On last week’s call I included an excerpt (focusing on the Sochi Olympics) of a wide-ranging interview with Victor Shiryaev, one of our integral colleagues in Moscow. Russia is a fascinating country, growing and changing in many ways, so I was happy to get an overview of current Russian society and culture from an integrally-informed Russian. Here is the full interview.
Pussy Riot and the new generations in Russia: making their demands on the altar of a “hollowed-out traditionalism,” literally, with a punk rock prayer calling on the Virgin Mary to drive Putin out. Despite being released from prison before the Olympics, they’re still at it.
Victor walks us through Russian history starting with the reign of Peter the Great, in the early 18th century, who turned Russia into a great power by modernizing the country along the same lines as its European neighbors. Through the 19th century Russia continued its natural development and featured a great flourishing of the arts at the hands of greats like Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
As Victor describes, in the 20th century Russia took a disastrous turn with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which resulted in the founding of the Soviet Union.
For the next 70 years, the Soviet Communists sought to modernize the society according to an ideology that ultimately decimated the society’s traditionalist (amber altitude) structures.
Russia, then the keystone of the Soviet Union, did indeed modernize in many ways under communism, but did so on the weakened shoulders of a hollowed out traditionalism. Without a sturdy traditional base on which to build a healthy modern (orange altitude) society, Russia to this day tends to ratchet back all the way to the pre-traditional red altitude of development, with that altitude’s characteristic exploitation, lawlessness and lack of cultural cohesion. As Victor says, “what the Russian people really want is a healthy amber traditionalism, a society where the rules are clear and everyone follows them.”
In this interview, Victor gives as a fascinating and colorful tour of contemporary Russian life, from politics to religion to work life to culture — from Putin to Pussy Riot. I hope you enjoy!
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Thank you, Victor, for your guided tour of Russia through an integral lens. Even though there are currently only about 20 integralists like you over there, your report gave me considerable insight into Russia’s colorful past and current affairs, and hope for its (and our) collective future.