This Twitter thread by Kamil Galeev on Dmitry Galkovsky is really worth reading:
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1533154409722658824
Notable:
"People think with words. If you want to change the way people think about
things, you *must* be giving those things new names. If you want to be a law
giver, you must also be a a name giver. And Galkovsky is probably the most
productive and successful name-giver in modern Russia"
Also:
"When I say that Galkovsky reshaped the Russian nationalist discourse, I don't
mean the people in power. I don't picture him in a role of 'Putin's secret
adviser' that so many morons ascribe to Dugin. I imply that he influenced the
youngsters teaching them what and *how* to think"
And then there are the bits about how the very idea of the medieval period is
nonsense and all evidence of it is forged, how Protestantism is older than
Catholicism, etc. I actually studied that stuff, and my hunch is that Galkovsky
ideas are based at least in part on Walter Bauer's (brilliant) Orthodoxy and
Heresy in Earliest Christianity, just extrapolated to an absurd degree. But
Galeev's summary is secondhand, so it's hard to know. Either way, it's
important to note that 'Galkovskian' ideas and their local equivalents are
everywhere, not just Russia.
That's helpful on several levels, imo. For example, it lends more nuance to a
'society vs the state' approach to Russia, which is important for minimizing
demonization and creating space for constructive resolution; and it also begins
to address the concerns underlying self-styled anti-imperialist left critiques
of Western support for Ukraine. But we shouldn't be lulled into both-sidesism.
This kind of revisionist rubbish is one downside of the sprawling reevaluation
of so many histories, institutions, and mores. From that, it's easy to see how
left/prog revisions of national myths could seem equally "extreme," and how
centrism could seem like a sensible approach. But, as always, we should take
special care when political rhetoric takes refuge in metaphors of geometry and
balance.
This war has made it increasingly clear that Putin's relationship to Trump
should be understood less as instrumental than as co-dependent — two drowning
men trying to save each other. On its face that might seem a bit meta, but *if
it's true* I think the implications are huge.
Cheers,
Ted
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