Russia after Putin? The inability to foresee either evil or divine - this is Russia. But think: they are not jokingly claiming that Russia is the greatest country in the world and Europe should kneel down to bow to it.
What kind of Russia can we imagine after Putin? Cynics will immediately say that someone from the entourage (former or current KGB) will take power. And maybe they will be right. I wonder if it is even possible to have at least a semblance of a democratic Russia again, somewhat like Yeltsin's, and I can already hear you: no and no, this state can only function as a vertical "authority". I am not arguing with anyone, nothing in the history there pushes us to suspect a democratic essence; even in principle I am inclined to be a desperate pessimist. We know about the sudden death of Stalin and the supposed "enlightenment" under Khrushchev; we also know that Khrushchev himself, a furious peasant ignoramus, did not liberate the Gulag concentration camps and Brezhnev had to formally abolish them. But now we are in a different situation: Putin's revanchism may lead to a new Ivan the Terrible, and not to "Khrushchev" denial of the previous and “calming“.
What is normal: for Ukraine to bow its head or for Russia to stop shaking them?
Putin, of course, thinks he is smarter and more dominant than everyone, but a possible diplomatic solution to the aggression in Ukraine could turn Russia into a relatively tolerable state. Putin's impulse here is of the type “we take all of Eastern Ukraine plus Crimea“ and turn this Little Russia of ours into an appendage of Russia. Meanwhile, we are shaking civilians in Ukrainian villages and cities, some of whom are children. All normal people in the world are outraged - “Putin, you even kill children!“, everyone says, but no one does anything, we only register a psycho-freak in Eastern Europe (and not in Mali, for example). The same one bombs ordinary people and children, and in a certain cultural sense bombs us too. Yes, it is incomparable, we are the lucky ones, but we do not protest, we even consider it normal for some, led by the president, to say that it is okay for Ukraine to bow its head so that there is peace.
Which of the two: Ukraine should surrender, shrink to the west of the Dnieper so that its people and children are not killed, or Mr. freak from the Kremlin should stop killing them? After this KGB bloodbath, only a few of us understand why and what is happening. Everyone is now enslaved to the same thesis about the history of Russia, divided into two teams: some shout something along the lines of “Mongol horde“, and the others – “Hello, Orthodox brothers“. Both camps do not understand why this monstrous and otherwise unthinkable aggressive war against Ukraine came about. Yes, some of the educated people say, "Well, they consider Ukraine theirs, Putin wants his own "Kievan Rus" and so on, but no one looks back at Russian history, marked by one thing only - the impossibility of predicting. Unpredictability, as the recently deceased great Mario Vargas Llosa called it, imprevisibilidad (unpredictability - ed.)
You can't predict anything
The impossibility of predicting anything - neither evil nor divine. This is Russia. The problem is that in Russia everything is classified almost back to the 17th century, because this is the state that has something to be ashamed of historically; yet there is evidence of how they always think of themselves as the best (Orthodox) empire, and everyone, led by the collective West, is against them, but (according to local centuries-old propaganda) they want to crush them economically, culturally and in any way.
This is the country that under Stalin, before, and far after him liked the concept of “non-people“, i.e. anyone who is against the government, from the Decembrists in the 19th century through the millions beaten internally by Stalin, to Nemtsov and the tragic Navalny, dies as a “non-human“ and “non-Russian”, beaten like a dog, just because he tried to protest against the idea of imperial power. At the same time, little Russian children still learn about Borodino and the Great Patriotic War – but for the second, no one tells them how a full half a million without rifles were thrown against “Hitler“, and that if it hadn't been for the logistical help from Roosevelt, there might not have been a great victory. And Gorbachev, who gave them the only chance for democracy (through the drunken Yeltsin later), is today branded as a terrible traitor.
The Russian version of identity
The stupid thing is that now Solzhenitsyn, Akhmatova, and Vyripaev are also traitors, not to mention the murdered Mandelstam. Putin has already said something to the effect that Khrushchev is also a traitor, since he withdrew the missiles from Cuba; he has also said a lot about the late socialist Soviet leaders, headed by Brezhnev and even Chernenko, that they were old and weak. Accordingly, today's Putin's war, through the local media, defends its version of Russian history and Russian identity. You don't even know what it's about - local propaganda seriously claims that Russia is the greatest country in the world, and that, for example, Europe should kneel and bow before this empire. I'm not kidding. They really think they can do without the rest of the world - and I don't feel like considering this collective “bias“, generated and imposed by their current propaganda.
She's doing well, yes. Now Trump will put up with it some more, he'll cat Russia, we'll see wonderful economic and political dances. The question of why this supposedly great Third Rome is shaking Ukrainian children won't be asked. We'll all have to bow down to the messiahship of the Russians, even though it makes us laugh, at least me.
But these are no longer the times of Gorchakov, but the times of Putin, who longs for the old Russian conquests, among which we are. According to Russia, both Belarus and Ukraine, and almost all of Eastern Europe, are theirs. Think about it.
A laugh and a serious question
What would happen to Russia after Putin? Zamyatin's “We“? The weak Dr. Zhivago? Something from the Strugatsky brothers? Or something from the great feuilletons of Ilf and Petrov? Tolstoy's “Resurrection“?
Who knows, I can make you laugh culturally for a long time. The point is that there is a democratic and pro-Western Russia, although traditionally in a minority, which no longer agrees with the regime.
There are also good ones, not all of them are drunks. But think - after Putin, this country, in an obvious rise of authoritarianism, will probably want someone like the late Havel. But no, the regime will stand for at least another 15 years. Finally, a joke, but also a serious question (I forgot from whom): which country constantly wants to “liberate“ southeastern countries in order to reach the Straits? Tu-tuu.
This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State News Agency as a whole.