What more to say, Russian Orthodox Patriarchy, namely Troitsko Sergeevsky Cathedral made a 2014 calendar (Russians love calendars, makes them feel present in time, as a Russian person has nowhere to rush; he lives well behind the modern times anyway), Stalin’s Biography (info via radio Echo Moskvy). Each month it presents us with our favorite despot displaying his ever so wise facial expressions. In the USSR church was in bed with the KGB (arguably for survival), today KGB, Kremlin and communism have expended their bed size — California King perhaps or just the new (un)holy trinity — to make a perfect blend of despotism and domination.
Earlier some church leaders and Putin’s associates declared that he was placed in the Kremlin by God (via Forbes), and so was Stalin. Let’s celebrate this divine intervention by… something they can sell — mugs, calendars and stuff.
Below is a slide from my talk on the Russian Identity at Vienna’s IWM (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen/Institute for Human Sciences) in 2007.
Nina Khrushcheva 