukraine that had much less time to do so pic.twitter.com/pLC1NcED8r

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

On a national level that's especially obvious. When Ukrainian Hetmanate decided to unite with Russia in mid-17th c, Ukrainians composed the list of requirements. Russian Tsar had to take an oath to maintain all their rights and privileges. Of course, Tsar rejected it pic.twitter.com/8afq2tAUPB

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Political thinking of Ukraine was constitutional. Yes, we agree to accept you as our Tsar. But you also have to agree to preserve our rights. Your power will be conditional. That was normal for Ukraine and rejected by Moscow which strived for the unconditional power pic.twitter.com/8ludNe459Y

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In this respect Russian state didn't change much since 1654. As Putin's deputy Kirienko told in 2017, "Russian state is not based on treaties". Treaty is a restraint on the Tsar's power, a condition he abides to committ. That's a dishonour and he breaks treaty at the first chance pic.twitter.com/x9h7oed2ZA

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

On a surface level this cultural difference may be even more prominent. Consider the following: Ukrainians historically elected their priests and Russians did not. That's extremely important. Until 1900 Church was the main element of cultural infrastructure

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Most people consumed little or no cultural content except the one provided by the priest. Church selected, censored and distributed the content for the masses: in this sense it was immensely important, much like social media nowadays. Church used to be the TikTok