Pamyat ' onMouseout='HidePop("30301")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/English_language">English
English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
translation:
Memory) is a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n ultra-nationalist organization identifying itself as the "People's National-
patriotPatriotism is love of and/or devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. However, patriotism has had different meanings over time, and its meaning is highly dependent upon context, geography and philosophy....
ic
Orthodox ChristianThe Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number 225 million members...
movement." It has been accused of
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
,
xenophobiaXenophobia is a dislike and/or fear of that which is unknown or different from oneself. It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear." The term is typically used to describe a fear or dislike of foreigners or of people significantly different from...
, and antisemitism.
At the end of 1970s a historical association called
Vityaz (Витязь), sponsored by the
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, established an "informal historical, cultural and educational organization" uniting activists-bibliophiles and amateur historians.
Pamyat ' onMouseout='HidePop("30301")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/English_language">English
English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
translation:
Memory) is a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n ultra-nationalist organization identifying itself as the "People's National-
patriotPatriotism is love of and/or devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. However, patriotism has had different meanings over time, and its meaning is highly dependent upon context, geography and philosophy....
ic
Orthodox ChristianThe Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number 225 million members...
movement." It has been accused of
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
,
xenophobiaXenophobia is a dislike and/or fear of that which is unknown or different from oneself. It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear." The term is typically used to describe a fear or dislike of foreigners or of people significantly different from...
, and antisemitism.
History
At the end of 1970s a historical association called
Vityaz (Витязь), sponsored by the
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, established an "informal historical, cultural and educational organization" uniting activists-bibliophiles and amateur historians. One of the purposes of the newly formed organization was to prepare the upcoming celebration of the 600th anniversary of the
Battle of KulikovoThe Battle of Kulikovo was fought by the Tartaro-Mongols and the Russians. The battle took place on September 8, 1380 at the Kulikovo Field near the Don River and resulted in a Russian victory...
.
Some notable
Vityaz activists in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
were
Ilya GlazunovIlya Glazunov , contemporary Russian artist from Saint Petersburg, born in 1930. He holds the title of People's Artist of Russia, and serves as a rector at the St.Petersburg Academy of Art/...
(artist), S. Malyshev (historian), and A. Lebedev (Colonel of the MVD). Similar groups were created in other regions of the
USSRThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. Later, loosely associated "informal" groups were consolidated under the name
Pamyat.
At an internal meeting on October 4 1985,
Pamyat split up into several factions, many of which attempted to retain the same name as the "true"
Pamyat. One of them, the so-called
Vasilyev's group, led by Dmitri Vasilyev (a former worker in Glazunov's studio), A. Andreyev and A. Gladkov, focused its activities on the
mediaThe news media refers to the section of the mass media that focuses on presenting current news to the public.These include print media ; broadcast media , and increasingly Internet-based media .The term news trade refers to the concept of the news media as a business...
. They recorded and distributed tapes of their meetings and lectures containing anti-Semitic material.
On May 6 1987, Pamyat conducted an unregistered, and thus illegal, demonstration in the center of Moscow demanding an end to the construction of an officially sanctioned memorial project at
Poklonnaya HillPoklonnaya Gora is, at 171.5 metres, one of the highest spots in Moscow. Its two summits used to be separated by the Setun River, until one of the summits was razed in 1987...
. It resulted in a two-hour meeting with
Boris YeltsinBoris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999....
, at that time the First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet UnionThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the ruling and only legal political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the...
.
In the fall of 1987, the National-Patriotic Front (NPF) was founded, with the aim of "renaissance", with the intent to "lead Russian people to the spiritual and national revival" on the basis of "three traditional Russian values":
OrthodoxyThe Russian Orthodox Church ; or The Moscow Patriarchate , also known...
, national character and spirituality.
After several splits and the imminent dissolution of the USSR, the organization adopted a monarchist position, thus breaking with its initial
national-communistNational Communism arose in the former Russian Empire following the Russian Revolution. After the Bolshevik faction of Russian Social Democratic Party changed its name into the Russian Communist Party, left-wing socialists in Ukraine and the Muslim areas of the former tsarist empire developed...
tendencies (e.g Pamyat had appreciated Stalin's activities in the post-war era, esp. '
his campaigns against 'cosmopolitans'Rootless Cosmopolitans is the debut album by Marc Ribot released on Island Records in 1990. It was recorded in New York City at Sound on Sound Recording except "I Should Care", which was recorded at Harold Desau, and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", recorded on Port-A-Studio.-Track listing:# "I...
).
In August 1990, a permanent NPF council member, Aleksandr Barkashov (the author of the book
The ABC of a Russian Nationalist), caused another split after his announcement of being "tired to be preoccupied by recollections. It is time to act". His new group was dubbed "
Russian National UnityRussian National Unity or All-Russian civic patriotic movement "Russian National Unity" , is a far right, ultra-nationalist political party and paramilitary organization based in Russia and operating in states with Russian-speaking populations. It was founded by the ultra-nationalist Alexander...
" (Русское Национальное Единство). Barkashov promoted the cult of the
swastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
, a symbol which, according to Barkashov, "acts on subconsciousness of theomachists. It paralyses, weakens and demoralizes them."
In 1991 the organization's own newspaper (print run of 100,000) and a radio station (both officially registered) were launched.
By the end of the 1990s, the original
Pamyat disappeared from the public scene. Dmitry Vasilyev died on July 17, 2003. The organization reactivated in 2005 and participated in the
2006 Russian MarchThe 2006 Russian March was an extensive enterprise on organizing the wide-ranging nationalist public mass demonstration in several major Russian cities under the slogan "it's our country", attached to November 4, 2006, the Day of National Unity...
.
Ideology
The recurring motive in the group's ideology was the claim of the existence of a so-called "
ZionoZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
-Masonic plot" against Russia as "the main source of the misfortunes of Russian people, disintegration of the economy, denationalization of Russian culture,
alcoholismAlcoholism is a term with multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions. In common and historic usage, alcoholism is any condition that results in the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, despite health problems and negative social consequences...
, ecological crisis" (according to
Pamyat). The "Zionists" were also blamed for the triggering of the revolutions in 1905 and 1917, the death of millions in the course of the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
and for Stalin's personality cult. The contemporary Soviet government apparatus was alleged to be infiltrated by "Zionists and freemasons" working as "agents of Zionism" and serving the purpose of subordinating the Soviet government to the "Jewish capital". The "
Zionist Occupation GovernmentZionist Occupation Government or Zionist Occupied Government is an antisemitic conspiracy theory which holds that Jews secretly control a given country, while the formal government is a puppet regime....
" accusation was often used by
Pamyat.
Officially the organization emphasized that its ideology was merely
anti-ZionistAnti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism, and a term which has been used to describe several very different religious and political points of view, both historically and in current debates. All these points of view have in common some form of opposition to Zionism, but their diversity of motivation...
and not anti-Semitic. This was also the official Soviet stance. The
hate speechHate speech is a term for speech that attacks or disparages a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group, such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or lack there of, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class,...
and the fostering of ethnic conflicts is a crime according to Russian law.
In 1993, a District Court in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
formally ruled that
The Protocols of the Elders of ZionThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic literary forgery, a political hoax and a piece of plagiarism, with a complex publication history....
were a fake, and dismissed a libel suit by
Pamyat. The organization was criticized for using the document in their publications.
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?documents/protocols/protocols.001.
It was claimed Pamyat's ideology blended fascism with autocratic monarchy (rejecting the "legitimist" Romanoff family line), and an interpretation of Orthodoxy that borrowed heavily from the Nazi sponsored
Positive ChristianityPositive Christianity is a term adopted by Nazi leaders to refer to a model of Christianity consistent with Nazism.-Theological and doctrinal aspects:...
. One of
Pamyat's founders, Valeriy Yemelyanov, attempted to merge religious neo-Paganism with Russian ethnic
neo-NazismThe term neo-Nazism refers to any post-World War II social or political movement seeking to revive Nazism, or some variant that echoes core aspects of Nazism.The term can also refer to the ideology of those movements....
. He is also the author of the book "Dezionization".
Pamyat came out in support of the Yeltsin regime during
1993 bombing of the Russian parliament,The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 was a political stand-off between the Russian president and the Russian parliament that was resolved by using military force. The relations between the president and the parliament had been deteriorating for a while...
a surprising move in view of the fact that Pamyat had many ideological sympathisers amidst the defenders of the parliament. Pamyat also refused to take part in the 1993 parliamentary elections, as it considered all elections an appearance of the Jewish-Masonic conspiracy.
Quote
From the
open letter of the NPF "Pamyat" leader D. Vasilyev to the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin:
- "... Your Jewish entourage... have already made good use of You and don't need You anymore. You will share the destiny of Napoleon, Hitler, etc. who were Zionist-maintained dictators... The aim of international Zionism is to seize power worldwide. For this reason Zionists struggle against national and religious traditions of other nations, and for this purpose they devised the Freemasonic concept of cosmopolitanism
Rootless cosmopolitan was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's antisemitic campaign of 1949–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot...
."
Further reading
- William Korey, Russian Antisemitism, Pamyat, and the Demonology of Zionism, Harwood Academic Pub, 2007
- Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator.He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938 Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
, Black Hundreds : the Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia, New York : HarperCollins, 1993
- Marlène Laruelle, Le Rouge et le noir. Extrême droite et nationalisme en Russie, Paris, Éditions du CNRS, 2007
See also
- Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
- Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism, and a term which has been used to describe several very different religious and political points of view, both historically and in current debates. All these points of view have in common some form of opposition to Zionism, but their diversity of motivation...
- Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public
On March 29, 1983, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has approved the resolution 101/62ГС to "Support the proposition of the Department of Propaganda of the Central Committee and the KGB USSR about the creation of the Anti-Zionist Committee of the...
- History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
History of the Jews in Russia The vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest Jewish population in the world. Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also...
- Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National Character
- Zionology
Soviet Anti-Zionism was a doctrine promulgated in the Soviet Union during the course of the Cold War, and intensified after the 1967 Six Day War. It was officially sponsored by the Department of propaganda of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the KGB. It alleged that Zionism was a form...
External links